File today’s WSJ piece by Fuad Ajami, Obama’s Persian Tutorial, into the :I couldn’t have said it better myself” file. Never has Obama’s great ego and miniscule understanding of foreign policy been so well contrasted. Here, for example, is Ajami on Obama’s big speech in Cairo:

Mr. Obama’s June 4 speech in Cairo did not reshape the Islamic landscape. I was in Saudi Arabia when Mr. Obama traveled to Riyadh and Cairo. The earth did not move, life went on as usual. There were countless people puzzled by the presumption of the entire exercise, an outsider walking into sacred matters of their faith. In Saudi Arabia, and in the Arabic commentaries of other lands, there was unease that so complicated an ideological and cultural terrain could be approached with such ease and haste.

And the backgrounder for that paragraph:

Days into his presidency, it should be recalled, Mr. Obama had spoken of his desire to restore to America’s relation with the Muslim world the respect and mutual interest that had existed 30 or 20 years earlier. It so happened that he was speaking, almost to the day, on the 30th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution — and that the time span he was referring to, his golden age, covered the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the American standoff with Libya, the fall of Beirut to the forces of terror, and the downing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. Liberal opinion would have howled had this history been offered by George W. Bush, but Barack Obama was granted a waiver.

Obama breezed into the Iran election thinking the world was listening to him:

Mr. Obama will have to acknowledge the “foreignness” of foreign lands. His breezy self-assurance has been put on notice. The Obama administration believed its own rhetoric that the pro-Western March 14 coalition in Lebanon had ridden Mr. Obama’s coattails to an electoral victory. (It had given every indication that it expected similar vindication in Iran.)

Yeah, that sounds good … but it’s clueless:

But the claim about Lebanon was hollow and reflected little understanding of the forces at play in Lebanon’s politics. That contest was settled by Lebanese rules, and by the push and pull of Saudi and Syrian and Iranian interests in Lebanon.

The mullahs don’t want diplomacy, they’re not looking for better relations, and they certainly don’t want to yuk it up with Obama.  Because they need to present America as an ongoing threat in order to cover up their corruption and inadequacies, it makes no difference to them whether he fawns on them or accuses them of bloodshed in the streets – they will continue to stiff arm us and present us as imperialist heathens intent on destroying Islam.

And the more our president thinks it otherwise because of his super-human niceness and bightness, the more he will play to the Mullahs and mimick Jimmy Carter’s foreign policy ignorance.

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During the campaign, Senator Obama promised he would go “line by line” through the budget, finding ways to cut frivolous expenses – apparently unaware of the fact that the President does not have the power to make line by line vetoes.  Civics notwithstanding, he subsequently sicked his most brilliant advisors on the budget, telling them to seek out fat and cut it.

The result? A stinkin’ $17 billion in proposed cuts – less than one-half of one percent of the budget. His brainiac cabinet – smart enough, we’re told, to reinvent America for the better – apparently missed this liine item:

The federal government is spending $423,500 to find out why men don’t like to wear condoms, a project government watchdogs say is a nearly-half-a-million-dollar waste of taxpayer money.

Researchers at Indiana University’s Kinsey Institute, with funding from the National Institutes of Health, are investigating why “young, heterosexual adult men” have problems using condoms. The study will include “skill-based intervention” to teach grown men how to use protection. (Fox)

Disclaimer: I am an IU alum.  But I thought the Kinsey Institute was a crock even while I was on campus (though I admit to juvenile fantasies about what must have been going on behind its ivied walls). 

The first part of the study is pretty routine – a questionnaire about young men’s feelings about condoms.  They can save the money and fill out all the answers now:  They don’t like them because they’re desensitizing.  And because they’ve been programmed by watching hundreds of hours of condom-free porn.  It’s the second part of the study that is just plain bizarre:

“The second phase involves a laboratory study, and focuses on penile erection and sensitivity during condom application,” reads the abstract from Drs. Erick Janssen and Stephanie Sanders, both of the Kinsey Institute.

