Topic: 20 Jan 09: What the world wants from the new American president.

[Thucydides]

George Soros critisism is interesting; instead of hobbling the banks with regulation and leaving ownership responsibilities with the shareholders while directing the economic output (Fascism), Soros want the government to nationalize the banks and seize shareholder and depositor wealth (Communism). Suggesting Americans would find this popular is....interesting. The end result is pretty much the same, the only real difference is who (besides depositors) gets to feel the pain:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704089904575093760994295890.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Soros Criticizes Obama's Bailouts
   
By Luca Di Leo

WASHINGTON—Billionaire investor George Soros, who helped U.S. President Barack Obama raise money for his presidential campaign in 2008, said Sunday he wasn't happy with Mr. Obama's handling of the financial crisis.

Mr. Soros said the government should have taken over U.S. banks instead of bailing them out, a move he suggested would have been more popular with Americans.

"The solution that he found to the financial crisis, which was to effectively bail out the banks and allow them to earn their way out of the hole, was, in my opinion, not the right solution," Mr. Soros said in an interview with CNN. "He should have compulsorily replaced the capital that was lost."

After taking office at the start of 2009, Mr. Obama stuck to plans implemented by his predecessor George W. Bush to rescue banks by buying toxic assets from them and injecting capital into struggling lenders. As the financial sector recovered, the Obama administration put banks through stress tests to determine how much new capital they would need to withstand a severe recession, but steered clear of nationalizing them.

Mr. Soros said China took a better approach to dealing with the financial crisis by forcing its banks to increase their minimum capital requirements. He suggested that Beijing has in recent years been more successful in its handling of economic policy than the U.S.

He said the "market fundamentalist" belief prevailing in the U.S. that markets correct their own excesses was wrong, and criticized former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan for taking that line. Mr. Soros — who as chairman of Soros Fund Management, said he manages about $27 billion in assets — cited his own investment decisions as an example.

"When I see a bubble, I buy that bubble, because that's how I make money," he said.

Mr. Soros doubled his bet on gold at the end of 2009 as prices for the metal rose, a filing showed this month, a few weeks after Mr. Soros called gold the new asset bubble.

Mr. Soros said the U.S. and China needed to work closely to manage the global economy, calling recent signs of bilateral tension worrying. The two countries disagreed over how to tackle global warming during a meeting in Copenhagen recently, and have faced off over trade and currency issues. Mr. Obama met with Tibet's exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama of Tibet in the White House this month, despite official protests from China.

"Unless we stop it in the next few months, I think that we could yet fall back into a situation that prevailed in the 1930s, where each country is for itself," Mr. Soros said. He said trade protectionism was his top concern, in terms of the global economy's outlook.

Turning to Europe, Mr. Soros said worries about Greece's debt had exposed a flaw in the euro's construction, namely that the 16 euro zone countries, which share a single currency, had a common central bank but not a common Treasury.

"Either Europe now takes the institutional measures that are needed to make up for the deficiency or, in fact, it may not survive," said Mr. Soros. Soros Fund Management is one of several heavyweight hedge funds that are betting that the Greek-debt woes will push the euro lower.

In what he suggested was an encouraging step in the U.S. , Mr. Soros said Mr. Obama appeared to be taking a tougher political stance on issues, especially health care, after the Democrats lost a key Senate seat in January.

Republican Scott Brown won the Massachusetts special election to replace the late Sen. Edward Kennedy, in an upset win that cost the Senate Democrats their 60-vote supermajority and threw into question their ability to pass a sweeping health-care overhaul.

Mr. Obama unveiled a $950 billion health-care overhaul plan earlier this month, laying the groundwork for his party to try to push legislation through Congress without Republican support

"I think he got the message in Massachusetts," Mr. Soros said.

Write to Luca Di Leo at luca.dileo@dowjones.com

[Redeye]

Calling Soros a communist is pretty rich, given that he dedicated most of his life and a fair bit of wealth to fighting communism in Eastern Europe including his native Hungary, and to creating a smooth transition to free markets in those countries.  Interestingly, however, I get the impression the WSJ has slightly mischaracterized what Soros was talking about.  And by slightly, I mean in a FauxNews/WorldNetDaily kind of way.  Ironically, it was WND that clued me into this when it mentioned what Soros referred to, the Swedish banking crisis of 1992-93, because back in April it was something heavily talked about as TARP was unfolding.  Rather humourous, Soros was as I recall one of the speculators who targeted the SEK's fixed exchange rate, which forced the Swedish Central Bank to jack interest rates up with alarming speed to defend the krona), which in part precipitated the mess.  Soros made a lot of his wealth using his hedge fund to speculate on currency, using huge leverage to make fortunes off of the slightest arbitrage opportunities.

