Commentary Magazine


Contentions

New Newt? Same Sore Loser Strategy

There were rumors flying around the blogosphere on Saturday night as the Nevada caucus returns were being tabulated that Newt Gingrich would use his press conference to adopt a new more positive strategy going forward. But after watching Gingrich’s bizarre 11 pm presser, it would appear that the new positive Newt bears a strange resemblance to the old nasty Newt. Gingrich spent most of his session with the press venting his bitterness at Mitt Romney. While vowing to continue his presidential campaign, the main focus of his remarks was not his differences with President Obama but the anger he feels toward the GOP frontrunner.

As he did after losing in Florida, Gingrich again failed to congratulate Romney for winning in Nevada. But, if anything, his rage over being beaten in the pre-Florida primary debates has only grown. Calling Romney a liar, Gingrich piled on the abuse trying to link him to leftist financier George Soros. Listening to Gingrich, it was clear that his campaign was being driven as much by his animus for Romney as it was by his own burning ambition for the presidency. But the question for Gingrich’s main financial backers today has to be whether they are interested in continuing to subsidize an effort that seems more focused on damaging the likely Republican standard bearer than on beating the incumbent.

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Adelson May be Ready to Bail on Gingrich

There are only two reasons why Newt Gingrich has been able to stay in the Republican presidential race, and they are both named Adelson. Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam donated $10 million to a pro-Gingrich super PAC just at the moment when it appeared when the former speaker was dead in the water last month. But according to the New York Times, Gingrich’s number one fans already have a “plan B” ready for the day he drops out of the race. The Times says Adelson has relayed to Romney assurances that “he will provide even more generous support to his candidacy if he becomes the Republican nominee.” While sources say Adelson will support Gingrich as long as he wants to stay in the race, he appears to be keenly aware that other pro-Israel Republicans have not rallied to Gingrich’s banner, and he knows Romney is the likely nominee.

This can’t be very reassuring for Gingrich as he prepares to try and survive a month when he is unlikely to win any caucuses or primaries. But it does show that Adelson’s priority is not so much helping his friend as it is beating President Obama this fall.

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Even Evangelicals Back Romney in Nevada

The entrance polls for today’s Nevada caucus appear to show what everyone anticipated: a landslide for Mitt Romney. He won almost every conceivable demographic group including those that are not considered his strengths. Conservatives, Tea Partiers and evangelicals — groups where his support is generally weak — all gave Romney huge pluralities if not outright majorities in Nevada. Part of the reason for this is the large Mormon vote in Nevada. Mormons are only about seven percent of the population there, but entrance polls showed them making up 26 percent of today’s Republican electorate. With 91 percent of Mormons backing their co-religionist Romney, that inflated his support among right-wingers who might trend more toward Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum in other states.

Yet while Mormon support can account for the increased number of avowed conservatives and Tea Partiers who said they were for Romney, that doesn’t account for his getting a whopping 48 percent of evangelical voters in Nevada, with Gingrich receiving only 27 percent and Santorum a paltry 11 percent.

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Obama Leads From Behind Israel on Iran

Most observers have spent the past few months trying desperately to interpret the mixed signals emanating from the Obama administration on Iran. It has escalated its rhetoric against Iran’s nuclear ambitions while at the same time continued to shy away from actions that might actually stop Tehran, such as the tough sanctions on Iran’s Central Bank that would set in motion a partial oil embargo. Yet, while American diplomats travel the globe trying to corral other nations to support sanctions on Iran, American leaders have been open about their unwillingness to contemplate the use of force and horror at the thought Israel will act on its own.

The latest such contradictory signal comes from Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, who told the Washington Post’s David Ignatius his biggest worry is the Israelis will take care of the problem for him:

Panetta believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June — before Iran enters what Israelis described as a “zone of immunity” to commence building a nuclear bomb. Very soon, the Israelis fear, the Iranians will have stored enough enriched uranium in deep underground facilities to make a weapon — and only the United States could then stop them militarily.

