† Obama Is Just About Every U.S. President All Rolled Into One!: The Washington Times observes that “[a]s Egypt’s regime totters on the verge of collapse, President Obama is looking less like Ronald Reagan and more like the Gipper’s predecessor, Jimmy Carter”:

 

The turmoil in Egypt is markedly similar to the revolution that gripped Iran 33 years ago. Egypt may be to Mr. Obama what Iran was to Mr. Carter.

 

President Carter’s emphasis on human rights in foreign policy set the stage for the 1979 revolt in Iran. Like Mr. Obama, Mr. Carter adopted a tone of moral superiority to the policies that had preceded him. When small-scale demonstrations began to break out in Iran in the fall of 1977, the State Department simply chastised the Shah’s government, which had been a firm U.S. ally, to get ahead of reform or get out of the way. This emboldened the oppositionists, a mix of liberal reformers and radical followers of the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini, who kept up the pressure. …

 

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton summed up the feckless administration stance when she said Sunday, “We’re not advocating a specific outcome.” This is a lose-lose position for Mr. Obama. If the opposition takes over, it is no thanks to him, and America will have no legitimacy dealing with the new government. If Mubarak stays in power, his regime might rethink its ties to a faithless ally in Washington. Apparently incapable of shaping events, the White House is making a virtue of necessity. When the time calls for action, Mr. Obama sits on his hands. …

 

The administration should immediately draw down the number of personnel in the U.S. embassy in Cairo. A hostage crisis may be the only part of this Carteresque rerun Mr. Obama can avoid.

 

For his part, Paul Kengor, professor of political science at Grove City College and a Ronald Reagan biographer, offers yet another example of how the Reagan and Obama have little in common in this Wall Street Journal op-ed:

 

On Jan. 29, 1981, barely a week into Ronald Reagan's presidency, the world got a no-nonsense education on how Reagan's America would differ from that of his predecessor. During the first press conference, ABC's Sam Donaldson asked the new president about Moscow's aims and intentions. Throwing diplomatic double-speak to the wind, Reagan calmly explained that the Soviet leadership had "openly and publicly declared that the only morality they recognize is what will further their cause, meaning they reserve unto themselves the right to commit any crime, to lie, to cheat." …

 

In the ensuing weeks, America's leading journalists—perplexed, offended—repeatedly pressed the new president for clarification. And so Reagan would clarify, again and again, saying of the Soviet leadership: "They don't subscribe to our sense of morality. They don't believe in an afterlife; they don't believe in a God or a religion. And the only morality they recognize, therefore, is what will advance the cause of socialism." …

 

In January 1981, the world needed a leader who indeed thought so, who dared to say so, and who was willing to do something about it.

 

† If At First You Don’t Succeed …: When it comes to its decade-long attempt to join the EU, Turkey is feeling like Charlie Brown being invited by Lucy to kick the football. Using a different sports metaphor, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan complains that “in the middle of the soccer game, the EU is “changing the penalty rules.” Turkey bid for accession is stalled, reports The Washington Times:

 

Both the Bush and Obama administrations have backed Turkey's bid. But inside Europe, the notion of an increasingly religious Muslim nation joining a club of secular countries with Christian roots has ignited fierce debates about European identity at a time when many EU member states are struggling to integrate growing Muslim minorities. Culturalist opponents of Ankara's bid note that if demographic trends persist, Turkey would soon overtake Germany as the most populous EU member. …

 

EU accession requires the 27-member body's unanimous approval, which gives veto power to small nations such as Cyprus. Europe's largest states, meanwhile, are split. The leaders of Britain, Italy and Spain all support Turkey's entry. But other power brokers, like French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have proposed a "privileged partnership" instead.

 

Seemingly unaware of the irony, Erdogan adviser Ibrahim Kalin tells The Times that, “[i]t will not be end of the world for us if we are not accepted into the EU, but if Europe becomes an intolerant continent, it will be Europe that will lose in the end. All great powers in history have lost their greatness when they turned intolerant."

 

† The Keystone Kops Are Enforcing U.S. Immigration Laws: In a speech at the University of Texas at El Paso - “just across the Rio Grande from Ciudad Juarez and the unprecedented wave of drug-fueled violence engulfing it” - Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano insisted that U.S. towns on the border with Mexico are safer than most Americans believe, reports The Associated Press:

 

[I]t's "inaccurate to state, as too many have, that the border is overrun with violence and out of control."

 

"This statement, often made only to score political points, is just plain wrong," said Napolitano.

 

This, just a few days after a copy of "In Memory of Our Martyrs," a hagiography of suicide bombers was found by a U.S. Border Patrol agent in the Arizona desert near the U.S.- Mexican border. FOX News reports that “[i]mmigration officials have previously discovered items along the U.S.-Mexico border from Middle Eastern origin, including Iranian currency in Zapata, Texas, and a jacket found in Jim Hogg County, Texas, that was covered in patches including an Arabic military badge that illustrates an airplane flying into a tower.”