“The project aims to understand the relationship between condom application and loss of erections and decreased sensation, including the role of condom skills and performance anxiety, and to find new ways to improve condom use among those who experience such problems.”

Repeat: This is a laboratory study. That means there will be subjects, observations and measurements.  We could save a lot of money if Dr. Erick Janssen would just whisper in Dr. Stephanie Sanders’ ear, “Imagine a rubber coating on your clitorus.  Got it? We’re done.”

But health secretary Kathleen Sebelius and her crackerjack staff left the study in the federal budget, apparently finding it much too important to ax, even in a deep recession.

We can almost hear Obama saying to his admiring cabinet, “What fun is tax and spend if you don’t get to spend?”

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Are you keeping a promise if it’s just a symbolic promise-keeping?  Of course not … unless you’re Barack Obama.  Then you can do stuff like this:

WASHINGTON (NYT) — When President Obama arrived at the Mandarin Oriental hotel for a fund-raising reception on Thursday night, the new White House rules of political purity were in order: no lobbyists allowed.

But at the same downtown hotel on Friday morning, registered lobbyists have not only been invited to attend an issues conference with Democratic leaders, but they have also been asked to come with a $5,000 check in hand if they want to stay in good favor with the party’s House and Senate re-election committees.

The practicality of Mr. Obama’s pledge to change the ways of Washington is colliding once more with the reality of how money, influence and governance interact here. He repeatedly declared while campaigning last year that he would “not take a dime” from lobbyists or political action committees.

So to follow through with that promise, Mr. Obama is simply leaving the room.

I just love all this “change you can believe in” hogwash! And so, apparently, does Robert “Gotta Get A Message To You” Gibbs:

The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, dismissed a suggestion on Thursday that the rules were a sleight of hand. He said no lobbyists would be on hand when Mr. Obama addressed the donors, which is what he promised in the campaign.

“People know where the president stands,” Mr. Gibbs told reporters. Asked whether Mr. Obama would agree with critics who suggested it was hypocritical, he demurred and added, “We’re not taking their money.”

There. Now we know where the president stands. We just don’t know why he bothers standing there.

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Congress may be full of Democrats, but it’s not full of idiots … well, not complete idiots.  The new emergency war bill, stuffed as it is with $20 billion in non-defense garbage like the $1 billion clunker buy-back abomination, doesn’t contain one penny for the closure of Obama’s Guantanamo closing madness.

Worse for the Prez, it puts restrictions on his recent dark, secretive schemes to transfer jihadists to other nations.  You know, demanding transparency; that sort of thing the candidate loved but the president shuns.

The members of Congress have become aware the folks back home don’t want a bunch of Mohammed Atta wannabees hanging out by their neighborhood Seven-11.  Too bad they haven’t quite grasped that we don’t want to sell the future of the country down the river on socialist schemes, either.

The $106 emergency bill – what’s not an emergency in DC nowadays? – prohibits the prez from releasing any Gitmo detainees into the U.S., prevents them from being transfered here for prosecution without the preparation of something akin to a Jihadist Impact Report, and requires the prez to disclose the deals he cuts with other nations before detainees can be transfered to them and does a risk analysis.

How can they so resolutely slap down this bit of presidential lunacy and still let him speed through transformational measures that  will impact us and future generations with debt and destruction of the free market?

Oh, yeah: Iit’s just their intense interest in self-preservation. It’s easier to face the voters after selling out the economy and constitution than it is to face them after letting out terrorists.

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The headline quotes Mariah Carey’s hubby, rapper Nick Cannon, as he was cutting a promo spot on the White House lawn for NBC’s “Amerca’s Got Talent.” And it’s true: The most powerful man in the world is just crazed about his own talent. He just can’t get enough.

