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The difference between Bill Clinton and Barack Obama's political instincts couldn't be clearer with the Health Care Summit. Clinton knew when to get out, shift focus and outplay his opponents. Obama meanwhile remains under the delusion that he's a bulldozer that can wreck anything in his path. And so the health care disaster keeps on chugging along. About the only thing that his Health Care nationalization project has accomplished, has been to hijack Obama's office, and focus it and congress on a controversial and unpopular proposal. And just because HealthCare.gov has only gotten more unpopular, the longer it chugs along, doesn't mean that Obama is about to drop that hot potato. No, like the Spartan boy and his fox, he insists on letting it tear him to pieces in the hopes that he can push through and get his bill passed. And so what should have been a Senate victory on a jobs bill, an issue that the public cares about, was instead overshadowed by the health care summit, an event which no one thought would accomplish anything, and to no one's surprise didn't. The Republicans weren't going to get caught flatfooted a second time, and all the session accomplished was to repeat an already old debate, while giving the Republican side more airtime for their views than had been previously possible. At this point, Obama has to either gamble on a congress desperate enough to go for Reconciliation, even though it's wholly illegal. Or hope that ala Scott Brown, he can lure more Republicans to his side. But while Brown might have played the bipartisan tune, on a jobs bill, an issue he can always safely take to the political bank without any real hopes of a sizable backlash, few Republican Senators are going to be interested in climbing on board an unpopular bill that most Americans don't want. So what's next? Sure Obama is hoping to at least take the GOP down with him, along with the Democratic congress, and he might succeed in convincing the public that both parties aren't worth their vote, but it's a kamikaze maneuver at best. One that requires real desperation to even contemplate. And while Obama won't face his own election for a few more years, his ability to get things done depends on congressional support. Without that he'll be stuck doing the international flybys, and delivering speeches in foreign countries that no one cares about at home, essentially turning him into Tony Blair. Obama's lack of real Senate experienced has convinced him that if he keeps fighting hard enough, he can win. But surrounded by aggressive fighters like Rahm Emanuel in hock to their own reputation, he lacks the long view that sometimes the smarter move is to shift the topic. The longer he focuses on health care, the more ineffectual his image becomes. And even if he somehow manages to force health care through, it will be cheered by very few on his own site. Meanwhile whether health care succeeds or fails, the odds are good that it will be the new NRA, and will take the blame for Democratic midterm losses. Which may put a definitive end to any more grand programs emanating from the White House. But Obama instead is trying to play parliamentary politics, holding summits, debating Senators and trying to control the entire party and every single Democratic politician's election campaign. Of course despite his embrace of non-American parliamentary politics, Obama is still wedded to his contempt for the UK. A somehow baffling contempt, as unless the British killed his father, repeatedly insulting an ally is not a smart move, particularly when you have a shortage of allied forces propping up your Afghan initiative. Over in New York State, Andrew Cuomo's political allies continued their smear campaign targeting Governor Patterson. Cuomo, who is basically Elliot Spitzer's second act in American politics, is smart or cowardly enough, to hide out of sight, while his people spread their dirty tricks far and wide, Donald Segretti style. It's handy since once Andrew Cuomo becomes a known value, once his term at HUD and his sizable real estate donations are on the table, some skepticism might set in on whether New York really needs to put Elliot Spitzer II in the governor's mansion. But now that Patterson has been sufficiently slimed not to run for reelection, the spotlight will be on Andrew Cuomo, who will no longer be able to keep hiding out of sight. By ending his campaign, rather than resigning, Patterson was very obviously pacifying the real source of the campaign targeting him, which didn't want him out of office, but out of the campaign. But now Cuomo will have to deal with Lazio, and if he continues hiding behind the curtain, he'll come to seem as useless as he actually is. Tea Party leader Tim Graney, and terrorist sympathizer Ron Paul held their debate, to the disruptions and LaRouche like behavior of Paul's deranged cult of followers. In the Kentucky Senate Primary, Genuine GOP Mom points out some double talk by Rand Paul on abortion. Over in Dubai, the assassination has now become a fullblown circus, with the Emirati police acting with the expected professionalism and attention to detail so typical of police forces in the region. That is to say they're basically unrolling the largest conspiracy of all time, which long ago stopped making sense, but is likely to involve every nation in the world and about a thousand Mossad agents before it's done. It's safe to say that this is A. Sheer lunacy B. The Dubai police are successfully clouding any actual trail and turning the entire investigation into pure nonsense. While the idea of Israeli agents fleeing to Iran rings as senseless to most people, Arab countries have a way of trying to blame each other for conspiring with Israel. Even when those claims make no sense at all. Especially when they make no sense at all. The Dubai