Posts For: January 2015
Mitt Romney and His Decision Not to Run
During the last few months of the 2012 presidential election, I took a leave of absence in order to work for Mitt Romney, after having gotten to know him in previous years. So I thought it might be worth offering some perspective on him in light of his decision not to run for the Republican nomination in 2016.
During the last few months of the 2012 presidential election, I took a leave of absence in order to work for Mitt Romney, after having gotten to know him in previous years. So I thought it might be worth offering some perspective on him in light of his decision not to run for the Republican nomination in 2016.
Governor Romney is one of the finest individuals ever to run for president. His basic decency and personal kindness are often mentioned, though too often in an obligatory manner. That shouldn’t be. Character is the paramount quality in a person, and Governor Romney is solid gold in that regard. His core integrity is the most important thing, I think, to know about him. It is telling that to a person, those who have worked for Mitt Romney speak about him in the most respectful and affectionate ways.
It was Mitt Romney’s fate to face a man who, as a sitting president, brought enormous advantages to the 2012 presidential race, which explains why so many other Republicans took a pass on it. Barack Obama has been a failure as a president, but he is a supremely gifted politician. He was born to run, and he ran a very effective — if brutal and dishonest — campaign against Governor Romney. Still and all, Governor Romney turned in the most impressive and convincing debate performance in modern presidential history, when even Mr. Obama and his aides conceded that the former Massachusetts governor trounced the president.
Governor Romney made some mistakes during the campaign for sure; he has been quite open about that. But the main problem, in my view, was our inability to convey to the American people the intellectual and personal qualities Governor Romney possessed that would have made him an outstanding president. The gap between who he is and how he was perceived was unusually wide. The very positive reception of the documentary Mitt indicated that the true Romney is enormously impressive and likable. And his love for America is deep and unqualified. It is impossible, for example, to think of Mr. Romney traveling to foreign capitals in order to denigrate the United States. As president he would never attempt to elevate himself at the expense of his country.
It’s worth considering, too, that Governor Romney won the nomination of his party despite not being a natural politician in the way, say, Bill Clinton was. Governor Romney excelled in business; that was what came most readily and easily to him. (I find it odd, and a bit troubling, that these days success, especially in business, is viewed by many people as something to hide and apologize for, rather than being evidence of hard work and human excellence.) For Governor Romney to succeed in politics required hard work of him. He did that, and more, and he rose higher than most politicians ever do. But it wasn’t an effortless climb; it took concentration of mind and will.
I’d add this: Governor Romney, in defeat, did not become resentful or embittered, as others have. He didn’t blame other people for his failure or become brittle. Instead, he accepted the loss with equanimity and class.
As time has passed, it’s become obvious to more and more people, I think, that in re-electing Mr. Obama over Mr. Romney, the American people made a significant error in judgment. That happens from time to time, and we have surely paid a price for that mistake, and will for some time to come.
Governor Romney would have loved to have been president and he possessed the qualities to excel at it. But from what I know about him, he doesn’t need the presidency to feel he has led a full and meaningful life. Which probably made his decision on Friday, as difficult as it must have been, easier than it might have been.
Is Iran Preparing for a Two-Front War Against Israel?
The outbreak of violence along Israel’s northern border appeared to have died down by the end of the week. Hezbollah claimed a victory with a cross border shelling that left two Israeli soldiers dead. For the moment that appears to be enough for them and their Iranian paymasters as they contemplate their next move in a struggle that is as much about defending the Islamist regime’s gains in Syria and its nuclear program as anything else. But for residents of northern Israel, the attack was a reminder that at any moment, their lives could be turned upside down by a decision taken in Tehran to either turn up the heat on the Jewish state or perhaps even launch a war. The same is true of those living within range of Gaza, where terrorists also rule. Though those who claim to be Israel’s friends speak of its security concerns as if they were fictions created by Prime Minister Netanyahu to justify his policies, this week’s events once more made it clear that a two-front war in which both missiles and terror tunnels will play a major role are threats that cannot be dismissed.
The outbreak of violence along Israel’s northern border appeared to have died down by the end of the week. Hezbollah claimed a victory with a cross border shelling that left two Israeli soldiers dead. For the moment that appears to be enough for them and their Iranian paymasters as they contemplate their next move in a struggle that is as much about defending the Islamist regime’s gains in Syria and its nuclear program as anything else. But for residents of northern Israel, the attack was a reminder that at any moment, their lives could be turned upside down by a decision taken in Tehran to either turn up the heat on the Jewish state or perhaps even launch a war. The same is true of those living within range of Gaza, where terrorists also rule. Though those who claim to be Israel’s friends speak of its security concerns as if they were fictions created by Prime Minister Netanyahu to justify his policies, this week’s events once more made it clear that a two-front war in which both missiles and terror tunnels will play a major role are threats that cannot be dismissed.
The aftermath of the dustup along the Lebanese border has been characterized mostly by renewed Israeli efforts to search for evidence of tunnels being dug across the border to facilitate more terror attacks. The construction equipment that has been reported in the vicinity of this week’s assault was widely assumed to be a sign that Hezbollah is preparing for more attacks perhaps this time aimed at killing and kidnapping civilians as well as soldiers.
The context was not just the usual tensions with the terror group but signs that Iran was upping the ante with Israel as it continued to refuse to budge in nuclear talks with the United States and its Western allies. Far from being separate issues, the ability of Iran to deploy its Hezbollah auxiliaries to pressure Israel must be understood as integral to its overall goal of seeking regional hegemony via the chaos in Iraq and the survival of its ally Bashar Assad in Syria.
Tensions with Hamas along Israel’s southern border should be seen in the same light.
Hamas has recently begun moving to renew its alliance with Iran after their split because they backed rival sides in the Syrian civil war. Assad’s victory was achieved with Iranian and Hezbollah help and Hamas has now conceded it made a mistake when it threw in with Saudi Arabia and Turkey to back the rebels.
But it too, has been using the respite since last summer’s war to rebuild. But the rebuilding has not been of the homes of Palestinians who were used as human shields by Hamas. Rather it has been rebuilding its military infrastructure of tunnels and shelters designed to protect its leaders, fighters and arsenal. Talk about international donors being slow to pay their pledges for the costs of rebuilding Gaza should be understood in the context of Hamas using as much of the aid as it can for its own purposes rather than to help those who languish under their despotic rule.
As for the residents of Gaza, Hamas isn’t completely neglecting them. As the Times of Israel reports, the ruling Islamist group has been operating camps for children in recent months. But the kids aren’t learning sports, fitness or arts and crafts. Some 15,000 teenagers have been undergoing terrorist training by the Izaddin al-Qassam, Hamas’s “military wing.” Many of them graduated the course yesterday.
Drills included weapons training and exercises simulating kidnapping IDF soldiers and infiltration into Israel through tunnels. Portraits of Israeli leaders were used in target practice for sniper training.
In case, the International Criminal Court is interested in investigating a real war crime as opposed to compiling charges against Israel for having the temerity to defend itself against terrorist assault, using children in this manner is an atrocity.
But the point of these two stories is that Israel must brace itself for a two-front war if Iran thinks it is in its interest to start one. That should cause President Obama to rethink his reckless pursuit of détente with Iran in which he has already sacrificed his former goal of dismantling their nuclear program. Further appeasement of Tehran will not bring peace to the region. To the contrary, Iran seems bent on expanding its reach and terrorism is the way to do it. With more daylight opening up between Washington and Jerusalem these days, the temptation for Iran to use the leverage it has acquired on Israel’s northern and southern borders may prove irresistible. If the U.S. wants to prevent such an outcome, it needs to be more realistic about the nature of its negotiating partner and more supportive of an ally that remains under siege from Islamist terrorists on two fronts.
Even After Speech Fiasco, Israel Will Survive Netanyahu-Obama Feud
It’s been a bad couple of weeks for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His decision to accept House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to address a joint session has brought down on his head the scorn of the American political establishment and press. But all is not lost for Netanyahu. There may be no good solution to his dilemma with respect to the speech to Congress and little hope that the Obama administration will do the right thing with respect to Iran, he remains the most likely person to emerge from Israel’s March election as the next prime minister. Though some may think that would be an even bigger disaster for his country considering that administration sources are spreading rumors that President Obama will never again meet with Netanyahu, no one should think such an outcome will be the end of the alliance or even such bad news for the prime minister.
It’s been a bad couple of weeks for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. His decision to accept House Speaker John Boehner’s invitation to address a joint session has brought down on his head the scorn of the American political establishment and press. But all is not lost for Netanyahu. There may be no good solution to his dilemma with respect to the speech to Congress and little hope that the Obama administration will do the right thing with respect to Iran, he remains the most likely person to emerge from Israel’s March election as the next prime minister. Though some may think that would be an even bigger disaster for his country considering that administration sources are spreading rumors that President Obama will never again meet with Netanyahu, no one should think such an outcome will be the end of the alliance or even such bad news for the prime minister.
Though Netanyahu’s American supporters continue to defend the idea of him giving such a speech, there’s no way to sugarcoat what has become a disaster for Israel and the prime minister. The blunder has not only made it easier for President Obama to divert attention from his indefensible opposition to sanctions that would turn up the heat on Iran in the nuclear talks. It has also enabled the White House to rally Democrats to oppose more sanctions, causing some to say that they won’t even attend Netanyahu’s speech out of loyalty to the president. Joining the gang tackle, some in the press are floating stories about Ambassador Ron Dermer, Netanyahu’s loyal aide and the person who helped cook up this fiasco with Boehner, being frozen out of future contacts with the administration.
But while, contrary to the expectations of some on the right, this hasn’t exactly boosted Netanyahu’s standing at home, neither has it caused his prospects for re-election to crash. Indeed, while his Likud Party seemed to be losing ground to the Labor-Tzipi Livni alliance that now calls itself the Zionist Camp, by the end of the week, polls showed that Netanyahu’s stock had gone up. A review of all the polls showed that Likud was either tied with Labor or edging slightly ahead.
More to the point, any way you look at the electoral math of the coming Knesset, finding a way for Labor leader Isaac Herzog to form a coalition, even one that isn’t particularly stable, seems highly unlikely.
