HALF-FULL REPORT 09/13/13

Jack Wheeler picked a helluva week to begin his exploration of "Hidden China."  During it, the United States suffered a huge diplomatic defeat, with ominous consequences that will reverberate for decades.

Yet I feel relieved, because the alternatives were worse.

I’m referring, of course, to Vladimir Putin’s clever exploitation of the latest stupid thing said by Secretary of State John Kerry, and how eagerly the pusillanimous wimp in the White House swallowed the bait.

Most appalled by President Obama’s Syria policy, and by the muddled, confused, contradictory speech he made to the nation Tuesday are those conservatives who supported a military strike because (1) they regard Iran, whose lapdog Bashar Assad is, as the most dangerous threat to America; and (2) because however foolish it may have been for Zero to draw a "red line" on the use of chemical weapons, the credibility of the United States will be damaged if we don’t follow through on his threat.

These are good arguments.  But they’re predicated on the assumption someone other than Barack Obama is president; someone other than John Kerry is Secretary of State, someone other than Chuck Hagel is secdef.  Going to war under their "leadership" is like trying to climb K2 with a carload of clowns, said Richard Fernandez.  No matter how much America will suffer from their bluster and retreat, it’ll be far less than what we would suffer from a botched military intervention.  It wasn’t Jimmy Carter’s naivete about the Ayatollah Khomeini, or "inaction" on Iran that did him in.  It was Desert One.

The realization this Insane Clown Posse may be in charge of national security policy for 40 months more ought to terrify every American.

* * * *

The silver lining in this cloud is that if America can survive the next 40 months, the odds are the America 3.0 Jack Wheeler described here will be ushered in on January 20, 2017.  By then Obama will have thoroughly discredited himself, the Democratic Party, Progressivism, and "America 2.0."

The world got a good look this week at the little man behind the curtain. It’ll be very difficult now to convince even "low information" voters he’s the great and powerful Oz.

Obama acts as if nothing has changed.  The White House announced Thursday its umpteenth "pivot" to the economy.  He expects the news media which has covered for him on Benghazi to back his claim that the Russian peace proposal is really a triumph for the United States, and he is responsible for it.

But when Joe Klein pulls his nose out of Obama’s anus to say he’s "damaged his office and weakened the nation;" when "Tingles" Matthews compared his "leadership" unfavorably to that of George W. Bush, something very big has changed.  This week most liberal pundits were nearly as scathingly critical of Zero as were conservatives.  Far fewer are willing to cover for him. The shills remaining in the media will be less persuasive, because people are catching on.

In this poll, 64 percent of respondents (including 41 percent of Democrats) said Obama’s conduct of foreign policy is the same as Bush’s, or worse.  What’s significant about this poll, said Instapundit, is that "Bush’s image is filtered through a decade of nonstop media negativity; Obama’s through nearly a decade of nonstop media promotion."

In this poll of "all adults," 38 percent of respondents approved, 56 percent disapproved of the job Mr. Obama is doing as president.  That’s Bush 2008 territory, headed in the direction of Nixon 1973.

Another sign of a shift in the Zeitgeist is that comedians no long think Obama is off limits.  Here’s a long riff from Jay Leno mocking his Syria policy:

Young comedians from Chicago ask the Obamabots here to help the prez "kickstart WWIII."

Many Democrats in Congress have headed for the lifeboats, said the Ulsterman’s Republican Insider. "Obama officially neutered this week."

* * * *

Even in the unlikely event Zero were to find a clue and grow a spine, it’s hard to see how he can do much more than slow the rate at which his stature shrinks. The news from abroad is going to get worse, and the chief domestic issue is Obamacare, which, we’ll see below, is to Zero’s stewardship of the economy what Syria is to his conduct of foreign policy.

And because Obama doesn’t handle adversity, or criticism, well, the decline in his stature could accelerate to Warp speed.  His bizarre denial in Sweden Sep. 4 that he’d set a "red line" in Syria could be the start of a crack up.

 "Mr. Obama’s presidency is being wrecked by reality," said Peter Wehner. "He’s being exposed at every turn, and in every crisis, as inept. He can’t handle that truth so he’s trying to distort it."

