Bush is diplomatic on subject of Obama

http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/may/30/clinton-bush-jest-not-joust-at-canadian-event/print/

Saturday, May 30, 2009
Bush is diplomatic on subject of Obama

Joseph Curl (Contact)

TORONTO | Former President George W. Bush, appearing Friday with his predecessor, Bill Clinton, in what turned out to be a collegial conversation rather than a spirited debate, once again said he would not criticize President Obama — then proceeded to do just that.

"International pressure — diplomacy only works if there's leverage," Mr. Bush said. "It sounds wonderful — 'Let's go talk to people' — but you better have leverage in order to make diplomacy work."

During his presidential campaign, Mr. Obama vowed to open dialogues with rulers of rogue nations, such as Iran and Cuba. After taking office, he lifted restrictions on visits to Cuba — a significant shift in U.S. policy. He also spoke amiably with Venezualan President Hugo Chavez, a vocal critic of the United States.

Asked whether he agreed with opening a dialogue with Cuba, Mr. Bush smiled and said to laughter, "Thank you for bringing up President Obama."

"Holding that embargo in place is important," he said. By easing it, "you're propping up a regime who puts people in prison based upon their political views. So my view is, if they empty out the prisons and give people a voice, then we change our strategy with Cuba — but not until then."

But Mr. Bush sought to label his criticism as constructive. "Anything I say is not to be critical of my successor. I didn't like it when my predecessors criticized me. He never did, by the way," Mr. Bush said, nodding toward Mr. Clinton.

"He was respectful. Can't say that for every one of them. And I didn't appreciate it, and I'm not going to do the same thing to" Mr. Obama. "There's plenty of critics in American society. I think you heard a few," he said again to Mr. Clinton before adding with a laugh: "I know I did."

With North Korea having tested a nuclear weapon and Iran seemingly moving toward acquisition of the world's most dangerous weapon, Mr. Bush also said that the United Nations is "not really meant for problem solving."

For his part, Mr. Clinton said that on Cuba policy, he agrees with Mr. Obama's secretary of state — who happens to be his wife, former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton. "He hit it out of the park with that one, an amazingly wise appointment," Mr. Clinton said to laughter.

"I actually supported what President Obama did," he said, noting that he also agrees with the current president's plan to engage rogue dictators.

"We deal with a lot of countries that we don't agree with on everything. I think it would be a terrible mistake, for example, if we were to say walk away from China — they still put people in jail for their political views. I don't agree with that.

"On the other hand, Cuba's our neighbor, they're here, they ought to be part of this hemisphere, they ought to be part of our future. They have done a lot of good things," Mr. Clinton said.

The two former presidents, who led the United States for the past 16 years, met Friday at the Toronto Convention Center for an event dubbed a "conversation." Both looked rested and tan, and both had the crowd in stitches in their opening statements.

"Welcome to the Bill and George Show," Mr. Bush said, drawing more laughs in his opening than his predecessor.

"Clinton and I used to believe in free speech," Mr. Bush said to roars of laughter from a crowd of 6,000, all of whom paid hundreds of dollars to attend the event. "So thanks for coming!"

No one will say how much each will take home, but estimates run as high as $150,000 apiece for the two-hour appearance. The estimates may be far too low — 200 people in the front rows paid $2,500 each, a total of $500,000, for the privilege of having photos taken with the 42nd and 43rd presidents of the United States.

Although he said "it's hard to go from 100 miles per hour to zero," Mr. Bush, dressed in a blue suit with a blue tie and the ever-present flag pin on his lapel, said, "I do not miss the spotlight."

But he did say his life has changed — dramatically. After leaving the White House, "I'm sitting in Crawford, Texas, I have my feet up on the couch, and I said, 'Free at last.'"

His wife, Laura, he said, responded: "'Free to do the dishes, free to mow the lawn.' I said, 'Baby, you're talking to the former president of the United States,' and she said, 'Yeah, just consider it your new domestic policy agenda.'"

The couple moved to an exclusive enclave in Dallas, and Mr. Bush, former two-term governor of Texas, said he hadn't walked in a neighborhood for 14 years. Walking his dog, Barney, he said, "the little fella' sees this unbelievably manicured yard and there I was, former president, with a plastic bag on my hand, picking up that which I had dodged for eight solid years."

Mr. Clinton, in a light-brown suit with a bright orange tie, said, "There is no job description for a former president.

"I'm amazed President Bush is here," he said. "It takes a while, actually, to figure out you're not president anymore."

He said "nobody plays a song when you walk into a room now," noting that "Hail to the Chief" once rang out on his every entrance. "It's totally disorienting; I was lost for three months."

