This morning on NBC’s Today Show, Matt Lauer asked Obama senior adviser David Plouffe, “You would agree with that: He owns this economy?” To which Plouffe said, “”Of course he does.” 

Plouffe said this on the day we learned unemployment claims this week were above 400,000 (428,000), meaning this is the 12th straight week unemployment claims have topped 400,000–yet one more sign of a struggling economy.

With ownership comes responsibility, of course, so let’s run through, one more time, some of what the president owns:

• An unemployment rate of 9.1 percent;
• 28 straight months of unemployment being above 8 percent, a post-World War II record;
• Chronic unemployment worse than during the Great Depression (about 6.2 million Americans, 45.1 percent of all unemployed workers in this country, have been jobless for more than six months);
• A nation in which 2.5 million fewer people are employed than when the president was sworn in and which has seen only 600,000 jobs created during our two-year “recovery”;
• A housing crisis that has recently entered a double dip and is now worse than the Great Depression;
• A record $1.65 trillion deficit this year;
• A record $14.3 trillion debt;
• First quarter growth in 2011 of only 1.8 percent;
• A presidency in which real annual growth in GDP averages 1.5 percent, just barely above what it was during the decade of the Great Depression (1.3 percent); and
• Gas prices roughly doubled what they were when Obama took office.

That is the economy, and the record, David Plouffe proudly states Obama lays claim to.

Fine and good; now he can run on this economy and his record.  

Earlier today, I discussed the fact most Jewish voters will stick with Barack Obama. In my second post on the subject, I explained this still left a significant group of Jewish swing votes that are up for grabs because of discontent with the president. The potential exists for a Jewish GOP vote that may move over the 30 percent threshold or even approach Ronald Reagan’s record 40 percent.

But that is only if the Republicans nominate someone pro-Israel liberals can live with.

With the exception of libertarian Ron Paul, all the possible Republican candidates could effectively present themselves as better for Israel than Obama. That leaves us with the question of which of them are best placed to gobble up that 10 to 20 percent of the Jewish vote Obama has thrown away with his recklessly confrontational attitude toward Israel.

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As I discussed in my previous post, a majority of Jewish voters will probably stick with Barack Obama next year no matter how bad his relationship gets with Israel. But that does not mean a significant shift in the Jewish vote might not occur. Though many Jews either don’t care about Israel or even actively identify with those who want more U.S. pressure on it, there are still a large number of liberal Democratic Jews who are passionate supporters of Israel. As their support for Obama in 2008 demonstrated, their standards for judging Democrats are far more lenient than those applied to Republicans. But it is simply untrue to claim this group is unaware of or unmoved by Obama’s hostile actions, or the basic fact most Israelis view the president as an adversary of their country.

It is this group that may account for as much as 20 percent or more of the Jewish vote. That total is the difference between the nearly 80 percent Obama garnered in 2008 and the combined vote for Jimmy Carter and John Anderson in 1980 that came to nearly 60 percent, which represents the historic low point for the Democrats in terms of the Jewish vote. It is this group that could make up as much as a fifth or more of all Jewish voters who are in play in 2012.

Is that something for Democrats to worry about? You bet it is. Although one out of five votes of a group that makes up less than two percent of the total U.S. population may seem insignificant, a swing of 10 to 20 percentage points in the Jewish vote in key states like Pennsylvania or Florida could decide the election in a close race.

These voters could abandon Obama if they feel they have a palatable pro-Israel alternative. That is the tricky part of the equation. While these people may be thinking of jumping the Democratic ship because of Obama’s attitude toward Israel, they will not vote for any Republican who is rightly perceived as a better friend and ally to the Jewish state. In fact, if faced with a choice between a Republican who is identified with the Christian right, it may not matter how pro-Israel they are–many would either reluctantly return to Obama or simply stay home on Election Day.

For a breakdown of how the current contenders might stack up with Jewish voters, read my next post.

