Week in Review Part IV: Random Musings

I am incredibly frustrated how the Obama White House is spinning the administration’s foreign policy “successes.” To wit:
E.J. Dionne Jr. / Washington Post

“For the first time since the early 1960s, the Republican Party enters a presidential campaign at a decided disadvantage on foreign policy. Republicans find it hard to get accustomed to the fact that when they pull their favorite political levers – accusations that Democrats are ‘weak’ or Romney’s persistent and false claims that Obama ‘apologizes’ for America – nothing happens.

“The polls could hardly be clearer. In early April, a Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 53 percent of Americans trusted Obama over Romney to handle international affairs. Only 36 percent trusted Romney more….

“How did this happen? The primary reason, to borrow a term from science, is negative signaling: By the end of Bush’s second term, the Republicans’ approach to foreign policy was discredited in the eyes of a majority of Americans. The war in Iraq turned out (and this is being quite charitable) much differently than the Bush administration had predicted….

“More generally, Americans came to see that the war in Iraq had nothing to do with what they cared most about, which was protecting the United States against another terrorist attack. Indeed, the war in Afghanistan, which was a direct response to 9/11, was pushed aside as a priority. At one point, Bush declared of bin Laden: ‘I don’t know where he is. You know, I just don’t spend that much time on him…to be honest with you.’

“And this is where negative signaling turns into a positive assessment of Obama. He understood the importance of bin Laden. He addressed the broad and sensible public desire to get our troops out of Iraq. He focused on how to get a moderately satisfactory result in Afghanistan – which is probably the very best that the United States can do now.

“The Afghan policy Obama announced Tuesday reflected the president’s innate caution. He wants to withdraw our troops but not so fast as to increase the level of chaos in the country. He imagines a longer engagement with Afghanistan because he does not want to repeat the West’s mistake of disengaging too quickly after U.S. arms helped the mujahedeen defeat the Soviet Union there in the 1980s.

“Public opinion is on the side of getting out sooner. But most Americans are likely to accept the underlying rationale for Obama’s policy because it is built not on grand plans to remake a region but on the narrower and more realistic goal of preventing terror groups from regaining a foothold in the country.

“And that’s why Republicans finally seem to realize that driving foreign policy out of the campaign altogether is their best option. After a decade of war, Americans prefer prudence over bluster and careful claims over expansive promises. On foreign policy, Obama has kept his 2008 promise to turn history’s page. The nation is in no mood to turn it back.”
Fouad Ajami / Wall Street Journal

“The American people demand more by way of a foreign policy than the killing of bin Laden and the hunting down of Somali pirates. But this administration has done its best to take the vital matter of America’s place and interest in the foreign world off the board. The strategic retreats, the concessions made to Iran and Syria, the lack of faith in liberty’s place in the order of nations have been hidden and brushed aside.

“We had secured gains in Iraq, but they were given up at the altar of the president’s political needs. As a candidate, he had promised a complete withdrawal, and he did so at great risk to the future stability of a nascent democracy.

“Afghanistan, too, has been neutralized as a political issue: The war is Mr. Obama’s and it isn’t. To set apart the good war of necessity in Kabul from the bad war of choice in Baghdad, he announced a surge in troop levels but then set a date for withdrawal in 2014. His surprise visit to Afghanistan Tuesday was political inoculation in its purest form.

“Dissent, sanctified when it raged against George W. Bush, was now a manifestation of ill will and impatience with a president who had to be given the benefit of the doubt.  Those dreaded drones over the Hindu Kush – brutal instruments of war in the Bush presidency – were now legitimate means of combat. The lawyers who hounded the Bush presidency over the rights of jihadists went silent even as our drones killed them at record pace.

“The metamorphosis in the Obama worldview was remarkable. He had begun his presidency as a man whose biography and outlook promised to drain the swamps of anti-Americanism in the Islamic world. Three years later, he had pulled back from the Greater Middle East. He took no interest in the fate of liberty in those lands, he turned his back on the Iranians when they rose against despotism in the summer of 2009, and he has given the murderous Assad tyranny in Syria a pass.

“You would have thought that the Arab Awakening of 2010-2011 would engage his moral passion. But his aloofness from the big storm that began in Tunisia and swept across Egypt, Libya and now Syria has been nothing short of stunning….