There are, he said, pluses and minuses of leaving the presidency.

"The great thing about not being president anymore is I can say whatever I want, about anything," he said, but he noted that now, "of course, nobody really cares what I say."

"And now I have the worst of all worlds — my wife has become the secretary of state, so no one really cares what I say — unless I mess up," he said to laughter.

The two former presidents later sat in large, green leather chairs to answer friendly questions from a moderator, former Canadian ambassador to the United States Frank McKenna. They mused over just a few hand-picked questions on Cuba, Afghanistan, Iraq, AIDS, Rwanda, Darfur, same-sex marriage and the new passport requirements at the U.S.-Canadian border — to which both professed little knowledge.

Mr. Bush, a Republican, and Mr. Clinton, a Democrat, differed most on Iraq.

"We should've concentrated on Afghanistan," Mr. Clinton said, who noted he had supported a resolution in Congress to employ force.

In perhaps the most vehement disagreement of the afternoon, Mr. Bush said, "I don't buy the premise that our attention was diverted.

"I think it's false — in fact, I know it's false, I was there. Getting rid of Saddam Hussein made the world a more peaceful place," he said to hearty applause from the audience of Canadians, who have been steadfast U.S. allies in the Iraq war.

Mr. Clinton expressed remorse for not doing more as president to prevent the 1994 tragedy in Rwanda, when some 800,000 people were killed in a 100-day period. "I have no defense. We did not even have a meeting on it in the White House," he said, calling it "one of the greatest regrets of my presidency."

Asked about genocide in Darfur, where an estimated 400,000 people have been killed, Mr. Bush said, "The first option is, let's go get 'em."

But there was a consensus in the White House, he said, that the United States not act unilaterally, that it would be "another invasion of another Muslim country." Privately, he has expressed frustration that foreign leaders, including in the United Nations, failed to step up.

"The U.N. is a vital institution, but it is not really meant for problem solving," Mr. Bush said to laughter and applause. He also defended Mr. Clinton on Rwanda, saying, "I think you're being a little tough on yourself. You can't just pick up the phone and say, '20,000 troops.' "

On the issue of same-sex marriage, Mr. Bush said he doesn't agree with the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act. But Mr. Clinton said his view on the issue is evolving, although he deferred to the states, saying, "I was hoping we'd stay away from national amendments."

Mr. Clinton praised his successor for his efforts on AIDS in Africa and also for what he said was "the most racially and ethnically diverse Cabinet of anyone in history."

But by then, after the last question of the day, people in the audience were streaming out the doors. Kyle Ratham of Toronto said he had hoped for more. "I thought they were going to debate, not agree on everything. I'm disappointed."

Outside, several hundred protesters behind barricades across the street grouped the two presidents together. "Bush and Clinton: War Criminals Not Welcome in Toronto," said one large banner. The crowd chanted. "Arrest George Bush," while some protesters held signs that said, "Clinton's Sanctions Killed 1,000,000 Iraqis."

To people pouring out of the convention center, one protester yelled: "You're on the wrong side of the street!"

In which the president discovers an American intelligence agency at Five Guys

On his trip to get a burger with Brian Williams at Five Guys this afternoon, the President appears to have learned of the existence of a Defense Department intelligence arm, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency, from an agency employee also at the burger restaurant.

"So explain to me exactly what this National Geospatial..." Obama said, after the worker mentioned his employer, according to a video of the event.

"We work with, uh, satellite imagery," the worker, Walter replied.

A POLITICO reader caught the exchange, which starts around 5:45 on this C-SPAN video.

The transcript:

Obama: What do you do Walter?
Walter: I work at, uh, NGA, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
Obama: Outstanding, how long you been doing that?
Walter: About six years
Obama: Yea?
Walter: Yes.
Obama: You like it?
Walter: I do, keeps me...
Obama: So explain to me exactly what this National Geospatial...uh...
Walter: Uh, we work with, uh, satellite imagery..
Obama: Right
Walter: [unintelligible] ...support systems, so...
Obama: Sounds like good work.
Walter: Enjoy the weekend.
Obama: Appreciate it.

According to the Defense Department:

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) is a Department of Defense combat support agency and a member of the national Intelligence Community (IC). NGA develops imagery and map-based intelligence solutions for U.S. national defense, homeland security and safety of navigation.

NGA provides timely, relevant and accurate geospatial intelligence in support of national security objectives. The term "geospatial intelligence" means the exploitation and analysis of imagery and geospatial information to describe, assess and visually depict physical features and geographically referenced activities on the Earth. Geospatial intelligence consists of imagery, imagery intelligence and geospatial (e.g., mapping, charting and geodesy) information.

