Can this plural marriage be saved?

Probably not.

SPIEGEL ONLINE has obtained information from German government sources knowledgeable of the situation in Athens indicating that Papandreou's government is considering abandoning the euro and reintroducing its own currency.

Alarmed by Athens' intentions, the European Commission has called a crisis meeting in Luxembourg on Friday night. In addition to Greece's possible exit from the currency union, a speedy restructuring of the country's debt also features on the agenda. One year after the Greek crisis broke out, the development represents a potentially existential turning point for the European monetary union -- regardless which variant is ultimately decided upon for dealing with Greece's massive troubles.

Like any forced marriage based on convenience and economic prospects rather than shared values, the differences can only be papered over for so long before big problems come up.

The Germans want a very stable fiscal policy with a very low rate of inflation and low borrowing. Everyone else wants the fruit of German fiscal prudency, but has never really been big on that "low borrowing" and "realistic spending levels" part of it.

Everyone cooked the books for years but that only works until, like as in The Producers, people start asking where the money is.

Thanks to Ben.

Posted by: Ace at 09:17 AM | Comments (122)
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Many people have noted:

The thing that Obama had no role in crafting, only authorizing -- the planning of the military strike -- went beautifully. (With the exception of a mechanical glitch downing a stealth copter.)

The thing that Obama had a primary role in crafting -- the PR and reportage about the military's spectacular raid -- has been nothing but glitches, walkbacks, mistatements, blown opportunities, and -- this is now becoming a pattern with Obama -- screwing up everything so badly and so... oddly that people begin doubting the most basic facts reported to them.

Given that, I'm really not sure I'm ready to credit Captain GutsyCall.com with having meticulously oversaw the mission's planning. The one thing I know he meticulously oversaw -- the one thing that he really cares about, and is best at (as far as his limited capabilities) -- he completely screwed up.

So here's the official timeline of All The President's Men screwing up, again and again, the easiest thing in the world, the Victory Lap and Photo Op.

I'm not going to quote the timeline because it all hangs together -- a series of errors, exaggerations, flubs, mistatements, walkbacks, new Narratives clumsily displacing old, clarifications and re-clarifications and re-re-clarifications with corrections appended.

Read it all; this is the real Obama White House. This is their part of the mission, just telling the public and the world what happened. And they made just about every mistake possible.

But here's the sum-up:

“I don't have any updates on the narrative,” Carney said wearily. He mounted another defense of his efforts to dispense information as quickly as he could, under trying circumstances – a process, he admitted, that had “resulted in the need to clarify some facts.” But Carney allowed as how it “is to our credit that when we discovered that clarification was needed we did put them [sic] out.“ But the White House has not clarified this point on the record, the reporter pressed. Carney, unwilling to be pushed into divulging information again, punted. “As I said yesterday, the Defense Department can take questions you have about further details on the mission or clarifications. We're still in a process of gathering all the facts of that operation.”

One individual who had stood where Carney was... was Dana Perino, the last White House press secretary under President George W. Bush.

“In a crisis or an unfolding news situation, first reports are almost always wrong,” she explained...

“I am perplexed how they got so much wrong,” she added. “I don't think it takes away from their achievement. I think that criticism will be relatively short-lived. However, for those people who might be critics of the administration, or have a little bit of distrust for the stories that are coming out of the White House, this will feed that. And it doesn't help build credibility.”

I'm not perplexed. Obama is a failure.

Thanks to gg.

Posted by: Ace at 08:38 AM | Comments (221)
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My first guess was the black thing, which is dismissive and condescending and I shouldn't have written it. It was me adding my own Narrative -- I didn't understand what Cain had said that was so terrific that a focus group thought he'd scored a decisive win, so I made up some stupid, easy, glib explanation for it, based on race.

Just like the media does. The Narrative, it's addictive. Because it's easy. It's easy and glib and you can explain the hard-to-explain with a single dumb sentence. It may be dumb, but at least it's short.

But now that I reflect, he did stand out in two key areas.

First of all, he supports the Flat Tax. This was one of the issues Huckabee seized on in 2008 to stand out from the crowd, and apparently it helped.

