Goodnight Caroline? “The wheels of the bandwagon are coming off. Fantasy is giving way to inescapable truth. That truth is that Kennedy is not ready for the job and doesn’t deserve it. Somebody who loves her should tell her.” Perhaps the tide has finally turned.
Will Illinois get to vote for its junior senator? “[Lt. Governor Pat] Quinn said Sunday that if he becomes acting governor, he would press the Legislature to pass a bill that would allow a temporary appointee to fill Mr. Obama’s vacant Senate seat ahead of a special state election in June on a successor, ensuring that Illinois ‘has two senators at all times.’”
This is the new MSM conventional wisdom: “The deaths of hundreds of Palestinians in Israel’s deadliest-ever air assault on the militant Hamas further complicates President-elect Barack Obama’s challenge to achieve a Middle East peace — something that eluded both the Bush and Clinton administrations.” Everything was hunky-dory before the Israelis defended themselves. And Hamas’s commitment to destroy Israel is irrelevant, you see.
The WSJ reminds us: “Israel’s air assault has resulted in more Palestinian casualties, but that is in part because Hamas deliberately locates its security forces in residential neighborhoods. This is intended both to deter Israel from attacking in the first place as well as to turn world opinion against the Jewish state when it does attack. By all accounts, however, the Israeli strikes have hit their targets precisely enough to do significant damage to Hamas forces — both to its leadership and, on Sunday, to the tunnels from Gaza to Egypt that Hamas uses to smuggle in weapons and build its growing army.”
And the take-away for the President-elect? “There’s a lesson here for Mr. Obama, who is about to discover that the terrorists of the Middle East aren’t about to change their radical ambitions merely because America has a new President.”
Victor Davis Hanson thinks President-elect Obama and his team are learning lots of hard lessons: “Those around Barack Obama understand that precisely those measures most derided during the campaign–wiretaps, the interrogation of prisoners in Guantanamo, the decimation of al Qaida members in Iraq and Afghanistan, overseas detentions–probably account likewise most for the absence of another 9/11-like attack. In other words, as the Obamians privately ignore the media hype about flushed Korans and hundreds of innocents caught in the cauldron of war and unfairly detained, and instead examine the sort of killers who are presently in Guantanamo, the type of intelligence gathering that led to prevention of dozens of planned attacks since 9/11, and those who turned up and were killed or arrested in Iraq and Afghanistan, they will realize how dicey it will be to follow through with campaign rhetoric about Bush, Inc. torching the Bill of Rights, fighting made-up enemies abroad, and generally alienating our allies.” Let’s hope he’s right.
President-elect Obama’s budget director says that nationalized health care is going to be very expensive. Who knew?
Can Terry McAuliffe buy the Democratic nomination in the Virginia gubernatorial race? Yes he can.
Paul Krugman jeers at state governors trying to balance budgets by cutting spending. “Herbert Hoovers” are they? Faced with constitutional balanced budget requirements in many instances (or the common sense desire not to mortage their citizens’ futures), many governors are choosing that course over tax increases — to avoid further depressing business growth, investment and employment. Can’t have that, can we!
Bet your week was better than Chip Saltsman’s.
