A Jew? Who?

“Hey Chicago, has it ever occurred to you that maybe the International Olympic Committee just isn’t that into you? It’s not as though the choices were to hold the games in the Windy City or cancel them altogether. Maybe the IOC delegates chose Rio de Janeiro on the basis of its merits as a venue. The notion that it must have been motivated by hatred of America reflects a most unattractive combination of arrogance and self-pity. –Wall Street Journal columnist James Taranto

Newspulper Headlines:

To Whom It May Concern:

“Obama Tells the AP He Is Deeply Concerned About Rising Unemployment” –Associated Press

It Better Not Be a Free One:

“Economists Out to Lunch” –The Washington Post

A Distinction Without a Difference:

“Jackson Service Conflicts With Circus Visit” –The Washington Times

You Call This Fair and Balanced?:

“Fox Snatches Lunch From Boy Before Attacking Woman, 76″ –FoxNews.com

Even So, May We Borrow Your Gun?:

“Expert Warns of Danger to Consumer Lending Arms” –Financial Times

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control:

“Biden to Take New Role Overseeing Iraq Policy” –Agence France-Presse

News You Can Use:

“Beware the Obama ‘Evil Eye’” –Drudge Report

Bottom Stories of the Day:

“D.C.’s Marion Barry Arrested Again” –CNN.com

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

Newspulper Headlines:

Now the Feds Are Picking the Furniture:

“Next Chair Is Chosen for GM” –Detroit Free Press

Even 2,000-Plus Years Later:

“B.C. Forest Fire Means Beautiful Sunsets in Seattle” –Seattle Times

Imagine the Sunsets That’ll Produce:

“Earth-Venus Smash-Up Possible in 3.5 Billion Years: Study” –Agence France-Presse

It’s Always in the Last Place You Look:

“Obama Administration Finds Health-Care Model in Green Bay” –Washington Post

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control:

“What if Obama’s Out of His Mind?” –Esquire.com

News You Can Use:

“The Recession Is Great” –Forbes.com

Bottom Stories of the Day:

“China Not Sending 3 Rare Golden Monkeys to LA Zoo” –Associated Press

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

Newspulper Headlines

Hey, Keep That Stimulus Package to Yourself!:

“Groping for the Economy’s Bottom” –Yahoo Tech Ticker

We Blame Global Warming:

“NASA Global Warming Satellite Has Troubled Launch” –Associated Press

Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control:

“Is Global Warming Confusing Pelicans?” –Daily Breeze (Torrance, CA)

News You Can Use:

“Hey Californians: Click Here to Find Missing Money” –KNTV Web site (San Jose, CA)

Bottom Stories of the Day:

“Obama Calls for New Regulations” –Boston Globe

(Credit goes to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

Newspulper Headlines:

[Maybe Better Spam Filters Should Be a TARP Precondition]:

“Nigerian Accused in Scheme to Swindle Citibank” –The New York Times

[Fortunately, the Stimulus Includes $15 Billion for Chum]:

“Shark Attacks Drop; Expert Cites Ailing Economy” –MSNBC.com

[That's Not the Only Thing He Should Have Better Regulated]:

“Bill Clinton: I Should Have Better Regulated Derivatives” –CNN.com

[The Terrible Truth About Nazi Germany]:

“Adolf Hitler Had ‘Shocking’ Table Manners” –Times (London)

[Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control]:

“Experts Warn of ‘Terminator’-Style Military-Robot Rebellion” –FoxNews.com

[Bottom Stories of the Day]:

“Carter Voices Confidence in Obama Stimulus Plan” –Associated Press

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

White Cower

Attorney General Eric Holder ruffled some few feathers Wednesday, when he gave a Black History Month speech in which he described America as “a nation of cowards” when it comes to “things racial”:

Though race related issues continue to occupy a significant portion of our political discussion, and though there remain many unresolved racial issues in this nation, we, average Americans, simply do not talk enough with each other about race. It is an issue we have never been at ease with and given our nation’s history this is in some ways understandable. And yet, if we are to make progress in this area we must feel comfortable enough with one another, and tolerant enough of each other, to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us.

