Saturday, July 10, 2010

Zero Definitely Has an Exalted View of Himself

In this Charles Krauthammer article he makes some statements about how Zero always says "I, Me and My".  I have noticed this in the past and wondered if I was the only one.  His constant references to "My administration" did this or "My administration" did that are, in the least, self-aggrandizing.  There have been numerous references to Zero's narcissism from many authors.  Charles K does the best job of articulating the subject in this op-ed.  


A4 Driver

The selective modesty of Barack Obama




Friday, July 9, 2010

Remember NASA? It once represented to the world the apogee of American scientific and technological achievement. Here is President Obama's vision of NASA's mission, as explained by administrator Charles Bolden:

"One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math; he wanted me to expand our international relationships; and third and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science and math and engineering."

Apart from the psychobabble -- farcically turning a space-faring enterprise into a self-esteem enhancer -- what's the sentiment behind this charge? Sure America has put a man on the moon, led the information revolution, won more Nobel Prizes than any other nation by far -- but, on the other hand, a thousand years ago al-Khwarizmi gave us algebra.

Bolden seems quite intent on driving home this message of achievement equivalence -- lauding, for example, Russia's contribution to the space station. Russia? In the 1990s, the Russian space program fell apart, leaving the United States to pick up the slack and the tab for the missing Russian contributions to get the space station built.

For good measure, Bolden added that the United States cannot get to Mars without international assistance. Beside the fact that this is not true, contrast this with the elan and self-confidence of President John Kennedy's 1961 pledge that America would land on the moon within the decade.

There was no finer expression of belief in American exceptionalism than Kennedy's. Obama has a different take. As he said last year in France, "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." Which of course means: If we're all exceptional, no one is.

Take human rights. After Obama's April meeting with the president of Kazakhstan, Mike McFaul of the National Security Council reported that Obama actually explained to the leader of that thuggish kleptocracy that we, too, are working on perfecting our own democracy.

Nor is this the only example of an implied moral equivalence that diminishes and devalues America. Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner reported that in discussions with China about human rights, the U.S. side brought up Arizona's immigration law -- "early and often." As if there is the remotest connection between that and the persecution of dissidents, jailing of opponents and suppression of religion routinely practiced by the Chinese dictatorship.

Nothing new here. In his major addresses, Obama's modesty about his own country has been repeatedly on display as, in one venue after another, he has gratuitously confessed America's alleged failing -- from disrespecting foreigners to having lost its way morally after 9/11.

It's fine to recognize the achievements of others and be non-chauvinistic about one's country. But Obama's modesty is curiously selective. When it comes to himself, modesty is in short supply.

It began with the almost comical self-inflation of his presidential campaign, from the still inexplicable mass rally in Berlin in front of a Prussian victory column to the Greek columns framing him at the Democratic convention. And it carried into his presidency, from his posture of philosopher-king adjudicating between America's sins and the world's to his speeches marked by a spectacularly promiscuous use of the word "I."

Notice, too, how Obama habitually refers to Cabinet members and other high government officials as "my" -- "my secretary of homeland security," "my national security team," "my ambassador." The more normal -- and respectful -- usage is to say "the," as in "the secretary of state." These are, after all, public officials sworn to serve the nation and the Constitution -- not just the man who appointed them.

It's a stylistic detail, but quite revealing of Obama's exalted view of himself. Not surprising, perhaps, in a man whose major achievement before acceding to the presidency was writing two biographies -- both about himself.

Obama is not the first president with a large streak of narcissism. But the others had equally expansive feelings about their country. Obama's modesty about America would be more understandable if he treated himself with the same reserve. What is odd is to have a president so convinced of his own magnificence -- yet not of his own country's.
letters@charleskrauthammer.com

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

It Took Congress Less Than 4 Months to Illegally Spend $1T

Remember all of the hype about Jim Bunning holding up the unemployment benefits back in February?  He was trying to make a point about the PAYGO system that became law on February 4th of this year.  The PAYGO system was a requirement for Congress to keep from spending any further money that it didn't have.  Well, as you can see in this May 27th article from The Foundry, it took less than four months for Congress to completely blow through a technically illegal spending of $1 trillion.  The arrogance is unbelievable.