The part that this article is leaving out is crucial.  The "nationalization" was really just a recapitalization with some measure of state control - and more importantly - it was temporary.  An excellent explanation of the process is here:

http://www.clevelandfed.org/research/POLICYDIS/pdp21.pdf

The reason that the AMCs were organized and they were done in the described manner is ultimately fairly simple.  The liquidation process, if done suddenly, would have made things substantially worse, flooding an already saturated market with the variety of collateral assets the banks held, and making clear that the banks would never recover the value thereof, and the bailout cost as a result would be massive.

The Swedish economy rebounded faster than expected and the AMCs were then liquidated, spinning the banks back into the market once things were done.  It was a brilliant plan, and it worked.  The initial outlay was about 4% of Sweden's GDP.  Measuring the actual cost is a little more complicated because the liquidation recouped a lot of it, but the SEK was devalued by that point because it became a floating currency, and I haven't seen a detailed analysis, though there are people who make the case that the government actually profited or at least broke even on the deal by the time the process was completed in 1997.  That's why Soros advocated it, the guy's smart, and whenever people accuse him of being a socialist or a communist it only servces to prove they have basically no idea what they're talking about.

George Soros critisism is interesting; instead of hobbling the banks with regulation and leaving ownership responsibilities with the shareholders while directing the economic output (Fascism), Soros want the government to nationalize the banks and seize shareholder and depositor wealth (Communism). Suggesting Americans would find this popular is....interesting. The end result is pretty much the same, the only real difference is who (besides depositors) gets to feel the pain:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704089904575093760994295890.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

[Kirkhill]

George Soros is something of an enigma to me.

I can't make up my mind if he destroys economies for fun, profit or some other ulterior motive.  Is he intellectualy heir to Armand Hammer or to Sacco and Vanzetti?  At times he strikes me as something of an economic anarchist wishing a plague on both capitalists and communists.   

At the same time his anarchism is demonstrably capitalism.  He makes a fortune out of his "principles". 

Or perhaps he is like many other champagne socialists - assuaging his conscience while ensuring that he personally profits greatly.

[Thucydides]

Whatever Soros may believe in as a personal philosophy, his public utterances are advocating the Communist form of Socialism. I found it especially unnerving that he is quoted as saying nationalizing the banks would be "more popular" with the American people, especially considering the reception they have given the "nationalized" automobile companies.

Whatever Soros may have had in mind, the public perception is quite clear. As well, considering the way previous government efforts at dealing with regulatory failure have worked in the United States (look up the history and record of Resolution Trust sometime, or for that matter, the history of regulatory manipulation that caused the S&L crisis of the late 70's early 80's) and you probably would not be enamoured of nationalization of the banks either.

[Redeye]

What, and please be specific, does Soros advocate that suggests in any way that he's remotely in favour of Communism in any form?  And since when is communism a form of socialism?

Soros' first mentions of the Stockholm Solution as it it sometimes called rather clearly stated what he saw as the flaw in the idea - that the public wouldn't accept the idea, though mainly out of ignorance.  THat was in Apil 2009.  For as long as I've watched politics I've made the obseravation that this is quite true with many issues.  Worse, there is a tendency for the degree of passion one has for many issues to be inversely proportional to their understanding thereof.  Thos who carp the loudest about a lot of things tend to demonstrate a profound ignorance of what they're talking about.

As for Soros, Kirkhill, I agree, he is something of an enigma.  He has displayed an incredible ability to make tremendous wealth, but in doing so has indeed done devastating things to economies - though realistically, the only reason he was able to do so was on account of their mismanagement creating the opportunties.

Whatever Soros may believe in as a personal philosophy, his public utterances are advocating the Communist form of Socialism. I found it especially unnerving that he is quoted as saying nationalizing the banks would be "more popular" with the American people, especially considering the reception they have given the "nationalized" automobile companies.

Whatever Soros may have had in mind, the public perception is quite clear. As well, considering the way previous government efforts at dealing with regulatory failure have worked in the United States (look up the history and record of Resolution Trust sometime, or for that matter, the history of regulatory manipulation that caused the S&L crisis of the late 70's early 80's) and you probably would not be enamoured of nationalization of the banks either.

[Kirkhill]

I'm afraid that I am one of those that confuse and conflate socialism and communism, Redeye.

It may have something to do with Communards begetting the Socialist International and the Socialist International begetting the Communist International.  It could also have something to do with the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republic being run by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.  I could go on.