We are inclined to disagree with Holder’s suggestion that everyday life is impoverished by an insufficiency of “frank conversations” about racial subjects. Often it is just plain sensible to put aside “matters that continue to divide us” and focus on common purposes or interests. What Holder desires sounds nightmarish to us: a cross between “No Exit” and “All in the Family,” with none of the latter’s wit.

Still, there is a grain of truth to Holder’s infelicitous description of America as “a nation of cowards.” The subject of race does make people uneasy, and for reasons that go beyond common sense and courtesy. An incident on the same day as Holder’s speech illustrates the problem.

On Wednesday the New York Post published a cartoon by Sean Delonas depicting a pair of policemen and a the bullet-riddled body of a chimpanzee. As one of the cops holds a smoking gun, the other says, “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill.”

Reuters describes what happened next:

Hundreds of demonstrators rallied to boycott the New York Post on Thursday, branding the newspaper as racist for publishing a cartoon that appeared to compare President to a chimpanzee.

Demonstrators led by civil rights activist Al Sharpton chanted “End racism now!” outside the parent company’s skyscraper in midtown Manhattan and called for the jailing of Rupert Murdoch, whose international media conglomerate News Corp owns the Post. . . .

Because Obama promoted the $787 billion economic stimulus that he signed into law on Tuesday, critics of the cartoon interpreted the dead chimp as a reference to Obama, who became the first black U.S. president on January 20. . . .

“You would have to be in a time warp or in a whole other world not to know what that means,” said demonstrator Charles Ashley, 25, a model who did not believe the cartoon was an innocent political joke.

Others said it made light of assassinating Obama, a possibility they said that worries many African-Americans.

Here we should note that News Corp. also owns The Wall Street Journal and this Web site. The Post is standing its ground, declaring in an editorial today:

To those who were offended by the image, we apologize.

However, there are some in the media and in public life who have had differences with The Post in the past–and they see the incident as an opportunity for payback.

To them, no apology is due.

The claim that the cartoon was a racist caricature of President Obama is awfully far-fetched. It played off a news item involving an actual chimp (a story with which we are thoroughly bored, so click here if you want to learn more about it). The president did not write the stimulus bill; indeed, he has been widely criticized for giving congressional Democrats too free a hand in crafting it. And anyone who is familiar with Delonas’s surrealistic oeuvre knows that he is an equal-opportunity offender. His work is in the spirit of “South Park,” not Stepin Fetchit. Continue reading . . .

Newspulper Headlines

[Step 1]: Pay Your Taxes: “How to Avoid a Tom Daschle Tax Problem” –The New York Times

{We Blame Global Warming}: “Media Worldwide Face Climate of Fear, Report Says” –Associated Press

[Help Wanted]: “San Francisco Officials Seek Toilet Torcher” –MSNBC.com

[Everything Seemingly Is Spinning Out of Control]: “Court: Giant Inflatable Rat Has Free-Speech Rights” –MSNBC.com

[News You Can Use]: “Losing Sleep? Don’t Stash Your Money Under the Mattress Advises TD Waterhouse” –TD Bank Financial Group press release

[Bottom Stories of the Day]: “PETA Compares Kennel Club to KKK” –New Zealand Herald

(Thanks to The Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto)

Let’s Get Wasted!

The so-called stimulus bill may not do much for the economy, but it’s certainly stimulating a lot of laughter, as its supporters are reduced to arguing essentially that it would be irresponsible not to waste boatloads of taxpayer money. We do not exaggerate. Consider this article by Michael Hirsh of Newsweek:

Obama’s desire to begin a “post-partisan” era may have backfired. In his eagerness to accommodate Republicans and listen to their ideas over the past week, he has allowed the GOP to turn the haggling over the stimulus package into a decidedly stale, Republican-style debate over pork, waste and overspending. This makes very little economic sense when you are in a major recession that only gets worse day by day. Yes, there are still some very legitimate issues with a bill that’s supposed to be “temporary” and “targeted”–among them, large increases in permanent entitlement spending, and a paucity of tax cuts that will prompt immediate spending.

Even so, Obama has allowed Congress to grow embroiled in nitpicking over efficiency when the central debate should be about whether the package is big enough. When you are dealing with a stimulus of this size, there are going to be wasteful expenditures and boondoggles. There’s no way anyone can spend $800 to $900 billion quickly without waste and boondoggles. It comes with the Keynesian territory. This is an emergency; the normal rules do not apply.

