What's the deal with gifts?

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton opened her first extended talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov by giving him a present meant to symbolize the Obama administration’s vow to “press the reset button” on U.S.-Russia relations.

She handed a palm-sized box wrapped with a bow. Lavrov opened it and pulled out the gift: a red button on a black base with a Russian word peregruzka printed on top.

“We worked hard to get the right Russian word. Do you think we got it?” Clinton asked.

“You got it wrong,” Lavrov said.

Instead of "reset," Lavrov said the word on the box meant “overcharge.”

Clinton and Lavrov laughed.

Hm. You work at the State Department, with thousands of native Russian speakers at your easy command.

You "worked hard" to get a fairly basic word right but got it wrong.

Excellent.

Unlike the Gordon Brown dis, this is just an error without much consequence.

However, it does demonstrate that none of these fucks have any idea what the hell they're doing.

Hillary could have called a native speaker of Russian, but apparently she decided to rely on, who knows, her good buddy Joe Wilson and BabbleFish.

Yes, it's a small thing... except Hillary intended it to be a big, charming, winning gesture. Which failed. Because she "worked hard" to get a word right but didn't think of making a phone call to an expert.

If they can't take the minute necessary to get the small things right, I don't see why I should have confidence they'll spend the hours and weeks necessary to get the big things right.

Thanks to anti-Harkonen Freedom Fighter Geoff.

Posted by: Ace at 12:49 PM | Comments (248)
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Can we blame this on Obama? Sure can.

At the very center of our economic near-depression is a credit bubble, a housing collapse and a systemic failure of the entire banking system. One can come up with a host of causes: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pushed by Washington (and greed) into improvident loans, corrupted bond-ratings agencies, insufficient regulation of new and exotic debt instruments, the easy money policy of Alan Greenspan's Fed, irresponsible bankers pushing (and then unloading in packaged loan instruments) highly dubious mortgages, greedy house-flippers, deceitful homebuyers.

The list is long. But the list of causes of the collapse of the financial system does not include the absence of universal health care, let alone of computerized medical records. Nor the absence of an industry-killing cap-and-trade carbon levy. Nor the lack of college graduates. Indeed, one could perversely make the case that, if anything, the proliferation of overeducated, Gucci-wearing, smart-ass MBAs inventing ever more sophisticated and opaque mathematical models and debt instruments helped get us into this credit catastrophe in the first place.

And yet with our financial house on fire, Obama makes clear both in his speech and his budget that the essence of his presidency will be the transformation of health care, education and energy. Four months after winning the election, six weeks after his swearing in, Obama has yet to unveil a plan to deal with the banking crisis.

What's going on? "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," said Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. "This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before."

Things. Now we know what they are. The markets' recent precipitous decline is a reaction not just to the absence of any plausible bank rescue plan, but also to the suspicion that Obama sees the continuing financial crisis as usefully creating the psychological conditions -- the sense of crisis bordering on fear-itself panic -- for enacting his "Big Bang" agenda to federalize and/or socialize health care, education and energy, the commanding heights of post-industrial society.

Clever politics, but intellectually dishonest to the core. Health, education and energy -- worthy and weighty as they may be -- are not the cause of our financial collapse. And they are not the cure. The fraudulent claim that they are both cause and cure is the rhetorical device by which an ambitious president intends to enact the most radical agenda of social transformation seen in our lifetime.

Shorter version: He's fixing the things that do not need to be fixed -- and even if they need to be fixed, they can certainly wait -- while he fucks about doing nothing much at all to stanch the economic bleeding.

But he claims that "fixing" health care is what the economy needs.

Funny, health care wasn't "fixed" ever before and yet we've had prosperity in most years.

Thanks to Mom.

And Here's What Obama is Up To: From Kaus, but actually quoting Ross Douthat:

Obama's spending proposals would ... create new spending commitments and run up large deficits, in the hopes that the dollars poured into health care and education will create a new baseline for government's obligations, which in turn will create the political space for tax increases on the middle class. Like the starve-the-beast approach, the Obama strategy puts off the hard part till tomorrow: Give them tax cuts today, conservatives said, and they'll swallow spending cuts tomorrow; give them universal health care, universal pre-K, subsidies for green industry and all the rest of it today, liberals seem to be thinking, and they'll be willing to pay for it tomorrow. ...