Communists and Socialists;  Marxist, Leninist, Stalinist, Maoist or Trotskyite;  Laski, Alinski or Gramsci......  all too alike for me to distinguish the differences.  It's like trying to differentiate sparrows.  Their differences are notable but too subtle for my poor mind to put into any semblance of order.    And Mussolini, Franco, Salazar and de Valera,  not to mention the German paperhanger (like the Scotch play, he must not be named) are equally subtle shadings of the same Genus.


As to Soros: I have stated before that I believe his real "genius" is being able to yell "FIRE" in a crowded theater and then profit from the ensuing panic.  He does this by making sure he buys a really big bullhorn.  Al Gore and Obama immediately spring to mind for some reason.

[S.M.A.]

In the wake of US health care reform being in the news, we have this- calls for immigration reform also resurface:

Rally organizers say President Barack Obama has failed to make good on a campaign pledge. They want immigration reform now. Tony Yapias of Utahns for Immigration Reform said, "You promised us. You promised us that you were going to address immigration reform in the first year, and we're in the second year and it hasn't happened yet."

Marchers want legislation that creates a legal way for undocumented immigrants to gain citizenship. Utah resident Iris Gonzalez said, "We want freedom. Cuz our people are held back a lot." Supporters for reform also want congress to remove some of the hurdles involved in bringing relatives from their homeland to the states. And they want improved workplace fairness. "Most people would like to have an opportunity to just work here. Work and live here without the fear of being deported," said Yapias.

Marchers wore white shirts to symbolize peace and justice. The scene was also a symbol of unity as people from diverse backgrounds joined in. "Jesus commanded that we love our neighbors. They're our neighbors, not our enemies and they have dignity," said Robert Comstock, a Utah Catholic.

Only a few people came to protest at the rally and oppose immigration reform. Their voices were drowned out by the sea of people saying it's time for change. Marcher Ruben Soriano said, "For a number of years we have been screaming, we are here, we are here, please do something."

Fox News link

[Thucydides]

What the world wants and what it gets are becomming very different things indeed:

http://article.nationalreview.com/430228/parochially-post-american/mark-steyn

Parochially Post-American

It wasn’t the “reset” button President Obama hit; it was the ejector-seat button.
 
Hillary Clinton, America’s secretary of state, was in Canada last week. She criticized Ottawa for not inviting aboriginal groups to a meeting on the Arctic, and for not including the facilitation of abortion in the Canadian government’s “maternal health” initiative to developing countries. These might seem curious priorities for the global superpower at a time of war, but, with such a full plate over at the State Department, it’s no wonder that peripheral matters like Iranian nuclear deadlines seem to fall by the wayside.

Stephen Harper, prime minister of Canada, took U.S. criticisms in his stride. “Whether it comes to our role in Afghanistan, our sovereignty over our Arctic, or ultimately our foreign aid priorities, it is Canada and Canadians who will make Canadian decisions,” he said. Judging from the chill in the room at his and the secretary of state’s joint photo-op, the Canadian Arctic now extends pretty much to the U.S. border.

The Obama administration came into office promising to press the “reset” button with the rest of the world after eight years of the so-called arrogant, swaggering Texan cowboy blundering his way around the planet offending peoples from many lands. Instead, Obama pressed the ejector-seat button: Brits, Czechs, Israelis, Indians found themselves given the brush. I gather the Queen was “amused” by the president’s thoughtful gift of an iPod preloaded with Obama speeches — and, fortunately for Her Majesty, the 160GB model only has storage capacity for two of them, or three if you include one of his shorter perorations. But Gordon Brown would like to be liked by Barack Obama, and can’t understand why he isn’t.

There is much speculation on the “root cause” of presidential antipathy to America’s formerly closest ally. It is said his grandfather was ill treated by the authorities in colonial Kenya in the 1940s, which seems as good a basis as any on which to reorder 21st century bilateral relations, or at any rate as good as the proportion of the Canadian overseas-aid budget devoted to abortion promotion. But I doubt insensitive British policing two-thirds of a century ago weighs that heavy on the president. After all, his brother back in Kenya lives on twelve bucks a year, and that doesn’t seem to bother him, so it’s hard to see why ancient slights to his grandfather would — except insofar as they confirm the general biases of his collegiate-Left worldview.

In that sense, those who argue that, having been born in Hawaii and been at grade school in Indonesia, he lacks the instinctive Atlanticism of his predecessors are missing the point. Yes, he has no instinctive Atlanticism. But that’s not because of a childhood spent in the Pacific but because of an adulthood spent among the campus Left from Bill Ayers to Van Jones, not to mention Jeremiah Wright. That also conveniently explains not just the anti-Atlanticism but the anti-Zionism, at least until the scholars uncover some sinister Jewish banker in Nairobi who seized the family home after the braying Brit-imperialist toff tossed Grampa Obama behind bars. Perhaps a singing Mountie yodeling selections from Rose-Marie beneath his jailhouse window all night explains the president’s revulsion to Canadian Arctic policy. Perhaps the Gujarati fakir sharing his cell and keeping Grampa up all night with his snake charming accounts for Obama’s 18-month cold shoulder to India. And you can hardly blame him postponing his trip to Australia given the lingering resentments after Grampa was bitten by a rabid wombat down by the billabong who then ran off with his didgeridoo.