police authorities are demanding an international investigation, though it's doubtful that there's much international interest in investigating the whole mess. They're also shrieking that they have DNA and fingerprints, which is impressive only when you consider that for them to be any use they have to be matched against existing suspects. Of course this is a helpful distraction from Dubai's own collapsing economy, its ballyhooed tallest building in in the world that had to be shut down and its mall shark tank that sprang a leak. And it's also rather clear, that Dubai's ruling family did a lot of their construction on the cheap. They didn't spare the slave labor, but clearly they didn't spare the quality either. Islam researcher Matthias Küntzel meanwhile has a fascinating Journal article on Dubai, which again reinforces the fact that much of Dubai's wealth is attributable to companies using it to do business with Iran. Dubai is in fact already the "gateway to the Iranian market"—and not only for German companies. The tiny emirate is considered to be the hub for much of the world's illegal trade with Iran. Virtually nothing is produced in Dubai and yet, its activities have somehow catapulted the UAE to the top of the list of countries exporting to Iran in 2009. An astounding 80% of all Emirati imports are re-exported, one-quarter of which goes to Iran via Dubai. That's just part of the picture behind the fraud that is Dubai. At the Jerusalem Post meanwhile, Caroline Glick has a compelling piece that argues that Europe and America have forgotten what it means to defend their own interests. They didn’t think of the latter, of course, because Europe has no idea of what its interests are. All it knows is how to sound off authoritatively. There's much more here, but it's an essentially compelling summation of the disease that has taken hold of the policies of the First World. In the blog roundup, while the left was busy being outraged over the assassination of a Hamas terrorist, The New Centrist has the story of a Cuban dissident who died in prison of a hunger strike. Doubtlessly Cuba's "excellent health care system" did all it could. Zapata’s case sparked several street protests by government critics earlier this month, including one during which police in Camagüey detained some 35 people for several hours. The detainees later complained that some of them were beaten during the roundups. But of course the media isn't particularly interested in reporting on this. However every gang of terrorist supporters who throws rocks at Israeli soldiers protesting the fact that Israel still exists... now that gets unlimited media coverage. Elder of Ziyon tackles the "Israel has the right to defend itself but..." argument. The Onward James blog questions just how formidable a foe, the Taliban really are. United States Central Command General David H. Petraeus said on Meet The Press that the Taliban is a formidable force. At Israpundit, Charles Jacobs asks whether it isn't time for a Jewish Tea Party This campus phenomenon – the growth of the Muslim factor, the Jewish establishment’s reluctance to respond forcefully to threats and the failure of public officials to protect Jews against Muslim threats – now mirrors the situation developing for Jews off campus: As mosques, funded by Saudi Arabia, and controlled by radical Muslim organizations, expand across America – unopposed – Jewish leaders fail to respond. Here too, “making nice” – through “dialogues” and outreach programs such as “twinning” synagogues and Islamic centers – is the Jewish establishment’s primary response. And even when, as in Boston and Buffalo, such naïveté backfires, and Jews find instead of sincere and peaceful partners to shake hands with that they have been hoodwinked by Islamist anti-Semites, Jewish leaders remain silent. The problem with that though can be summed up by pointing out how many of these groups are basically undemocratic, and are funded by grants from Democratic politicians. This is part of a typical pattern in liberal politics, in which liberal activists run organization that claim to represent a demographic, get grants to dole out to that demographic, and encourage that demographic to support those same politicians. This is machine politics at its ugliest and there's no way to really change that culture. Lemon Lime Moon has the equation for ending conflict Noah David Simon takes on the Obama Administration over Rachel's Tomb The Obama administration criticized Israel Wednesday for designating two Jewish holy sites supposedly on Palestinian territory as Israel national heritage sites but the dumb bastards in the Obama administration seem to forget that Rachel’s Tomb and the Tomb of the Patriarchs are indigenous to the Jewish people and were there thousands of years before the fabricated “Palestinians” fraudulently claimed the territory to be theirs. For Spanish speaking readers, the REFLEXIONES SOBRE MEDIO ORIENTE Y EL MUNDO blog continues to translate some of my articles into Spanish, including my recent piece on Dubai, MAHMOUD AL-MABHOUH: MATAR A UN TERRORISTA - ANÁLISIS EXCLUSIVO and ISRAEL, EL HOLOCAUSTO Y LA LECCIÓN DE SUPERVIVENCIA Via Religion of Peace, England's legacy comes down to this. NO suprise that we have another sickening blatant example of the British judiciary system going soft on muslim thugs. Iraqi, Serwan Abdullah, 23, another muslim-sorry-excuse-for-a-man spat on a World War II hero's medals, worn by his proud grandson, on Remembrance Day. After committing the abhorrent and unprovoked act - the cowardly Abdullah quickly ran away. One is reminded of Philip Larkin's Homage to a Government Next year we are to bring the soldiers home ...and not even the money anymore Dear readers, enjoy the weekend. To those who celebrate Purim this sunday, Happy Purim. |
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