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UN Clearly Not Serious About Syria

The Obama administration has staked its Syria policy on winning consensus at the United Nations Security Council, a near impossibility given Russia’s desire to protect Bashar al-Assad at all costs. Alas, it is not only the Kremlin whose resistance empowers Assad’s murderous regime.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon reportedly appointed Amat Al Alim Alsoswa, a former Yemeni minister for human rights, to be his task force leader on Syria. The problem is that Amat was a representative and functionary for the brutal regime of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

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Moderate Islamists and Soccer Fundamentalists

If you believe the papers, today’s Muslim world is a funny place. The Islamists are reform-minded democrats and the soccer fans are murderous fundamentalists.

A flurry of reports describe a wave of tolerance sweeping up Islamists everywhere–from the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to the Afghan Taliban to Tunisia’s Ennhada party to Libya’s “relative moderates,” as Reuters puts it, “who prefer a civil state simply inspired by sharia.” Hey, they said relative.

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A Syrian Intervention Scenario

I do not often find myself in agreement with political scientist Robert Pape whose “research” into suicide bombings I roundly panned in a lengthy review for his unconvincing attempts to blame “foreign occupation” for all suicide bombings–even in countries that have never been occupied. So I was stunned to find myself in a large measure of agreement with Pape’s New York Times oped today arguing that civilized states should not wait until genocide is actually being committed to intervene. He writes:

A new standard for humanitarian intervention is needed. If a continuing government-sponsored campaign of mass homicide — in which thousands have died and many thousands more are likely to die — is occurring, a coalition of countries, sanctioned by major international and regional institutions, should intervene to stop it, as long as they have a viable plan, with minimal risk of casualties for the interveners.

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Barack Obama’s Divisive Theology

At his National Prayer Breakfast address yesterday, President Obama declared, “Now, we can earnestly seek to see these values lived out in our politics and our policies, and we can earnestly disagree on the best way to achieve these values. In the words of C.S. Lewis, ‘Christianity has not, and does not profess to have a detailed political program. It is meant for all men at all times, and the particular program which suited one place or time would not suit another.’ Our goal should not be to declare our policies as biblical.”

These are wise words. I only wish Obama believed them.

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Don’t Get Too Excited About Jobs Numbers

I wanted to add a note of caution to John Steele Gordon’s post regarding today’s Bureau of Labor Statistics report on the unemployment rate.

It’s certainly true there’s good news in the report. But if you examine the internal data, there are also grounds for concern.

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Romney’s Flaws Won’t Stop His Streak

Since Florida Republicans gave him a massive victory on Tuesday night, Mitt Romney has not had a good few days. His absurd statement about not caring about the very poor, from which, as Seth wrote earlier, he has already backtracked, was a gaffe of the first order. He followed that by showing up at a press conference in Las Vegas to accept Donald Trump’s endorsement, a decision that was generally lambasted and even labeled his worst “biggest blunder” by Phillip Klein in the Washington Examiner.

But while Romney gave his detractors plenty of ammunition, those expecting another swing in momentum as we’ve seen several times during the course of the GOP race, are almost certainly going to be disappointed. For all his bad judgment and proven inability to speak the language of conservatives as Peter Wehner pointed out, I think those burying him are exaggerating his problems. Romney is still about to embark on the first substantial winning streak of the campaign that will secure him the GOP nomination.

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The Komen Foundation’s Worst Week Ever

Yesterday, I wrote about the Susan G. Komen Foundation’s decision to withdraw its grants from Planned Parenthood. I said, “The left immediately went into spin mode, claiming the funds were used for breast screenings and without Komen’s grants, women’s health would be jeopardized.” Initially, the reasoning given was that the abortion provider was under congressional investigation. Later, the Foundation changed its explanation to indicate that the reason Planned Parenthood would no longer receive funding was because it does not provide mammograms to its patients. For the third time in two days, Komen has again changed its story, this time apparently caving to the rabidly pro-choice lobby. This morning, Komen released a statement:

We will continue to fund existing grants, including those of Planned Parenthood, and preserve their eligibility to apply for future grants, while maintaining the ability of our affiliates to make funding decisions that meet the needs of their communities.