There are far too many recent examples to rattle off without prompting, so let’s rely on Politico:

Obama did a recent promo for “The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien” during the host’s first week on the job. He participated in a skit via video on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.” NBC was taking pre-orders for its “Inside the Obama White House” DVD ($19.99) the day after the two-part special aired. Now ABC is promoting its special Obama access June 24: shooting “Good Morning America” from the North Lawn – including exclusive interviews with the president and the first lady – holding a primetime health care Q&A with Obama in the East Room, and anchoring “Nightline” from the Blue Room in the executive mansion. [See "Update" below.]

And it’s not like he was quiet up to this point. No, he’s shoved his way into prime time, late night and morning broadcasts alike, so we all could sit awe-struck in our E-Z Boys, dazzled by his poise, intelligence and oh, so telegenic face.  Even the once Obama-crazed Bill Hahar has had enough:

“I don’t want my president to be a TV star,” Maher said on his HBO television show.

“You don’t have to be on television every minute of every day—you’re the president, not a rerun of ‘Law & Order,’ ” he continued. “TV stars are too worried about being popular and too concerned about being renewed.”

Too concerned about being popular and too concerned about being renewed? Ouch!

Update:  Bookworm’s onto something.  Join her in boycotting ABC.

Art: Okie on the Lam

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Peeling away the layers of Bermuda’s onion, the Independent’s Bill Zuill may have found the spoonful of sugar that’s helping the British protectorate islands stomach the unpalatable taste of Uighurs a la Obama.  Before we get to that, let’s allow Zuill to vent a bit, shall we?

Many locals are struggling to understand why Bermuda has joined Palau and Albania as the only countries in the world to accept ex-Guantanamo inmates. “What’s it got to do with us?” they chorus.

The US Attorney General’s statement that transferring the detainees will make America safer has also raised hackles. If America is safer, Bermudans are asking themselves, doesn’t that mean Bermuda, by extension, is less safe?

There is also irritation among the large expatriate community, many of whom are British. Bermuda has one of the strictest immigration policies in the world so expats are none too pleased that while they have no chance of getting a permanent visa, the four Uighurs are set to spend the rest of their days under the Bermudan sun.

The extreme secrecy surrounding their transfer only adds to the intrigue. Most cabinet ministers and the majority of MPs were out of the loop. The British Governor said he didn’t know anything until after the Uighurs had actually landed on Bermudan soil.

For all the criticism Obama heaped on Bush for his perceived weakness in diplomacy, he’s really stepped into it with his handling of the Uigher/Bahama/Britain matter.  Talk about your textbook lesson in whatever the diplomatic equivalent of a malopropism is!

So why did the Bahamans offer instant citizenship to a group of al-Qaeda-trained misfits from the steppes of Western China?  Who knows if we’ll ever know for sure, but Zuill has a theory that resonates:

… [T]here is a bill wending its way through the US Congress that would curtail the thriving insurance and reinsurance sector, which is estimated to hold $440bn worth of assets in the off-shore financial territory. Although no promises have been forthcoming, White House help on that legislation would be greatly appreciated.

So what if Obama promised to end all off-shore tax dodges (no matter what impact on the economy)? It’s just an Obama promise, and as we’re learning, Obama promises are are like lofty words, all air, no substance.

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I would love to see healthcare reform, and soon.  Not as soon as Obama’s timetable, but soon.  As an employer and small business owner, I’ve seen rising healthcare costs cut deeply into our family income because we pay our employees’ skyrocketing health insurance premiums, not just our own.

But I don’t see relief coming from Obama’s plans, such as they’ve been stated to date.  I’m with WaPo columnist Robert Samuelson on this one; writing in Real Clear Politics, he said today:

It’s hard to know whether President Obama’s health care “reform” is naive, hypocritical or simply dishonest. Probably all three. The president keeps saying it’s imperative to control runaway health spending. He’s right. The trouble is that what’s being promoted as health care “reform” almost certainly won’t suppress spending and, quite probably, will do the opposite.