A4 Driver

Morning Bell: This Congress Has No Shame

Posted May 27th, 2010 at 9:38am in Ongoing Priorities 

On February 4, 2010, pushing for passage of her pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) legislation, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said on the House floor: “When I became Speaker of the House, the very first day we passed legislation that made PAYGO the rule of the House. Today we will make it the law of the land. … So the time is long overdue for this to be taken for granted. The federal government will pay as it goes.” That was the promise. But here is the reality: in the three years that Speaker Pelosi has enforced her PAYGO rule, the House has violated it by nearly $1 trillion.

And now with the U.S. Debt Clock officially passing the $13 trillion milestone Wednesday, the House is set to violate their own PAYGO law yet again, this time to the tune of around $150 billion. The legislation clocks-in at almost one-fifth the size of President Barack Obama’s original $862 billion failed economic stimulus, and the leftist majority in Congress has titled it “The American Jobs and Closing Tax Loopholes Act.” And it is a tax-hiking, spending-exploding, job-killing, deficit-hiking wonder.

The Tax Hikes: The entire purpose of this bill was originally to extend some popular and well-established tax cuts that have been around for years but have to be reapproved every year. But being the big government lovers that they are, the left has crafted a bill that actually increases tax revenues by $57 billion over ten years. The biggest items are a job-killing tax on American corporations that compete overseas, a job-killing tax on innovation-creating venture capital partnerships, and a four-fold increase in the tax on oil production that ostensibly is supposed to go to the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, but is instead being siphoned off to help pay for completely unrelated new domestic spending.

The Spending: The bill originally clocked-in at almost $200 billion, and Democrats have since cut the spending to just under $150 billion, $95 billion of which will go straight onto our children’s credit card bill in flagrant violation of Congress’ own PAYGO rules. Goodies include $26 billion for infrastructure, more than $40 billion for yet another unemployment insurance extension, another $24 billion bailout of state Medicaid programs, $8 billion in needlessly expensive health insurance subsidies, and $2.5 billion for states to increase their welfare rolls.  Even some Democrats are beginning to question the endless UI extensions, with Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (D-PA) telling The Washington Post that businesses back home complain that they want to start hiring but are getting few applicants because Congress has repeatedly extended unemployment benefits.

And then there is what was originally the largest-ticket item in the bill: $65 billion over three and a half years for increasing physician Medicare reimbursements, aka the “doc fix.” This one item alone proves that all of President Barack Obama’s claims that his health care law reduces the deficit are 100% false. The CBO report this month estimated that $276 billion would be required to shore up the “doc fix” over the next decade. Adding that spending to Obamacare’s already $940 billion total would easily push it into the red. That is why Congress did not address the problem in Obamacare. Brandeis University professor Stuart Altman calls the “doc fix” charade “one of the worst pieces of legislation I’ve ever seen.” The House has cut this version of the “doc fix” down to $21.8 billion just through December 2011.

Across the country, millions of American families are struggling to make family budgets and keep to them. Not Congress. For the first time in the history of the budget process, the House of Representatives has failed to plan how they will spend your tax dollars. Instead they will recklessly continue to flagrantly violate their own PAYGO rules as they add billions and billions worth of debt onto your children. This Congress has no shame.

Quick Hits:

Sunday, July 4, 2010

I Want This Young Man For President

I hope we will see this young man's name on the ballot as soon as he is eligible.  It is really refreshing to have some one state his case clearly and succinctly with facts instead of the normal mumbo-jumbo that comes out of the Beltway and the White House.


A4 Driver

Friday, July 2, 2010

He Really Believes That We Are Idiots

Allen Ahlert makes some excellent points in this column for the Jewish World Review.  The unending arrogance and we-know-better-and-more-than-you-possibly-could attitude is getting repetitious and old and the MSM just keeps going right along and doesn't challenge anything that comes out of Zero or his administration.  Things are not looking good.

A4 Driver

Jewish World Review June 30, 2010 / 18 Tamuz 5770
Calling YOUR Bluff, Mr. President
By Arnold Ahlert







http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | "When I start presenting some very difficult choices to the country, I hope some of these folks who are hollering about deficits and debt step up, because I'm calling their bluff."--Barack Obama

Our pathological Liar-in-Chief is at it once again. The man who has given America a trillion dollar-plus deficit, the man who, with ample help from our Democratically-controlled Congress, literally quadrupled the worst excesses of a spendthrift Bush administration's worst year, is going to call someone else's bluff? Utterly amazing.