[I]f you can change the baseline of social spending that Americans expect from their government before that day of hard choices arrive - and once created, government programs are awfully hard to get rid of, whether they're actually effective or not - then you've tilted the landscape of negotiation in liberalism's favor, and ensured that a post-Obama entitlement compromise will look a lot more like social democracy than a pre-Obama compromise would have.

Even if one concedes that this is a legitimate ideological goal for The Leninist One to pursue, should he be pursuing it so vigorously when there's a thirty percent chance of the economy turning into a depression?

Yeah, thirty. A commenter tells me the economist who previously figured it at 20% has now upped it to 30%. It was 20% when the markets lost a quarter of their value; now that they've lost 50%, it's a 30% chance.

Roger Kimball is starting to wonder if this isn't mere incompetence but rather the whole plan.

Posted by: Ace at 11:23 AM | Comments (156)
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I've been a big fan of Jeff Goldstein for years. Back when I was just a timid commenter, Protein Wisdom was probably the first national blog that drew me to start leaving my pearls of wisdom in the comments section. He and his co-bloggers have mentioned, several times lately, that he gets bupkis in links from other PJM sites, with the AoSHQ mentioned prominently. I always tell myself "Russ, you should link to something Jeff or Dan says to show them some love.", but my intermittent access to the internet and the demands of the 1 year old who now runs my life always make me late to the party. Then I always pass on the link possibilities, because, well, "it's old" by the time I get involved. Not anymore. Until told to do otherwise, I'm going to look for opportunities to link to PW whenever I think it's a thought-provoking article.

Well, here's the link. The PW crew have been engaged in a sniping action with Patterico over how to treat President Hopeandchangey; with Patterico counseling respectful opposition while Jeff is more in the "kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" camp.

Me? I'm a simple Iowa farmboy who is frightened and confused by your big city ways. I agree with the old saying "You get more flies with honey than with vinegar", and I do feel, deep down, that stooping to the level of your vilest enemy can diminish your cause.

What I also understand is that those who refuse to engage in a fight will never win that fight, and that if a lie goes unchallenged for enough time it becomes the truth among the uninformed. Loyal opposition that is not reciprocated can reasonably be seen as capitulation.

So who's right? Damned if I know. Ignorant Iowa farmboy, remember? Anyway....go, read, comment; and if you do leave a comment, tell him that Russ at the AoSHQ said "hi".

UPDATE: Jeff has elevated one of his comments on the aforementioned thread to a stand-alone comment. Since the original thread is currently 400+ replies deep, it might be better to leave your comments here.

Posted by: Russ from Winterset at 10:03 AM | Comments (132)
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This is just too good to pass up. U.S. District Judge James Robinson is fed up with the frivolous birther lawsuits. The latest one, captioned "Gregory Hollister v. Barry Soetero" (so you know its crap right from the get-go?) was just dismissed. The judge also issued this memorandum, which is so good I want to dip my balls in it. Some of the good stuff:

This case, if it were allowed to proceed, would deserve mention in one of those books that seek to prove that the law is foolish or that America has too many lawyers with not enough to do. Even in its relatively short life the case has excited the blogosphere and the conspiracy theorists. The right thing to do is to bring it to an early end.

The plaintiff says that he is a retired Air Force colonel who continues to owe fealty to his Commander-in-Chief (because he might possibly be recalled to duty) and who is tortured by uncertainty as to whether he would have to obey orders from Barack Obama because it has not been proven -- to the colonelÂ’s satisfaction -- that Mr. Obama is a native-born American citizen, qualified under the Constitution to be President. The issue of the PresidentÂ’s citizenship was raised, vetted, blogged, texted, twittered, and otherwise massaged by AmericaÂ’s vigilant citizenry during Mr. ObamaÂ’s two-year-campaign for the presidency, but this plaintiff wants it resolved by a court.

The real plaintiff is probably Philip J. Berg, a lawyer who lives in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania, and who has pursued his crusade elsewhere, see Berg v. Obama, 574 F. Supp. 2d 509 (E.D. Pa. 200 , invoking the civil rights statutes, the Federal Election Campaign Act, the Freedom of Information Act, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the law of promissory estoppel. That case was the subject of a scholarly opinion by a judge who took Mr. Berg’s claims seriously –- and dismissed them. Mr. Hollister is apparently Mr. Berg’s fallback brainstorm, essentially a straw plaintiff, one who could tee Mr. Berg’s native-born issue up for decision on a new theory...