Are Republicans really ga-ga for the Flat Tax? I don't know. Certainly they're interested. And certainly they don't like the IRS.

Correction: Cain supports the Fair Tax, not the Flat Tax.

But my point about Huckabee still stands, because I also got that wrong -- Huckabee also supported the Fair Tax, not the Flat Tax.

This is the genius of me: I make so many errors and mistakes that they support each other in a logical, consistent framework in which, in their combined double-negative wrongness, they wind up being sort of right.

Thanks to Jane D'oh for pointing that out.

...

The other possibility is his answer about Afghanistan, which some are taking as a flub. But maybe people reacted more strongly to it than the pundits imagine.

[I]t was Cain's answer on a straightforward if not simple question -- what would you have the United States do in Afghanistan? -- that created the most head-scratching moment of the night.

It started when moderator Bret Baier asked Cain about a statement Cain made in an interview in January in which Cain said that as president he would rely heavily on whatever his generals and the experts told him should be done in the war. "You're running for president," Baier said to Cain. "After almost ten years in Afghanistan, you don't have your own plan yet about what you would do in Afghanistan?"

"No," Cain answered. 'Because it's not clear what the mission is. That's the bigger problem. It's not clear what the mission isÂ…"

Baier followed up: "How would you define winning in Afghanistan right now, as you're looking at it as a candidate?"

"My point is," Cain explained, "the experts and their advice and their input would be the basis for me making that decision. I'm not privy to a lot of confidential information."

It was an unusual way of approaching the question, to say the least. Was Cain saying that he couldn't answer any questions about foreign policy, because he didn't have the kind of classified information that only presidents have? When Cain met with reporters after the debate, he explained that he approached Afghanistan like he would a business decision. "A good businessman does not make a decision without considering all of the facts," he said. "I haven't been privy to all of the confidential information to make that decision."

But if Cain could only formulate a policy position after receiving presidential-level briefings -- did that mean he might never have a position as a candidate on Afghanistan? "That's probably the case," Cain said. Perhaps sensing that might be a problem down the road, he then explained that he might be able to put together "some sort of strategic approach" from publicly-available information. "What I'm saying is I will not be pushed into spitting out a plan so people can say, this is his plan."

Did he flub it? Or did he flub it like a fox?

Here is my best guess for the overall sentiment about the War in Afghanistan among conservatives: We, as a group, are conflicted.

First, we bought into Bush's Liberty Agenda and are perhaps not ready to fully repudiate that as a fool's errand.

Second, we are pro-military generally and do not wish to undercut the troops in the field.

Third, we are pro-Victory generally and are loathe to "cut and run," as we call it, at least when it's proposed by a liberal who seems to have the Leftist interest, rather than the National interest, at heart.

But for all that, I think conservatives are conflicted, and are moving closer to Ann Coulter's position -- that Afghanistan, unlike Iraq, is unreformable and unimprovable, and our we should not be risking our troops for an impossible goal like creating a decent Afghanistan. Perhaps a decent Afghanistan is strictly impossible; maybe it's possible, but at such a high cost as to preclude any eagerness to pay it.

And so, perhaps, Cain's answer, noncommittal, vague, conflicted, and weak, actually strikes many conservatives as hitting the right tone.

It is my belief that there is a large part of the party that wants to be convinced to abandon Afghanistan. They are not convinced now, but conflicted, and want to be convinced one way or the other; and they probably would rather be convinced to let Afghanistan go its own tragic, bloody, rape-filled way.

Four years ago a candidate expressing anything less than unshakable, Bush-like resolve on Afghanistan would not have had much of a chance to gain traction in the party. But this is four years later, and it's my hunch that when the conservative movement committed to the Long War in Afghanistan, "long war" meant "Not much more than ten years. That's plenty long."

So it could be that Cain, by failing to commit to a Victory/Bush-like strategy in Afghanistan, actually hit more possible voters in terms of actual sentiment.

Posted by: Ace at 07:24 AM | Comments (298)
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And, for these folks at least, it was a decisive win.

Although I thought Cain did well -- no mistakes, sounded plausible, sounded measured and serious -- I did not see the knockout blow these folks seemed to.