Who is this Michael Hirsh, who has elevated unrestrained spending of the people’s money to a high principle? Here’s his bio:

Michael Hirsh covers international affairs for Newsweek, reporting on a range of topics from Homeland Security to postwar Iraq. He co-authored the November 3, 2003 cover story, “Bush’s $87 Billion Mess,” about the Iraq reconstruction plan. The issue was one of three that won the 2004 National Magazine Award for General Excellence.  

The bill for “Bush’s mess” is less than the margin of error in reckoning the cost of the “emergency” legislation about which Hirsh now chides lawmakers for “nitpicking over efficiency.”

Blogger Josh Marshall, meanwhile, weighs in with another novel argument:

The other key into the current debate is that the Republican position is ominously similar to their position on global warming or, for that matter, evolution. The discussion of what to do on the Democratic side tracks more or less with textbook macroeconomics, while Republican argument track either with tax cut monomania or rhetorical claptrap intended to confuse. It’s true that macro-economics doesn’t make controlled experiments possible. And economists can’t speak to these issues with certainty. But in most areas of our lives, when faced with dire potential consequences, we put our stock with scientific or professional consensus where it exists, as it does here. Only in cases where it goes against Republican political interests or economic interests of money-backers do we prefer the schemes of yahoos and cranks to people who study the stuff for a living.

Shut up and spend–it’s science!

In fact, Marshall’s style of argument is the antithesis of science, which is a rigorous process of open inquiry, not an appeal to authority, even the authority of “the best and the brightest.” These categories are easily confused when the subject has to do with the natural sciences, as in the debates over evolution and global warmism. But at the suggestion that Congress ought to spend nearly $1 trillion in taxpayer money because science demands it, one can only laugh–although if Congress enacts the bill, it’ll be the costliest laugh in history.

Especially because President Obama himself, in a Washington Post op-ed, admits that the so-called stimulus is not just about stimulating the economy in response to an emergency:

This plan is more than a prescription for short-term spending–it’s a strategy for America’s long-term growth and opportunity in areas such as renewable energy, health care and education.

If we are really in an emergency, and “science” tells us that we need to spend money now in order to deal with it, why not just do that and deal with the long-term agenda in the long term? Is it irresponsible to question a new president who seems to be cynically using a crisis in order to grab new power and huge sums of money for the federal government? We’d say it’s irresponsible not to.

Plenty o’ Nuttin
The Boston Globe is holding a tournament of tightwads: Continue reading . . .

This Means War

The last thing President Obama wants is a terrorist attack on his watch.

Cognitive dissonance anyone? “Promising to return America to the ‘moral high ground’ in the war on terrorism, President Obama issued three executive orders Thursday to demonstrate a clean break from the Bush administration, including one requiring that the Guantanamo Bay detention facility be closed within a year,” CNN reports.

But in its front-page story on Guantanamo today, the New York Times took a drastically different angle:

The emergence of a former Guantánamo Bay detainee as the deputy leader of Al Qaeda’s Yemeni branch has underscored the potential complications in carrying out the executive order President Obama signed Thursday that the detention center be shut down within a year.

So wait, you mean those guys are terrorists after all? Go figure! As the Times explains, Said Ali al-Shihri was released to Saudi Arabia in 2007 and went through a “Saudi rehabilitation program for former jihadists.” Thus rehabilitated, he went to Yemen, where he is believed to have been involved in a September bombing of the U.S. Embassy.

What’s going on here? Having led the campaign against Guantanamo, and having won at least a preliminary victory, the Times is now preparing its readers for the eventuality that the unlawful combatants being held there will not simply be released, or treated as common criminals:

The development came as Republican legislators criticized the plan to close the Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, detention camp in the absence of any measures for dealing with current detainees. But it also helps explain why the new administration wants to move cautiously, taking time to work out a plan to cope with the complications.

Those complications could be extremely dire, in both real and political terms. Whatever President Bush’s shortcomings, his antiterror policies were indisputably successful, inasmuch as there has been no major terror attack on U.S. soil since he instituted them. Continue reading . . .