This morning at the Aspen Ideas Festival, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman reportedly explained that – and this is a quote- “Netanyahu is [the] Mubarak of Israel.” At first this seems like a counterintuitive statement. The defining feature of Mubarak’s regime was its 30 years of autocratic rule, whereas Netanyahu has been elected by the Israeli electorate twice and enjoys the support of the Israeli public. Insofar as there’s any analogy to be asserted, it’s almost certain to confuse and confound – to conflate likes with unlikes – rather than to clarify.

But let’s keep in mind that Friedman is, as Barry Rubin pointed out while bemoaning the lack of adult supervision over Middle East policymaking, recognized as an expert on the region. He certainly packed the room at Aspen before dispensing this morning’s wisdom. He’s considered an expert despite how he (wrongly) declared in 2010 that Palestinian Prime Minister Fayyad was consolidating and solidifying power, an impression Friedman picked up (predictably) from a few anecdotes he heard in the West Bank. He’s considered an expert despite how he simultaneously admits the Palestinians aren’t interested in peace but still insists we should tilt the diplomatic playing field away from Israel, our last stable Middle East ally. So maybe there’s a really striking and provocative insight buried inside this “elected Israeli officials are just like unelected Egyptian generals” comparison.

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Despite complaining Congress isn’t trying hard enough to nail down a deficit deal yesterday, President Obama snubbed Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s invitation to discuss the issue with Senate Republicans today. Instead, the president is jetting off to Philadelphia, where he’ll be attending two DNC campaign fundraisers this evening.

“They’re in one week, they’re out one week. And then they’re saying, ‘Obama has got to step in. You need to be here,’” Obama carped to reporters during a press conference yesterday. “I’ve been here. I’ve been doing Afghanistan and bin Laden and the Greek crisis. You stay here. Let’s get it done.”

But while the president expects members of Congress to stay in town, he seems to have little interest in doing the same. After McConnell extended an invitation for Obama to hear the concerns that Senate Republicans have with his proposals, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney firmly rejected it this afternoon.

According to Carney, the GOP only wants to “restate their maximalist position” and this is “not a conversation worth having.”

Carney also denied there was a problem with the president attending fundraisers in Philadelphia tonight, instead of staying in town to work on the deficit deal. “We can walk and chew gum at the same time,” he said.

Perhaps sensing the terrible optics of Obama’s decision, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid offered the president a chance to try to redeem himself, by inviting him to meet with the Senate next week. The Democratic Senate leadership also dismissed McConnell’s original request to Obama as a “stunt.”

The American people might beg to differ. Those Philadelphia fundraisers sound like a fun time, but it’s not unreasonable for Republicans to expect the president to give more precedence to resolving the deficit issue than he does to financing his reelection campaign.

And they’ll take another hundred billion in defense spending cuts, please. In a classic example of why the congressional Republicans’ willingness to slash the defense budget is such a harmful political strategy, liberals are now flaunting it as a sign the Democrats need to be more ambitious in their defense cut proposals:

Liberal sources say the [Republican] freshman defections shows the White House is shooting too low on defense in the debt-ceiling talks.

“I don’t think that $300 billion in spending cuts is either much of a cut or much of a concession,” said Rebecca Thiess, a policy analyst with the Economic Policy Institute.” …

Obama, perhaps feeling the heat from liberals, in his Wednesday press conference hinted that cuts beyond the $400 billion he has previously outlined could be coming for the Pentagon.

Some congressional GOPs may not be concerned about taking the Obama position on defense reductions, but clearly the president has a political incentive to place himself to the left of these conservative lawmakers on the issue. The more cuts GOP members are willing to concede, the louder liberal activists will become in advocating for additional reductions — giving Democrats exactly the cover they need to double-down on their demands. This is negotiating tactics 101, and Republicans are playing right into the hands of American declinists.

Every time anyone suggests Barack Obama’s hostility to Israel will cost him some Jewish votes, the anger from both the Democratic Party establishment as well as outraged liberals is considerable. So it was little surprise Ben Smith’s report yesterday in Politico generated considerable pushback from those invested in the continuation of the political status quo in the Jewish community. But, as I wrote yesterday, the problem for Democrats is not the once fashionable idea Jews were being seduced by the lure of conservative ideology, but the plain fact the leader of their party is someone who has a problem with Israel.