I think Republican primary voters have a tendency to go ga-ga for black candidates. In 2000 and 2004, Alan Keyes had a small but vocal and passionate vanguard of supporters, despite being flaky and odd.

Cain has not much at all in common with Keyes -- Cain could plausibly win an election and plausibly serve as president. Keyes could plausibly serve as the guy who freaks me out at post office. But there is this Cuckoo for Cocoa Pols thing going on to.

My boy, Pawlenty, did about the same, except his first answer (to the debate's first question, which is just about what half of the debate's viewers even saw) wasn't sharp or strong. I believe it was about crediting Obama for the bin Ladin kill, and while there was nothing wrong with it, there was also nothing especially right with it. Santorum, answering the same question moments later, had a stronger answer.

Later in the debate, Pawlenty became a little animated and forceful and shed his image as milquetoast. A little.

But the facts are the facts -- the viewing public seemed impressed by Cain, not Pawlenty. And Pawlenty was really banking on a breakout performance here. Instead, Cain broke out.

Santorum actually did pretty well, and I say that begrudgingly, because I don't see him as a genuine, plausible candidate. But based on his answers: He did well.

Ron Paul continued with his RISing and falLING manner of SPEAKing SOUNDing like a donKEY obsessed with GOLD. I have to say I find his method of debate completely unproductive. Paul is offering a series of non-mainstream ideas. Rather than break these down and make a good case for why someone inclined to oppose them should reconsider, he just sort of claims it's all common sense and speaks in rehearsed applause lines, which his supporters dutifully clap for, but which aren't persuading anyone not already persuaded.

Some of Ron Paul's libertarian ideas could, possibly, gain traction. But only if they're argued rather than just asserted. If his presence here is to make a case for a libertarian, limited government, well, make that case! Just rattling off his conclusions isn't making that case. He really needs to ask what his mission is here, and if his method of achieving that mission is plausible.

Gary Johnson really failed entirely, as he came off as Ron Paul as played by Jm. J. Bullock. His answers tended to lack persuasiveness and he brought his own odd mannerisms to the table.

The moderators were terrible because they weren't moderators. Chris Wallace tried to play gotcha with Pawlenty twice, once over his prior support of cap and trade, and once over Minnesota's coming deficit, and on both occasions he seemed overly Inquisitorial, and in both cases Pawlenty pretty effectively rebutted the question. (Well, in the case of cap and trade, he just blunted it, by confessing it was simply a bad idea that he was now embarrassed to have had. Chris Wallace's premise that Pawlenty wasn't being straight about how much he'd supported it was flatly wrong, and I don't know where Wallace was getting that premise from.)

What's Juan Williams doing on the panel? Oh yeah, to ask questions about evolution and intelligent design, something most Republicans would rather not be asked about. Given that this is a Republican primary and all candidates will have the same punt answer on the question, and few voters will make any sort of decision based on similar punt answers, why was it asked? It does not clarify things for Republican voters.

It's just asked because 1, this is a liberal obsession, and 2, it can be used against the candidates later in a general election.

So ask it later.

Why do we have liberals on the panel at all? I don't have to tell you that liberals will not be permitting a single conservative moderator, even one as respected as Brit Hume, to ask questions of any of their candidates -- or to ask questions of either candidate during the nominee-vs.-nominee debates in the general election season.

Lastly, this form of "debate" is not a debate. It's weak. It's just a joint Q&A appearance where the journalists, as usual, pitch gotcha questions designed to make them look clever or "tough."

A debate would consist of three broad sections -- Foreign Policy and War, Economy and Taxes and Jobs, and Social/Moral Issues. Then just let each candidate answer about broad issue categories, and allow them to ask each other questions. The moderator (and we only need one) should just be there to insure the keep on point, do not filibuster, and do not unduly monopolize camera time. (Although there is a component here that's important -- a candidate's ability to command the floor and make his voice heard. But let's not have it turn into a shouting match, eh?)

This whole idea continues to be perpetuated -- that it's journalists, rather than candidates, who are clever enough to poke holes in the candidates' positions and make them squirm.

What, none of the candidates is smart enough to do that? You don't think these guys are on the ball enough to study an opponent's position and pop a loaded question about it?