Mr. Berg and Lawrence J. Joyce, an attorney who lives in Tucson, Arizona, signed the complaint in this case. (They have been filing electronically although they have not been admitted pro hac vice, see [#10].) They are agents provocateurs –- and any attempt to sanction them for misuse of the public and private resources that have had to be devoted to this case would only give them a forum to continue their provocation.

The Court went on to issue an order to show cause why another lawyer involved, who is a member of the federal bar, should not be sanctioned for filing the frivolous lawsuit. He also noticed the attorneys to show cause why they should not be required to pay the President's attorney's fees for defending against the frivolous lawsuit.

Edited to add: Thanks to DrewM. for the tip.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 08:56 AM | Comments (451)
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In the Headlines thread I just said that, unless Olbermann Watch had missed it, Olbermann somehow managed to refrain from responding to Coulter.

He does the whole "we could take the same classes" thing I expected.

Apparently he went to the ag school just because it was cheaper than the actual Cornell. Yeah, that's why I didn't go to Princeton. And also why I didn't go to the Moon. The cost.

Thanks to Allahpundit.

Incidentally... I went to a college with this same sort of structure -- a more established, more selective college at its heart, with several other affiliated colleges (including an ag school) incorporated as part of the university.

Olbermann claims he's never heard other Cornell alums differentiate between the different colleges, and that they all believed themselves "equal."

No offense, Keith. You thought that because you were at the weaker, less-selective school. And you didn't hear it because people were just being nice.

Trust me, I heard a lot of this, and I didn't even go to a great school. But yeah, the people at the more-selective college did get annoyed when those from the less-selective colleges would claim to have come from our college. Like deliberately misstating which college they actually attended in the yearbook.

Petty, yes, but people are petty.

Again, I'm sure you, at the state ag school, thought you were all equals. The kids at the pricey, tony, more-selective Ivy private college didn't.

And that's not just Coulter -- that's all of them.

Incidentally, those attending night school at Cornell are getting a Cornell education, too. Does Keith consider them equals? Of course not -- in that case he's suddenly all distinction-drawing.

All of this is petty, again. But Olbermann makes his nut on petty distinctions between where people attended college. When it's pointed out that he actually did not attend a particularly selective or prestigious college, suddenly he wants to play the egalitarian "we're all equals here" card.

Um, right. Where was the egalitarian spirit when you were running down people who went to "Religious Lunatic University," Keith?

Posted by: Ace at 08:42 AM | Comments (117)
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The science is settled.

Posted by: Ace at 08:28 AM | Comments (41)
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It's something.

Thanks to CJ.

Posted by: Ace at 08:09 AM | Comments (30)
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That's the analysis from the San Fran Chronicle, but I don't think that's right.

I think the justices wish to appear as though they are genuinely willing to address the issue with an open mind -- and not knee-jerkedly reverse the decision of the voters simply because the voters disagree with them -- but will ultimately strike down the proposition.

In case you don't know, the legal challenge is this: An "amendment" to the constitution can be added by simple-majority ballot initiative, but a "revision" cannot be. And the anti-prop-8 lobby claims that by restricting the rights of a minority already enshrined in the constitution (enshrined, that is, by a narrow 4-3 vote of the state supreme court less than a year ago), this proposition amounts to a "revision."

So technically they're not considering the same legal question as they did last year. But who are we kidding. These guys are all outcome-oriented.

Susan Estrich notes it would only take one flipped vote to uphold the amendment -- but then, it only takes one of the anti-gay-marriage justices to flip to condemn it, too. Which one could do -- again, technically speaking, this is a different issue.

The California Supreme Court, which last year declared the right of gays and lesbians to marry, appeared ready Thursday to uphold the voters' decision to overrule the court and restore the state's ban on same-sex marriage.

"There have been initiatives that have taken away rights from minorities by majority vote" and have been upheld by the courts, said Chief Justice Ronald George. "Isn't that the system we have to live with?"

...

Another member of last year's majority, Justice Joyce Kennard, said the challenge to Prop. 8 brought by advocates of same-sex marriage involved "a completely different issue" from the court's ruling that the marriage laws violated gays' and lesbians' rights to be treated equally and wed the partner of their choice.

"Here we are dealing with the power of the people, the inalienable right, to amend the Constitution," Kennard said. Speaking to a lawyer for same-sex couples, she said those who want to overturn the voters' decision "have the right to go to the people and present an initiative."
...

