Great Moments in Political Misdirection

I'm not inclined to take Ahmadinejad's public predictions about U.S. foreign policy too seriously, but if the United States does end up launching attacks on (presumably) Iran and Syria and does so in cooperation with Israel, it would have to represent the biggest, most successful attempt at foreign policy misdirection in United States history.  It's no secret that President Obama has been openly and ham-fistedly disdainful of Prime Minister Netanyahu and that he has been scrambling to show that he regards Israel as a good friend and ally of the United States and not as merely an obstacle to American interests in the Middle East.  Again, I highly doubt Ahmadinejad's prediction will prove correct, but if it does, my estimation of President Obama's shrewdness and political ability will go through the roof.

Still, a question remains.  Why is Ahmadinejad making this prediction when there is no overt sign the United States will take action?  There is certainly the prospect of an Israeli surprise attack, and the Iranian government regards Israel as the Little Satan to the American Great Satan.  So, by this logic, if Israel attacks Iran, it is doing so as an agent of the United States.  As a point of fact, this line of logic doesn't hold (at most, the United States would be neutral on the subject, not hindering it as it went forward), but it is how the Iranian government views the U.S.-Isreali relationship (Walt and Mearsheimer(sp?), call your office).

Another possible reason for Ahmadinejad to make this prediction (and the one which seems most likely to me) is that Ahmadinejad is calling President Obama's bluff, effectively daring him to attack.  The article ends with Ahmadinejad saying "The logic that they can persuade us to negotiate through sanctions is just a failure."  He is declaring that not only will Iran not buckle under newly imposed sanctions, but that the United States knows this and is preparing to take military action as a result.  If the attack does happen, the prediction costs Ahmadinejad nothing.  If it doesn't happen, it allows him to declare that President Obama blinked and that he lacks the strength of will to prevent Iran achieving its nuclear objectives.

Of course, all of this is predicated on Ahmadinejad being believable in his assertions, so the effect will probably be negligible.  Those who are inclined to believe him (i.e. his supporters) will believe him and be encouraged if the attack doesn't come.  Those who are inclined to disbelieve him (i.e. just about everyone else) will be inclined to ignore him, and if an attack doesn't come, it will only mean that Ahmadinejad was engaging in more of his usual bluster.

Invitation to Fraud

How will the government contain costs and limit fraud when anyone with some basic computer equipment can make his own Medicare card?

Money quote:

You want to know what a Medicare identification card is like? It is a little larger than the standard size for credit cards and driver’s licenses. (Of course. Couldn’t have the federal government make a card that will fit in a stack with all the other cards you use.) It has no magnetic strip. It is plain vanilla text and fonts—no security features whatsoever. It could be counterfeited by a sixth-grader with a scanner. It is made out of flimsy paper that would barely qualify for a really cheap business card.

Hat-tip: The Corner

How Does This Help?

Jonah Goldberg explains how the federal government has responded to the economic crisis by flushing money down the toilet.

Recall the White House mantra of “never let a crisis go to waste.” Though the economic implosion had specific causes stemming from the financial and housing markets and how they were regulated, President Obama insisted that the items on his campaign wish list — overhauling health care, imposing carbon cap-and-trade, and reforming education — would be the real solutions to the crisis.

“The fact is, our economy did not fall into decline overnight,” Obama told Congress in February. And only by “investing” in policies formulated years before “toxic asset” became household words could America get out of the crisis.

As a result, we’re now stuck with some of the most absurdly counterproductive legislation imaginable. The national debt is growing faster than the GDP. According to the Congressional Budget Office, within ten years Uncle Sam’s publicly held debt will double to 82 percent of GDP. The CBO predicts that by 2038, our debt will be 200 percent of GDP. Debt siphons off growth for the simple reason that dollars go to paying it off rather than investing in something productive.

Meanwhile, thanks to ongoing trade deficits and relentless borrowing, America’s financial status is deteriorating rapidly. The Commerce Department reported Friday that the value of foreign assets owned by Americans is $19.89 trillion, while the value of American assets owned by foreigners is $23.36 trillion. In other words, we are a “net debtor” to the tune of $3.47 trillion. That represents a 62 percent increase over 2007. Foreigners, most significantly China, own nearly 50 percent of our government’s public debt.

So while the Obama administration frets over the largely phony idea that we are dangerously dependent on foreign oil (Canada sends us about as much oil as the entire Persian Gulf region, and Mexico not much less), we are increasingly threatened by dependence on foreign bondholders who could wreak havoc on the dollar and our interest rates far more easily than OPEC could cut off our oil.

And what are we doing in response? For starters, the House passed carbon cap-and-trade legislation that essentially adds an onerous and inefficient energy tax on everyone, outsources jobs to carbon-profligate India and China, and raises tariffs in an attempt to stem the inevitable bleeding of jobs and manufacturing (the last time we raised tariffs in the midst of a bad recession, we got the Depression). Rather than have America invest in new oil and gas jobs (among the highest-paying of any industry), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi insists that one-time gigs weatherizing Granny’s attic and replacing light bulbs are preferable.

Funny how the "solutions" to our economic crisis were just the policies Obama campaigned on long before our financial system began to implode.