Even if Herzog’s party manages to nose out Likud for the top spot in the March elections giving him the theoretical first shot at forming a coalition, his task seems impossible. A Labor-led coalition is theoretically possible but it would require the sort of coalition of not merely rivals but open enemies. Herzog must build his coalition with the joint Arab list — forcing him to rely on open anti-Zionists to form his “Zionist Camp” government — or the Ultra-Orthodox religious parties. It is impossible to imagine those two polar opposites serving together. But even if he eliminates one or the other, it’s equally difficult to see like Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid, Moshe Kahlon’s Kulanu or Yitzhak Lieberman’s Yisrael Beytenu, working with the Arabs. It’s equally hard to imagine how Lapid or Meretz, Labor’s natural ally on the far left, co-exist with the religious parties or how either scenario for a coalition could last.
By contrast, it will be far easier for Netanyahu to assemble a coalition consisting of the parties of the right and the center even without the religious parties though it is highly likely that he would opt for a Cabinet that included the ultra-Orthodox this time, giving him yet another strong, albeit quarrelsome government to preside over.
Thus, the odds are that sometime this spring, Netanyahu will be sworn in for a fourth term as prime minister, much to the chagrin of his sparring partner in the White House. But if Obama won’t talk to Netanyahu and is even pledging as one anonymous White House source claimed, to be willing to make the prime minister pay a price for his effrontery in opposing him on sanctions, won’t that be terrible for Israel?
The short answer is that it certainly won’t make for a cordial relationship. But it’s hard to see how it will make things any worse than they have been for the last six years.
After all, Obama has been sniping at and snubbing Netanyahu and his country ever since he entered the presidency. Obama has tilted the diplomatic playing field in favor of the Palestinians, undermined Israel’s claims to Jerusalem in ways no predecessor had done and even cut off the resupply of ammunition during last summer’s war with Gaza out of pique at Netanyahu’s government.
But in spite of this, the all-important security relationship continued. What’s necessary for the alliance to function is that the Pentagon and Israel’s Ministry of Defense communicate regularly, not the president and the prime minister. The same goes for the two security establishments, that continue to work well together.
In fact, it might be a very good thing for the alliance if Obama were to refuse to meet Netanyahu for the remainder of his time in office. Only bad things tend to happen when the two, who openly despise each other, are forced to come together. It would be far better for both countries for the leaders to stay apart, enabling their underlings to do what needs to be done to ensure the security of both nations. Were Obama to try and take revenge on Israel by supporting the Palestinians in the United Nations, it would harm the U.S. as much, if not more than it would Israel.
Netanyahu also knows that whoever wins in 2016, with the possible and extremely unlikely exception of Rand Paul, any of the possibilities to be the 45th president will be friendlier to Israel than Obama.
The issue of Iran’s nuclear threat will continue to hang over Israel and the alliance and Obama’s push for détente with the Islamist regime is a genuine threat to the Jewish state’s security as well as to that of moderate Arab governments. But once the current arguments about sanctions subside, as they inevitably will, Israel will carry on and Obama’s enmity notwithstanding, it will survive. Even a fourth term for Netanyahu will not change that.
Good News for Jeb; Mitt Wants to But Won’t
After surprising many political observers by spending the last month acting as if he was a candidate for president in 2016, Mitt Romney surprised us again today by announcing that he won’t run. Coming as it did after weeks of negative reviews about his proposed candidacy from top Republican donors and pundits, it’s not a total shock. That’s especially true coming as it did the day after we learned that David Kochell, a key supporter who had run Romney’s Iowa campaign in 2012, had defected to the Jeb Bush camp. Romney’s exit is a boost for Bush as well as making a Chris Christie run more likely. But even without Romney, the GOP race is still wide open.
After surprising many political observers by spending the last month acting as if he was a candidate for president in 2016, Mitt Romney surprised us again today by announcing that he won’t run. Coming as it did after weeks of negative reviews about his proposed candidacy from top Republican donors and pundits, it’s not a total shock. That’s especially true coming as it did the day after we learned that David Kochell, a key supporter who had run Romney’s Iowa campaign in 2012, had defected to the Jeb Bush camp. Romney’s exit is a boost for Bush as well as making a Chris Christie run more likely. But even without Romney, the GOP race is still wide open.
Though Romney’s message stated that he wasn’t going to run, it contained enough caveats to make it clear that he would have preferred to stay in and thought he was the best possible nominee. He’s right that his chances should not have been mocked. Even if he didn’t ultimately win, can anyone doubt that he would have raised enough money to run a plausible campaign or that he would have been the frontrunner in New Hampshire? Nevertheless, Romney made the right decision. By sparing himself a humiliating defeat next year, he preserves his standing as a party elder statesman even if he’d prefer to still be its leader. But his regrets notwithstanding, his absence from the field gives a clear advantage to Bush in the competition for establishment donors looking to keep the nomination from falling into the hands of a more conservative candidate.
But as I wrote last week, Bush’s status as the nominal front-runner is not discouraging a plethora of Republicans from jumping into the race even if many of them, such as Carly Fiorina and Senator Lindsey Graham, haven’t a prayer of actually winning. In particular, it will make it easier for Christie to make his case as the alternative to a third Bush presidency for mainstream Republicans even if the odds remain stacked against him winning.
Even without Romney, the crowded field makes for an unpredictable race. Unlike in 2012, when Romney easily defeated a group of obviously implausible presidential contenders, the 2016 crop of GOP candidates is filled with serious and potentially formidable candidates. Scott Walker, Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz will provide formidable competition for Bush and Christie while less likely candidates will also be heard from.
The Romney decision, just like Jeb Bush’s announcement about exploring a campaign last month, shows that the 2016 race is already in full swing. Those thinking about the presidency can’t hesitate too much longer. By the spring and certainly the summer, it will already be too late for anyone to make a competitive run. The two-year marathon for the White House has begun in earnest.
Scott Walker Rejects Your Premise
The conventional wisdom after Republicans lost two presidential elections to Barack Obama was that the GOP needed to concede the premise of certain Democratic talking points. Suddenly immigration reform became urgent enough for a prospective GOP candidate to lead the effort in the Senate. And even more suddenly, talk of inequality has emerged in conservative circles. But what if the conventional wisdom is wrong? What if, instead, Scott Walker is right?
The conventional wisdom after Republicans lost two presidential elections to Barack Obama was that the GOP needed to concede the premise of certain Democratic talking points. Suddenly immigration reform became urgent enough for a prospective GOP candidate to lead the effort in the Senate. And even more suddenly, talk of inequality has emerged in conservative circles. But what if the conventional wisdom is wrong? What if, instead, Scott Walker is right?
The Wisconsin governor is enjoying a bit of a boomlet right now, as Peter Beinart notes in a sharp piece on Walker’s unapologetic conservatism. And he’s earned it. He won three statewide elections in four years, and did so with national media attention and the concerted lunatic tactics of public unions (death threats, violence, compulsive Hitler comparisons) aimed at him and his supporters. He won comfortably and with a smile on his face. Walker never lost his composure and never stooped to the level of his fanatical liberal opponents.
None of this is news. What’s changed is that Walker has, in the last week, gone national. His speech at the Iowa Freedom Summit earned rave reviews, and was followed with what appears to be the first pro-Walker presidential ad. And everyone seems to have noticed what Walker’s opponents in Wisconsin have learned the hard way, repeatedly: he’s a formidable politician. This should worry his GOP rivals not only because of Walker’s win streak, but also because Walker is doing something many of them aren’t: he’s setting the terms of the debate instead of following the terms the Democrats have set.
A good example of how this plays out concerns Mitt Romney, who had been flirting with another presidential run. Romney was hurt by his infamous “47 percent” remark in which he appeared to write off voters he considered contentedly dependent on government. It became a catchphrase for the Republicans’ so-called empathy gap.
Before deciding to pass on running again, Romney had been trying to undo the lingering damage of the Monopoly Man reputation by expressing his concern for the poor. He was rewarded for stepping into this rhetorical bear trap with a giddy President Obama in full class warrior mode, as Politico notes:
“Even though their policies haven’t quite caught up yet, their rhetoric is starting to sound pretty Democratic,” Obama said of the Republicans during a House Democratic retreat. “We have a former presidential candidate on the other side and [who is] suddenly deeply concerned about poverty. That’s great, let’s go. Let’s do something about it.”
Even when trash talking, the president is not exactly a wordsmith. But the point, clumsy and juvenile though it is, shines through: whatever your policies, to simply care about poor people makes you sound “pretty Democratic,” as the intellectually cloistered president sees it.
This helps Democrats because even if Republicans come around to demonstrating the empathy they supposedly lack, it sends the message that the Democrats were right. Walker rejects the premise.
Beinart explains how the media missed this story until now:
Walker’s rise illustrates the pitfalls of media coverage of the GOP race. Not many national reporters live within the conservative media ecosystem. They therefore largely assume that in order to win over the non-white, female, millennial and working class voters who rejected John McCain and Mitt Romney, Republican presidential candidates must break from conservative orthodoxy, if not substantively, then at least rhetorically. Journalists are also drawn to storylines about change. Thus, when potential GOP candidates show signs of ideological deviation, the press perks up. After 2012, Marco Rubio garnered enormous media attention for his efforts at immigration reform. Rand Paul’s transgressions—whether on foreign policy, civil liberties or race—make headlines almost every week. In covering the launch of his new Super PAC, journalists made much of Jeb Bush’s discussion of income inequality and his fluent Spanish. Most recently, reporters have lavished attention on Mitt Romney’s new focus on the poor.
The lesson, as I interpret it, is that the press and the Democrats speak the same language. That’s not surprising; the mainstream press, especially during national elections, functions as a messaging office for the Democrats. Because of this, they just assume that in order to be a serious presidential candidate you have to be like them, like the Democrats.
Walker doesn’t agree. And he’s been extraordinarily successful of late by not agreeing.
Part of the media’s terrible coverage of national politics is the reliance on the personal: it matters to them who is saying it more than what is said. Romney got tagged as uncaring because he’s rich. But the classic conservative policies don’t reek of plutocracy when coming from the new crop of Republican stars, many of whom came from modest beginnings or are the children of immigrants, or both. Walker doesn’t even have a college degree, which itself is incomprehensible to modern Democrats, who are elitist and credentialist and genuinely don’t know what life is like in much of the country.
And neither does the media. Which is how someone like Walker could be so successful and still blindside the national press, who would struggle to find Wisconsin on a map. And it’s why Walker is a threat to other high-profile Republicans who have accepted the Democratic/media framing of the issues in order to make a national pitch. Only one of them can be right.
Steven Salaita Sues
I have written here before about the case of Steven Salaita. The University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign withdrew its offer of a tenured position in American Indian Studies to Salaita, an offer that had always been contingent on the approval of the Board of Trustees. That happened in August, after a series of disgusting public statements by Salaita, including one that wished Jewish settlers dead, came to the attention of the administration and the board. Salaita has now, not surprisingly, sued, hoping to compel the university to hire him. The university has announced that it will defend itself against Salaita’s “meritless claims” and has restated its position that “Dr. Salaita lacks the judgment, temperament and thoughtfulness to serve as a member of our faculty in any capacity, but particularly to teach courses related to the Middle East.”