The above quote suggests one of two possibilities: we either have a Chief Executive who is literally unhinged--or one with such contempt for the average American's intelligence that he believes we can't discern the difference between what he says and what he actually does. The bet here is the latter, for the simplest of reasons: a groveling, see-no-evil media willing to compromise their last shred of integrity--even to the point of their own fiscal demise--to protect an ideological soulmate.

Here's what Americans need to know about so-called "difficult choices:" for the first time since modern-day budgeting began, the House of Representatives has refused to pass a budget resolution. Why? Because it's an election year, and the last thing these progressive hacks want Americans to know is exactly how monumentally irresponsible they actually are.

How irresponsible is that? Here's what we already know: we're $1.4 trillion in the hole just this year, without a budget resolution. Incredibly, Democrats are selling the excuse that they're waiting for the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform to make their recommendations before they get down to business.

The subterfuge here? The Commission isn't expected to issue a report before December--one month after the mid-term elections.

Like the president himself, Democrats in Congress have nothing but contempt for ordinary Americans. It is a contempt so ingrained that they're attempting to pass a financial "reform" bill that doesn't even address the key players--Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac--in the financial meltdown of 2008. Taxpayers have already shelled out $150 billion dollars to keep these mortgage guarantors afloat, and that may only be the tip of the proverbial iceberg. A worst case scenario--or, as the "experts" love to say, an "unexpected" development--could raise the final price tag on these two behemoths to a trillion dollars.

How in the world do you pass "comprehensive" financial reform without addressing this?

Everyone knows the answer to that one: the same way you pass a "comprehensive" healthcare bill without a single word about tort reform in 2700 pages of progressive garbage. That would be the same bill in which 58% of Americans have already "stepped up" to call your bluff, Mr. President.

How corrupt are modern-day Democrats? I doubt anyone would have believed that another one of them could top Nancy Pelosi's immortal statement about the health care bill, "we have to pass it, so you can see what's in it." But the soon-to-retire Chris "Countrywide" Dodd was up to the task. His take on financial reform?

"No one will know until this is actually in place how it works." Not so, Mr. Dodd. Maybe Americans don't how another 2000 page "comprehensive whatever" works, but a lot of us know how big-government socialism does: the national debt is exploding, unemployment remains steady at close to ten percent, and two of the chief perpetrators of the financial meltdown have their names attached to yet another attempted government shakedown of the private sector. The Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Bill?

The only name missing is Bernie Madoff.

Once again, Americans wanted reform. Genuine reform. Once again, Democrats proved themselves utterly incapable of doing the right thing. Their "fix" for Wall Street, et al, is everything but.

Ironically, that would be the very same Wall Street which gave the lion's share of their political campaign contributions--nearly two-thirds of the $34.7 million donated by the entire securities and investment industry since Jan. 1, 2009, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics--to Democrats.

This reality is something that no doubt puzzles many Americans. Why would Wall Street and the banking industry give more money to a Democrat Party which regularly demonizes them, whose president referred to them as "fat cats," and who blames them for everything that went wrong in 2008?

For the same reason a Brooklyn pizzeria owner "donates" cash to a certain unsavory looking character who shows up every week: it's a protection racket. And it's done for exactly the same reason: the crony capitalist element on Wall Street wants protection from competition and their own irresponsible excess, aka "too big 
to fail."

It is absolutely critical that Americans understand what's really going on here. Progressive Democrats, the very same ones who forced the banks--and that is the correct term, forced--to make mortgages available to people who were manifestly unqualified to own a home, are the people telling America that capitalism itself is to blame for the ensuing debacle. Thus, America needs to be "rescued" by big-government Democrats.

But not until next year. This year? Duck and cover--and hope the rest of the "stimulus" package stimulates enough of the American parasite class to show up at the voting booth and minimize the damage to the Democrats' Congressional majority.

The bet here is most Americans have had enough. The bet here is that before the president calls our bluff "next year," we're going to call his in November. And I'm betting even more on the idea that it will be the least difficult choice the electorate has made in a long time.

Only the Kool-aid drinkers believe we can keep spending money we don't have, and after last week's G-20 economic summit, it's apparent that their ranks are shrinking: most of Europe, coming to grips with their own economic realities, essentially told Mr. Hope and Change to take his Keynesian, double-down-on-deficit-spending, economic model--and stick it where the sun don't shine.

Bluff already called, Mr. President.

