4 May 2009 >> New York Post columnist Irwin M. Stelzer notes that President Obama “said last week that he’d override the contractual and legal rights of Chrysler’s senior lenders and carve up the company between the government and the United Auto Workers.”

Stelzer continues:

Obama forced the senior lenders to take something like 30 cents for every dollar they’d lent Chrysler. Many lenders — the big banks who’d taken federal bailout money — rolled over. But some hedge-fund managers pointed out that they have a legal, fiduciary responsibility to do the best they can for their investors (which include pension funds) and decided to take their chances with a bankruptcy judge.

Never mind that this is their long-established legal right. Obama is furious with these “speculators,” and hinted that he knows where they live and will get even when the new financial-industry regulations are drafted.

This continued antagonism towards America’s business community may not be in the country’s best long-term interests, Stelzer points out:

[T]he president is counting on some of these “speculators” to partner with the Treasury and take a big stake in the toxic assets that are preventing the big banks from resuming normal lending. Unprotected by a rule of law, these investors will sit on their assets, rather than partner with a government that might some day decide, after the fact, that they made too much money, or should bear a larger portion of any losses than they had signed on to do.

Meanwhile, a prominent bankruptcy attorney, White & Case’s Tom Lauria, alleges White House threats against an opponent of the government’s Chrysler takeover plan:

One of my clients was directly threatened by the White House and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight.

The most interesting thing about Lauria’s claim is that the Obama official threated to sic the White House Press Corps on offending “speculators.”

In theory, the White House Press Corps is an independent body, an arm of the press and not the Obama Administration. What would give this official the idea that the press corps would blindly do the administration’s bidding?

Perhaps the press could prove its independence by digging into this story a little bit deeper. (The White House has issued a blanket denial, but the varying accounts don’t add up.)

Nevertheless, I can certainly understand why an administration official might mistakenly conclude the hard-hitting media was merely an extension of Barack Obama’s PR apparatus.

29 April 2009 @ 9:01AM >> The Washington Times on the media’s construction of Obama’s popularity myth:

President Obama’s media cheerleaders are hailing how loved he is. But at the 100-day mark of his presidency, Mr. Obama is the second-least-popular president in 40 years.

According to Gallup’s April survey, Americans have a lower approval of Mr. Obama at this point than all but one president since Gallup began tracking this in 1969. The only new president less popular was Bill Clinton, who got off to a notoriously bad start after trying to force homosexuals on the military and a federal raid in Waco, Texas, that killed 86. Mr. Obama’s current approval rating of 56 percent is only one tick higher than the 55-percent approval Mr. Clinton had during those crises.

It reminds me of a point I made in The Clinton Legacy: during the Clinton presidency, a 5.6% unemployment rate was a sign that the economy was doing well, while under Bush, the exact same unemployment rate was portrayed negatively.

The question is, how many people fall for it? Do we believe Obama is popular just because the media keeps insisting that he is?

28 April 2009 @ 7:59PM >> Today, we have dueling Quotes of the Day:

In this corner, we have Larry Kudlow:

What is going on in this country? The government is about to take over GM in a plan that completely screws private bondholders and favors the unions. Get this: The GM bondholders own $27 billion and they’re getting 10 percent of the common stock in an expected exchange. And the UAW owns $10 billion of the bonds and they’re getting 40 percent of the stock. Huh? Did I miss something here? And Uncle Sam will have a controlling share of the stock with something close to 50 percent ownership. And no bankruptcy judge. So this is a political restructuring run by the White House, not a rule-of-law bankruptcy-court reorganization.

...and in this corner, John Hinderaker:

One hallmark of organized crime loan-sharking is that, once you are in debt to the mob, you are never allowed to pay off the principal. No matter how much you pay, you always owe more. The mob squeezes you for everything you have. Until a few months ago, I never expected to see an analogy between the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Mafia. But is it unreasonable to see a parallel in the government’s refusal to allow banks that have borrowed money under TARP to repay it? Does it not appear that financial institutions that became enmeshed with the government, and are now being dictated to by the government, find it increasingly difficult to extricate themselves?

So the federal government along with the unions will have total control over not only General Motors, but Chrysler too. Meanwhile, the federal government can indefinitely extend its control of certain banks by refusing to let them repay government loans.

How is this not socialism, exactly?

24 April 2009 @ 8:42AM >> Whatever happened to all that happy post-partisanship Obama promised?

The editors of the Wall Street Journal say there’s no chance of it now:

Mark down the date. Tuesday, April 21, 2009, is the moment that any chance of a new era of bipartisan respect in Washington ended. By inviting the prosecution of Bush officials for their antiterror legal advice, President Obama has injected a poison into our politics that he and the country will live to regret.