Fascinating as these psychological speculations are, we may be overthinking the situation. It’s not just the president. The entire administration suffers, to put it at its mildest, from systemic indifference to American allies. It wasn’t Obama but a mere aide who sneered to Fleet Street reporters that Britain was merely one of 200 countries in the world and shouldn’t expect any better treatment than any of the others. It wasn’t Obama but the State Department that leaked Hillary Clinton’s dressing down of Prime Minister Netanyahu. Ally-belittling comes so reflexively to this administration that it’s now doing drive-by bird-flipping. I doubt Secretary Clinton intended to change American policy when she was down in Argentina the other day and out of the blue demanded negotiations on the Falkland Islands. I would imagine she is entirely ignorant and indifferent on the subject, and calling for negotiations seemed the easy option — works for Iran and North Korea, right?

As to Canadian funding of Third World abortion, the secretary of state was simply defaulting to her own tropes: If she sounds more like the chair of Planned Parenthood than the principal spokesman for American foreign policy, well, hasn’t she always? In a 2003 autobiography almost as long and as unreadable as the health-care bill, she offered little on world affairs other than the following insights: France’s Bernadette Chirac is “an elegant, cultured woman.” Nicaragua’s Violeta Chamorro is “an elegant, striking woman.” Pakistan’s Benazir Bhutto is “a brilliant and striking woman.” Canada’s Aline Chrétien is “intelligent, sharply observant and elegant.” But Russia’s Naina Yeltsin is merely “personable and articulate.” Alas, since taking office, the Obama administration hasn’t found Gordon Brown, Stephen Harper, Binyamin Netanyahu, Nicolas Sarkozy, Václav Klaus, or Manmohan Singh the least bit elegant, cultured, striking, elegant, brilliant, elegant, striking, elegant, sharply observant, elegant, or even personable and articulate.

One of the oddest features of the scene is attributed to the president’s “cool,” which seems to be the euphemism of choice for what, in less stellar executives, would be regarded as an unappealing combination of coldness and self-absorption. I forget which long-ago foreign minister responded to an invitation to lunch with an adversary by saying “I’m not hungry,” but Obama seems to reserve the line for his “friends.” Visiting France, he declined to dine with the Sarkozys. Visiting Norway, he declined to dine with the king at a banquet thrown explicitly in Obama’s honor. The other day, the president declined to dine with Netanyahu even though the Israeli prime minister was his guest in the White House at the time. The British prime minister, five times rebuffed in his attempt to book a date, had to make do with a perfunctory walk ’n’ talk through the kitchens of the U.N. Obama’s shtick as a candidate was that he was the guy who’d talk to anyone, anytime, anywhere. Instead, he recoils from all but the most minimal contact with the world.

John Bolton calls him “the first post-American president” and is punctilious enough to add that he doesn’t mean “un-American” or “anti-American.” In his Berlin speech, he presented himself as a “citizen of the world,” which, whatever else it means, suggests an indifference to America’s role as guarantor of the global order. The postponement of his Australian trip in order to ram health care down the throats of the American people was a neat distillation of the reality of his priorities: A transformative domestic agenda must necessarily come at the price of America’s global role. One-worldism is often a convenient cover for ignorance: You’d be hard pressed to find a self-proclaimed “multiculturalist” who can tell you the capital of Lesotho or the principal exports of Bhutan. And so it is with liberal internationalism: The citoyen du monde is the most parochial president of modern times.

— Mark Steyn, a National Review columnist, is author of America Alone. © 2010 Mark Steyn.

[mariomike]

In recent news with PM Harper.
"The finger wag that launched a thousand blog posts":
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/yahoocanada/100414/canada/the_finger_wag_that_launched_a_thousand_blog_posts

[Thucydides]

When Prime Minister Harper gets to play the Natural resources card, the Oil card or the Economic fundamentals card we'll see just who is getting the finger... 