Lastly, one more bluff that desperately needs calling: for years, liberals have told us that tax cuts caused the budget deficits we have today. That is an abject lie. The three presidents who engineered the largest modern-day tax cuts were JFK, Reagan, and George W. Bush. In all three cases more money flowed into federal coffers than did prior to those cuts.

So why did deficits increase? Because government spending vastly overwhelmed increased revenues. Only leftists could fail to mention a "detail" like that, even as they demand Americans dig deeper into their pockets to pay for runaway government.

Shame on them.

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Comment on JWR Contributor Arnold Ahlert's column, by clicking here.

Take Your Money and Run-----Overseas

Finally someone is telling it like it is---unfortunately it's in The American Thinker.  The MSM won't touch this with a 10 foot pole.  This article quickly articulates the fiscal threats that businesses and individuals face in the future and have faced for the past 18 months of Zero's incompetent fiscal leadership.  The reasons stated in the article are the very ones that have kept unemployment high and business investment at virtually zero.  When is this fiscal/jobs/energy/tax nightmare going to end?  It's all about public sector investment, not the growth of jobs through misguided expanded government and stimulus/porkulus spending.


A4 Driver

No One's Capital Is Safe in Obama's America

By Claude Sandroff
Obama's poorly coded message to investors is to take your money out of America and keep it out. Whether through excessive taxation, suffocating over-regulation, or thuggish confiscation, the lesson to be drawn by anyone with excess capital is to look for friendlier places to put it to work.

The list of friendlier places excludes North Korea, Venezuela, and Iran for the time being, but almost everywhere else qualifies. Russia's president spent several days in Silicon Valley recently looking for adventurous investors and came away with a $1B commitment from Cisco Systems. For Cisco, sitting on a cash hoard of $30B, with years of experience partnering with the burgeoning Russian venture capital industry, the decision was probably not a very tortured one. And what a perfect opportunity for Cisco's CEO John Chambers to keep his cash as far from Obama's collection agencies as possible. 

President Medvedev promises Cisco a capital gains tax rate of zero; President Obama promises to retire the evil George Bush capital gains rate of 15% and increase it to 20% in 2011. Cisco is merely telecasting to anyone who wants to tune in that Russia is taking advantage of Obama's lurch towards socialism (or worse). While Russia is portraying itself as a stable bastion for capitalists, America is increasingly seen as the land that mauled Chrysler and GM bondholders. While erstwhile command economies are liberalizing, America under Obama is nationalizing. The lesson is clear: Don't leave cash within the American financial system, earning minimal returns, with the fear that at any moment your assets can be confiscated or redistributed by a lawless and capricious federal government.

When will Obama decide that Cisco (or Wal-Mart, or Apple, or Google, or any other successful enterprise) is not paying its "fair share"? Aren't the profit margins earned by Cisco on its routers -- sometimes approaching 70% -- too rich, or even obscene? Aren't these gains, in essence, nothing but windfall profits resulting in the eventual gouging of the average American internet subscriber? Cisco might not drill in the Gulf of Mexico for its profits, but man-made disasters could await it too, in the form of arbitrary, BP-like shakedowns of its hard-earned wealth. Why risk shakedowns in gangland Obama when a much more competent criminal like Putin will guarantee your investments?

Cisco is not the only company sitting on a gigantic cash cushion. All told, the balance sheet cash for the non-financial segment of the S&P 500 totals around $1 trillion. Businesses sit on these huge asset cushions and accept earning virtually nothing in real terms because risks are too high to consider anything else. 

In 2011, one of the largest tax increases in American history goes into effect. Not only do capital gains rise, but so too does the payroll tax, the income tax, and the estate tax. And even then, businesses large and small, while in their final financial death throes, will have nothing to look forward to other than the doom of ObamaCare and the unknown costs that Obama will attempt to afflict via cap-and-trade and a European-style value-added tax.

Fears are also emerging about the eventual burden imposed on all of us by dozens of states virtually bankrupt, especially if the federal government structures bailouts for those states deemed too big to fail. Unfortunately, the biggest and most likely to fail -- California, New York, and Illinois -- are Democrat and union fortresses that Obama will not let topple.

These and many other states have already been thrown a life jacket during the last near-trillion dollar stimulus in the form of unemployment insurance and other transfer payments. But the effects of those financial stimulants are beginning to wear off, and the federal drug dealer has little inventory left -- except for massive money-printing.

Inflation is almost the last strategy left for the Federal Reserve, having driven short-term interest to zero and purchased all the treasuries, agency, and mortgage debt thrown its way.