I have written here before about the case of Steven Salaita. The University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign withdrew its offer of a tenured position in American Indian Studies to Salaita, an offer that had always been contingent on the approval of the Board of Trustees. That happened in August, after a series of disgusting public statements by Salaita, including one that wished Jewish settlers dead, came to the attention of the administration and the board. Salaita has now, not surprisingly, sued, hoping to compel the university to hire him. The university has announced that it will defend itself against Salaita’s “meritless claims” and has restated its position that “Dr. Salaita lacks the judgment, temperament and thoughtfulness to serve as a member of our faculty in any capacity, but particularly to teach courses related to the Middle East.”
It is a legitimate matter of controversy whether the University of Illinois, for which trustee approval of faculty appointments is so routine that it frequently occurs after the prospective hire has already started teaching, is liable, as a matter of contract law, for some of the losses Salaita suffered as a result of U of I’s actions. But Salaita is not just suing the University of Illinois. He is also suing unnamed donors to the University of Illinois.
It has long been a contention of Salaita’s supporters that he was undone not by his own recklessness but by wealthy (read: Jewish) donors who pressured the university to dump him. There is no question that a few people claiming to be large donors, along with many other students and alums, objected strenuously in writing to the hire of Salaita. Those few also suggested that they would stop supporting the university if it persisted in hiring Salaita. Chancellor Phyllis Wise also met with at least two donors who wanted to discuss Salaita with her. The complaint, however, offers no evidence that donor influence was decisive. Indeed, team Salaita’s smoking gun is a meeting that took place between a donor and Wise the day Wise issued a letter to Salaita informing him that she would not be sending his appointment to the board. But, as the complaint acknowledges, the board had already decided to “support a decision to terminate Salaita’s appointment” a full week before the meeting in question.
From these letters and meetings Salaita’s lawyers make out a complaint that the donors and administrators “conspired to accomplish an unlawful purpose by unlawful means.” Moreover, the complaint charges that the donors, who “had knowledge of the university’s contract with Professor Salaita and their commitment to complete his appointment,” are liable, under Illinois law, for “tortious interference with contractual and business relations.”
I am not a lawyer, but it does not take a lawyer to see that these charges are baseless. To prove the conspiracy charge, Salaita’s lawyers would have to show that the donor and administrator defendants reached an agreement and acted in concert to deprive Salaita of his rights. Though the complaint alleges precisely this, it does not even attempt to present evidence of agreement or concerted action. It is preposterous to describe the donors who complained about Salaita and the administrators and trustees who ultimately decided to part ways with him as engaged in a conspiracy. As for tortious interference, with contractual relations, the plaintiffs under Illinois law would presumably have to show, among other things, “(1) the existence of a valid and enforceable contract between the plaintiff and another; (2) the defendant’s awareness of the contractual relationship; (3) the defendant’s intentional and unjustified inducement of a breach of the contract; (4) a subsequent breach by the other caused by the defendant’s wrongful conduct.” But in this case, whether Salaita had an enforceable contract at all, in the absence of approval by the Board of Trustees, is a matter of dispute among legal experts.
Even in the case of tortious interference with business relations, on which the lawyers do not focus, the plaintiff would have to establish that the interference was independently wrongful conduct. Although Salaita’s lawyers would like to establish that threatening to stop providing charitable contributions to an organization is intimidation under the law, it hardly seems likely that they will be able to do so.
Presumably, Salaita’s lawyers want to send a message to donors; don’t demand anything of the colleges and universities to which you donate. Even someone who thinks, as I do, that colleges and universities should not allow donor pressure to influence their decisions on curricular or personnel matters, cannot but be struck by the audacity of Salaita and his radical supporters. It is as if they are saying not only to colleges and universities, where they rightly enjoy academic freedom, but also to society at large: “I loathe you and seek to destroy you. Now pay me.”
Perhaps philosophy and law professor Brian Leiter is right that the Salaita team is counting on the fact that even weaker elements of the complaint, if they survive the expected motion to dismiss, will allow discovery, requiring the university to disclose things about its interactions with donors it would rather not disclose. That prospect may induce U of I to settle with Salaita on more favorable terms than it is presently willing to offer him. May the court put a stop to it.
In Praise of Ted Cruz
In the past I’ve been critical of Texas Senator Ted Cruz, but in his questioning of President Obama’s choice for attorney general, Loretta Lynch–which occurred during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee–was not just skillful but superb.
In the past I’ve been critical of Texas Senator Ted Cruz, but in his questioning of President Obama’s choice for attorney general, Loretta Lynch–which occurred during her confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee–was not just skillful but superb.
Senator Cruz’s tone was respectful but firm. He stayed away from theatrics and polemics. He didn’t personalize the line of inquiry. In doing so, he kept the focus right where it needed to be.
But more than that, Senator Cruz exposed the lawlessness that is at the core of President Obama’s executive amnesty, and he did so in a logical, step-by-step manner. Senator Cruz started with the fact that Ms. Lynch supports what the president did, and then probed her thinking in order to find out what limits there are on the government’s power, if any at all. What he found is that there are none–at least none that are rooted in the Constitution and anything more than arbitrary parameters and presidential whim. If the president wants to provide amnesty to five million illegal immigrants, then why not 12 million? What’s to stop him? Senator Cruz wanted to know. Ms. Lynch had no answer.
What about the Obama administration printing millions of work authorizations in direct conflict with federal law? Is that a problem? Ms. Lynch was unwilling to say. And then Senator Cruz put forward a devastating hypothetical. Assume that in 2017 President John Cornyn instructs his secretary of the treasury not to collect any taxes in excess of 25 percent, based on “prosecutorial discretion.” Or that President Cornyn broadens his ambitions and decides, using the infinitely elastic Obama-era definition of prosecutorial discretion, he won’t enforce federal labor laws and environmental laws? Once again, Ms. Lynch had nothing to say, no defense to offer.
What Senator Cruz did was to reveal Mr. Obama’s utter disdain for the Constitution and what a fundamentally lawless and capricious president he is. He showed that Mr. Obama views himself in possession of kingly powers. And he demonstrated that there are simply no checks on government power, at least according to the legal theory that is guiding the Obama administration.
This is the progressive vision–radical, unmoored, dismissive of the Constitution, and indifferent to the rule of law–and it’s being realized in the Obama presidency. It’s to his credit that Ted Cruz exposed this in his short colloquy with the woman who wants to be America’s next attorney general.
Want to Reach Out to Minorities? GOP Must Prioritize School Choice.
Republicans continue to beat themselves up about their need to do better among minorities. But unfortunately for the GOP, most of the outreach that’s been tried seems to rest primarily on pandering, whether on immigration to Hispanics or thinking that merely showing up at a hostile venue, as Rand Paul has done, will be enough to win the votes of people who believe Republicans are inveterately hostile to their interests. But there is an issue of paramount importance to minorities, especially the poor, that is just waiting for Republicans to seize in the next election: school choice. With Democrats effectively chained to the teachers’ unions because of their financial support for their campaigns, the cause of giving parents the ability to take their children out of failing public schools is the true civil-rights issue of the 21st century.
Republicans continue to beat themselves up about their need to do better among minorities. But unfortunately for the GOP, most of the outreach that’s been tried seems to rest primarily on pandering, whether on immigration to Hispanics or thinking that merely showing up at a hostile venue, as Rand Paul has done, will be enough to win the votes of people who believe Republicans are inveterately hostile to their interests. But there is an issue of paramount importance to minorities, especially the poor, that is just waiting for Republicans to seize in the next election: school choice. With Democrats effectively chained to the teachers’ unions because of their financial support for their campaigns, the cause of giving parents the ability to take their children out of failing public schools is the true civil-rights issue of the 21st century.
A discussion of school choice as a civil-rights issue is something you aren’t likely to hear much about in the mainstream media. Indeed, outside of Fox News, you probably haven’t heard much about the issue, even in the week designated as “School Choice Week” by advocates. They got something of a boost from House Speaker John Boehner, a longtime supporter of the cause, who hosted an event on Capitol Hill that got almost no national coverage. But while racial hucksters like Al Sharpton and his enablers in the Obama administration seek to exploit violent tragedies to promote division, they pay little or no attention to the priorities of struggling families whose most urgent need is to provide a decent education for their children.
Indeed, it is a scandal that one of the most ambitious experiments in school choice—a vouchers program in the nation’s capital that gave underprivileged kids chances to go to good private schools such as the one that the First Family’s kids attend—was sunk by President Obama and a Democrat-controlled Congress in his first term. Around the country, families line up to take part in lotteries for chances for a place in charter schools and other alternatives to their local public institutions and face odds that generally range from one out of 300 or worse.
But long after it became apparent that competition and increased parental involvement made other choices—whether charter schools or private alternatives—give kids more of a chance to succeed, the teachers’ unions continue to obstruct or sink efforts to promote school choice. Wherever their Democratic Party allies prevail—whether in the White House or in places like New York City where Mayor Bill de Blasio has made good on his campaign promises to the unions and has worked to diminish school choice—children remain trapped and the nation suffers.
Without a good education, minority and poor kids have a dim future. Demonstrations against law enforcement and demonizing the police are a poor substitute for real hope, but that is exactly the bargain that the president and the rest of his party have been offering some of their most loyal voters.
GOP candidates who want to really reach out to minorities to need start and end with education reform that isn’t held hostage to unions that care more about tenure and avoiding holding poor teachers accountable for their performance. Democrats are chained to those unions. That is an opening Republicans should exploit.
Rather than paying lip service to the goal of outreach, conservatives need to realize that this issue is their best, perhaps their only, opportunity to break through to minority voters. Instead of letting it be a throwaway line in speeches with no follow up, they need to start prioritizing school choice from now until November 2016.
America’s Anti-Israeli President
I wanted to add to Jonathan’s post on President Obama and Israel, but perhaps sharpen some points just a bit.
I wanted to add to Jonathan’s post on President Obama and Israel, but perhaps sharpen some points just a bit.
The Obama administration is unusually petty and sophomoric. The attacks leveled against Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Ron Dermer, are part of a troubling pattern in which officials in the Israeli government–including and especially Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu–are vilified.