[Thucydides]

Before and after:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703465204575208100160425826.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion

The Politics of 'Anything Goes'

"Even as we speak, there are those who are preparing to divide us--the spin masters, the negative ad peddlers who embrace the politics of 'anything goes.' Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America--there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America--there's the United States of America."--state senator Barack Obama, Democratic National Convention, July 27, 2004


"In the video message to his supporters, [President] Obama said his administration's success depends on the outcome of this fall's elections and warned that if Republicans regain control of Congress, they could 'undo all that we have accomplished.' 'This year, the stakes are higher than ever,' he said, according to a transcript of his remarks provided by Democratic officials. 'It will be up to each of you to make sure that young people, African Americans, Latinos and women who powered our victory in 2008 stand together once again. . . .' "--Washington Post, April 26, 2010

[Thucydides]

"A dream for some; A nightmare for others!" (Merlin speaking to Arthur in Excalubar):

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/  13 July 2010

“The Democratic party is the vehicle through which, after a populist interlude, the governing classes are proposing to take their country back. Obama is a restoration candidate but that doesn’t mean he has a plan. “ So wrote Christopher Caldwell in the last two sentences of his piece in The Spectator dated 29 October, 2008, Describing Obama as the restoration candidate for the governing classes may well capture a large part of the motivation behind a whole swath of people like Zuckerman.

Zuckerman, Bloomberg, and a very long list probably understood that Obama did not have enough experience. So much the better! Naturally, Obama would turn to the likes of them to help manage the country; except, it doesn’t look as if Obama and the people around him feel a great need for their help. If there is any shock to poor Mort, it’s that Obama, if only out of a sense of self-preservation, hasn’t recognized his need for the likes of him.

[Thucydides]

Irony:

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Mosque-supporters-beg-George-W-Bush-to-come-to-Obamas-rescue-100977179.html

Mosque supporters beg George W. Bush to come to Obama's rescue
By: BYRON YORK
Chief Political Correspondent
08/18/10 10:02 AM EDT

There's a new argument emerging among supporters of the Ground Zero mosque. Distressed by President Obama's waffling on the issue, they're calling on former President George W. Bush to announce his support for the project, because in this case Bush understands better than Obama the connection between the war on terror and the larger question of America's relationship with Islam. It's an extraordinary change of position for commentators who long argued that Bush had done grievous harm to America's image in the Muslim world and that Obama represented a fresh start for the United States. Nevertheless, they are now seeing a different side of the former president.

"It's time for W. to weigh in," writes the New York Times' Maureen Dowd. Bush, Dowd explains, understands that "you can't have an effective war against the terrorists if it is a war on Islam." Dowd finds it "odd" that Obama seems less sure on that matter. But to set things back on the right course, she says, "W. needs to get his bullhorn back out" -- a reference to Bush's famous "the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon!" speech at Ground Zero on September 14, 2001.

Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson is also looking for an assist from Bush. "I…would love to hear from former President Bush on this issue," Robinson wrote Tuesday in a Post chat session. "He held Ramadan iftar dinners in the White House as part of a much broader effort to show that our fight against the al-Qaeda murderers who attacked us on 9/11 was not a crusade against Islam. He was absolutely right on this point, and it would be helpful to hear his views."

And Peter Beinart, a former editor of the New Republic, is also feeling some nostalgia for the former president. "Words I never thought I'd write: I pine for George W. Bush," Beinart wrote Tuesday in The Daily Beast. "Whatever his flaws, the man respected religion, all religion." Beinart longs for the days when Bush "used to say that the 'war on terror' was a struggle on behalf of Muslims, decent folks who wanted nothing more than to live free like you and me…"

For the moment, with Obama failing to live up to expectations, Bush-bashing is over. It's all a little amusing -- and perhaps a little maddening -- for some members of the Bush circle. When I asked Karl Rove to comment, he responded that it means "redemption is always available for liberals and time causes even the most stubborn of ideologues to revisit mistaken judgments." But won't these Bush critics shortly return to criticizing Bush? "This Bush swoon by selected members of the left commentariat is temporary," Rove answered. "Their swamp fevers will return momentarily."

Bush himself has declined to comment on the mosque affair.

[Thucydides]

What the world gets:

http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball/2011/03/17/%e2%80%9cwhere-are-the-americans%e2%80%9da-tale-of-two-tsunamis/

‘Where Are the Americans?’ A Tale of Two Tsunamis
Posted By Roger Kimball On March 17, 2011 @ 4:49 am In Uncategorized | 74 Comments

On December 26, 2004, an undersea megathrust earthquake precipitated one of the deadliest natural disasters [1] in recorded history. With a magnitude of between 9.1 and 9.3, it was the third largest quake ever recorded. The resulting tsunamis, moving walls of water up to 100 feet high, slammed ashore in some 14 countries bordering the Indian Ocean, killing some 230,000 people [2].

By December 29, President George W. Bush had outlined a huge relief effort [3]. He said it was an “international coalition,” but the vital center [4]of the coalition was the United States Navy:

The U.S. military responded quickly, sending ships, planes, and relief supplies to the region.  Coordinated by Joint Task Force 536, established at Utapao, Thailand, the Navy and the Marine Corps shifted assets from the Navy’s Pacific Command within days. The rapid response once again illustrated the flexibility of naval forces when forward deployed.