Still, the arguments made by those who claim there is unlikely to be any shift in the Jewish vote deserve to be discussed in some detail.

The first such argument could be summarized as denial about Obama’s problem with pro-Israel voters. An example is former congressman Ron Klein’s piece in Politico today in which he says the president’s views on Israel have been “misrepresented” by nefarious Republicans. According to this view, although Obama’s views could be “more artfully communicated,” they are substantially no different from those of previous presidents. All it will take to quell Jewish dissent will be for wavering Jews to be convinced to ignore their own lying eyes and ears and again listen to Democrats who assure them about Obama, as they did in 2008.

This is, of course, nonsense.

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For those looking for a simple explanation of why the Gaza flotilla’s “humanitarian aid” efforts are a total sham, this video from the IDF is an excellent resource. As the video notes, the Israeli government sends an average of 6,000 tons of goods to the Gaza strip every single day — which is more than the entire flotilla attempted to bring to Gaza on its voyage last year. And most of the flotilla’s products consisted of expired medical supplies.

The IDF has traditionally done a very poor job of public relations, so it’s nice to see that it’s finally producing clear and compelling videos like this one. We can only hope this means that the government has been preparing itself for the PR war that’s sure to ensue once the next flotilla attempts to break the Israeli blockade.

According to the most recent Gallup Poll, Americans broadly support President Obama’s plan to begin withdrawing U.S. forces in Afghanistan this year, with additional troops scheduled to leave by the end of next summer and the remainder by 2014. Nearly three-quarters, 72 percent, are in favor, while 23 percent are opposed.

Two thoughts–the first of which is, these numbers aren’t terribly surprising. The Afghan war has been long (10 years and counting), hard and frustrating. The government with which we’re allied is corrupt. And so the nation has become war-weary. If the commander-in-chief isn’t willing to make the case for war, the (relatively) new strategy he’s put in place, or highlighting the progress being made – if the president is, in Bob Woodward’s apt phrase, “out of Afghanistan psychologically” — public support will collapse. And so it has.

Second, the president is making a mistake in assuming pulling troops out of Afghanistan will help him politically. The reason is this: if the war gets worse, if our progress in Afghanistan is undone, Obama will be judged on that. The course of the war will matter more to Americans than whether we have 105,000 troops versus 70,000 in Afghanistan in September 2012.

Whether he likes it or not, whether he thinks it’s fair or not, the president will be held accountable for the Afghanistan war and his policies. And his precipitous withdrawal, against the strong warnings of his military commanders, will come back to politically hurt him. If it does, then a measure of rough justice will have been served. But that won’t make up for the considerable damage Obama’s decision will do to our national interest.

Not by a long shot.

In a reversal of a five-year-old U.S. policy banning contact with the Muslim Brotherhood organization in Egypt, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has ordered American diplomats to resume contact with the Islamist group. Clinton made the following statement at a news conference in Budapest:

We believe, given the changing political landscape in Egypt, that it is in the interests of the United States to engage with all parties that are peaceful, and committed to non-violence, that intend to compete for the parliament and the presidency.

The resumption of formal contacts is a symbolic victory for the Brotherhood. It is also a signal to the Egyptian military the United States has no problem with the Brotherhood’s bid for more influence in the country, paving the way for a condominium between the army and the influential Islamist party.

While it can be argued the United States needs to be informed about the positions of all the major players in a key country such as Egypt, that could have been taken care of by private talks. Instead, the Obama administration has taken a critical step towards the acceptance of a militant anti-Western group as part of a future government of the most populous Arab nation.

The United States hopes democracy will change Egypt for the better and dealing with the Islamist party is just part of the price America must pay for this development. But the idea an ideology-driven group like the Brotherhood will allow itself to be transformed into a democratic partner for non-Islamist Egyptians as well as the United States is absurd. Rather than the Arab Spring and democracy changing the Muslim Brotherhood, it will be the Brotherhood that seeks to exploit Egyptian democracy and make it impossible for non-Islamists to thwart their rise to power, especially as a new round of protests against military rule seem to have begun. It also presages increasing tension with Israel.