Policy disputes, often bitter, are the stuff of democratic politics. Elections settle those battles, at least for a time, and Mr. Obama’s victory in November has given him the right to change policies on interrogations, Guantanamo, or anything on which he can muster enough support. But at least until now, the U.S. political system has avoided the spectacle of a new Administration prosecuting its predecessor for policy disagreements. This is what happens in Argentina, Malaysia or Peru, countries where the law is treated merely as an extension of political power.

If this analogy seems excessive, consider how Mr. Obama has framed the issue. He has absolved CIA operatives of any legal jeopardy, no doubt because his intelligence advisers told him how damaging that would be to CIA morale when Mr. Obama needs the agency to protect the country. But he has pointedly invited investigations against Republican legal advisers who offered their best advice at the request of CIA officials.

In the Washington Post, David Ignatius writes:

Put yourself in the shoes of the people who were asked to interrogate al-Qaeda prisoners in 2002. One former officer told me he declined the job, not because he thought the program was wrong but because he knew it would blow up. “We all knew the political wind would change eventually,” he recalled. Other officers who didn’t make that cynical but correct calculation are now “broken and bewildered,” says the former operative.

[...]

One veteran counterterrorism operative says that agents in the field are already being more careful about using the legal findings that authorize covert action. An example is the so-called “risk of capture” interview that takes place in the first hour after a terrorism suspect is grabbed. This used to be the key window of opportunity, in which the subject was questioned aggressively and his cellphone contacts and “pocket litter” were exploited quickly.

Now, field officers are more careful. They want guidance from headquarters. They need legal advice. I’m told that in the case of an al-Qaeda suspect seized in Iraq several weeks ago, the CIA didn’t even try to interrogate him. The agency handed him over to the U.S. military.

So, this is where we are as a country these days? We’re really considering prosecuting people for authoring legal opinions?

Merely by raising the issue in this fashion, Obama has already undermined the future security of the country. In the environment created by President Obama and Congressional Democrats, who in their right mind would ever begin a career in intelligence or anti-terrorism? Who would stay in the intelligence services, knowing that their work could land them in court any time the presidency changes hands?

The only question is whether Obama administration officials will be prosecuted in the future for what they’re doing today. Because once politicians take the frightening step of criminalizing policy differences, they’d better plan on staying in power forever, or they may one day find themselves in the defendant’s chair. And if being too vigilant about protecting the country is a potential criminal offense, so is not doing enough.

17 March 2009 @ 6:26PM >> With President Obama railing against private health insurance companies and pushing socialized medicine, this seems odd:

The Obama administration is considering making veterans use private insurance to pay for treatment of combat and service-related injuries. The plan would be an about-face on what veterans believe is a long-standing pledge to pay for health care costs that result from their military service.

But in a White House meeting Monday, veterans groups apparently failed to persuade President Obama to take the plan off the table.

“Veterans of all generations agree that this proposal is bad for the country and bad for veterans,” said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “If the president and the OMB [Office of Management and Budget] want to cut costs, they can start at AIG, not the VA.”

Under current policy, veterans are responsible for health care costs that are unrelated to their military service. Exceptions in some cases can be made for veterans who do not have private insurance or are 100 percent disabled.

[...]

Veterans claim that the costs of treating expensive war injuries could raise their insurance costs, as well as those for their employers. Some worried that it also could make it more difficult for disabled veterans to find work.

The leaders of several veterans groups had written Obama last month complaining about the new plan. “There is simply no logical explanation for billing a veteran’s personal insurance for care that the VA has a responsibility to provide,” they wrote.

So apparently, U.S. military veterans are the only people whose health care Obama doesn’t want the government to pay for.

9 March 2009 @ 7:45AM >> The Messiah, who seems incapable of public speaking without the crutch of a Teleprompter, apparently wasn’t aware that the presidency requires both domestic and foreign policy work:

Sources close to the White House say Mr Obama and his staff have been “overwhelmed” by the economic meltdown and have voiced concerns that the new president is not getting enough rest.

[...]

Allies of Mr Obama say his weary appearance in the Oval Office with [British Prime Minister Gordon] Brown illustrates the strain he is now under, and the president’s surprise at the sheer volume of business that crosses his desk.

A well-connected Washington figure, who is close to members of Mr Obama’s inner circle, expressed concern that Mr Obama had failed so far to “even fake an interest in foreign policy”.

A British official conceded that the furore surrounding the apparent snub to Mr Brown had come as a shock to the White House. “I think it’s right to say that their focus is elsewhere, on domestic affairs. A number of our US interlocutors said they couldn’t quite understand the British concerns and didn’t get what that was all about.”