Samuelson agrees that reform is needed, since healthcare costs are increasing 2.1 percent faster than other costs, and if it continues, Medicare and Medicaid would eat up three-quarters of the federal budget by 2040.

Samuelson blames the current insurance-based system, which encourages costly treatment and new, expensive equipment, for the high cost of insurance.  He’s fundamentally right, because if we were whipping out our checkbooks instead of our insurance cards at the doctor’s office, you know we’d be asking for fewer tests and prescriptions.  The Obama plan would simply extend insurance to more people – how does that control the fundamental cost-driver? It won’t:

The one certain consequence of expanding insurance coverage is that it would raise spending. When people have insurance, they use more health services. That’s one reason why Obama’s campaign proposal was estimated to cost $1.2 trillion over a decade (the other reason is that the federal government would pick up some costs now paid by others). Indeed, the higher demand for health care might raise costs across the board, increasing both government spending and private premiums.

Samuelson suggests starting with the biggest money-eater of all, Medicare, and turning it into a free market fee-for-service system.  He acknowledges that such a move would be politically unpopular. So Obama, rather than risk a down-tick in the polls by supporting a practical approach to reform, will obligate future generations to ever more costly insurance. Natch.

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In its haste to successfully conclude its campaign of global bribary to effect the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to “willing” nations, the Obama administration has again trampled on the once-special relationship between America and Great Britain.  BBC reports:

A senior US official has told the BBC Washington decided not to tell London ahead of time about a deal to resettle four Guantanamo detainees in Bermuda.

A diplomatic row blew up over Bermuda’s decision to accept the four Chinese Muslim Uighurs on a US request.

Bermuda is a British overseas territory but the US official said Washington had acted secretly to ensure success.

The Telegraph was a bit testier than BarackBarackC:

A British diplomat told me, with that trademark stiff upper lip style, that David Miliband, Foreign Secretary, had called Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, immediately to protest.

“The Foreign Secretary registered his surprise. It was a regrettable mistake. Bermuda, the UK and the US now need to work together to fix it and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Roughly translated, that means that Miliband said: “WTF, Hillary?”

The Obama administration characterised the mood of British officials to ABC this way: “They are pissed.” …

But the biggest beef of the Brits should be with the Americans. On a foreign policy matter of great importance that directly involved a British sovereign territory, the Obama administration decided that it wasn’t even worth mentioning it to the British.

What does that say about the way Barack Obama and his team views the “special relationship”?

Indeed. The excuse given by the president’s representatives was that the U.S. did not want to risk kindling Chinese anger against Britain. The Chinese would love to get their hands on the Uighurs and show them a little Beijing hospitality of the summary execution sort.

But the Uighers pose an immediate security threat to Bermuda, not just some irrelevant diplomatic harumphing from the Far East.  Britain has responsibility for Bermuda’s defence and security, and now is scrambling to figure out how to deal with the Uighers.

No word yet on how much money Obama promised Bermuda as part of the deal. Palau got $200 million for taking 17 Uighers, so Bermuda could be in receipt of a hefty pile of U.S. cash we could certainly use here.

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Ed Morrisy directs us to Arthur Laffer’s column today in WSJ and what he calls the Laffer Spike, which shows the gargantuan increase in monetary supply that has been pushed by the Fed and the government, and its historical singularity. Not a theory like Laffer’s Curve, this is an actual accounting.  Here’s the spike:

Well, that’s certainly change – but is it change we should be believing in?  Writes Laffer:

With the crisis, the ill-conceived government reactions, and the ensuing economic downturn, the unfunded liabilities of federal programs — such as Social Security, civil-service and military pensions, the Pension Benefit Guarantee Corporation, Medicare and Medicaid — are over the $100 trillion mark. With U.S. GDP and federal tax receipts at about $14 trillion and $2.4 trillion respectively, such a debt all but guarantees higher interest rates, massive tax increases, and partial default on government promises.

And the likely consequences of Obama’s rush to spend?