“He heads into November with that complacent view of things. Always the cool, cerebral man unfazed by history’s turbulence and pain. The joke was on those in foreign lands, in Paris and Berlin and Cairo, who embraced him as a new kind of American leader.”
--On al Qaeda…

Seth Jones / Wall Street Journal

“A year after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden, most policy makers and pundits believe al Qaeda is near collapse. ‘Another nail in the coffin,’ one senior U.S. official told me after the death of an al Qaeda operative in Pakistan last month from a U.S. drone strike. In testimony before the Senate in February, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said the core al Qaeda is likely becoming of ‘symbolic importance.’

“This conclusion is presumptuous. As the administration looks eastward – a strategy that incorporates China’s rise – underestimating al Qaeda would be a dangerous mistake. With a handful of regimes teetering from the Arab Spring, al Qaeda is pushing into the vacuum and riding a resurgent wave as its affiliates engage in a violent campaign of attacks across the Middle East and North Africa.”

Jones then rattles off Yemen, Somalia, al Qaeda in Iraq, al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Nigeria’s Boko Haram, Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Taiba (think the attack on Mumbai), some of which have been actively recruiting in the United States.

Granted, al Qaeda’s “central shura, or council…can’t meet as a group anymore and its members spend an inordinate amount of time simply trying to survive. Yet as America’s relationship with Pakistan continues to deteriorate, how long will the U.S. be able to pressure a state whose intelligence service has ties with some of al Qaeda’s allies, such as the Haqqani network and Lashkar-e-Taiba?....

“Addressing U.S. interests in the Far East is important, but not if it means losing focus on America’s most pressing danger zone: the arc running from North Africa to the Middle East and South Asia that is the heart of al Qaeda’s territory….
“Al Qaeda is far from dead. Acting as if it were will not make it so.”
David Gergen / CNN

“With their eyes clearly locked on the November elections, President Barack Obama and his team are going all out to dramatize his decision-making and success in taking out America’s most wanted.

“What they’re doing: Opening up the White House situation room for a presidential interview with NBC, running a television ad by former President Bill Clinton, feeding stories to authors and journalists, encouraging surrogate attacks on Mitt Romney’s courage, even a catchy campaign slogan from Joe Biden – ‘Bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.’

“In mock innocence, the White House says they are only responding to news media requests. Yeah, sure.

“Is this White House exploitation for political purposes indecorous and unbecoming, as Republicans claim? Of course it is.

“President George H.W. Bush set the standard for exemplary conduct when he refused to dance on the Soviet grave after its empire collapsed and directed credit toward the U.S. military when they chased Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait.

“But more often than not, a president looking toward re-election has gone too far the other way, milking foreign adventures for votes and Republicans have been as guilty as Democrats….

“Serious observers are arguing that in the aftermath of bin Laden’s death, the world may actually have become more dangerous. In Sunday’s Washington Post, David Ignatius persuasively makes the case that we got our man but, as bin Laden hoped, other militant Islamists are now gaining political strength in key countries such as Egypt and Syria.

“In an excellent essay in Time on bin Laden’s elimination, Kennedy School scholar Graham Allison argues that as we now focus on Iran producing its first bomb in the coming 12 months, an increasingly unreliable Pakistan could produce 12 in the same time span.

“ ‘So as we applaud extraordinary performance in this operation,’ concludes Allison, ‘we are left contemplating a discovery that means we are likely to soon face even more daunting challenges in the days and months ahead.’”

--Ian Bremmer / RealClearWorld.com and the Wall Street Journal

“For the first time in seven decades, we live in a world without global leadership. In the United States, endless partisan combat and mounting federal debt have stoked fears that America’s best days are done. Across the Atlantic, a debt crisis cripples confidence in Europe, its institutions and its future. In Japan, recovery from a devastating earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown has proven far easier than ending more than two decades of political and economic malaise. A generation ago, these were the world’s powerhouses. With Canada, they made up the G7, the group of free-market democracies that powered the global economy. Today, they struggle just to find their footing….