No world leader has been treated by President Obama and his administration with the contempt they have shown Prime Minister Netanyahu–from this snub in 2010 to being called a “coward” and “chickens*** prime minister” by senior administration officials.
But the problem goes much deeper than a personality clash. President Obama is, quite simply, anti-Israel. In every conceivable situation and circumstance, the president and his aides give the benefit of the doubt not to Israel but to its enemies. This despite the fact that Israel is among America’s longest and best allies, democratic, lawful, takes exquisite steps to prevent civilian deaths in nations committed to destroying it, and has made extraordinary sacrifices for peace. No matter; the pressure that’s applied is always applied most against Israel–even when, as in last year’s conflict with Hamas, Israel was the victim of lethal attacks.
This is morally shameful. In a world filled with despotic leaders and sadistic and ruthless regimes–North Korea, Iran, Syria, Cuba, Eritrea, Sudan, Somalia, and on and on–which nation alone does Mr. Obama become “enraged” at? Which is the object of his disdain? Which provokes his white-hot anger?
Answer: Israel. Has it struck you, as it has struck me, that with every other nation, including the most repressive and anti-American on earth, Mr. Obama is careful never to give offense, to always extend the olive branch, and to treat their leaders with unusual deference and respect? Except for the Jewish State of Israel. It always seems to be in the Obama crosshair.
Because this attitude is so detached from objective circumstances and the actions of Israel and the actions of the adversaries of Israel, something else–and something rather disquieting–is going on here. Mr. Obama wouldn’t be the first world leader to have an irrational animus against Israel. He’s not even the first American president to have an irrational animus against Israel. (See: Jimmy Carter.) But it is fair to say, I think, that no American president has been this consistently hostile to Israel while in office or shown such palpable anger and scorn for it and for Israel’s leader.
Perhaps given President Obama’s history–including his intimate, 20-year relationship with the anti-Semitic minister Jeremiah Wright–this shouldn’t come as a surprise. But that doesn’t make it any less disturbing.
Is It Already Too Late for Hillary to Delay Her Candidacy?
Timing is everything, so it’s no wonder Hillary Clinton is thinking hard about when she wants to go from being an informal candidate for president to a formal candidate for president. But one challenge she’s facing is that it may already be too late to adjust the calculus. The news that she is considering delaying her announcement shows why that is.
Timing is everything, so it’s no wonder Hillary Clinton is thinking hard about when she wants to go from being an informal candidate for president to a formal candidate for president. But one challenge she’s facing is that it may already be too late to adjust the calculus. The news that she is considering delaying her announcement shows why that is.
Politico broke the news this morning that Clinton, seeing no reason to jump in the race just yet, may wait until this summer, some time around July, to announce. It’s not surprising, since the previous times she was expected to announce have come and gone. She’s in a bit of a holding pattern right now; she could announce at any time, and so she never does. But now that she’s far enough into the prospective campaign, her decisions can’t really be made so quietly. To paraphrase the band Rush, if she chooses not to decide she still has made a choice.
The reason for her not to delay her announcement, in fact, is right there in the justification for it. To wit:
Hillary Clinton, expecting no major challenge for the Democratic nomination, is strongly considering delaying the formal launch of her presidential campaign until July, three months later than originally planned, top Democrats tell POLITICO.
The delay from the original April target would give her more time to develop her message, policy and organization, without the chaos and spotlight of a public campaign.
A Democrat familiar with Clinton’s thinking said: “She doesn’t feel under any pressure, and they see no primary challenge on the horizon. If you have the luxury of time, you take it.”
Advisers said the biggest reason for the delay is simple: She feels no rush.
“She doesn’t want to feel pressured by the press to do something before she’s ready,” one adviser said. “She’s better off as a noncandidate. Why not wait?”
There are two reasons here for her to delay her candidacy. One of them is correct but carries too much risk in acknowledging its truth. The other is probably wrong.
Take the first reason: she’s “expecting no major challenge for the Democratic nomination.” Unless Elizabeth Warren runs, which doesn’t seem all that likely right now, this is true. And the way you know it’s true is that it’s virtually impossible to claim any of the other candidates poses a threat to Clinton with a straight face.
Go ahead and try it: tell yourself that Martin O’Malley, or Jerry “Moonbeam” Brown, or self-described socialist Bernie Sanders, or Crazy Uncle Joe Biden stands in the way of Hillary’s coronation. It’s laughable.
But here’s the catch: Hillary can’t say that. The weak non-Hillary field has become part of the narrative of the election. So saying that she’s delaying her candidacy becomes a statement that she can afford to delay her candidacy because her opposition is a collective joke.
This could easily backfire. It could encourage someone else to jump in the race after Hillary does, on the theory that Clinton miscalculated. It could also breed resentment toward her for acting “inevitable.” And it’s possible it would spook the national party into remembering that when Hillary says she’s inevitable, she might actually be trying to paper over weaknesses that would emerge in the general election instead of in the primaries.
There is no surer way for Hillary to cement her reputation as an entitled legacy candidate and elitist with royal self-regard than to declare the field unworthy of her entrance until the crown has been fitted and polished. Even if it doesn’t attract additional candidates, it’s not a storyline she wants to help along.
The second reason was summed up by her advisor: “She’s better off as a noncandidate. Why not wait?”
But is she? I don’t think so. We’re living in a very different media universe even from the last time she ran. Case in point: the New York Times put a reporter on the Clinton beat in the summer of 2013. Soon after the move was made, Times public editor Margaret Sullivan noted that “Mrs. Clinton may consider her future up in the air, but The Times apparently does not. Or at least it’s hedging its bets.”
It was a smart move by the Times, and Chozick’s reporting has rewarded their bet on Clinton’s candidacy.
Certainly, the types of stories that get filed on Hillary from around the political press are different from the ones that would be filed were Hillary officially in the race. But they aren’t benefiting her. Clinton’s gaffes get covered now, and any policy debate allows her to work off the rust ahead of time.
Also, as I noted in December when the press was on her case over her speaking fees, we were going to get some ridiculous and unfair stories because reporters needed copy. Does Hillary want her early-campaign coverage to be shaped by tales of her demands for the provision of crudité and hummus and rectangular-shaped pillows at each commencement address?
Hillary has learned that she can’t bore the press into submission. And that there’s a danger in believing her own hype. At least that’s what she should have learned. Her most recent actions suggest those lessons have yet to sink in.
General Romney Refights the Last War
A year away from the first primaries in 2016 and without having actually declared for the presidency, Mitt Romney appears to be in full campaign mode. Yesterday he was at Mississippi State University for a speech and a photo op with the school’s successful football coach eating pulled pork sandwiches, the sort of stunt that one usually sees in an election year instead of the closed-door fundraising that generally characterizes campaign activities this far in advance of the voting. But Romney’s message was not only that he was interested in running. His main point is that he has learned the lessons from his defeat at the hands of Barack Obama. Romney joked about his wealth and talked about the need for outreach to minorities and working-class voters. Those are good ideas but the notion that correcting the mistakes of 2012 gives him a good argument for the presidential nomination next year is a fallacy. As much as the Republicans do need to learn from their errors, refighting the next war with the tactics that might won the last one is a mistake that failed generals always make.
A year away from the first primaries in 2016 and without having actually declared for the presidency, Mitt Romney appears to be in full campaign mode. Yesterday he was at Mississippi State University for a speech and a photo op with the school’s successful football coach eating pulled pork sandwiches, the sort of stunt that one usually sees in an election year instead of the closed-door fundraising that generally characterizes campaign activities this far in advance of the voting. But Romney’s message was not only that he was interested in running. His main point is that he has learned the lessons from his defeat at the hands of Barack Obama. Romney joked about his wealth and talked about the need for outreach to minorities and working-class voters. Those are good ideas but the notion that correcting the mistakes of 2012 gives him a good argument for the presidential nomination next year is a fallacy. As much as the Republicans do need to learn from their errors, refighting the next war with the tactics that might won the last one is a mistake that failed generals always make.
Most Republican activists as well as the pundit class haven’t given Romney much love since he made it clear late last month that he was interested in a third run for the presidency. But despite the negative reviews, Romney is still polling well in primary and caucus states. Even GOP voters who were never enthused about him in the first place regard him with some affection due to the strong fight he gave Obama and the fact that much of what he said in the campaign, especially about foreign policy, proved to be true. His critique of Hillary Clinton on a whole range of issues is also very much to the point. Nor can there be much doubt that he can raise all the money needed for a serious run even if Jeb Bush snatches up most of the establishment’s biggest donors. Mock him all you like but unlike many of those mentioned as possible candidates, Romney is a credible contender, especially in a crowded and highly unpredictable field.
But Republicans still need to be wary of the “I learned my lesson” routine.
Even if Romney does everything right that he did wrong the last time—and that includes not making gaffes that wrote off much of the electorate—that doesn’t get him very far in the next election.
Republicans may have needed a more minority-friendly candidate in 2012 and the same quality will be helpful in 2016. But the circumstances have changed.
In one major sense, that’s all to the good for the GOP. In 2012, they were up against a historic candidate who didn’t have to do or say much to justify support because merely voting for him made a lot of Americans feel good about correcting historic injustices. Obama’s electoral magic will not be on the ballot and even if Hillary Clinton will have her own brand of history that she will be trying to make as the first female president, it won’t have the same resonance with many voters as Obama’s efforts. Whereas Obama was a brilliant campaigner (albeit a poor president), Clinton is as much of a gaffe machine as Romney.
Moreover, Democrats won’t be running on hope and change with Clinton at the top of their ticket. Rather it will be an attempt to recycle the old Clinton magic with a feminist touch.
That is exactly why it would be a mistake for Republicans to run a recycled candidate against her.
Just as important, the assumption that Romney learning how to talk about his wealth or even his faith will help him win the next time is a profound misunderstanding of both the previous election and the next one.
Fewer such mistakes might have helped Romney in 2012, but even a perfect GOP candidate might have fallen short against Obama. Even more to the point, having a candidate who knows how to talk about being a plutocrat or even a millionaire investor isn’t the problem. The problem is avoiding nominating someone who can be falsely characterized as a member of the ruling class in this manner. The same is true in terms of minority outreach since those who were so offended by it or any other of his mistakes won’t forget Romney’s 2012 lurch to the right so quickly.
We don’t know yet what all of the most important obstacles to Republican victory will be in 2016. Each election presents its own set of challenges based on the circumstances of the moment and the dynamic of the candidates. But whatever the answer will be, obsessing about 2012 won’t get you even halfway to victory. Indeed, too much concern about the election that was recently lost almost certainly ensures that the next will also be a disaster.