 

† All The News That’s Fart To Print: Focusing on the case of a three-year-old who was kicked out of a pricey Arlington preschool because she wasn’t potty trained, The Washington Post reports that “[a]s schools push higher academic expectations down to ever-younger children … [s]ome schools want to maximize their focus on academics by restricting classes to the fully toilet-trained”:

 

[A] new movement [sic], called "elimination communication," is pushing to have infants as young as three months begin potty training. "Fast track," another controversial early-training method in which a child is saturated with drinks and then placed on the pot, is also growing in popularity. …

 

Mark Wolraich, director of the Child Study Center at the University of Oklahoma and author of the "American Academy of Pediatrics' Guide to Toilet Training," said children typically begin to toilet-train between the ages of 18 months and 4 years. Some learn quickly and others take months. Many learn, then regress. Accidents, he said, are common. Nearly a quarter of all 5-year-olds still have daytime accidents. Nighttime accidents can continue for much longer.

 

"A lot of the preschools allow or should be allowing for some accidents to be occurring," he said. "To expect kids to be perfect and not have any accidents is certainly not realistic."

 

Wolraich said toilet training, more than any other developmental milestone, has always been emotionally charged. The push for early training, he said, is more a reflection of parents' need for accomplishment than of any understanding of child physiology. "It's almost like a super-mom issue," he said. "There's not been any evidence that children who get trained earlier are any smarter or more accomplished later in life."

 

Maybe earlier toilet training correlates to being a Tiger Mother (penultimate item).

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (eighth item, There’s Many A Slip ‘Twixt The Cup And Lip): In a legal challenge to the individual mandate brought by 26 states, U.S. District Judge Roger Vinson struck down Obamacare, ruling that, “Because the individual mandate is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire act must be declared void," reports Reuters:

 

"Regardless of how laudable its attempts may have been to accomplish these goals in passing the act, Congress must operate within the bounds established by the Constitution," Vinson, who was appointed to the bench by Republican President Ronald Reagan, ruled.

 

The Obama administration said it would appeal Vinson's ruling and believed it would prevail on a highly politicized issue likely to end up at the Supreme Court.

 

"We strongly disagree with the court's ruling today and continue to believe - as other federal courts have found - that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional," Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said.

 

A White House official told reporters the administration planned to continue with implementation of the law. …

 

But the fact that the judge did not issue a stay of his ruling pending appeal by the government could threaten the application of many of the provisions of the healthcare law. …

 

States involved in the lawsuit were Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Washington, Iowa, Ohio, Kansas, Maine, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

 

The Washington Times gleefully notes that “Vinson used Mr. Obama's own position from the 2008 campaign against him, when the then-Illinois senator argued there were other ways to achieve reform short of requiring every American to purchase insurance”:

 

"I note that in 2008, then-Senator Obama supported a health care reform proposal that did not include an individual mandate because he was at that time strongly opposed to the idea, stating that, 'If a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house,'" Judge Vinson wrote in a footnote toward the end of his 78-page ruling Monday. …

 

The footnote was attached to the most critical part of Judge Vinson's ruling, in which he said the "principal dispute" in the case was not whether Congress has the power to tackle health care, but rather whether it has the power to compel individual citizens to purchase insurance.

 

The Wall Street Journal offers key excerpts from Vinson’s ruling.  

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (eighth item Restorative Capital Punishment): The New York Times explained why it will be decades before Steven Hayes is executed - if he ever is - for the murders of Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, and her daughters, Hayley, 17, and Michaela, 11. And if Tucson shooter Jared Lee Loughner is convicted on federal murder charges, Los Angeles Times explains the reasons his execution “would be far from assured": 

 

Most defendants initially targeted for death are more likely to spend their lives in prison. …

 

In some cases prosecutors drop the death penalty to assure a conviction. In others, juries sympathetic to some aspect of a defendant's life or wary of creating a martyr decide on life without parole. …

 

Only 24 Arizona prisoners have been executed in the last 35 years. And this doesn't include Viva Leroy Nash, who died of natural causes last year at the age of 94 after 27 years on death row.

 

Before federal prosecutors can seek the death penalty, they must get around a series of roadblocks.

 

Dennis K. Burke, the U.S. attorney in Arizona, is preparing a prosecution memorandum for the Justice Department's Capital Case Unit. He also must file a narrative of facts in the case, background on Loughner and his victims, and "views of [each] victim's family on seeking the death penalty," Burke said.

 

He is precluded from seeking death just to strengthen his bargaining position on a plea deal. Rather, he must convince Washington that the crime itself merits Loughner's death if he is convicted.

 

The unit studies the material and invites defense lawyers to participate as well. McNally said they almost always do, if for no other reason than it offers a sneak peek of the government's case against their client. …

 

Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. will make the final decision on whether to push for the death penalty. In a case of this magnitude, sources said, he most surely will grant the go-ahead.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (penultimate item, Garbage In, Garbage Out: Part II): NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg wants to fire 2,000 to 4,000 teachers who are getting paid for doing nothing and state lawmakers are trying to figure out a way around the state’s "last in, first out" law, reports the New York Post:

 

The plan, being discussed at the highest levels of the Legislature and with aides to Bloomberg, would grant the mayor the right to fire between nonclassroom teachers - including all those who formerly languished in the notorious "rubber room" under disciplinary charges.