On this point, the moderators can do an additional service by having their researchers do instant internet searches and article reading to call true or false on candidates' charges; candidates, fearing a "misleading" ding, will tend to make their assertions more defensible and closer to a neutral reading of the record.

But for the love of God, please let us dispense with this journalistic vanity that they're the only ones expert enough in policy and politics to intelligently question these candidates.

These are professional politicians, most at the very top of the game. (And also, Ron Paul.) I think they know something about policy and politics and clever questions, too. Maybe not so much as a brilliant journalist, but of course that's a standard few of us mortals can actually reach. But we can at least try to achieve such exalted heights.

Posted by: Ace at 06:52 AM | Comments (241)
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Bumped Again by Ace, with a Short Intro: Last fall, I asked Michael to write an article about how to politically organize, and how to take over your local district. Or at least have a strong say in your local party's decisions, which are usually stupid and you know it, and badly in need of correction from outsiders.

The big problem with asking him to write that in, what, September?, was that it was too late to actually do anything about it.

But it's not too late to do something about it now. I encourage you to read his post on Hijacking Your Party Grassroots Organization (For Morons), and seriously think about doing it.

And I'm bumping this post, of course, because his point is critical: You can choose whatever candidate you like, in 85% of all districts, if you get 5% of the district's voters behind your candidate. Or -- yourself, if you decide the candidate you like best is you yourself.

While teaching me how to pull a stump, Daddy said the most important part was where you stick the crowbar.

That's true anytime you need to move something big. And right now, we have a lot of Congressmen (and state legislators) who don't want to move. They resist bold action, based on the increasingly strange idea that their re-election matters. They appear to be concerned about which of them will have the privilege of sleeping in the Titanic's radio room.

Maybe you are currently represented by one of these passenger Republicans in a "safe" seat. Maybe he nods to the Tea Party but does nothing in office that could actually change the course of government.

What he probably hasn't considered is that if he doesn't get radical on spending, he may get dumped anyway. Not in November 2012; with Congress in the hands of the nominally responsible Republicans, there's no good argument for going with the other party. Change, if it is to happen, will come in a primary.

That's easier than you think, or easier than your rep wants you to think.

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Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:25 AM | Comments (85)
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Greek Finance Minister Papaconstantinou: "A default is unthinkable." What most Americans don't know is that the Greek word "unthinkable" actually translates to "virtually certain".

“It would have a tremendous cost, with no benefit,” the minister, George Papaconstantinou, said in an interview on Greek television. “Greece would be out of markets for 10, 15 years.”

To financial markets, and to many other observers, it is more than thinkable. It is very close to a sure thing. When, how, and how messy it will be are open to question.

New Jersey looks to Greece and says, "Opa!"

From City Journal: What if everyone had a California state pension?

But by 2030, the Census Bureau projects the United States will have 139 million citizens between the ages of 25 and 55, and 112 million citizens 55 or older—a ratio of 1.24 to one. That works out to $44,300 per worker per year to support the retired population.

And speaking of state pensions -- states keep making the same old mistakes. It's actually not a "mistake" so much as it is cold political calculation. The pols and state workers are rolling the dice and hoping to keep the carnival train rolling long enough to retire with a fat pension and benefits package (at taxpayer expense, naturellement). After that, they don't give a damn.

Apparently, a 9% unemployment rate counts as good news these days. Truly this is the Age of Obama.

Doom. Doom! DOOOOOOM!

This might ease the DOOM-burn a bit: at least gas will be getting a little cheaper. It's those damned "speculators" cutting and running! (I expect the price of oil to go right back up, though. It's a basic supply-demand issue, and demand isn't going down by much.)

[UPDATE 1]: Remember back when buying stocks for their dividends was the whole point of investing in the stock market? Yeah, me neither. I'm told there actually was such a time, though.
more...