The Navy deployed four Patrol Squadron (VP) 4 P-3 Orion patrol aircraft from Kadena, Japan, to Utapao to fly reconnaissance flights in the region and five VP-8 P-3s began flying missions out of Diego Garcia, British Indian Ocean Territory. The Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) Carrier Strike Group [including Shoup (DDG 86), Shiloh (CG 67), Benfold (DDG 65) and USNS Ranier (T AOE 7)] and the Bonhomme Richard (LHD 6) Expeditionary Strike Group [including Duluth (LPD 6), Milius (DDG 69), Rushmore (LSD 47), Thach (FFG 43), Pasadena (SSN 752) and USCG Munro (WHEC 724)] steamed to Indonesia from the Pacific Ocean. Marine Corps disaster relief assessment teams from Okinawa, Japan, flew in to Thailand, Sri Lanka and Indonesia, and were later joined by U.S. Navy Environmental and Preventive Medicine Units from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.  Lastly, a total of eleven ships under the Military Sealift Command (MSC) proceeded to the region from Guam and Diego Garcia.

At the UN, meanwhile, Kofi Annan interrupted his holiday to go to New York where he held a “media availability [5]” on the crisis. Annan, who frequently registered his “horror” and sadness at the event, appealed to the “international community” [6] for aid. Annan talked. The United States Navy said little but carried out scores of rescue operations and aid deliveries.

On March 11, 2011, an undersea megathrust earthquake erupted off the east coast of Tohoku, Japan. With a magnitude of about 9, it was the worst earthquake ever to hit Japan [7]. It triggered a tsunami some 30 feet high which devastated coastal areas. As of this writing, 10,000 are reported dead (some reports estimate the final figure will climb to 100,000) and 500,000 have been displaced. Property damage is enormous. The disaster severely damaged several nuclear power stations in the prefecture of Fukushima. To date, engineers have been only partially successful in cooling the nuclear fuel and containing radiation.

Within hours of the disaster, President Barack Hussein Obama …  went golfing [8]. Later, he had dinner with admirers from the liberal media. The next day, he outlined his predictions about who would win this year’s men’s and women’s basketball tournaments.

At Powerline [9], John Hinderaker [10] — citing a story from the Daily Mail [11] — quotes an associate professor at Chiba University:

I think the death toll is going to be closer to 100,000 than 10,000. Where is the sense of urgency? We need somebody to take charge. We’ve had an earthquake followed by fire, then a tsunami, then radiation, and now snow. It’s everything. There is nothing left. The world needs to step in. Where are the Americans? The Japanese are too proud to ask, but we need help and we need it now.

“Where are the Americans?” That’s the sixty-four-dollar question. Chaos in Egypt: “Where are the Americans?” Gaddafi in Libya: “Where are the Americans?” Devastation in Japan: “Where are the Americans?” I am in London for a few days. At a dinner party last night, that was once again the question: “Where are the Americans?” On Tuesday, U.S. debt jumped $72 billion [12] — in one day. What are the Americans doing about it? President Obama’s secretary of the Treasury insisted that Congress raise the debt limit [13] so that the government could borrow more. “Where are the Americans?” President Obama has managed the impossible-seeming feat of making a president of France appear decisive and effective.  Nicolas Sarkozy was the first Western leader to recognize the Libyan opposition. “Where are the Americans?”

Many months ago, I wondered in this space whether Obama’s behavior betokened incompetence or malevolence [14](noting, however, that the “or” need not be exclusive: he might be both incompetent and malevolent). On the domestic front, Obama’s activity is marked by arrogance, self-absorption, and policies that increase the power of government at the expense of local or individual initiative. In foreign affairs, his behavior is marked by contempt for America and moral paralysis.

“Weakness, incoherence, drift, indecision,” observes John Hinderaker, are “the hallmarks of the Obama administration.” The community organizer and junior senator is simply out of his depth.

Obama had not been in office long before comparisons with Jimmy “misery index” Carter began cropping up. We now know that a reprise of that disastrous administration would be, as Glenn Reynolds has frequently observed, the best-case scenario [15]. “Where are the Americans?” Conrad Black had the best analogy [16]: looking for Obama is like the children’s game “Where’s Waldo?” The difference is that when your little one actually finds the dopey-looking fellow with the striped shirt, spectacles, and sock-like hat, he’s won the game. The philosopher Rudolf Carnap used to make fun of Heidegger for treating the word “nothing” as a transitive verb: “das Nichts nichtet (nothing noths),” he was fond of saying. “Nothing,” that is to say, begets vacancy. Carnap thought it was nonsense. Barack Obama shows that it is brute political reality.  Barack Obama: President Nothing.