* * * *

I know it’s a bit like saying, apart from that Mrs. Lincoln, did you enjoy the play? But aside from Syria, the news this week has been mostly very good.

Let’s begin in Colorado, where – despite spending about 8 times more than their opponents — Senate President John Morse and fellow Democrat Angela Giron lost recall elections Tuesday.  The recalls were prompted by the draconian gun control laws the legislature passed last year.

The national implications of this are significant," said Charles Cooke of National Review. "When Bill Clinton signed the 1994 "assault weapons" ban, he didn’t just lose the House, he also lost the argument for 20 years."

The conventional wisdom, based on early voting, was that Morse would lose in his "swing" district (he did, barely), but Giron would survive in her heavily Democratic district.  She got creamed, 56 percent to 44 percent.  The Republican who’ll replace Ms. Giron, former Pueblo Deputy Police Chief George Rivera, is a Hispanic former Democrat.

"It’s one thing for a deliberately polarizing legislator like Morse to lose a close race in a swing district. It’s quite another for Giron to lose by 12 points in a district that is 47% Democratic and 23% Republican," said David Kopel.  Democrats still control the Colorado senate, 18-17, but now the balance of power is held by moderate, pro-gun Dems, Kopel said.

Morse’s narrow defeat (51 percent to 49 percent) in his Colorado Springs district is a bigger deal than liberals want you to think, because he was the Democrat leader in the state senate, and his district isn’t all that "swingy."  Last year, Barack Obama carried it, 59 percent to 38 percent.

The recall drew strong support from Hispanics, women, and blue collar workers.  Added together, more Democrats and Independents than Republicans signed recall petitions.

"I feel like all these gun bills have done – to quote the last words in the movie Tora! Tora! Tora! – is to awaken a sleeping giant," said Democrat State Sen. Lois Tochtrop.

* * * *

The news from Down Under is just as good. The conservative coalition headed by Tony Abbott won nearly a landslide victory in Australia’s election Saturday (9/7). Mr. Abbott, 55, is no Conservative in Name Only, like British Prime Minister David Cameron.  He’s the real deal. Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard profiles him here.

Abbott ran a "brilliant" campaign Republicans ought to study, said John O’Sullivan of National Review.  Labour ran the sort of nasty name calling campaign Democrats run against Republicans here. Abbott’s advisers concluded Labour couldn’t make their personal attacks work unless Abbott provided them with ammunition. So Abbott presented "a positive, reasoned case for conservative policies in a grown-up way," O’Sullivan said.  His most potent issue was his promise to repeal the carbon tax Labour imposed, said Tom Switzer, editor of the Spectator Australia.

"Mr. Abbott did the very thing so many U.S. Republicans and British Tories have shied away from in recent years," Mr. Switzer said. "He had the courage to broaden the appeal of a conservative agenda rather than copy the policies of his opponents."

* * * *

Overcoming a vicious smear by left wing journalists, Conservatives also won a landslide victory in the Norwegian elections Monday (9/9).  Michael Barone. sees a common thread which would apply to conservatives here.  John Fund thinks so, too.

* * * *

At its convention in Los Angeles Thursday, despite frantic lobbying from the White House, the AFL-CIO passed a strongly worded resolution condemning Obamacare. 

Only 39 percent of Americans now favor "all or most" of the provisions in Obamacare, according to a CNN poll this week.  That’s down from 51 percent in January.  The decline in support has been greatest among women, and among those who earn $50,000 a year or less.

Here, too, reality has caught up with Zero’s rhetoric. Trader Joe’s announced that because of Obamacare, it will have to drop the health care coverage its been providing for part-time workers.  Indiana University will lay off 50 workers.  Detroit may dump its retirees onto Obamacare exchanges, news which should send a chill down the spines of public employees in cash-strapped cities everywhere. Aetna announced it won’t participate in the Obamacare exchanges. Expect more such news – and worse poll numbers for Zero – as we get closer to the Oct. 1 implementation date.

* * * *

In Washington D.C., the much ballyhooed "Million Muslim March" Wednesday to protest America’s alleged misdeeds against Muslims around the world since 9/11/2001 turned out to be maybe two dozen. The Muzzies and fellow travelers on the National Mall were heavily outnumbered by two sets of counter protesters.