A Reason to Applaud a Teachers' Union

They killed a smoking ban.

The Satirists Predicament

You think you've written the perfect reductio ad absurdum, and lo, it turns out to be not that absurd after all.

Witness.

A gathering of 20 Nobel Prize winners, calling itself the St James's Palace Nobel Laureate Symposium, has released a memorandum stating that 'Global climate change represents a threat of similar proportions' to that of thermonuclear armageddon at the height of the Cold War.

The qualitative difference between the two threats is perhaps nowhere better expressed, however inadvertently, than by the convener of the symposium himself, Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber. Where once we had 'the Cold War notion of mutually-assured destruction,' he told the Times, 'Today we have mutually-assured increases in greenhouse gases.'

OK. But while debates around climate change are still qualified by the words 'might', 'could' and 'predicted', it's probably fair to say that the average person in the street may view the comparison of carbon emissions with things that can vapourise a major city in seconds as unhelpfully alarmist and perhaps just a little bit silly.

Hat Tip: The Corner

Rhetoric vs. Reality

This is a must-read on the disconnect between Obama's rhetoric and his national security policies.  The difference between Obama and Bush so far?  Bush's rhetoric lined up with what he actually did.

So, How's That Stimulus Working?

Not so well, according to John Lott, at least by the standard of the pre-stimulus predictions

How did the predictions stack up? While the unemployment rate was at 8.1 percent in February, it had risen to 8.9 percent by April. By May 11, Christine Romer was calling 9.5 percent unemployment by the end of the year “pretty realistic.” Business economists and forecasters surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had increased their estimates to 9.7 percent. Thus, what Romer was predicting would be the worst-case
scenario if the stimulus was not quickly enacted is occurring with the stimulus plan in place.

And,

Economists have consistently been expecting the economy to begin showing positive growth in the second half of this year. But the stimulus appears to have dampened the recovery that economists were expecting.

Take the expected growth in the third quarter (from July to September) this year. In January, the forecasters surveyed by the Wall Street Journal were expecting GDP during that period to rise by 1.2 percent at an annual rate. By May, the expected growth had been cut in half to 0.6 percent. The pattern is similar for both the second and fourth quarters this year. Paul Evans, the editor of the Journal of Money, Credit, and Banking and an economics professor at Ohio State University, agrees with this and tells FOX News: “Most likely the economic recovery would have been more rapid at this point without [the stimulus package].”

And,

Other forecasts have shown a similar pattern. By the end of last week, the U.S. manufacturing output is now expected to plummet by 12 percent this year. In February, the drop was expected to be 8 percent. The decline in the housing market failed to slow down after the stimulus package. The mortgage delinquency and foreclosure rates in the U.S. just experienced their biggest quarterly increases since records started in 1972. Both numbers are also at their highest recorded levels. The S&P/Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price Index posted a 19.1% drop from a year earlier, the biggest single quarterly decline for the reading’s 21-year history. In January, forecasters expected about 770,000 new homes being built this year. By May, only 580,000 new homes were expected for 2009.

Over the same four months, economists have also become more pessimistic about housing starts next year: The number of expected new housing starts for next year declined from 980,000 to 820,000. Again, what recovery was originally expected later this year and next year has actually declined after the stimulus.

Now, correlation does not imply causality. In this case, the fact that things are worse than expected even before the stimulus was passed, does not prove the stimulus isn't working, but while things could have been worse than this without the stimulus, this is an extremely weak argument in its defense. After all, I could say with at least equal plausibility that eliminating the capital gains tax; cutting personal and corporate income taxes; lifting restrictions on energy exploration; oil refinery and nuclear power plant construction; and promoting a strong dollar would have an even greater positive impact on the economy.

Of course, defenders of the stimulus might also cite the fact that very little of the stimulus money has actually been spent, but that quickly becomes an argument in favor of tax cuts and deregulation. After all, in order for the government to put money into the economy, it has to take it out of the economy first- whether through taxes, the sale of bonds, or devaluing the money already in the economy by printing more of it- and then it has to, you know, spend it. On the other hand, cutting taxes allows money that is already in the economy to be spent, and deregulation and opens up new areas for investment or allows businesses to operate more efficiently by reducing the cost of doing business.

I guess you could stick to the whole "jobs saved or created" mantra, with the emphasis on saved, but as Jim Geraghty points out, it "can't be declared horsepuckey until national employment falls below 9.67 million jobs."

Can You Say "Conflict of Interest"?

GM will continue to lobby the United States government, despite (because of?) the fact that the government is now GM's largest shareholder.  Of course, this makes explicit what was already implicit:  Will the government pursue policies that are in the best interest of the country if they have a negative impact on GM?  Will GM seek to return to profitability by becoming more competitive in the free (ish?) market, or will they advance policies which are bad for the market, knowing that they can always rely on the government, whose policies they are advocating, to continue to funnel them money even as their product continues to lose money?  In short, I smell a rat.

Even if I Find It Politically Disadvantageous

Here's hoping Sen. Robert Byrd makes a quick and full recovery and can soon return to his duties.

What Do You Say to This?

I Bush had done this, it would have been a front-page story.

Hat tip:  The Corner