The recognition of the Brotherhood also calls into question the administration’s continued adherence to a policy of no recognition for the group’s Palestinian ally: Hamas. Though Clinton sought to downplay the significance of the move, it isn’t much of a leap from talks with the Muslim Brotherhood to recognition of a Fatah-Hamas Palestinian coalition. It is no harder to justify recognition of Hamas as merely bowing to the realities of Palestinian politics than it is for her to make the same argument for dealing with the Brotherhood. All it takes is a mindset that no longer thinks of Islamist extremists as enemies of the West and Israel.

During times of divided government, as we have now, the word “compromise” is invoked quite often. For self-described moderates, the word is golden, indicating an open-mindedness and pragmatism that is essential when it comes to governing. For many liberals and conservatives, on the other hand, the word is radioactive, evidence of a lack of conviction and a willingness to jettison important principles in the interest of getting a deal, any deal.

In sorting through these different interpretations of compromise, it may be helpful to consider the actions of two remarkable American statesmen: James Madison and Abraham Lincoln.

At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Southern delegates made it clear: they would walk out before they would give consent to a government that outlawed slavery. If the Articles of Confederation were going to be replaced by a new Constitution, those advocating the Constitution would have to compromise. “Great as the evil [of slavery] is,” James Madison said, “a dismemberment of the union would be worse.” And so just as language condemning slavery was removed in the draft of the Declaration of Independence, so it was with the Constitution. Madison made the deal in part because he believed the Constitution would eventually help uproot slavery. It would occur more slowly than he wanted, but he wasn’t going to make the perfect the enemy of the good. 

Madison had a similar disposition on the Bill of Rights. He initially opposed them on the grounds the Constitution itself was a bill of rights and  the enumeration of some rights would be taken as the absence of others. But in order to meet the objections of the anti-Federalists, who demanded support for a bill of rights in exchange for support for ratification, Madison compromised, promising to add a bill of rights and, in typical Madison fashion, authoring them. Read More

The Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul is a nice joint, at least by Afghan standard; I’ve enjoyed dinner on its patio along with numerous well-to-do Afghans and foreigners.  There are always lots of guards at its entrance and other security personnel milling around, many of them protecting VIP diners. I am as shocked as anyone a squad of suicide bombers–belonging, probably, to the Haqqani Network–could penetrate its perimeter and kill perhaps a dozen people. But it is absurd to claim, as this New York Times article does, “Attack at Kabul Hotel Deflates Security Hopes in Afghanistan.” It does, however, cast into doubt President Obama’s drawdown plans.

The fact remains security is good in Kabul–better than in Baghdad, even now. Security is also good throughout much of northern and western Afghanistan where few Pashtuns live. Security is more tenuous in the south but improving thanks to the recent push by coalition forces in Kandahar and Helmand provinces. The eastern part of the country remains more unsettled; indeed it is possible the suicide bombers infiltrated across the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier in the east and made the relatively short journey to Kabul.

Gen. David Petraeus’ campaign plan had called for tackling the security problems of the east next year. President Obama’s precipitous and ill-advised drawdown (far beyond anything his military commanders had recommended) now casts those plans into doubt, thereby allowing the Haqqani Network to carry out such terrorist operations indefinitely. With U.S. forces giving the impression they are leaving, the Haqqanis and their allies in the Taliban and HiG and al-Qaeda could even consolidate control of more territory in the east.

Obama’s withdrawals are premised on the notion the “tide of war is receding,” and the time is ripe for negotiating with the Taliban, Haqqanis, et al. The attack on the Intercontinental exposes the foolishness of those hopes. The jihadists in Afghanistan are battered but hardly defeated; they are not yet willing to lay down their suicide vests. And they are still strong enough to stage a bloody comeback if–as appears likely–we have lost the will to fight them.

According to the most recent CBS News/New York Times poll, nearly four in ten Americans (39 percent) now believe the U.S. economy is in permanent decline, an increase from 28 percent in October 2010. In addition, only 20 percent now say the economy is getting better, the lowest number since last August, while 31 percent say it is getting worse. (Roughly half say it is staying the same.)