Romney has earned a respectful hearing from Republicans. But the more he talks about last time and the tactics that would have won the last election, the less GOP voters should be paying attention to what he says.
Outsourcing Israel’s Security to Peacekeepers
Following yesterday’s attack by Hezbollah on an Israeli military convoy, in which two Israeli soldiers were killed, there have been growing concerns of a major escalation along the Lebanese border. During the exchange of fire between the IDF and Hezbollah that followed the attack, a United Nations peacekeeper was also killed. As fears grew that the attack by Hezbollah might signal the beginning of a major new conflagration to Israel’s north, the death of the peacekeeper was a reminder that in such circumstances the UN forces would be completely impotent in preventing such an escalation. Worse still, the UN in Lebanon will have contributed to the severity of any hostilities by allowing Hezbollah to have proliferated under its watch. This too should be a reminder of the ineffective nature of any international forces deployed on Israel’s borders.
Following yesterday’s attack by Hezbollah on an Israeli military convoy, in which two Israeli soldiers were killed, there have been growing concerns of a major escalation along the Lebanese border. During the exchange of fire between the IDF and Hezbollah that followed the attack, a United Nations peacekeeper was also killed. As fears grew that the attack by Hezbollah might signal the beginning of a major new conflagration to Israel’s north, the death of the peacekeeper was a reminder that in such circumstances the UN forces would be completely impotent in preventing such an escalation. Worse still, the UN in Lebanon will have contributed to the severity of any hostilities by allowing Hezbollah to have proliferated under its watch. This too should be a reminder of the ineffective nature of any international forces deployed on Israel’s borders.
UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, which was created during Israel’s first Lebanon war, was subsequently emboldened with a reinforced mandate following the second Lebanon war in 2006. As well as maintaining the peace in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL was also tasked with assisting the Lebanese army in consolidating Lebanese government sovereignty throughout that part of the country. This presumably should necessitate the rolling back of the mini-state that Hezbollah terrorists have created for themselves in Lebanon’s south. Yet not only has UNIFIL utterly failed in that regard, but there are also serious questions about whether or not UNIFIL has in fact been complicit in assisting Hezbollah in various ways. Most egregious of all was UNIFIL’s conduct during the second Lebanon war itself, when UNIFIL publicly broadcast the movements of the IDF, knowingly exposing Israel’s troops to attack by Hezbollah fighters.
Ever since 2006 Hezbollah has been remilitarising well beyond the levels it had reached prior to the second Lebanon war, and it has been doing it directly under UNIFIL’s noses. UNIFIL therefore has not only failed to assist with reasserting the authority of the Lebanese state in the south of the country; it has allowed for the unfolding of a situation that will almost inevitably undermine a key aspect of UNIFIL’s mandate: to ensure peace and security in that territory.
Even before war broke out in Syria, Hezbollah had–with the assistance of Iran–been drastically increasing its stockpiles of weapons, the range and force of its missile capabilities, and the numbers of trained fighters within its ranks. Then, when Hezbollah was brought into Syria to help Assad retain power, a new channel for the flow of weapons opened as Hezbollah was able to move some of Assad’s weaponry into Lebanon itself. Indeed, from the outset of UNIFIL’s renewed mandate in 2006, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan had always made clear that the force wouldn’t intervene to stop the flow of weapons from Syria unless specifically instructed to do so by the Lebanese government.
Just as UNIFIL would be completely incapable of preventing the outbreak of another war in Lebanon, so too have the UN personnel utterly failed in the Golan. This of course is in part because the international forces in that case primarily have an observational role. As such the strikes into the Israeli part of the Golan by Syrian rebels, and the Israeli retaliatory strikes, went on completely unimpeded by the UN troops there. However, the UN observer forces were at least supposed to keep the peace and prevent infiltration of the buffer zone that they control. Not only did they fail in this when the Syrian army began to engage rebels in the buffer zone, but in March 2013 21 Filipino peacekeepers managed to get themselves abducted by Syrian rebels. When the same happened to 45 Fijians in August of last year the UN’s forcers pulled back to the safety of the Israeli side and now carry out their work from Israeli lookout posts.
Given this abysmal record it is hard to believe that there are still those who would readily outsource Israel’s security to still more international peace keeping forces. Following this summer’s war in Gaza there had been talk of creating an EU force to police the Philadelphi corridor through which the majority of weapons are smuggled into Gaza from the Sinai. Still more alarming had been the proposal made during Kerry’s last round of peace talks that advocated for the IDF in the Jordan Valley being replaced with a foreign fighting force that would supposedly prevent a Palestinian state in the West Bank from becoming yet another terror hub.
From May 1967, when the UN willingly withdrew its peacekeepers from the Sinai so that General Nasser could remilitarize the territory in preparation for a war of annihilation against the young Jewish state, Israelis have always known that they need to be able to defend themselves by themselves. Quite apart from the fact that the UN appears to have a total disregard for the safety of Israelis–as seen with both UNIFIL and UNRWA–it will always be the case that international forces acting on behalf of international organizations, as opposed to national self-interest, will be woefully ineffective. A catalog of recent genocides are a sorry testament to the way UN forces are much better at observing and monitoring atrocities than they are at preventing them.
On the whole, most countries are simply not inclined to put their own troops at risk for the sake of other people’s peace and security. Israel knows this and should resist any pressure to outsource its security to coldly disinterested international forces in the future.
Obama Politicized Iran Sanctions; Not Israel’s Ambassador
Ron Dermer came to Washington in 2013 with a target on his back. Israel’s ambassador to the United States was a close associate of Prime Minister Netanyahu and lambasted as not only the “brain” of a leader widely disliked by liberal Jews but also tainted because of his former close ties with American conservatives. So it is not exactly a surprise that much of the criticism that has been focused on Netanyahu’s acceptance of an invitation to address a joint session of Congress on the issue of Iran sanctions is being directed at Dermer. But even if you think, as I do, that the decision to give the speech at this time is a mistake, it’s important to recognize that much of the opprobrium being hurled at the ambassador is deeply unfair. While Dermer is being accused of undiplomatic interference in U.S. politics and flouting protocol, it is the White House that has politicized an issue that would otherwise be a matter of bipartisan consensus, not the Israeli Embassy or even House Speaker John Boehner.
Ron Dermer came to Washington in 2013 with a target on his back. Israel’s ambassador to the United States was a close associate of Prime Minister Netanyahu and lambasted as not only the “brain” of a leader widely disliked by liberal Jews but also tainted because of his former close ties with American conservatives. So it is not exactly a surprise that much of the criticism that has been focused on Netanyahu’s acceptance of an invitation to address a joint session of Congress on the issue of Iran sanctions is being directed at Dermer. But even if you think, as I do, that the decision to give the speech at this time is a mistake, it’s important to recognize that much of the opprobrium being hurled at the ambassador is deeply unfair. While Dermer is being accused of undiplomatic interference in U.S. politics and flouting protocol, it is the White House that has politicized an issue that would otherwise be a matter of bipartisan consensus, not the Israeli Embassy or even House Speaker John Boehner.
Even Dermer’s predecessor Michael Oren–whose background was as a historian, not a political adviser like Dermer, and was therefore a less polarizing figure–learned that being the ambassador from a Netanyahu-led government was no easy task in Obama’s Washington. But Dermer was doubly handicapped because of his close ties with the prime minister. That’s ironic because being his confidant made him an ideal person to serve as an envoy to his country’s sole superpower ally.
Dermer is resented by the left-leaning figures that dominate Israel’s foreign ministry as well as by most of the members of Israel’s press corps in Washington, who lean left just like most of their American colleagues. If that didn’t place him behind the 8-ball, Dermer also had been involved in a memorable spat with the editors of the New York Times in 2011 when he publicly turned down their offer—on behalf of Netanyahu—of space on their op-ed pages because he rightly said the avalanche of anti-Israel pieces they publish made such a piece mere tokenism designed to cover up their bias.
So Dermer can hardly be surprised that the Times devoted a piece in today’s paper to piling on the ambassador.
Let’s acknowledge, as I have written a few times over the past week, that accepting Boehner’s invitation to address Congress on the issue of Iran sanctions was a blunder. Such a flamboyant intervention by an Israeli leader into a congressional debate in which the White House was on the other side was asking for trouble. It diverted attention from the president’s indefensible opposition to strengthening his hand in negotiations with Iran by making it clear that the Islamist regime would pay a high price for further delay and refusal to give up their nuclear ambitions. It allowed the administration to change the subject from its pursuit of détente with Iran to Netanyahu and undermined efforts to rally Democratic support for sanctions.
But even if we accept that Dermer and Netanyahu were wrong, it wasn’t the Israelis who politicized the sanctions debate. That was the fault of the White House.
Up until Obama entered the White House, opposition to Iran and support for sanctions was a matter of bipartisan consensus. Though his rhetoric about stopping Iran has always been good, the president has opposed virtually every sanctions bill that has been proposed, including some that he now brags about having brought Iran to the table. An overwhelming majority of both Houses of Congress comprising members of both parties have supported increased sanctions on Iran for the past two years. The only consistent opponent has been the president. It is he who has sought to make sanctions a partisan issue by leaning on Democrats to oppose the measure out of loyalty to him. He has also stooped to exploit the resentment many Democrats feel toward Speaker Boehner as a reason to back his stand on Iran. Though Dermer may have erred by not consulting with the White House about Boehner’s invitation, the decision to turn this into a major kerfuffle is purely a product of administration politics, not an understandable desire on the part of the Israelis to aid those backing sanctions.
Let’s also note the hypocrisy of many of his critics. The same people crying foul about Dermer and Netanyahu didn’t protest when British Prime Minister David Cameron lobbied members of the Senate on behalf of Obama’s stand on Iran. Some of those veteran American diplomats who are piling on are also guilty of having very short memories. One of the key witnesses against Dermer in the Times article is former State Department official Daniel Kurtzer who said it was unheard of for a diplomat to go behind the back of a country’s government and work with its domestic opponents. But Kurtzer and the rest of the peace processers who worked for a number of administrations over the last 25 years have been guilty of doing just that whenever a Likud prime minister was in power. Both Presidents Clinton and Obama have worked tirelessly to undermine and defeat Netanyahu throughout his three terms in office in ways that Dermer and his boss would never dream of trying to do to Obama.
Say what you will about the mess that Dermer and Netanyahu find themselves in and for which they bear some responsibility. But the prime minister’s scheduled speech has become a diplomatic cause célèbre due to the partisan political games being played by the White House, not the Israelis. It is Obama that is undermining the U.S.-Israel alliance by seeking to appease Iran, not the efforts of Dermer to rally Americans behind a stand that is in the best interests of both countries.