Article printed from Roger’s Rules: http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball/2011/03/17/%e2%80%9cwhere-are-the-americans%e2%80%9da-tale-of-two-tsunamis/

URLs in this post:

[1] deadliest natural disasters: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_natural_disasters_by_death_toll#Top_10_deadliest_natural_disasters
[2] some 230,000 people: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami
[3] a huge relief effort: http://articles.cnn.com/2004-12-29/us/bush.quake_1_tsunami-relief-efforts-warning-system?_s=PM:US
[4] vital center : http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq130-4.htm
[5] media availability: http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P3-772214221.html
[6] appealed to the “international community”: http://articles.cnn.com/2004-12-30/world/asia.quake_1_tsunami-death-toll-aceh?_s=PM:WORLD
[7] the worst earthquake ever to hit Japan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_earthquake
[8] went golfing: http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/hannity/transcript/obama-finds-time-ncaa-bracket-golf-amid-global-turmoil
[9] Powerline: http://www.powerlineblog.com
[10] John Hinderaker: http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2011/03/028615.php
[11] Daily Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366898/Japan-tsunami-earthquake-30-children-sit-silent-classroom-parents-vanish.html
[12] jumped $72 billion: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/debt-jumped-72-billion-same-day-house-vo
[13] raise the debt limit: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/03/16/us-usa-treasury-geithner-debt-idUSTRE72F7WQ20110316
[14] incompetence or malevolence : http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball/2009/03/05/incompetence-malevolence-or-both-or-why-obamas-policies-are-pink-not-green-with-a-coda-on-my-new-favorite-section-of-the-us-constitution/
[15] best-case scenario: http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/116826/
[16] best analogy: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/261666/state-obama-conrad-black

[Thucydides]

The Libyan adventure brings out the best in people  :

http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2011/03/to-the-shores-of-tripoli-benghazi.html?cid=6a00d83451b2aa69e2014e86d40593970d#comment-6a00d83451b2aa69e2014e86d40593970d

BLOG COMMENT OF THE DAY: What I Like About Obama.

    Obviously, the biggest problem with Bush was sending the military into an Arab Muslim country that hadn’t even attacked us. Among the several things that made that offensive were
    * the rush to war – it was only several months after the possibility of military involvement was raised that combat operations began
    * lack of United Nations sanction – only 17 relevant resolutions were ever passed before they were enforced
    * lack of Congressional oversight – the President authorized the use of military force based on the flimsy pretext of a bill passed by Congress titled “Authorization of the Use of Military Force”, rather than seeking a document that had the words “declaration of war” in it; that’s every bit as bad as getting no Congressional approval at all
    * obvious financial motives – clearly no one approved of the murderous dictator or sought a normal working relationship with him besides the French; at the same time, one couldn’t help but be suspicious of the fact that the population we were ostensibly protecting was located conveniently near the oil fields
    * stretching our military – we were overburdened as it was, and our brave military despite its courage lacked the resources for yet another operation
    * inflating our military – the only way to keep the bloodthirsty Pentagon beast fed was to give it the hordes of jobless young men who had no prospects in an economy that saw unemployment skyrocket above 4% in most states
    * ignoring our generals – the decision to go to war was made by political hacks who had never worn a uniform
    * inflaming the Arab Street – despite some touchy-feely talk about Islam, it was impossible for the Muslim world not to notice how the President made repeated, insistent proclamations of his Christianity, how he only ever used the military against Muslim targets, and how at the time the war started he’d kept the concentration camp at Guantanamo open for over a year
    * wasting money – it was completely irresponsible to commit the military to an expensive mission when the President’s fiscal mismanagement had resulted in a budget deficit of over $150 billion in 2002

    But anyway, what I really like about Obama is that he’s gone 29-3 in his bracket picks over the first two days. You have to spend a lot of time watching college basketball to be that good.

[Thucydides]

Some people are not too pleased. Watch this epic rant

[E.R. Campbell]

Maybe the thread title should be "What the world wants from an American president, again," and we might consider one of America's best but always overlooked presidents: Dwight Eisenhower. Ike is 'reviewed' in this article which is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the National Post:

http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/02/20/george-f-will-many-reasons-to-like-ike/

George F. Will: Many reasons to like Ike

George F. Will

Feb 20, 2012

Two coming developments, one dismal and one excellent, pertain to America’s memory of a great man. One of several oversight panels soon will consider a proposed memorial to Dwight Eisenhower. The proposal is an exhibitionistic triumph of theory over function — more a monument to its creator Frank Gehry, practitioner of architectural flamboyance, than to the most underrated president. Fortunately, on Tuesday comes Jean Edward Smith’s biography Eisenhower in War and Peace, which demonstrates why the man’s achievements merit a memorial better than the proposed one.