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Iran Threatens Israel With Destruction, But the Times Doesn’t Hear It

Today’s speech by Iran’s Supreme Leader, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, about the sanctions on his country and its determination to persist in its quest for nuclear capability was a significant news event. Khamenei served notice on the United States that he would not be bluffed into giving up his nuclear plans. Though he conceded the economic pressure on his country has hurt, he said Iran is undaunted and would retaliate against the United States should its nuclear facilities come under attack. All this was reported in newspapers around the world, including the New York Times, which posted a story on the speech Friday morning.

However, there was something missing from the Times report of Khamenei’s speech that was reported elsewhere. Other accounts noted that in addition to threatening the United States, Khamenei said this: “The Zionist regime is a cancerous tumor and it will be removed.” While we don’t know how or why a mention of this element of the speech managed to get excised from the account in the Times, it’s a question worth pondering.

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Romney and the Language of Politics

In the wake of Mitt Romney’s clumsy comment about the “very poor,” conservatives have offered an intriguing explanation: he doesn’t “speak the language” of conservatism, because he’s new to it. I don’t disagree that this is one problem with Romney’s communication, but I think the former governor’s explanation of his comments reveals a slightly different focus.

Here is what Romney said to Jon Ralston in Nevada yesterday about the controversy:

I misspoke. I’ve said something that is similar to that but quite acceptable for a long time. And you know when you do I don’t know how many thousands of interviews now and then you may get it wrong. And I misspoke. Plain and simple.

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Today’s Jobs Numbers Are Good News for White House

Once again, the jobs numbers that came out this morning are good news for President Obama. As the New York Times reports, the economy added 243,000 jobs in January, far above economists’ estimates of about 125,000 jobs. This is the best month for jobs since April.

Unemployment, meanwhile, fell from 8.5 percent to 8.3 percent and long-term unemployment also edged down. This was also better than expectations, as most economists predicted the rate would stay steady. The rate is the lowest since February 2009, just as the recession was ending and the Obama administration beginning. The stock market would hit bottom in March that year and, always a leading indicator, then begin to recover. The recession officially ended in June, 2009. But unemployment is a lagging indicator and the fact that it is now at the lowest point since the recession officially ended is a strong sign that recovery is finally under way.

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Obama’s Rhetoric Falls Flat

Daniel Henninger of the Wall Street Journal is a very good writer and a very smart man. But his claim that President Obama’s slimmed down version of his most recent State of the Union address – a speech Obama has taken on the road – is “soaring out in the country” is fairly wide of the mark.

We just learned, for example, that only 36 percent of likely voters grade the Obama administration’s handling of the economy at good or excellent, while a huge number — 62 percent — grade the president at fair to poor, with poor collecting the largest number: 45 percent. Now I recognize that people could like Obama’s speeches and disapprove of his policies. But in the end, they will (unlike 2008) cast their vote based on his deeds rather than his words. And Henninger’s claim that Obama is the “maestro” of the “inner melodies of life in America these days” isn’t something I detect when looking at polling data or, frankly, much else.

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Obama’s Israel Problem Cause of Democrat Losses Among Jews

As Florida voters went to the polls on Tuesday, those journalists trolling for evidence of a shift in the Jewish vote seized on a slight decline in Jewish turnout in the Republican primary as proof the GOP hadn’t made much progress. Those who did so were mistaken, because the sample size was so small and the willingness of Jews to change registration to vote in a primary isn’t indicative of how they’ll actually vote in November. But a new Pew Research Poll released this afternoon about party affiliation provides clear proof that a long-awaited shift among Jews away from the Democrats may have begun.