The growing perception among the public is the president is presiding over, and in important respects is the architect of, an American Decline. It’s little wonder, then, according to Josh Kraushaar of National Journal, “The president’s reelection team, once hoping to run on a ‘Morning in America’ theme, now doesn’t have that luxury.”

All those Westerners who deem Israel “the greatest threat to world peace” ought to read a fascinating  story in the Guardian yesterday: A senior Saudi official informed the paper that if Iran acquires nuclear weapons, Saudi Arabia will be forced to follow suit.

“We cannot live in a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons and we don’t. It’s as simple as that,” the official said. “If Iran develops a nuclear weapon, that will be unacceptable to us and we will have to follow suit.”

Why is this noteworthy? Because Israel is widely thought to have had nuclear weapons for almost 50 years now. Yet Riyadh never felt that Israel’s alleged nukes were threatening enough to necessitate acquiring its own nuclear deterrent, even though it has been formally at war with the Jewish state since Israel’s creation and has no diplomatic relations with it. Iran, in contrast, is a fellow Muslim state with which Riyadh has full diplomatic relations; they also share membership in groups like OPEC and the Organization of the Islamic Conference. Yet Saudi Arabia deems Tehran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons so threatening as to require an immediate response in kind.

The reason for this seeming paradox is simple: Because they live in the region, Saudi officials know what too many Westerners seem to have forgotten: Israel has never once attacked anyone that didn’t attack it first. And since Saudi Arabia, for all its anti-Israel rhetoric, has not actually participated in anti-Israel hostilities since 1948, it knows it’s perfectly safe from whatever military capabilities Israel has. Iran, in contrast, has a record of unprovoked military meddling outside its borders even without the immunity nuclear weapons would bring. For instance, it offers extensive military support to Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and Shi’ite militias in Iraq – all three of which have fomented civil wars in their respective territories, while the first two have fomented cross-border wars as well. Thus, a nuclear-armed Iran would be a real threat.

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Texas Governor Rick Perry is best known for his opposition to big government tax-and-spend policies rather than any stands on foreign policy issues. But for the second time in as many months, Perry has issued a statement on Middle East policy bound to increase speculation about him running for president.

On Tuesday, Perry sent a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder blasting the efforts by anti-Israel activists to break the blockade of Hamas-run Gaza. He praised the attorney general for the warning he issued to American citizens participating in the flotilla and labeled the entire project an “unacceptable provocation,” going so far as to call for the federal government to “aggressively pursue all available legal remedies to enjoin and prevent these illegal actions, and to prosecute any who may elect to engage in them in spite of your preemptive efforts.”

Perry is right about both the flotilla and the Americans (such as leftist author Alice Walker), who have chosen to take part. It’s a propaganda ploy that has nothing to do with helping the people of Gaza. Since Israel has allowed both food and medicine to flow freely into Gaza, there is no humanitarian crisis. The only purpose of the flotilla is to help break the diplomatic isolation of the terrorist regime that rules there.

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During his press conference today, President Obama repeatedly invoked the theme of leadership. “Leaders lead,” he helpfully informed. “Leaders rise to the occasion,” he added. They are willing to make “tough decisions,” to “do the tough things” and to “do the responsible thing.” By the end I was reminded by the line from Emerson: “The louder he talked of his honor, the faster we counted our spoons.”

The reality is that Mr. Obama has provided very nearly the opposite of leadership. He has not only refused to tackle entitlement reform during his presidency; he has attacked those who do, employing dishonest arguments that are at this stage are almost impossible to keep track of.

My seven-year-old son loves to play what he calls “imagination games.” It allows him to pretend to be whatever he wants to be – a superhero, a warrior, a secret agent, and so forth. To see that trait in a young boy is sweet; to see it in president of the United States is somewhat disconcerting. And for a president who inhabits an imaginary world to lecture all the rest of us about his virtues adds to the oddity of the whole thing.

In his inaugural address Mr. Obama said, “the time has come to set aside childish things.”