But as bad as the fiscal picture is, panic-driven monetary policies portend to have even more dire consequences. We can expect rapidly rising prices and much, much higher interest rates over the next four or five years, and a concomitant deleterious impact on output and employment not unlike the late 1970s.

Ugh!  I really didn’t want to have to live through the 70s – Earth Shoes, plaid, Pintos – again.  But with a spike that is 10 times greater than any in the last 50 years, Laffer sums up the probable consequences in one word:  “Yikes!”

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Janet “It’s Not Terror, It’s Man-Caused Destruction” Napolitano has appointed the executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, or ADC, to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, in what appears to be a dangerous application of the adage, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”

The appointee, Kareem Shora, heads an organization that argued against even routine security measures after 9/11, has called jihadists “heros,” has opposed labeling Hamas a terrorist organization, and has close ties to anti-Israel professor and Obama buddy Rashid Khalidi.

The council to which Shora was appointed is an outside group of “national security experts” that advises the secretary. Shora is the first Arab rights advocate on the panel – and hopefully also the first to be short on national security experience and long on jihad endorsement.

From the WND report:

Scores of senior ADC officials have expressed positive views toward terrorist organizations.

In 1994, during one of the main peaks of Hamas suicide bombings against Israeli civilians, then-ADC President Hamzi Moghrabi said, “I will not call [Hamas] a terrorist organization. I mean, I know many people in Hamas. They are very respectable. … I don’t believe Hamas, as an organization, is a violent organization.”

Discover the Networks notes that two years later, Moghrabi’s successor, Hala Maksoud, defended the Hezbollah terrorist group.

“I find it shocking,” Maksoud said, “that [one] would include Hezbollah in … [an] inventory of Middle East ‘terrorist’ groups.”

In 2000, new ADC President Hussein Ibish characterized Hezbollah as “a disciplined and responsible liberation force.”

When Israel released Hezbollah prisoners in early 2004, Imad Hamad, ADC’s Midwest Regional Director, openly celebrated the freedom of “the heroes.”

A look at the other members of the committee reveals how out of place Shora is:

William Webster (Chair), former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

Gary Hart (Vice Chair), former senator and Chairman of the American Security Project.

Norman Augustine, retired Chairman and CEO of Lockheed Martin Corp.  

Leroy Baca, Sheriff of Los Angeles County.  

Richard Cañas, Director of the New Jersey Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness.

Kenneth Canterbury, National President of the Fraternal Order of Police.  

Jared Cohon, President of Carnegie Mellon University, member Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board.

Ruth David, former CIA Deputy Director for Science and Technology.

Manny Diaz, mayor of Miami and President of the United States Conference of Mayors.

Clark Kent Ervin, Director of the Aspen Institute’s Homeland Security Program.

Louis Freeh, former FBI Director.

Ellen Gordon, Associate Director and Faculty for the Naval Postgraduate School Center for Homeland Defense and Security.

Lee Hamilton, former congressman and vice-chair of the 9/11 Commission. 

Raymond Kelly, Police Commissioner of the City of New York.

John Magaw, former Under Secretary for Security at the Department of Transportation.

Jeff Moss, Founder and Director of Black Hat and DEFCON Computer Hacker Conferences.

Martin O’Malley, Governor of Maryland.  

Sonny Perdue, Governor of Georgia.

Harold Schaitberger, General President of the International Association of Fire Fighters.

Joe Shirley, Jr., President of the Navajo Nation.

Lydia Thomas, board member, the Cabot Corporation, the United States Energy Association, and the Northern Virginia Technology Council. 

Frances Fragos Townsend, former Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.

Chuck Wexler, former assistant to the Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

John Williams, Provost of The George Washington University (GWU) and Vice President for Health Affairs at the GWU Medical Center.

When these folks meet, is it wise to have a jihad fan sitting at the table, gaining intelligence, hearing their approaches to defense against terror?  Maybe if you think terrorism is just man-caused destruction, but if you’re sane, Shora would not be allowed anywhere close to their meetings.

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