“(In) a world where so many challenges transcend borders – from the stability of the global economy and climate change to cyberattacks, terrorism and the security of food and water – the need for international cooperation has never been greater. Cooperation demands leadership.”
None is forthcoming.

--One of my favorites, Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn, has written a new book titled “The Debt Bomb: A Bold Plan to Stop Washington From Bankrupting America.” In it Coburn writes of serving on the Simpson-Bowles Commission and his frustrations when his friend Obama rejected its deficit-reduction plan.

“We set the precedent of forcing a down payment on spending cuts to avoid the bait-and-switch trap in which Washington enacts tax hikes but not spending cuts. Unfortunately, President Obama refused to embrace the recommendations and offered almost no feedback. His decision, I believe, will be remembered as one of the greatest failures of presidential leadership in American history.” [Justin Moyer / Washington Post]

--President Obama leads Mitt Romney in the key battleground state of Virginia by a 51-44 margin, a new Washington Post poll shows. Among black voters, Obama leads Romney 97-1. Yikes. Among women, Obama’s lead is 56-38.

--This week, One World Trade Center surpassed the Empire State Building as New York’s tallest building, over 1,250 feet. The Port Authority says 55% of the office space is basically spoken for as the building is slated for completion late 2013 or early 2014. The cost is up to $4 billion. As the New York Post opined on the milestone, “U.S. resilience” proved bin Laden wrong.

--In a poll commissioned by the New York Daily News, if Hillary Clinton were to face off vs. Gov. Andrew Cuomo for the Democratic nomination in 2016, among New York voters, Clinton would trounce Cuomo 60% to 25%. In the 2008 New York primary, Clinton whipped Barack Obama by 17 points.

--More Americans acting badly…Florida prosecutors charged 13 in connection with the suspected hazing death of the Florida A&M University drum major, Robert Champion. 11 of the 13 face felony hazing charges, which carries a maximum sentence of six years in prison.

Champion collapsed aboard a bus following A&M’s game vs. rival Bethune-Cookman. The medical examiner ruled the death a homicide, caused by internal bleeding resulting from blunt-force trauma. Multiple blows, not a single strike.

--In Japan, 14,000 people die every year in the bath tub…three times as many as those who died in car accidents.
From Julia Ryall of the Irish Independent:

“The ritual of bathing in Japan is less about washing but more about relaxing at the end of the work day and, in more traditional communities and older buildings, keeping warm in the winter.

“Local authorities’ data suggests most of the deaths were attributable to drowning, heart palpitations, heart attacks and subarachnoid hemorrhages, the Mainichi newspaper reported.

“The numbers rose significantly in the winter months, when older people move from a warm part of their home to the bathroom and suffer ‘thermal shock.’….

“Authorities are being urged to draw up guidelines on how to take a bath safely, encouraging people to avoid excessive changes in temperatures, gradually and carefully soaking oneself in hot water and drinking lots of fluids.”
Yet another reason to just take a shower.
--Jarrett Renshaw / Star-Ledger

“If state Sen. Nicholas Sacco stepped down today as the assistant school superintendent in North Bergen, his 445 unused sick days would be worth $331,970.

“The parting check is so large that each North Bergen property owner would have to come up with $26.68 to cover the bill, among the highest payouts in state history.

“Sacco – the acknowledged political boss of his hardscrabble Hudson County township – says that although the payout may be tough for taxpayers to swallow, he works hard and the generous perk is part of his contract.”

Nothing drives me up the wall more…being able to accumulate sick days and receive compensation for them. Gov. Chris Christie has tackled the issue, but the payouts continue due to a surge in retirements and layoffs.

Pray for the men and women of our armed forces…and all the fallen.
God bless America.

Gold closed at $1645
Oil, $98.49

Returns for the week 4/30-5/4

Dow Jones -1.4% [13038]
S&P 500 -2.4% [1369]
S&P MidCap -3.4%
Russell 2000 -4.1%
Nasdaq -3.7% [2956]

Returns for the period 1/1/12-5/4/12

Dow Jones +6.7%
S&P 500 +8.9%
S&P MidCap +9.8%
Russell 2000 +6.9%
Nasdaq +13.8%

Bulls 43.0
Bears 20.4 [Source: Investors Intelligence]
Have a great week. I appreciate your support.