Fears of excessive taxation and unpredictable costs are muting American entrepreneurial animal spirits. These fears are likely at the root of our persistently high unemployment. The issue too often is not lack of loan supply to launch a new enterprise, but a lack of demand for the loans to get started. Strangling business creation translates into no new job creation. If you launch a business today and organize as an S-Corporation, how can you be even reasonably sure will you take home enough in profits to justify the initial risk of the undertaking? And if you were successful enough to reach the revenue heights of $250K, Obama would target you as a capitalist predator and promote you to the highest tax bracket.

In contrast to Jefferson's goal of preserving "a model of government, securing to man his rights and the fruits of his labor, by an organization constantly subject to his own will," our current administration is brutally determined to transform government into an organ that redistributes those fruits to its cronies. The reaction of sane, rational Americans to these perverse incentives is not to create or hire or produce. Instead, existing businesses and potential founders of new ones are hunkering down, hoping to wake up from this national nightmare in 2010 and 2012 with some of their wealth still intact.

Thursday, July 1, 2010

Kagan Was Chosen Because of Her Views on the Commerce Clause

This is an article from the 7/1/10 issue of The Foundry and expresses some concerns about how Kagan will uphold everything that comes out of the White House.  At the end of the article is a section called Quick Hits.  Why was Sen Kobluchar wasting everyone's time by talking about vampires and werewolves during a confirmation hearing?  And I find it reprehensible that the House Dems added funding for government union jobs onto the Afghanistan war funding bill.  I know it happens all of the time but it still pisses me off.  Sneak a little in here and a little in there and no one will notice.  Remember promises of transparency?  Why not a separate bill for the union jobs?  Because they knew it would be difficult to get it passed.  

"A million here, a million there, pretty soon we're talking serious money." -- Sen Everett Dirksen


"A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon we're talking a trillion dollars."  --  A4 Driver

A4 Driver

Morning Bell: The Limitless Power of the Obama-Kagan Congress

Posted July 1st, 2010 at 9:23am in Rule of Law  
 
This Sunday, our nation will celebrate Independence Day, which commemorates the Continental Congress’ adoption of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration preamble reads: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” The fact that we as a nation came together every year to celebrate this document might lead many Americans to believe that a Supreme Court Justice should take the Declaration of Independence into account when they are interpreting the Constitution. Elena Kagan is not one of those Americans. Under questioning from Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) yesterday, Kagan admitted: “To be honest with you, I don’t have a view of what are natural rights independent of the Constitution.”

And Kagan’s disturbing indifference to the existence of natural rights is just one of the many frightening revelations her confirmation hearing has produced. On Tuesday, Sen. Coburn pressed Kagan about the limits the Constitution places on Congress’ power to control what Americans do:
Coburn: If I wanted to sponsor a bill and it said Americans, you have to eat three vegetables and three fruits every day and I got it through Congress and that’s now the law of the land, got to do it, does that violate the Commerce Clause?
Kagan: Sounds like a dumb law
Coburn: Yeah, but I got one that’s real similar to it that I think is equally dumb. I’m not going to mention which it is.
Kagan: But I think that the question of whether it’s a dumb law is different from whether the question of whether it’s constitutional and I think that courts would be wrong to strike down laws that they think are senseless just because they’re senseless.
The law Coburn was referring to, of course, was President Barack Obama’s signature legislative accomplishment: the Obamacare provision that forces all Americans to buy health insurance. But Jefferson and the other Constitution framers designed the document to protect our “unalienable Rights” by limiting the power of Congress. They designed an ingenious system of checks and balances that divides state and federal authority in the hope of preventing any one government from exerting too much control over a free people. Specifically, Article I allocates to Congress “[a]ll legislative powers herein granted,” and section 8 of Article I (referred to by Sen. Coburn above as the Commerce Clause), grants Congress the authority “[t]o regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes.” The Supreme Court has always understood that, taken together, these clauses put some legislative powers beyond Congress’ reach.

But Kagan has now testified that not only does she find the Founders’ concept of “unalienable Rights” irrelevant to Constitutional interpretation, but she also declined to say if the Constitution prevents Congress from telling Americans what to eat.  Her evasive non-response to Coburn’s Commerce Clause inquiry shows that she would indeed be a rubber-stamp for almost any part of the Obama agenda that Congress enacts. So if the Obama administration convinced Congress (and this is a total hypothetical) that the survival of a single car company, let’s say Chrysler, was absolutely necessary for the survival of the nation’s economy, and Congress then passed a law forcing all Americans to buy a Chrysler car, Kagan would find such a law, while perhaps “dumb,” perfectly constitutional. Jefferson must be rolling in his grave.