Guess they're not getting much airtime in the President's Daily Brief.

Nader Accuses McAuliffe of Suppressing Votes

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/virginiapolitics/2009/05/post_228.html?hpid=topnews

Consumer activist Ralph Nader accused Terry McAuliffe Thursday of orchestrating an effort to remove him from the presidential ballot in 2004 when McAuliffe was chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Nader said that McAuliffe offered him an unspecified amount of money to campaign in 31 states if Nader would agree to pull his campaign in 19 battleground states.

"When you get a call like that, first of all it's inappropriate,'' Nader said in an interview. "The other thing is if you don't immediately say no, it's like taffy, you get stuck with it."

The latest charge against McAuliffe, who is in a hotly-contested three-way Democratic primary for governor, calls into question -- again -- whether his political career is a liability for him as a candidate.

McAuliffe isn't denying the charge. His spokeswoman Elisabeth Smith said in a statement McAuliffe "was concerned that Ralph Nader would cost John Kerry the election as he did Al Gore in 2000 and give us another four years of George W. Bush."

"It looks like Ralph Nader misses seeing his name in the press,'' Smith said. "Terry's focused on talking with Virginians about jobs, not feeding Ralph Nader's ego."

The accusations are outlined in a new book, Grand Illusion, The Myth of Voter Choice in a Two-Party Tyranny, by Theresa Amato, Nader's national campaign manager in 2000 and 2004, who writes about the barriers to third-party candidates.

"This seemed to be a very undemocratic kind of thing to do,'' Amato said. "The head of the Democratic party was telling Ralph where he could or not could run."

Sonia Sotomayor Supreme Court senorita: A case of unapologetic racism

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/11444
By Paul Williams Thursday, May 28, 2009

Sure, President Obama’s appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court is blatantly racist. Few dispute this fact, even members of the Hispanic community.

The smiling senorita was chosen simply because she is a Latina. If Sotomayor had been a lily-white Methodist from Minnesota, she would not have received the slightest chance for consideration.

Her gender also serves to affirm the patronizing nature of Obama’s appointment.

Strange to say, the mass media is applauding the president’s appointment not because of Sotomayor’s judicial acumen, let alone her rather abysmal courtroom record, but rather because of the fact that she is brown and from the Bronx barrio.

Few commentators note that 60% of Sotomayor’s rulings were overturned by the Supreme Court - - a fact, as Wendy Wright, president of the Concerned Women for America, notes that should cause legislators to “pause and take a good look at her record.”

But a good look at her judicial record is secondary to the good look at her Puerto-Rican ancestry.

Sonia’s supporters, however, are quick to point out that she pulled herself up by the proverbial bootstraps - - that she went from a housing project to Princeton University.

Few note that Ms. Sotomayor received her education in the heyday of affirmative action - - a time when functional illiterates were entry to the hallowed halls of ivy for the sake of diversity - - a time when standardized test scores, including law board examinations, were adjusted to compensate for “cultural disadvantages.”

Race remains a concern in the Sotomayor appointment - - particularly because of her strong ties to La Raza, the Latino answer to the KKK.

As a member of the National Council of La Raza, Ms. Sotomayor said: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion as a judge than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

La Raza teaches that Colorado, California, Arizona, Texas, Utah, New Mexico, Oregon and parts of Washington State make up an area known as “Aztlan” — a fictional ancestral homeland of the Aztecs before Europeans arrived in North America.

These areas belong to the Latinos and Latinas and must be surrendered to “La Raza” once enough immigrants, legal or illegal, come to constitute a majority, as in Los Angeles. Once this is achieved, the current borders of the United States will simply be obliterated.

But the “reconquista” won’t end with territorial occupation and secession. The final plan for the La Raza movement includes the ethnic cleansing of Americans of European, African, and Asian descent out of “Aztlan.”

Miguel Perez, a La Raza spokesman at Cal State-Northridge, has been quoted as saying: “The ultimate ideology is the liberation of Aztlan. Communism would be closest [to it]. Once Aztlan is established, ethnic cleansing would commence: Non-Chicanos would have to be expelled — opposition groups would be quashed because you have to keep power.”

And so, our new Supreme Court appointee and self-professed advocate of La Raza approves of the reformation of the United States, the creation of a separate Chicano country, and widespread ethnic cleansing.

This assertion may not raise conservative eyebrows, let alone Christian opposition to Sotomayor’s ascendancy to the Supreme Court, save for the fact that La Raza and other Latino activist groups have expressed widespread anti-Jewish sentiments and support for radical Islam. This finding is supported by articles in “The Voice of Aztlan” with such lurid titles as “That Shitty Little Country Israel,” “Pat Tillman Got What Was coming to Him,” and “Osama bin Laden: the ‘Pancho Villa’ of Islam.”