Conservatives and the War on Modesty
By now, you’re probably aware that first lady Michelle Obama did not wear a headscarf when she and President Obama met with new Saudi king Salman on Tuesday. You may have heard that this was a scandal; or you may have heard that it was not. You may have heard that this was practically revolutionary; or you may have heard that it was simply protocol. But whatever you’ve heard, there’s one question to which I’ve been searching, in vain, for a good answer: Why are we hearing anything about it at all?
By now, you’re probably aware that first lady Michelle Obama did not wear a headscarf when she and President Obama met with new Saudi king Salman on Tuesday. You may have heard that this was a scandal; or you may have heard that it was not. You may have heard that this was practically revolutionary; or you may have heard that it was simply protocol. But whatever you’ve heard, there’s one question to which I’ve been searching, in vain, for a good answer: Why are we hearing anything about it at all?
The fact of the matter is that Michelle Obama’s decision to forgo a headscarf was nothing new. Laura Bush did the same, as did Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton, etc. So why is it a big deal for Obama to follow in their footsteps? Here’s the Washington Post’s case:
But Obama is much more associated with clothes and fashion; she sets trends and boosts brands. And in the age of social media, she has an unparalleled global audience. …
Keep in mind that Michelle Obama does not make fashion choices lightly, particularly on the world stage. Her fashion choice comes as the late Saudi king Abdullah’s legacy on women is considered in light of the ascension of Crown Prince Salman to the throne.
Nonsense. I don’t have any desire to play armchair psychologist and go into the Obamas-Kennedys-Camelot fixation. But it is true that Obama received plaudits from both sides of the aisle for exposing her hair to the Saudis. Some women with roots in the Muslim world cheered her for what was treated as a silent protest on their behalf. On the right, politicians like Ted Cruz expressed their admiration. At Hot Air, Allahpundit supported the move but asked a more interesting question as to whether the significance was not in Obama breaking from the past but that she might be the last not to.
And this gets at the problem with celebrating this decision one way or the other: it’s just a different kind of conformity.
To be clear: I don’t think Michelle Obama should be forced to wear a headscarf in Saudi Arabia. But I also don’t think she should be pressured not to wear one. I simply don’t see what’s wrong with the choice–emphasis on choice–to cover one’s hair in a voluntary show of respect.
I get the opposition to bowing; it suggests subservience. But I don’t think the headscarf does, at all. I understand that many women in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere are forced to cover up, and that this is a form of subservience. But so is, by this logic, being precluded by law from wearing one, as was once the case in Turkey and which has been discussed in Western Europe, though in the latter case only a ban on covering the face tends to be politically viable. Covering the face is obviously different than covering the hair, and this difference is recognized throughout the world.
Covering the head, in fact, is something that religious cultures often require of the men as well as the women, and so a headscarf does not strike me as a violation of feminist principles, such as they are. (I’m an Orthodox Jew, and cover my head–though not my hair, and yes I acknowledge the difference there. And plenty of Orthodox men wear hats, covering their whole head anyway.)
Is it offensive when Barack Obama wears a yarmulke at the Western Wall? If not (and it isn’t), then it shouldn’t be offensive if Michelle Obama chooses to wear a headscarf in Saudi Arabia (though she didn’t). One mistake too many conservatives make is to conflate any outward expression of Islamic adherence with oppression. This strikes me as flatly wrong, and irrationally so: donning a headscarf voluntarily is not the same thing as being prohibited by law from driving, to take just one example.
Additionally, conservatives should stand athwart Western culture’s assault on modesty whenever they can. And they should also understand that such modesty, and religious adherence in general, can be as freeing as it appears constricting. It might not be that way for everyone, but eliminating certain superficialities from everyday interactions can be its own form of liberation. Linda Sarsour tried to make a similar point on MSNBC yesterday:
As you can see, I wear hijab. It is a choice for me to wear and cover my hair for religious observation; and I consider myself to be a feminist and someone who supports the upholding of all rights, specifically of women. So this conversation we’re having needs to be more about not obsessing over Michelle Obama wearing a headscarf or not wearing a headscarf — which she is not mandated to do or required in a place like Saudi Arabia, specifically in Jeddah. Also, she is wearing modest clothing, but she was not at a mosque, so she wasn’t required to wear it. But this conversation about, oh, she was standing up for women for not wearing hijab, what about women who do wear hijab, and who choose to wear hijab? I’m very proud of my religion, and my faith, and I’m very proud of the hijab that I wear.
Ostracizing modest dress and voluntary respectful gestures strikes me as a bizarre cause for conservatives (or anybody, really) to take up. And I would hate to see women who cover their hair depicted as anti-freedom by a Western society that claims religious liberty as a paramount value.
Defense Cuts Are a Bipartisan Disgrace
Defense spending is scheduled to be slashed by $40 billion for fiscal year 2016, which begins in October. That’s a cut that the armed forces can hardly afford as they grapple with challenges from the Ebola plague in Africa to the ISIS plague in the Middle East.
Defense spending is scheduled to be slashed by $40 billion for fiscal year 2016, which begins in October. That’s a cut that the armed forces can hardly afford as they grapple with challenges from the Ebola plague in Africa to the ISIS plague in the Middle East.
The military chiefs testified again yesterday about the cost of the cuts that have already been inflicted on their service. The litany is by now depressingly familiar: troops that can’t train, ships that can’t sail, aircraft that can’t fly.
The larger cost, as Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, noted, is a loss of trust among the troops: “As they see we’re not going to invest in them, [our soldiers] begin to lose faith. Sometimes we take for granted the level of ability of our people, and the level of investment we’ve made in their training, which is central to everything we do. With sequestration, we are going to have to reduce that for sure.”
Yet the outlooks for actually repealing or relaxing sequestration–the budget process that imposes mandatory cuts in “discretionary” federal spending–is at best uncertain. It’s true that Republicans took control of both houses of Congress in the last election, but there is no unanimity in their ranks over what to do about defense spending. The internal battle within the GOP pits budget hawks vs. defense hawks. Democrats, led by President Obama, are exacerbating the situation by insisting on spending increases for domestic programs and “revenue enhancements” (i.e., tax hikes) as the price of more defense spending–both anathema to the GOP’s fiscal conservatives.
The result: As Politico notes, the Pentagon is once again approaching a fiscal cliff.
Mind you, this is happening as the global security situation is getting worse: Islamist extremists are making major gains from Nigeria to Syria, countries from Libya to Yemen are in chaos, Russia is once again stepping up its aggression in Ukraine, Iran is continuing work on its nuclear program, and China continues its destabilizing defense buildup which, if left unchecked, will dramatically alter the balance of power in the Western Pacific. Yet our political class, on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue (with some notable exceptions such as John McCain and Mac Thornberry, the chairman of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees), prefers to avert its gaze and refuses to make the hard decisions necessary to fully fund defense.
This is nothing less than a bipartisan disgrace–and the men and women in uniform, whom politicians always profess to revere, will pay the price for the lack of leadership in Washington.
Shutting Up the Kochs Isn’t Democracy
The announcement by the Freedom Partners, the network of political fundraising groups supported by Charles and David Koch, that they would commit to spending $889 million in the 2016 election cycle was greeted with public dismay and private joy by Democrats. The Koch brothers’ efforts will be centered on statewide and national issue advocacy in 2016 and will likely rival the amounts spent by either major party. That opens the two libertarian siblings and their friends to charges that they are buying an election if not the presidency itself. Considering that the Kochs have been treated as public enemies by Democrats for the past few years, their spending plans will fit neatly into liberal talking points about campaign finance reform as well as the GOP being the party of the rich. But while there’s no denying that $889 million is a lot of money, the notion that such an amount can buy the presidency is absurd. So, too, is the implicit assumption that they and those who agree with them are the only ones spending megabucks on political advocacy. Even more to the point is the fact that the efforts of the left’s bulwark—the mainstream media—is left out of the discussion about campaign finance altogether.
The announcement by the Freedom Partners, the network of political fundraising groups supported by Charles and David Koch, that they would commit to spending $889 million in the 2016 election cycle was greeted with public dismay and private joy by Democrats. The Koch brothers’ efforts will be centered on statewide and national issue advocacy in 2016 and will likely rival the amounts spent by either major party. That opens the two libertarian siblings and their friends to charges that they are buying an election if not the presidency itself. Considering that the Kochs have been treated as public enemies by Democrats for the past few years, their spending plans will fit neatly into liberal talking points about campaign finance reform as well as the GOP being the party of the rich. But while there’s no denying that $889 million is a lot of money, the notion that such an amount can buy the presidency is absurd. So, too, is the implicit assumption that they and those who agree with them are the only ones spending megabucks on political advocacy. Even more to the point is the fact that the efforts of the left’s bulwark—the mainstream media—is left out of the discussion about campaign finance altogether.
Let’s concede that what the Kochs and their allies are doing gives them a very loud say in the political debate. But the notion that even $900 million in expenditures buys the White House is a joke. After all, both presidential candidates exceeded that amount in 2012 with Barack Obama’s reelection effort setting new records for fundraising. Though Democrats have blasted the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision as a blow to democracy, both liberals and conservatives have benefited from it.
That’s because it has allowed more political advocacy from all sorts of people and groups. For every Sheldon Adelson or Koch brother there’s a liberal billionaire like Tom Steyer or George Soros putting up equal or greater amounts to put forward their ideas.
Indeed, as I noted last year, the OpenSecrets.org site run by the left-wing Center for Responsive Politics compiled a list of the largest political donors in the period stretching from 1988 to 2014. It revealed that most of the biggest givers were in fact inclined to support Democrats and left-wing causes. Twelve of the top 16 names on the list were unions while the other four were business groups that gave to both parties. Koch Industries ranked a paltry 59th on that list. When all the contributions for the 2016 election cycle are added together, the Kochs and the other conservatives and libertarians who have joined forces with them may rank higher but you can count on unions and other left wing donors and groups shoveling just as much money at their favorites.
Moreover, the focus on the Kochs, who have been smeared by gutter politicians like Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid as “anti-American” for having the temerity to try and speak up for their belief in economic freedom, is especially hypocritical since the premise of these attacks is the notion that their political speech is somehow illegitimate. The reason why Citizens United is so opposed by Democrats and their mainstream media allies is that a system where political speech is limited by arcane campaign-finance laws is one where the liberal press and broadcast media—whose right to both editorialize and slant the news is protected by the First Amendment—are elevated and where conservatives voices are marginalized. Though this imbalance has been rectified somewhat by Fox News and talk radio, there’s little question that without Citizens United, the liberal establishment much preferred a situation where outside groups were effectively silenced, thereby tilting the political playing field in their direction.