The leftist members of the Senate Judiciary Committee know that the Obamacare individual mandate is extremely vulnerable to being struck down by the Supreme Court. That is why they have spent so much of the hearing trying to redefine what “judicial activism” is. As Heritage Deputy Director of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies Robert Alt will testify today, the Court is not committing “judicial activism” every time it finds that a law violates the Constitution. Judicial activism is not a function of outcomes, but one of interpretation. Instead, it occurs when a judge applies his or her own policy preferences to uphold, or strike down, a statute or other government action which is clearly forbidden by the Constitution.

Kagan came to the committee with one of the thinnest records of any Supreme Court nominee in recent history. What little has been learned about her views so far has been highly disturbing. Nothing in her testimony has demonstrated she has either the respect for our nation’s founding documents or the independence from this White House to apply the law as it is written, and dispense justice without regard to the parties before her.

Quick Hits:

Conn Carroll Author: Conn Carroll

He Is Afraid to Name the Enemies What They Are

The first time I heard terrorist attacks referred to as "man-made disasters' I thought it was a joke.  Who could seriously be so naive as to create a new politically correct term for murderous terrorist attacks?  Zero and his administration, that's who.  When will the idiots inside the Beltway realize that these knuckleheads want to slit our throats?  Period.


A4 Driver

Obama's Muslim Outreach Fails

By: Ronald Kessler

Of all President Obama’s policies, none is more misguided than using politically correct euphemisms to refer to radical Muslim terrorists. Can you imagine Winston Churchill referring to the Nazis as “violent extremists” or to the London Blitz as a “man-caused disaster”?

Now we know the result of that policy. Instead of improving America’s image in the minds of Muslims, Obama actually has made things worse. Since Obama became president, the popularity of the United States in Muslim countries has declined, according to the Pew Global Attitudes Survey.

In Egypt, only 17 percent of those surveyed said they had a favorable view of the United States. That is the lowest rating in the five years Egyptians have been polled. Last year, 27 percent said they had a favorable view.

The same trend was evident in other Muslim countries. In Turkey, the number of Muslims who had confidence in Obama slipped by 10 percent from 2009 to 2010. In Lebanon, the number also declined by 10 percent. In Jordan, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Nigeria, the decline ranged from 4 percent to 5 percent.

Along with tip-toeing around radical Muslim terrorists, Obama has proposed, as ways to signal that we are good guys, holding a civilian trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York City and closing the prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.

Those policy initiatives also have not worked. Instead, they threaten to put Americans at risk. Although calling radical Muslim terrorist acts “man-caused disasters” may be bizarre, it also signals to those fighting the war on terror that we really are not serious about taking on terrorism.

There is a right way to diminish recruitment of terrorists, and there is a wrong way. The wrong way is to compromise our security by proposing to try the architect of the 9/11 attack in New York. The wrong way is to release CIA interrogation memos that fuel recruitment of terrorists and undermine the morale of the CIA officers and FBI agents who are trying to protect us.

The wrong way is to close the prison camp at Guantánamo, where terrorists are housed safely away from the American population. The wrong way is to telegraph weakness by apologizing to the world for America’s imagined sins, as Obama routinely does when going overseas.

The right way is for the president to give the kind of speech Obama gave in Cairo. Obama pointed out that al-Qaida attacks actually kill more Muslims than non-Muslims and that Islam is a largely peaceful religion. In similar fashion, a week after 9/11, President Bush visited the Islamic Center of Washington, where he said that the acts of violence against innocents at the World Trade Center violate the tenets of the Islamic faith.

But the majority of Obama’s efforts to reach out to the Muslim world have been not only ill-conceived but also, as it turns out, counterproductive. Muslims are no more impressed by a leader who is afraid to name the enemy than Americans are.

From the Nazis to al-Qaida, placating those who are intent on wiping us out has never worked and never will. As a Rolling Stone article based on interviews with Gen. Stanley McChrystal and his aides concludes, the real problem is the “wimps in the White House.”

Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com. View his previous reports and get his dispatches sent to you free via e-mail. Go here now.


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