Republicans have gained nine percentage points in the last three years among Jewish voters polled about whether they identify with or lean toward either party. In 2008, Democrats led among Jews by a hefty 72 to 20 percent. In 2011, the margin was 65 to 29 percent. While that still gives the Democrats a commanding lead among Jews, the gain for the GOP could be enough to significantly affect a few states where the voting may be close this fall. Just as importantly, while some of this could be attributed to general dissatisfaction with the administration’s record on the economy, it will be difficult for Democrats to argue it is not also at least partly the fault of President Obama’s quarrels with Israel during the last three years.

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Indiana Spikes Union Coercion

The trade union movement has been feeling its oats lately. It has the strong support of President Obama, who is counting on union manpower to help his re-election effort. Unions also flexed their muscles in Wisconsin as they threatened Governor Scott Walker with recall for having the temerity to change the laws that enabled state workers to collectively bargain the state into bankruptcy. But they suffered a major defeat yesterday when Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels signed into law a right-to-work statute recently passed by the legislature there. The bill curtails the ability of unions to compel non-members to join or pay fees as a price of employment.

The measure is yet another indication that the American people understand that while unions serve a purpose, their political agenda is more about power and leverage than the rights of workers. The concept of the “union shop” in which the government allows workers to be bullied and taxed into submission is repugnant. It also is the underlying factor behind the trend by which powerful municipal and state unions have used their leverage to win contracts taxpayers cannot afford. Though Indiana, like the battles over collective bargaining in Wisconsin, is just one front in a wide-ranging battle to overturn the tyranny of union thuggery, it is a signal triumph that should encourage other states to do the same (currently only 23 states have right-to-work laws).

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Erdogan’s Goal is to Islamize a Generation

President Obama counts Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as among his favorite leaders, and successive American ambassadors to Turkey—Eric Edelman being the exception—bought the notion that Erdoğan truly sought to liberalize, modernize, and democratize Turkey. Erdoğan has just put to rest the idea this was his goal. Speaking to an assembly from his ruling party, Erdoğan addressed criticism leveled by the main secular opposition party:

“Do you expect the conservative democrat AK Party to raise atheist generations? This may be your business and objective but not ours. We will raise a generation that is conservative and democratic and embraces the values and historical principles of its nation.”

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What Obama Promised and Didn’t Deliver

Jeffrey Anderson, writing in The Weekly Standard, makes an excellent point:

In President Obama’’s first budget, entitled (with no apparent sense of irony) “A New Era of Responsibility,”” he projected that the federal budget deficit in 2012 would be a rather hefty $581 billion. Fast-forwarding three years, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) now projects that it will instead be $1.079 trillion, meaning that, if the CBO is right, Obama was wrong by $498,000,000,000. To put that into perspective, that roughly half-trillion dollar margin of error is more than Obama allocated in this year’’s budget for Medicare. Medicare could magically have become free for 2012, and the deficit would still have exceeded Obama’’s earlier estimate.

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Bipartisan “Birtherism” Emerges

It got lost in the shuffle on Tuesday night as most of us were focused on Mitt Romney’s big Florida win and Newt Gingrich’s graceless and weird non-concession speech, but conservative personality Joseph Farah said something on Sean Hannity’s “Fox News” program that is a reminder of just how crazy contemporary politics can get. Farah was on a panel with Bob Beckel and Gretchen Hamel when the question of possible Republican vice presidential candidates came up:

“[Sen. Marco] Rubio’s not eligible,” Farah said.

“What do you mean?” host Sean Hannity asked.

“You’re going to lose 10% of the Republican vote because he is not a natural born citizen. We’ve been through this with Obama now for four years,” Farah explained.

“I don’t believe that. I don’t think that’s going to work,” Hannity said.

Hannity is, of course, right. This bizarre attack on Rubio won’t work because Rubio was born in Miami and therefore is a natural born citizen of the United States and ten percent of Republican voters aren’t nuts. But this exchange illustrates just how deep-seated the virus of conspiracy mongering is in our political culture. After eight years of crackpot lies about George W. Bush and 9/11 that was followed by three plus years of Obama birth certificate lunacy, we have now arrived at a point where “birtherism” is a bipartisan form of insanity.

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