Rather than seeking to shut up the Kochs, Sheldon Adelson, or, for that matter, Steyer or Soros, liberals should be welcoming a free market of ideas. They should also remember that though money gives a candidate a voice and a leg up, it couldn’t buy any election. Instead of seeking to restrict political speech, both parties should be welcoming more of it. The Kochs will have their say. So will liberals. In the end, the voters will decide and choose the arguments and the candidates they like best, whether or not the Kochs, Harry Reid, or the mainstream media likes the outcome. That’s called democracy. Critics of Citizens United and the Kochs should remember that shutting people up is called something else.
U.S. Must Connect the Dots Between Iran Talks and Hezbollah Violence
The instinct in Washington is to dismiss the latest flare-up in violence along Israel’s northern border as just another incident in a long-running cycle of violence involving Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Forces. The State Department will condemn the attack on Israel but it will call for restraint and calm. Their expectation, echoed in much of the media, is that once the smoke clears, the combatants will return to an armed and hostile truce enabling diplomats to concentrate on more important things like the administration’s pursuit of détente with Iran. But whether or not the shooting continues in the coming days, this incident, in which two Israeli soldiers were killed by terrorists firing over an international border, must be understood as intrinsically connected to the broader issue of U.S. relations with Iran and its nuclear program. The fighting is a wake-up call to the West alerting it to the fact that Tehran’s real purpose is not, as President Obama hopes, “to get right with the world,” but to dominate the region and threaten Israel and moderate Arab nations.
The instinct in Washington is to dismiss the latest flare-up in violence along Israel’s northern border as just another incident in a long-running cycle of violence involving Hezbollah and the Israel Defense Forces. The State Department will condemn the attack on Israel but it will call for restraint and calm. Their expectation, echoed in much of the media, is that once the smoke clears, the combatants will return to an armed and hostile truce enabling diplomats to concentrate on more important things like the administration’s pursuit of détente with Iran. But whether or not the shooting continues in the coming days, this incident, in which two Israeli soldiers were killed by terrorists firing over an international border, must be understood as intrinsically connected to the broader issue of U.S. relations with Iran and its nuclear program. The fighting is a wake-up call to the West alerting it to the fact that Tehran’s real purpose is not, as President Obama hopes, “to get right with the world,” but to dominate the region and threaten Israel and moderate Arab nations.
The border violence is generally being reported as part of a tit-for-tat exchange between Hezbollah and Israel. Today’s incident, in which anti-tank shells were fired at Israeli vehicles travelling on a civilian road from three miles away inside Lebanon, is seen by many as retaliation for Israel’s strike at a Hezbollah missile base inside Syria last week in which, among others, an Iranian general was killed. Iran has warned Israel that it would retaliate and it is thought that today is proof that they meant what they said.
But there is more to this than the need for Hezbollah to do the bidding of its Iranian paymasters or even for it to gain revenge for the death of the terrorists slain with Tehran’s ballistic missile expert, one of whom was the son of a slain commander of the group. The point of setting up that base in Syria, near the Golan Heights, was to create a launching pad to hit the Jewish state without bringing down the wrath of the Israel Defense Forces on Lebanon, as was the case during the 2006 war that was set off by similar cross-border raids. But the reason why Hezbollah and Iran were so interested in strengthening their ability to rain down destruction on Israeli civilian targets is that Tehran sees itself as being locked in a permanent war with Israel as well as with Arab states in the region.
This is more than obvious to anyone who pays the slightest attention to Iranian policy as well as its use of terrorists to advance its policy goals. Hezbollah is an arm of Iranian foreign policy as proved by its use as shock troops in the effort to preserve the rule of Tehran’s ally Bashar Assad in Syria.
This exposes the fallacy that lies at the heart of the current U.S. approach to Iran. President Obama is convinced that sooner or later he will be able to persuade the Islamist regime to accept a weak nuclear deal that will enable him to withdraw sanctions on the regime and start working toward an amicable relationship. The idea of such an entente is ludicrous since the ideology of the Iranian regime is implacably hostile to the United States. Moreover, their goal is not integration into the region but rather domination of it, something that will be facilitated once it becomes clear it is a threshold nuclear state (even if no bomb is actually constructed) as well as by its use of its Hezbollah auxiliaries and a renewed alliance with Hamas.
Seen from that perspective, the administration’s zeal for a deal with Iran is not merely misguided because Iran has no intention of abiding by any agreement and that it will use the nuclear infrastructure that the West seems poised to allow it to keep to continue a pursuit of a weapon. Rather, what makes it truly disastrous is that an embrace of Iran will encourage its adventurism in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, as well as along Israel’s northern and southern borders. An Iran that is permitted to become a nuclear threshold state will not only be vastly more powerful than it is today but in a position to directly threaten Israeli security and that of Jordan and perhaps even Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The fighting along Israel’s northern border is just a tease of what may come once Hezbollah is protected by an Iran that believes the U.S. has granted it impunity to pursue its aggressive agenda.
Instead of dismissing the border fighting, the White House should be realizing that it is headed down a perilous path in its pursuit of friendship with Iran. If it doesn’t turn back soon, today’s violence may be just a foreshadowing of the atrocities that will follow.
Presumed Guilty Until Proven Innocent
One of the worst things about many “human rights” organizations is the way they actually undermine some very fundamental human rights. A prime example is B’Tselem’s new report on Palestinian civilian deaths during this summer’s war in Gaza. Few people would disagree that the presumption of innocence is an important right, but when it comes to Israel, B’Tselem simply jettisons it. In fact, the group states with shocking explicitness that it considers Israel guilty until proven innocent.
One of the worst things about many “human rights” organizations is the way they actually undermine some very fundamental human rights. A prime example is B’Tselem’s new report on Palestinian civilian deaths during this summer’s war in Gaza. Few people would disagree that the presumption of innocence is an important right, but when it comes to Israel, B’Tselem simply jettisons it. In fact, the group states with shocking explicitness that it considers Israel guilty until proven innocent.
Take, for instance, one incident the report discusses, an attack on the a-Dali building in Khan Yunis. B’Tselem doesn’t mention any combatants being present, but an alert Jerusalem Post reporter recalled that Amnesty International had identified one fatality as a combatant. He asked about this discrepancy, and here’s his account of B’Tselem’s response:
Without addressing the specific incident, a B’Tselem representative said there were cases where the group suspected that fighters may have been involved, but it was only reporting their involvement where the evidence was hard and clear.
In other words, if B’Tselem isn’t certain whether the victims were combatants or civilians, it lists them as civilians and then accuses Israel of war crimes. In fact, it does this even if it “suspects that fighters may have been involved.” In short, it presumes Israel’s guilt unless proven otherwise.
Moreover, the report stressed repeatedly that B’Tselem “has no way of knowing” why Israel struck any particular target, and evidently, it doesn’t care. But as NGO Monitor pointed out, the “why” is crucial: If, say, the building was used to store weapons or launch rockets at Israel, then it was a legitimate military target. Without knowing whether the building was targeted legitimately or indiscriminately, it’s impossible to accuse Israel of war crimes–unless, of course, you simply presume Israel’s guilt.
But B’Tselem goes beyond merely presuming Israel’s guilt; it also deliberately omits exculpatory evidence. Take, for instance, the attack on the Kaware home in Khan Yunis. As the report accurately says, the family left after receiving an IDF warning, but other civilians subsequently entered, and the IDF realized this too late to abort its strike. What B’Tselem left out, however, was that those civilians came deliberately to serve as human shields for the building, which the IDF claimed was a Hamas command center. The surviving Kawares said this explicitly, and several prominent media outlets reported it at the time. “Our neighbors came in to form a human shield,” Salah Kaware told the New York Times. Yet this all-important fact–that civilians had deliberately returned to serve as human shields, a development the IDF couldn’t have predicted–was simply omitted from the report.
The same goes for the bombing of Beit Lahiya. As the report correctly notes, the IDF warned residents to evacuate, and many did. But others stayed, and some were killed. B’Tselem blames the IDF for this, saying, “Many had nowhere to go, as the military was conducting strikes throughout the Gaza Strip.”
But Palestinian human-rights activist Bassem Eid offered a very different explanation in a lecture at last month’s Limmud conference in England. According to his sources in Gaza, armed Hamas gunmen arrived and warned that anyone who left town would be considered a collaborator. And Hamas, as is well known, executes collaborators. So faced with a choice of certain death at Hamas’s hands or possible death at the IDF’s hands, residents who encountered those gunmen returned home.
Perhaps B’Tselem truly didn’t know this–in which case either its research is shoddy or its sources in Gaza are unreliable. Or perhaps, as in the Kaware case, it deliberately omitted this information. But either way, the result is the same: B’Tselem blamed Israel for a crime actually committed by Hamas. Had Hamas not prevented the evacuation, those civilians wouldn’t have died.
The report did acknowledge that Hamas stored arms in civilian buildings, launched rockets from civilian areas, and otherwise violated international law; it even admitted that this made it “extremely challenging … to avoid harming civilians.” So how was Israel supposed to have surmounted this challenge? That’s not B’Tselem’s problem; it “does not purport to offer the Israeli government or the military any operative plans for conducting armed conflict in Gaza.”
In other words, it admits that preventing civilian casualties under these circumstances is nearly impossible, but declares that unless Israel can accomplish the impossible, it effectively has no right to defend its citizens against a terrorist organization. And self-defense may be an even more fundamental human right than the presumption of innocence.
But in B’Tselem’s view, evidently, Israelis have no rights. They are only and always guilty.
Now It Can Be Told, Eric Holder Edition
Attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee today in her first step on the path toward confirmation. The key question around this initial hearing was about President Obama’s executive amnesty, not anything controversial in Lynch’s past or expected to arise in the near future. Which is why Lynch should know from the outset that her nomination is in good shape.
Attorney general nominee Loretta Lynch appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee today in her first step on the path toward confirmation. The key question around this initial hearing was about President Obama’s executive amnesty, not anything controversial in Lynch’s past or expected to arise in the near future. Which is why Lynch should know from the outset that her nomination is in good shape.
Lynch is a highly confirmable nominee, even in these times of political polarization. For the left, her identity-politics credentials are impeccable: she’d be the first African-American woman to be attorney general. Far more interesting is her appeal to the right. Democrats have initiated an unusual sales job to convince enough Republicans to approve her nomination. Their case for her, at least with regard to conservatives, involves throwing Eric Holder under the bus before he can clean out his desk.