Posted by: Monty at 05:01 AM | Comments (206)
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I've been pretty distracted this week by the ever-changing Osama bin Laden story, so this is a few days old, but it's still important, I think, to emphasize what a gutless worm Senator McCain can be. Here he is early in the week on Obama district court judge nominee Jack McConnell, a rabid and partisan trial lawyer:

I am deeply troubled by Mr. McConnellÂ’s less than candid responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee, his liberal judicial philosophy, including his public antipathy toward private enterprise, and his strong political activism. For these reasons, I will not support his nomination.

And yet, wonder of wonders, McCain ended up voting for cloture, enabling McConnell's inevitable confirmation.

While I would not have chosen Mr. McConnell as a nominee to the Federal bench if I was in a position to nominate, I respect the PresidentÂ’s ability to do so and therefore will vote for the cloture motion on Mr. McConnellÂ’s nomination, but will strongly oppose his nomination to the Federal bench.

Absolute nonsense. A vote for cloture is a vote for the nominee. Even my four year old niece can count to 51, and with cloture secured McConnell was certain to get at least 51 votes (hint: there are 53 Democrats in the current Congress, including "independents" that caucus with the Dems).

To be sure, McCain wasn't the only squish to vote for cloture. Leading the charge on McConnell's behalf were McCain's good buddies Lindsey Graham and Lamar Alexander. The other GOP Senators to ultimately vote for cloture include the Maine sisters, Scott Brown, Mark Kirk, Lena Madcowski, and, uh, John Thune (?).

Look, I get it with the Maine sisters, Scott Brown, and Mark Kirk. The idea is to make blue states purple, purple states red, and red states redder. So I get that they can't act as if they're from solid red states like Texas. But Graham, McCain, Markanskie? What the hell is wrong with South Carolina? What's Arizona's excuse?

The problem with McCain and Graham, in particular, is that rather than making their red states redder, they seem to be dragging politics back in the other direction, desiring a principle-less purple compromise. "I donÂ’t want to create a Mideast environment over District Court nominees," whined Graham.

Squish, squish, squish.

Update: Legal Insurrection has more, including an excellent floor speech from Sen. McConnell on why the GOP shouldn't be squishes when it comes to the filibuster and the consequences of this gang of senators' abdication of the "advice" portion of the constitutional mandate to "advice and consent."

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 03:30 AM | Comments (83)
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Nine million terrorists in the world and I gotta kill one with feet smaller than my sister.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:56 AM | Comments (118)
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And several of his allies have already been arrested for 'sorcery' and 'misuse of genies'. Supposedly this is the result of an on-going power struggle between Ahmadinejad and the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

So far this is only from a single report from Examiner.com based on an Arab TV report. No confirmation from any other sources yet.

And speaking of using genies I think this is a pretty good use for one.

Thanks to kratos for the tip.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 08:50 PM | Comments (91)
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Oh yeah - happy Cinco de Mayo.

Free Speech Dead in Denmark, Film at 11

Yet another sad milestone in the ongoing self-dhimmitude of Europe. On Tuesday Lars Hedegaard, President of the Danish Free Press Society and The International Free Press Society, was found guilty of hate speech under the Danish penal code. His crime: criticizing the Muslim treatment of women and children in a private conversation. Only it was overheard, reported on, and now he's guilty of making insulting statements and will be fined approximately $1000.

And he wasn't the first person convicted:

On June 16, 2010, the Danish parliament voted to strip a lawmaker of immunity so that he could face charges over anti-Muslim comments. The politician, Jesper Langballe, is a veteran member of the Danish People's Party (PPD) and a crucial ally of the center-right government. In January 2010, he penned a newspaper column discussing the status of women in Islam and the "Islamisation of Europe." Included was the statement that "Muslims kill their daughters over crimes of honour and turn a blind eye while they are raped by their uncles." He is currently awaiting trial for violating Article 266b—the same hate speech statute that will likely be applied to Hedegaard.

Of course in practice the law he was convicted under is used to protect one - and only one religion: Islam. By contrast insulting (or even physically attacking) Jews and Judaism - not a problem and not prosecuted. This is what it looks like when Islam becomes a de facto state religion.

So now the Danes can't even talk about the Muslim immigrant problem in their midst since discussing it is now likely a hate crime. And so sadly the Danes are now in the position of collecting the Danegeld for their own dhimmi status.

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:56 PM | Comments (438)
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