The American source said: “Obama is overwhelmed. There is a zero sum tension between his ability to attend to the economic issues and his ability to be a proactive sculptor of the national security agenda.

“That was the gamble these guys made at the front end of this presidency and I think they’re finding it a hard thing to do everything.”

Obama is finding out that it’s much easier to criticize from the campaign trail than it is to actually, you know, run a country.

For some reason, the frayed nerves at the White House are leading the Obama administration to lash out at our allies:

The real views of many in Obama administration were laid bare by a State Department official involved in planning the Brown visit, who reacted with fury when questioned by The Sunday Telegraph about why the event was so low-key.

The official dismissed any notion of the special relationship, saying: “There’s nothing special about Britain. You’re just the same as the other 190 countries in the world. You shouldn’t expect special treatment.”

It’s interesting that Obama seems more willing to make nice with Iran and North Korea than a long-term ally like Great Britain.

3 March 2009 >> When Barack Obama and his allies in Congress say the current tax laws aren’t fair, they are right. They aren’t fair, but not in the way the Democrats contend.

The Tax Foundation put together a revealing report (PDF) comparing taxes paid to the dollar value of government services received.

As this chart shows, 40% of American households are working to support the other 60%. If you make $65,000 or more per year, you’re effectively a slave for the portion of the year that you spend earning the money that the government takes in taxes.

You may not realize you’re a slave, because you don’t see any shackles around your legs. But if you decide not to pay your taxes, unless you plan on being nominated for a position in the Obama administration in which case taxes seem to be optional, those shackles would become very real. Just ask Wesley Snipes.

What we have now is a tyranny of the majority. Because 60% of America benefits from the labors of the other 40%, it’s a winning electoral formula, one that Democrats exploit at every election cycle when they ramp up the class warfare rhetoric demanding that “the rich” pay their “fair share.”

What is a fair share? Is it fair when a 40% minority is robbed to benefit the 60% majority? Would be more fair if 30% of people were robbed to benefit a 70% majority?

Taxing a smaller share of higher earners even more in order to subsidize the rest of the country is not only economically unworkable, it’s morally repugnant. At what point do people get fed up and say they’re not going to put in that extra effort, those additional hours of work so that their slave masters can reap the benefits of their labor?

Between Rick Santelli’s rant, the skyrocketing sales of Atlas Shrugged, and the tea parties popping up all over the country, I suspect we’re going to reach a tipping point real soon.

26 February 2009 @ 8:59AM >> For the last few years, and especially during the presidential campaign, the Guantanamo Bay detention center was held up as evidence that America had become a modern-day Nazi Germany.

Now that such rhetoric helped elect Barack Obama, suddenly Guantanamo ain’t that bad:

Attorney General Eric Holder said Wednesday the Guantanamo detention center is a well-run, professional facility that will be difficult to close - but he is still going to do it.

[...]

Closing Guantanamo, he said, “will not be an easy process. It’s one we will do in a way that ensures that people are treated fairly and that the American people are kept safe.”

Exit question: if Guanatano is a professional, well-run facility whose occupants are just going to be moved to other facilities anyway, what is the purpose—other than pure symbolism—of closing Guantanamo?

19 February 2009 @ 9:05AM >> More reporters than usual are going into politics and government these days, and—surprise, surprise—they usually end up serving Democrats. But of course, this has nothing at all to do with the reporters’ ideology:

In three months since Election Day, at least a half-dozen prominent journalists have taken jobs working for the federal government.

Journalists, including some of those who’ve jumped ship, say it’s better to have a solid job in government than a shaky job - or none at all - in an industry that’s fading fast.

But conservative critics answer with a question: Would journalists be making the same career choices if John McCain had beaten Barack Obama in November?

“Obama bails out more media water-carriers,” conservative blogger Michelle Malkin wrote upon hearing that the Chicago Tribune’s Jill Zuckman is taking a job with the Obama administration.

[...]

As for other reporters making similar moves, Zuckman said that she didn’t think there would be so many “if the industry were stable.”

But it isn’t, and there are.

On Tuesday, Cox’s Scott Shepard joined Sen. John Kerry’s office as a speechwriter, becoming the second journalist this year to take a job under the Massachusetts Democrat. Investigative reporter Doug Frantz is now chief investigator under the Kerry-helmed Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

A week before Zuckman announced that she’s headed for Obama’s Transportation Department, her Tribune colleague Peter Gosselin signed on as speechwriter for Obama’s treasury secretary, Tim Geithner.

In December, Jay Carney relinquished his perch as Time’s Washington bureau chief to become Vice President Joe Biden’s communications director. Warren Bass left the Washington Post’s Outlook section to write speeches and advise Dr. Susan Rice at the United Nations. Daniel W. Reilly left Politico to become communications director for Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) Linda Douglass left the National Journal for the Obama campaign back in May and is expected to become assistant secretary for public affairs in the department of Health and Human Services.