Lynch is the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York. She is regarded as a tough and fair prosecutor, charming and up-front. But perhaps the best example of the way Democrats are convincing Republicans of her virtues is this New York Times profile of her from January 12. It begins with a story:
While interviewing aspiring prosecutors for jobs in the United States attorney’s office in Brooklyn, Loretta E. Lynch, an African-American Democrat who grew up in the segregated South, often poses a favorite question.
You are investigating a violent crime in a minority neighborhood. The crucial witness, a kindhearted grandmother, will not testify. The case hangs in the balance. What do you do?
Many applicants think they know the answer she wants. They offer thoughts on the challenges of policing troubled neighborhoods and the need for sensitivity to the concerns of witnesses. But in a soft voice bearing hints of North Carolina, Ms. Lynch tells them they are wrong.
“Nana’s going to jail,” she says.
What’s the upshot of this story? That Lynch is no hostage to racial grievance politics. That her pursuit is justice, not postmodern “fairness” or empathy before the law. That to her, the rule of law comes before political correctness or partisan accounting. She is, in other words, everything that Eric Holder is not:
Ms. Lynch, President Obama’s nominee to become the next attorney general, is easy to misread. Mr. Obama predicted that she would carry on the legacy of Eric H. Holder Jr., an African-American who proudly declared himself an activist and became the administration’s most outspoken voice on race.
But while Ms. Lynch shares Mr. Holder’s views on issues such as the strained relations between the police and minorities, her friends and colleagues describe someone cautious and comfortable staying in the background who sees her role as that of a traditional prosecutor and not a civil rights advocate. …
There is no doubt that Ms. Lynch is sensitive to issues of race and criminal justice, said Annette Gordon-Reed, a Harvard law professor, an old friend and one of the “triplets” at Cahill. But “she’s not an ideologue,” Ms. Gordon-Reed said. “She’s not going to do things to please some wing. She’s not a caricature of anything. She is a prosecutor.”
This is yet another installment of a game the media plays that sometimes rankles conservatives. It might be called, “Now it can be told.” It plays out like this: conservatives level an entirely accurate accusation at a liberal political figure; liberals respond that they are simply shocked at the level of incivility conservatives are inserting into our politics; when it becomes convenient later on, liberals tacitly acknowledge that, yes, conservatives were right all along, as they so often are.
Eric Holder was a terrible attorney general. But much of that was because he saw himself as a partisan actor. All attorneys general get accused these days of “politicizing justice,” so it doesn’t advance the argument much to claim that Holder was a special kind of toxic stooge. Though that’s pretty obviously true.
When Holder officially leaves his post, there will be numerous columns from the right-of-center press detailing his many, many failings as attorney general. This isn’t that column. Instead, I think it’s far more interesting to note the extent to which the left praises Lynch as the un-Holder.
The Times even does a kind of meta version of this today, writing that “Her allies have sought to differentiate her from Mr. Holder, an outspoken liberal voice in the administration who clashed frequently with Republicans who accused him of politicizing the office,” in an article that seeks itself to do precisely that, from a newspaper that has been the leading clearinghouse of such Lynch-Holder differentiation.
Eric Holder couldn’t get confirmed today, because he turned out to be precisely the kind of attorney general who believes in selective justice, personal vendettas, and self-righteous crusades that turn the country against itself. Of course, that’s the attorney general the left wanted, so they couldn’t be too honest with the country until he was confirmed.
But now there’s a serious, ethical, lawful, responsible nominee who just wants to do her job. And that is an entirely different kind of nominee from Eric Holder. So now it can be told–now, in fact, it must be told.
Obama Isn’t Worried About Iran Sanctions Vote Delay
Both sides of the debate about the nuclear talks with Iran are interpreting the letter from ten Senate Democrats sent to President Obama yesterday about holding back on a vote on increased sanctions as a victory for their position. Sanctions advocates believe the delay will enable wavering Democrats to join with Republicans and produce, once the March 24 deadline for an agreement with Iran stated in the letter passes, a veto-proof majority for a measure that will increase pressure on the Islamist regime to surrender its nuclear ambition. The administration, however, begs to differ. The president’s apologists think the willingness of Senator Robert Menendez to back off, even for only two months, on passing sanctions shows that the administration’s efforts to pressure members of Obama’s party into falling in line behind him are succeeding. We won’t know who is right until the end of March. But no one should scoff at the White House’s confidence that the stall will only strengthen their ability to find enough Democratic support to sustain a policy of Iran appeasement.
Both sides of the debate about the nuclear talks with Iran are interpreting the letter from ten Senate Democrats sent to President Obama yesterday about holding back on a vote on increased sanctions as a victory for their position. Sanctions advocates believe the delay will enable wavering Democrats to join with Republicans and produce, once the March 24 deadline for an agreement with Iran stated in the letter passes, a veto-proof majority for a measure that will increase pressure on the Islamist regime to surrender its nuclear ambition. The administration, however, begs to differ. The president’s apologists think the willingness of Senator Robert Menendez to back off, even for only two months, on passing sanctions shows that the administration’s efforts to pressure members of Obama’s party into falling in line behind him are succeeding. We won’t know who is right until the end of March. But no one should scoff at the White House’s confidence that the stall will only strengthen their ability to find enough Democratic support to sustain a policy of Iran appeasement.
On the surface, sanctions advocates look to be in a strong position. The proposed legislation, dubbed the Nuclear Weapon Free Iran Act of 2015, which was filed Tuesday night, is co-sponsored by Republican Mark Kirk and Democrat Robert Menendez and also has 14 other co-sponsors including Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and six Democrats. The bill will close loopholes in existing sanctions as well as make it even more difficult for Iran to go on selling oil. It will require any deal with Tehran to be submitted to Congress for review before the president can waive sanctions. However, the increased sanctions would not go into effect until July 6, five days after the current deadline for the talks passes, allowing plenty of time for diplomacy. Even more importantly, it includes provisions for a presidential waiver of sanctions on Iran if the White House is willing to claim it is in the national-security interest of the nation or if it would make a resolution of the issue more likely.
The extra two months of debate gives the administration several weeks to prove that Iran is serious about negotiating a deal that would truly end the nuclear threat rather than merely using the talks to stall the West. Moreover, the extra time can allow Democrats to say that they have given the president the opportunity to prove his point that diplomacy must be allowed to continue undisturbed by the possibility of more sanctions. If, as is almost certainly the case, the Iranians continue to stonewall Western negotiators, advocates of increased sanctions will be able to assert that the only thing that will prompt them to budge from their positions is the threat of even tougher sanctions on their economy. That should, at least in theory, be enough to motivate a considerable portion of the Democratic caucus as well as what it expected to be a near-unanimous Republican majority to pass a bill that would have more than enough votes to override a threatened presidential veto.
But no one should think the president is intimidated by any of this.
First, the delay until late March gives the White House plenty of time to work on Democrats to defect from the sanctions camp. As he showed us last year when a similarly overwhelming pro-sanctions majority was defeated by both former Majority Leader Harry Reid’s tactics and an administration disinformation campaign, the president is quite adept at marginalizing his foes and branding them as warmongers. He may be a lame duck, but he remains someone that most Democratic senators, with the possible exception of Menendez, don’t want to tangle with. Given enough time, Obama may be able to amass enough votes to sustain his veto.
But for all the tough talk emanating from Congress, it must be conceded that Obama has already won even before the debate really starts.
By changing the topic from his indefensible position opposing more pressure on an obdurate Iran to whether it was appropriate for the House to invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address a joint session of Congress, the president subtly changed the dynamic of the debate in a way that gave him a clear advantage.
Moreover, by forcing sanctions advocates to include the presidential waiver in their bill, the White House has included a poison pill that will, even if it survives his veto, enable Obama to ensure that its provisions never go into effect. As we have seen with the issue of immigration where he resorted to executive orders unilaterally granting amnesty to millions of illegal aliens to bypass the authority of Congress to change the law, this president has no compunction about governing on his own. Even if more than two-thirds of both the Senate and the House wish to impose tougher sanctions on Iran, the president is perfectly comfortably ignoring the will of Congress and allowing the nuclear talks to go on with Iran indefinitely.
The president’s unwillingness to countenance any additional pressure on Iran, even if such pressure is the only conceivable measure that might induce it to actually give up its nuclear infrastructure, has signaled again that his goal here is détente with Tehran, not an end to their nuclear program as he pledged in his 2012 foreign-policy debate with Mitt Romney. As with other issues that he considers important, he will not listen to Congress. The delay might produce a veto-proof majority for sanctions. But President Obama isn’t wrong if he thinks that none of this will halt his push to appease Iran even if the talks continue to go on indefinitely without a resolution.
February 2015
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Articles
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The Existential Necessity of Zionism After Paris
The Editors -
I Think That I Shall Never See a Jew As Lovely As a Tree
Tevi Troy -
The ‘Conversation About Race’ That Isn’t a Conversation
Noah RothmanTwenty years of talk about race obscures this country’s remarkable progress.
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Slandering Americans Who Fight for Israel
Daniel FleschLone soldiers face unfounded accusations of unsavory origin.
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The Return of North Korea
Michael Auslin -
Famous Actresses I Have Known
Frederic RaphaelA memoir, featuring Faye Dunaway’s cigarettes, Natalie Wood as Zelda Fitzgerald, and more.
Politics & Ideas
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The Sage of Araby
Sohrab Ahmari -
Father Abraham
Jeremy Rozansky -
Choosing the Chosen
Stephen Daisley -
Uncoupling
Naomi Schaefer Riley
Culture & Civilization
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WASP Without a Sting
Terry Teachout -
Madame Chaja
Jenna Weissman JoselitOn an exhibition about the little beauty giant Helena Rubinstein.
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A Disaster of Biblical Proportions
David Wolpe -
Don’t Kill Us, We’ve Taken Sensitivity Training
Matthew Continetti
John Podhoretz
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The Censors Win
John Podhoretz
Letters
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Why Pasternak Dared
Our Readers -
What FDR Could Have Done for Jewish Children
Our ReadersResponses to “‘Children in Europe are Europe’s problem!’” by Robert Slayton
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Ceding Europe to Extremists on Both Sides
Our ReadersResponses to “A Local Story of Global Jihad” by Annika Hernroth-Rothstein
Threat Assessment
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Will Palestinians Be Held Accountable?
Jonathan S. Tobin
Enter Laughing
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