Pressed to define the difference [between "amendment" and "revision"], Shannon Minter of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, lawyer for one group of same-sex couples, said that when a majority repeals a fundamental right from a group "historically subject to discrimination," that's a revision.

But George said voters had done just that in ballot measures that restricted school busing for integration and banned affirmative action based on race or sex in government programs.

Kennard said the right to life is at least as fundamental as the right to marry. She noted that the court, after declaring the death penalty unconstitutional in 1972, upheld an initiative that year overturning the ruling.

Kenneth Starr is lead attorney for the group which promulgated prop 8.

Posted by: Ace at 07:34 AM | Comments (22)
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Who says I never give Obama props?

I mean, sure, I could look at todays employment figures and gripe but that wouldn't be considered constructive dialogue, would it?

Instead, I prefer to find the silver linings in the many, many dark clouds that the Obama Administration seems to attract. And let me tell you something, my "Mongoloid conservative"* friends, silver linings futures are bullish indeed!

So when I see numbers like this:

The nation's unemployment rate bolted to 8.1 percent in February, the highest since late 1983, as cost-cutting employers slashed 651,000 jobs amid a deepening recession.

Both figures were worse than analysts expected and the Labor Department's report shows America's workers being clobbered by a wave of layoffs unlikely to ease in the coming months.

"There is no light at the end of the tunnel with these numbers," said Nigel Gault, economist at IHS Global Insight. "Job losses were everywhere and there's no hope for a turnaround any time soon."

I can't help but feel grateful that we are living in a historic moment not seen since the halcyon days of 1983! I'll be able to tell my date tonight, FoxNews' Suzanne Sena, that times haven't been this bad since before she was born!

Y'all don't think she's yanking my chain, do you? Her Match.com profile said she was only 25. And I believe it! I really, really do.

In any event, thanks Obama! Now my topics for opportune dinner conversation this evening will be plentiful, indeed.

*Used in the Dreherian sense.

Posted by: Jack M. at 07:23 AM | Comments (54)
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But not dwarvish. Deranged Clintonite Robert Reich fears the coming mobs with pitchforks and torches who will storm the White House if the Obama's cunning plan to keep tossing bales of $100 bills on the fire doesn't work out.

Republicans have made no secret of their wish to blame Obama for the bad economy, and to stir up as much populist rage against his so-called socialist tendencies as politically possible. History shows how effective demagogic ravings can be when a public is stressed economically. Make no mistake: Angry right-wing populism lurks just below the surface of the terrible American economy, ready to be launched not only at Obama but also at liberals, intellectuals, gays, blacks, Jews, the mainstream media, coastal elites, crypto socialists, and any other potential target of paranoid opportunity.

Great blistering Jesus this guy has an amazing ability to project. The left is far and away the holder of more biases and hatreds than the right can manage. You can start with their self-appointment as the cultural and moral elites blessed with greater understanding and compassion standing against the hordes of mouth-breathing morons clinging bitterly to their guns and religion. Ooops channeling the Obama there for a minute. Liberals love to demonize anyone not as soft-hearted and mushy-brained as they are, but they fail to notice that the love they bestow often has the opposite effect they intended. See the expansion of the welfare state and the displacement of the father in minority communities, or the threats to sue mortgage lenders for redlining and not making loans to the same folks based on the dead, white male concept of doing the fucking math. Now we have seen the collapse of the whole mortgage industry and the BS Fannie and Freddie who facilitated all those loans to people who couldn't afford them. Once the rules were gamed to help minority home ownership, then the whole country took advantage of a system gone wild and moved one house too far up the food chain.

Take a Xanax and put on some ambien(t) music Robbie. The hordes may protest, but unlike the left will do so with decorum and intelligence (See the Tea Party phenomenon). I was at the DC event and all the savages were neatly dressed, clean and making cogent arguments about you and your friends mortgaging our children's future to pay for left wing butthead causes you couldn't get passed otherwise. Never let a good crisis go to waste, eh Rahm?

I will take the proles on the right over the dirty, nasty patchouli-smelling hippies who form the cohorts of the MoveOn left. And give me Rush any day over the failed droolers who whined their way into bankruptcy at Air America. So bugger off Mr. Reich, return to your mid-town Manhattan, limousine liberal existence and keep swatting at bugbears that do not exist. The rest of us will get about the business of making sure you idiots don't kill the golden goose you are now molesting.

Posted by: Uncle Jimbo at 07:21 AM | Comments (58)
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