[...]

“I didn’t leave journalism easily and I’ll always think of myself as a reporter, with a notepad tucked in his back pocket and a lot of unanswered questions,” Frantz told Politico last month.

But even if Frantz views himself as a reporter, he’s no longer working for the Newhouse, Sulzberger or Chandler families. Instead, a Democratic politician signs the paychecks.

Frantz isn’t alone in downplaying the partisan aspect of his new job. Maybe it’s based on a lifetime of nonpartisan conditioning, but many of the reporters who’ve made the leap to government seem hesitant to admit that they’re no longer impartial observers.

“This is a Democratic administration; we’re obviously on that side of the aisle, but I don’t see this as a partisan job at all,” Carney told the Times a couple weeks back.

10 February 2009 @ 9:09AM >> Being a member of the media isn’t much different from being an Obama campaign worker. The International Herald Tribune reports:

Republicans have long accused mainstream journalists of being on the payroll of President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party, a common refrain of favoritism, especially from those on the losing end of an election.

But this year the accusation has a new twist: In some notable cases it has become true, with several prominent journalists now on the payrolls of Obama and Democratic congressional leaders.

An unusual number of journalists from prominent, mainstream organizations started new government jobs in January, providing new kindling to the debate over whether Obama is receiving unusually favorable treatment in the news media.

I know it’s unfair to characterize the entire media as Obama sycophants. There are still some hard-nosed journalists out there, bravely speaking truth to power. For example, there’s Judith Warner of the “All The News That’s Fit to Print” New York Times:

The other night I dreamt of Barack Obama. He was taking a shower right when I needed to get into the bathroom to shave my legs, and then he was being yelled at by my husband, Max, for smoking in the house. It was not clear whether Max was feeling protective of the president’s health or jealous because of the cigarette.

The other day a friend of mine confided that in the weeks leading up to the election, the Obamas’ apparent joy as a couple had made her just miserable. Their marriage looked so much happier than hers. Their life seemed so perfect. “I was at a place where I was tempted daily to throttle my husband,” she said. “This coincided with Michelle saying the most beautiful things about Barack. Each time I heard her speak about him I got tears in my eyes - because I felt so far away from that kind of bliss in my own life and perhaps even more, because I was so moved by her expressions of devotion to him. And unlike previous presidential couples, they are our age, have children the same age and (just imagine the stress of daily life on the campaign) by all accounts should have been fighting even more than we were.”

[...]

Many women - not too surprisingly - were dreaming about sex with the president. In these dreams, the women replaced Michelle with greater or lesser guilt or, in the case of a 62-year-old woman in North Florida, whose dream was reported to me by her daughter, found a fully above-board solution: “Michelle had divorced Barack because he had become ‘too much of a star.’ He then married my mother, who was oh so proud to be the first lady,” the daughter wrote me.

Now that the Obama presidency has transformed venerable news outlets like the New York Times into a poor imitations of Teen Beat, and with a former SportsCenter newscaster now Obama’s main cheerleader on the cable outlet of NBC News, I guess it’s not that bizarre to discover the Washington Post has transformed itself into a sports publication.

Why else, during President Obama’s press conference on the economy, would the Post’s White House reporter waste a question by asking:

What is your reaction to Alex Rodriguez’s admission that he used steroids as a member of the Texas Rangers?

I’ve seen more serious reporting from Perez Hilton.

I don’t know why news outlets still bother employing political reporters. I guess the only reason is that there are still a handful of people in Washington who need oversight. They’re called Republicans, and they ain’t gonna bash themselves.

5 February 2009 >> Evading taxes seems to be a prerequisite for being nominated to an Obama Administration position. Although a couple of recent nominees withdrew their names after getting caught with unpaid tax bills, one major appointee—Timothy Geithner—is now the U.S. Treasury Secretary.

Add this to names like prominent Democratic Congressman Charles Rangel—the subject of a recent Brain Terminal video—and it explains why Democrats reliably favor raising taxes: they don’t pay them in the first place.

Suckers like us, however, do have to pay taxes.

Now, a blog called Where’s the Change? has a novel idea for a little civil disobedience to express your outrage about this double standard. All U.S. currency bears the signature of the Treasury Secretary. The proposal is to overwrite Timothy Geithner’s signature on bills with the words “Tax Cheat” (or, as one commenter suggests, “Obama’s Tax Cheat”).

For high-volume disobedience, you can find a vendor and buy a customized rubber stamp. Otherwise, a thick felt-tipped pen will do the trick.