 

The plan would also target members of the "absent teacher reserve pool" - which includes nonworking but on-the-payroll teachers from schools that have been shut down because of poor performance - and teachers assigned only to "administrative functions," sources said.

 

Bloomberg warned Friday that the city might be forced to lay off as many as 20,000 teachers because of a combination of a city revenue shortfall and the severe state budget cuts to be unveiled tomorrow by Gov. Cuomo. If the plan becomes reality, about 10 to 20 percent of teachers slated for layoffs simply because they were hired last would be spared. …

 

Cuomo and Senate Republicans have signaled they're open to such a measure, but Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) and his union-funded Democratic Conference have yet to weigh in.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (Now Is Not The Time To Talk About Race): The New York Times notes that “[m]any young adults of mixed backgrounds are rejecting the color lines that have defined Americans for generations in favor of a much more fluid sense of identity”:

 

Ask Michelle López-Mullins, a 20-year-old junior and the president of the Multiracial and Biracial Student Association, how she marks her race on forms like the census, and she says, “It depends on the day, and it depends on the options.” …

 

“I think it’s really important to acknowledge who you are and everything that makes you that,” said [Laura] Wood, the 19-year-old vice president of the group. “If someone tries to call me black I say, ‘yes - and white.’ People have the right not to acknowledge everything, but don’t do it because society tells you that you can’t.” …

 

Americans mostly think of themselves in singular racial terms. Witness President Obama’s answer to the race question on the 2010 census: Although his mother was white and his father was black, Mr. Obama checked only one box, black, even though he could have checked both races. …

 

Over dinner with Ms. López-Mullins one night, [Woods] wondered: “What if Obama had checked white? There would have been an uproar because he’s the first ‘black president,’ even though he’s mixed. I would like to have a conversation with him about why he did that.”

 

Absent that opportunity, Ms. Wood took her concerns about what Mr. Obama checked to a meeting of the campus chapter of the N.A.A.C.P. last year. Vicky Key, a past president of the Multiracial and Biracial Student Association, who is Greek and black, joined her. The question for discussion was whether Mr. Obama is the first black president or the first multiracial president.

 

Ms. Key, a senior, remembered someone answering the question without much discussion: “One-drop rule, he’s black.”

 

“But we were like, ‘Wait!’ ” she said. “That’s offensive to us. We sat there and tried to advocate, but they said, ‘No, he’s black and that’s it.’ Then someone said, ‘Stop taking away our black president.’ I didn’t understand where they were coming from, and they didn’t understand me.”

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, Is Armenian Genocide Denial Good For The Jews?): Propaganda flick "Valley of the Wolves - Palestine,” gives the Turkish side of the Israeli raid of a flotilla trying to break the Gaza blockade as told from the point of view of the protagonist Polat Alemdar, an undercover agent who makes it his mission to “hunt down and kill the Israeli commander who ordered the attack,” reports The Associated Press:

 

Israelis are portrayed as merciless tyrants who kill Palestinian women and children and long to take over Muslim lands to create a "Greater Israel" spanning from "the river Euphrates to the Nile."

 

The popular TV series "Valley of the Wolves," on which the feature-length film is based, already caused a diplomatic dispute between Turkey and Israel last year and Israel's ambassador Gabby Levy told Turkey's Anatolia news agency this week that the movie was slanderous.

 

It quoted Levy as saying that some "generalizations about the Jewish people, certain anti-Semitic approaches" were "disturbing."

 

Levy also expressed dismay that the film's special gala viewing on Wednesday and its Friday opening came around the same time as the Jan. 27 International Holocaust Remembrance day, which Turkey marked with an official ceremony at an Istanbul synagogue. …

 

The "Valley of the Wolves" series and films have a cult-like following in Turkey. But the films and TV series also have been sharply criticized in Turkey and in other countries for exulting nationalism, racial hatred and violence.

 

A 2006 prequel - "Valley of the Wolves - Iraq" - had Alemdar and his men battling U.S. occupying forces in Iraq. It became a box office hit in Turkey, despite criticism over the film's anti-American and anti-Semitic overtones, including a scene depicting a Jewish doctor harvesting organs from the dead.

 

† Updates To Previous Posts (fourth item, No One – Not Even Bush – Understands “The Bush Doctrine”): Here's a news item from The Wall Street Journal that validates Colin Quinn’s observation that people worldwide want American-style democracy when our culture was represented by the Beach Boys and The Mickey Mouse Club, but "Now, it’s Lil Wayne and Girls Gone Wild. Not everybody wants that.”:

 

Nazril Irham, 29, lead singer of a popular Indonesian band called Peterpan, was sentenced to 3½ years in prison and fined $28,000 for making and posting two sex tapes online “that triggered a national outcry and a public debate about morals. … One video shows him and his current girlfriend, a well-known actress. The other shows him with a former girlfriend, also an actress.”