Amen to that.

During his press conference today, President Obama tried as best he could to avoid using the term “tax increase.” He favors a “balanced approach that looks at everything.” He wants “revenue in the mix.” He wants to “eliminate subsidies” for using company planes or discovering oil and gas. He wants to reduce “spending in the tax code,” etc. 

It is reminiscent of the ObamaCare debate, when Obama assured George Stephanopoulos the penalty enforcing the individual mandate was not a “tax.” Currently, he is defending ObamaCare in the courts by arguing it is an exercise of the federal taxing power. ObamaCare also included a “Medicare contribution” that was not a contribution and had nothing to do with Medicare. 

So do not worry about ObamaRevenueMix. If you like your existing money, you can keep it! If you are not a millionaire or billionaire, do not worry. The administration wants a trillion more dollars withdrawn from the private economy, and the economic consequences will be felt only by the targeted few. It is just a balanced approach. 

George Orwell, your office is trying to reach you. Again.

A Senate resolution warning the Palestinian Authority that attempts to seek a statehood vote at the UN will put its U.S. aid at risk  passed unanimously yesterday, after hitting a minor speed-bump on Monday.

The resolution was put forward by Sens. Ben Cardin and Susan Collins, and co-sponsored by 88 senators. In addition to threatening aid cuts, it also condemned the Hamas-Fatah unity government agreement. Here is the text of the legislation:

A resolution reaffirming the commitment of the United States to a negotiated settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through direct Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, reaffirming opposition to the inclusion of Hamas in a unity government unless it is willing to accept peace with Israel and renounce violence, and declaring that Palestinian efforts to gain recognition of a state outside direct negotiations demonstrates absence of a good faith commitment to peace negotiations, and will have implications for continued United States aid.

The resolution was first introduced as a unanimous consent item on Monday, a process by which all senators have to approve of a bill in order for it to go through. While it didn’t pass the first time, it ended up receiving unanimous support yesterday.

AIPAC, which lobbied for the resolution, praised the outcome in a press statement today, saying the “measure ‘reaffirms’ U.S. law that prohibits American assistance to a Palestinian Authority that ‘shares power with Hamas unless that Authority and all of its ministers publicly accept the right of Israel to exist and all prior agreements and understandings with the governments of the United States and Israel.’”

AIPAC is correct the resolution is a good start, though it would be even better to hear a strong affirmation of its message from President Obama.

After months of waiting to see whether air power alone would be enough to decide things in Libya, the French government has apparently decided to up the ante in the confrontation with dictator Muammar Qaddafi. This development, which was first reported by Le Figaro and since picked up by the New York Times and other papers, represents a slight escalation in the three-month-old conflict. A French military spokesman said they had “airdropped arms and ammunition several times, including assault rifles, machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades and launchers” to rebel forces.

NATO clearly is hoping the Libyan dissidents will now be strong enough to overcome Qaddafi’s forces hit hard by air strikes. Apparently, the turnaround in the fighting in which government troops went from being on the offensive to losing ground in the past few weeks coincided with the French arms drop to the rebels.

But the rebels still have a long way to go before they roust Qaddafi out of Tripoli. Given the fact they were barely able to hold onto their eastern strongholds prior to being given these weapons, the quality of their ragtag army is still very much in doubt. Though the rebels and some NATO sources have continuously predicted the imminent collapse of the Qaddafi regime ever since the foreign intervention began, the dictator still sits in his capital and has control over a diminished but still potent army.

With President Obama still intent on avoiding direct American participation in the fighting and with Congress nipping at his heels over the administration’s refusal to comply with the War Powers Act, there’s little doubt NATO is desperate to end this stalemate one way or the other. However, it may take more than a cargo of small arms to finally topple Qaddafi. That leaves the onus on the coalition to redouble its efforts to either decapitate his regime from the air or to start delivering even more firepower to the rebels. Both courses of action are potentially dangerous, especially since we still don’t know much about the opposition. But the idea the situation will soon resolve itself without further tough decisions by the West may be nothing more than wishful thinking.