* * * *

For liberals, bad news came even from the North and South poles. 

In the Arctic, about a million square miles more of ocean is covered with ice than was the case at this time last year, the London Daily Mail reports.  That’s a 60 percent increase. Antarctic sea ice has now been above normal every day for the last 23 months.

All 65 of the climate models used by the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change failed to predict the now 17-year "pause" in warming, a German study noted.

"There is no doubt the warming of the 1980s and 1990s has stopped," Prof. Anastasios Tsonis of my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin, told the Daily Mail. "We are already in a cooling trend, which I think will continue for the next 15 years at least."

Here’s the latest reminder of what global warming alarmism is really about.  Here’s another.

* * * *

Wednesday was the 12th anniversary of al Qaida’s attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the first anniversary of the attack on our consulate in Benghazi, which terrorists marked by planting a bomb at the Libyan foreign ministry. 

Most in the news media ignored the Benghazi anniversary, but not Sharyl Attkisson of CBS News.  Sharyl may not be alone for much longer in her dogged pursuit of the truth.  At least two networks are "fully engaged," Joe di Genova told WMAL radio in Washington D.C. Aug. 28.

"People are coming out of the woodwork from both active and retired areas of government service," said di Genova, a former U.S. attorney.  He and his wife, Victoria Toensing, represent Benghazi whistleblowers.

Sharyl Attkisson and House GOP investigators have been hampered by the administration’s stonewalling and hiding of witnesses.  But CIA Director John Brennan, in response to a letter from Rep. Mike Rogers, R-MI, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said this week he’ll make CIA officers who survived the attack on the consulate annex available for questioning.  He’ll continue to stonewall, Secretary of State John Kerry told Fox News.

After preparing this detailed Benghazi time line, reporter Chris Stephen of the leftwing British newspaper the Guardian concluded the Obama administration’s story doesn’t "tally" with the recollections of witnesses and the facts on the ground.  Maybe Stephen’s thorough work will shame some in the "mainstream" media here into doing some actual reporting.  Breitbart’s John Sexton offers a fine analysis here of what was going on in Benghazi.

* * * *

Miss Kansas is a tatooed, deer-hunting sergeant in the U.S. Army.

* * * *

The Obama administration secretly won permission from the FISA Court to eliminate restrictions the Bush administration imposed in 2008 on the National Security Agency’s use of intercepted phone calls and e-mails, the Washington Post reported last Saturday (9/7).

"Together the permission to search and to keep data longer expanded the NSA’s authority in significant ways without public debate or any specific authority from Congress," said reporter Ellen Nakashima.  "The enlarged authority is part of a fundamental shift in the government’s approach to surveillance: collecting first, and protecting Americans’ privacy later."

This may not be as bad – or may be worse – than it seems, because as soon as the FISA Court gave NSA permission to collect telephone "metadata," the spy agency violated the rules the FISA Court imposed to protect the privacy of American citizens, Wired magazine reports.  The Wall Street Journal summarizes the new disclosures here.  They’re likely to spark hearings in both the House and Senate.

* * * *

A silver lining in the Syria cloud is that it may mean curtains for John McCain’s sidekick.  Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-SC, is well below 50 percent in this poll, which indicates he’s likely to lose a runoff to whichever real Republican finishes second in the primary.  Republicans in the Gamecock State are adamantly opposed to his warmongering.

Also dragging Lindsey down is his support of global warming, said James Taylor of the Heartland Institute.  He’s on "a similar political trajectory" as Rep. Bob Inglis, who after hugging the greenies, got only 29 percent of the vote in the primary against challenger Trey Gowdy.

* * * *

Whether you think the glass half full or half empty this week depends on whether you focus on the enormous harm Zero and his Team of Nitwits have done to our country, or on the enormous harm Zero is doing to himself, the Democratic Party, and the "Progressive" ideology.

My heroes of the week are Victor Head, the plumber who beat the billionaire, and Tony Abbott, who showed the world that conservatives who stand forthrightly, but calmly, on their principles, and who treat voters as if they were adults can win big.

I’m off to drink a toast to them both.