Filling four acres across Independence Avenue from the National Mall, the memorial will have a colonnade of huge limestone-clad columns from which will hang 80-foot stainless-steel mesh “tapestries” depicting images evocative of Eisenhower’s Kansas youth. And almost as an afterthought, there will be a statue of Eisenhower — as a boy.

Philip Kennicott, The Washington Post’s cultural critic, says the statue suggests Eisenhower “both innocent of and yet pregnant with whatever failings history ultimately attributes to his career.” Failings? A memorial is not an exhaustive assessment, it is a celebration of a preponderance of greatness.

Kennicott praises Gehry’s project because it allows visitors “space to form their own assessment of Eisenhower’s legacy.” But memorials are not seminars, they are reminders — that a person esteemed by the nation lived and is worth learning more about.

Kennicott says Gehry’s project acknowledges that “few great men are absolutely great, without flaws and failings.” Good grief. If Ike, with all his defects, was not great, cancel the memorial.

Kennicott celebrates the “relatively small representation of Eisenhower” because “there were other Eisenhowers right behind him, other men who could have done what he did, who would have risen to the occasion if they had been tapped.” How sweetly democratic: Greatness can be tapped hither and yon. But if greatness is so abundant and assured, it is hardly greatness, so cancel all memorials.

So far, the best remembrance of Eisenhower is Smith’s superb biography of one of three Americans (with Washington and Grant) who were world figures before becoming president. Eisenhower entered the White House having dealt with such demanding military men as John Pershing, Douglas MacArthur and George Marshall, then FDR, Churchill, Stalin (Eisenhower was the only foreigner ever to stand alongside Stalin atop Lenin’s tomb), de Gaulle and others in the excruciatingly complex task of conducting coalition warfare with the largest multinational force ever assembled.

Intellectuals and journalists, who are often the last to learn things, regarded Eisenhower as amiable and mediocre. He was neither. He was cold (see Smith on Eisenhower’s dismissal of his wartime companion Kay Summersby). He was steely (a three-to-four pack a day smoker, he quit when “I simply gave myself an order”). He was brutal (he used financial pressure to bring Britain to heel during the 1956 Suez crisis). He was subtle (he assisted de Gaulle’s seizure of power in France in 1944, contrary to FDR’s fervent wishes). He was audacious (he evaded Churchill by dealing directly with Stalin).

After Eisenhower quickly liquidated a stalemated war in Korea, no American died in combat during his presidency. Twice, concerning the French besieged at Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam and during the Formosa Strait crisis, he resisted — a president with less military confidence might not have — his most senior advisers advocating the use of nuclear weapons.

Smith is most mind-opening regarding Eisenhower on race. In February 1953, 15 months before Brown v. Board of Education, he vowed to use every power of his office to end segregation in the District of Columbia and the armed forces — two-thirds of Army units were still segregated five years after President Truman’s integration order. By October 1954, no more segregated units existed.

In 1957, he sent the 101st Airborne to integrate Little Rock’s Central High School. In 1958, he told the Red Cross to ignore a Louisiana law requiring that blood from black and white donors be segregated. This was in character: In 1942, when Australia desperately sought U.S. troops but said a law prohibited blacks from entering the country, Gen. Eisenhower said, “All right. No troops.” Australia quickly saw the light.

Smith, biographer of Lucius Clay, John Marshall, Grant and FDR, writes: “[Eisenhower] was buried in a government-issue, eighty-dollar pine coffin, wearing his famous Ike jacket with no medals or decorations other than his insignia of rank.” His memory should not be buried beneath a grandiose memorial that contributes only to the worsening clutter on and around the Mall.

Washington Post Writers Group

Both Democrats and Republicans might want to review their history and consider a time when we had "real men," not Madison Avenue made replicas like Gingrich, Obama and Santorum, in public life.

The decline started with JFK when style triumphed over substance.
 

[GAP]

By comparison.......PBS had a documentry on Clinton last night. It almost entirely focused on things he did wrong, rather than what he achieved.....Ah.....for an Ike today...........................

[Thucydides]

By comparison.......PBS had a documentry on Clinton last night. It almost entirely focused on things he did wrong, rather than what he achieved.....Ah.....for an Ike today...........................

Welfare reform? Bringing in balanced budgets? Sorry, that was the Republican House and Senate doing their "Contract with America" platform. President Clinton knew enough to go with the flow and claim credit for those, while dumping Hillarycare and redefining what "is" is...