THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Updates To Previous Posts
† Obama Is Just About Every U.S. President All Rolled Into One!: Newsweek’s Jon Meacham, who is working on a biography of George H.W. Bush, likens President Barack Hussein Obama to the elder Bush:
Like Bush 41, Obama seems temperamentally incapable of extremism. Now, since the foregoing sentence will make conservatives' heads explode, here is a final point likely to drive liberals to distraction: from Guantánamo to the bailout of the financial system to antiterror tactics, Barack Obama is a lot more like George W. Bush (or at least the George W. Bush of his later years in office) than almost anybody involved - including, I suspect, Obama or Bush 43 - would readily admit.
† Don’t Know Much About History, Don’t Know Much Foreign Policy: A series of missteps by the Obama administration’s has seriously undercut the goal of restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace talks by the end of the year, reports The Washington Post:
After nine months of shuttle diplomacy by U.S. special envoy George J. Mitchell, the gap between Israeli and Palestinian leaders appears to have grown, and it now includes not only a dispute over Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank, but also renewed tension over Jerusalem, disagreement over the framework for the talks and controversy over a U.N. report on alleged war crimes during Israel's offensive in the Gaza Strip last winter. …
Obama named Mitchell as his peace envoy just one day after taking office in an effort to demonstrate to Arabs and Europeans that he was deeply invested in achieving a peace deal. Mitchell was given instructions to set the stage for talks by negotiating a package deal that included an Israeli settlement freeze and incremental steps by Arab states toward normalization of relations with
But the settlement push backfired. It raised hopes among Palestinians, who began to demand nothing less than a full freeze, and led to severe tensions in U.S.-Israeli relations. Obama abruptly shifted course last month at the three-way meeting, calling for immediate talks, but it has since become apparent that both sides were dug in.
Mitchell is “hoping that the president's personal intervention and sense of urgency would produce results,” though one is hard pressed to grasp why either would compel Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu or Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to agree to terms or preconditions to which they are adamantly opposed just to make Obama look good.
† The Nobel Peace Prize? Really?: Bad enough President Barack Hussein Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize is widely regarded to be either “premature” (as though his administration’s muddled and inept foreign policy will bear fruit, if given enough time) or undeserved (Norwegian paper
The award of the peace prize to a sitting president is not unprecedented. But Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson received the honor for their past actions … As a member of the Nobel Committee explained, the prize should encourage Obama to meet his goal of nuclear disarmament. …
The five-member Nobel commission is elected by the Storting, the parliament of
Second, the president has indicated that he will give the prize money to charity, but that does not solve his legal problem. Giving that $1.4 million to a charity could give him a deduction that would reduce his income taxes by $500,000 - not a nominal amount. Moreover, the money is not his to give away. It belongs to the
Taking President Obama at his word that the Nobel award is "an affirmation of American leadership," Congress should allow him to accept the award. The prize money, which legally belongs to the
The authors note that the emolument clause also prohibited Obama from accepting the King Abdul Aziz Order of Merit from King Abdullah of
Editorial Note: The American Society of Magazine Editors has added a new category to its annual Best Cover Contest: Best Obama Magazine Cover. Which means that winners in the other categories (for instance, “Most Delicious” and “Best in Lifestyle”) are really subcategories of the category: Best Non-Obama Magazine Cover. [Hat Tip: NewsBusters]
† How ACORN Got Buried By “Squirrelly Right-Wingers”: ACORN has had close, long-standing relationships with key Obama administration cabinet members and advisors, reports the New York Times. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan has had close ties to New York ACORN Housing Company, White House political director Patrick Gaspard worked with ACORN in NY to set up the Working Families political party, and both Hillary Clinton, now Secretary of State, and Adolfo Carrión Jr. (now White House urban policy czar) both ran on the party’s ballot lines in their respective campaigns for the U.S. Senate, and Bronx borough president.
Now that ACORN is radioactive, the organization’s former NY head and current CEO Bertha Lewis tells the paper, “I can’t get near him”:
The arc of Mr. Donovan’s relationship with Acorn traces the broader trajectory of its affiliation with the Democratic Party, exhibiting how deeply the group has been enmeshed in urban politics in New York and other large cities and how members of the Obama administration have been put on the defensive over past relationships with the group.
The relationship between Democrats and Acorn has always been as productive as it has been uneasy. In Acorn’s 40-year history, its voter registration drives and policy proposals on behalf of mostly poor and minority constituents have often redounded to the benefit of Democratic politicians and policy makers.
But its hot rhetoric, frequently heavy-handed approach and occasional legal stumbles have just as often proved an alienating liability easily exploited by Republicans.
That is especially the case now, with the presentation of videotapes in which conservative advocates posing as a pimp and a prostitute elicited advice on tax evasion at Acorn-affiliated offices - including one in New York - bringing a new round of recriminations and investigations. Many of Acorn’s onetime Democratic allies, including Mr. Obama, appear to have fled its side.
† Updates To Previous Posts (third item, What It's Like To Be Sheriff Joe): Relying on a state smuggling law Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio conducted a crime and immigration sweep in Phoenix less than a day after federal U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Washington revoked his authority to make federal immigration arrests, reports The Associated Press:
"It doesn't bother me, because we are going to do the same thing," said Arpaio, whose deputies had arrested 16 people by Friday evening on unspecified charges. "I am the elected sheriff. I don't take orders from the federal government." …
Arpaio said the Bush administration had no complaints about his use of the special federal powers, but all that has changed with the Obama administration.
"What's changed?" Arpaio asked. "Politics has changed, because they don't like us going on the streets to catch illegals."
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