Intrepid columnist Michelle Malkin maintains that all Americans should be aware of the following fifteen facts regarding La Raza (“The Race”):

15. “The Race” supports the issuance of driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.

14.”The Race” demands in-state tuition discounts for illegal alien students - - discounts are not available to law-abiding U.S. citizens and law-abiding legal immigrants.

13. “The Race” opposes cooperative immigration enforcement efforts between local, state, and federal authorities.

12. “The Race” calls for the immediate removal of fences along the Mexican border.

11. “The Race” joined the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee in a failed lawsuit attempt to prevent federal officials from entering immigration information into a key national crime database.

10. “The Race” decried Oklahoma’s tough immigration-enforcement-first laws, which cut off welfare to illegal aliens, put teeth in employer sanctions, and strengthened local-federal cooperation and information sharing.

9. “The Race” initiated a lawsuit to prevent Proposition 227, California’s bilingual education reform ballot initiative, from becoming law.

8. “The Race” condemned common-sense voter ID provisions as an “absolute disgrace.”

7. “The Race” has opposed post-9/11 national security measures at every turn.

6. Former “Race” president Raul Yzaguirre, Hillary Clinton’s Hispanic outreach adviser, said this: “U.S. English is to Hispanics as the Ku Klux Klan is to blacks.” He was referring to U.S. English, the nation’s oldest, largest citizens’ action group dedicated to preserving the unifying role of the English language in the United States.

5. “The Race” spawned and supported a poisonous subset of ideological satellites, including Movimiento Estudiantil Chicano de Aztlan (MEChA). The late GOP Rep. Charlie Norwood rightly characterized MEChA as “the most anti-American groups in the country.”

4. “The Race” has conducted a smear campaign against staunch immigration-enforcement leaders and has called for TV and cable news networks to keep immigration enforcement proponents off the airwaves.

3. “The Race” sponsors and supports militant ethnic nationalist charter schools subsidized by your public tax dollars (at least $8 million in federal education grants). The schools include Aztlan Academy in Tucson, Ariz., the Mexicayotl Academy in Nogales, Ariz., Academia Cesar Chavez Charter School in St. Paul, Minn., and La Academia Semillas del Pueblo in Los Angeles, whose principal inveighed: “We don’t want to drink from a White water fountain, we have our own wells and our natural reservoirs and our way of collecting rain in our aqueducts. We don’t need a White water fountain . . . ultimately the White way, the American way, the neo liberal, capitalist way of life will eventually lead to our own destruction.”

2. “The Race” has honed the practice of the politically correct shakedown at taxpayer expense, pushing relentlessly to lower home-loan standards for Hispanic borrowers, reaping millions in federal “mortgage counseling” grants, seeking special multimillion-dollar earmarks, and partnering with banks that do business with illegal aliens.

1. “The Race” thrives on ethnic supremacy — and the politically correct elite’s unwillingness to call it what it is. Prominent historian Victor Davis Hanson observes: “[The] organization’s very nomenclature ‘The National Council of La Raza’ is hate speech to the core. Despite all the contortions of the group, Raza (as its Latin cognate suggests) reflects the meaning of ‘race’ in Spanish, not ‘the people’ — and that’s precisely why we don’t hear of something like ‘The National Council of the People,’ which would not confer the buzz notion of ethnic, racial and tribal chauvinism.”

Sotomayor, let’s remember, is a leader of La Raza - - an individual who has shaped its policies, its ideology, and its racist demands.

“No one,” President Obama said today, “can oppose this appointment.”

I oppose it, and, if you are a red-blooded American, you should oppose it as well.

===============

http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2009/may/supreme-court-nominee-la-raza-member

Supreme Court Nominee Member Of Mexican La Raza Group

President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee is a member of an influential extremist Mexican La Raza group that advocates open borders and driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor is listed as a member of the National Council of La Raza in an American Bar Association profile discovered by a news organization dedicated to exposing public corruption. The appeals court judge has already ignited a firestorm for publicly saying that a jurist’s ethnicity and sex will make a difference in their judging.

The La Raza membership is a fiery compliment to the now infamous Berkeley speech in which Sotomayor said: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”

The National Council of La Raza describes itself as the largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the United States, but it actually caters to the radical Chicano movement that says California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and parts of Colorado and Texas belong to Aztlan.

The takeover plan is referred to as the "reconquista" of the Western U.S. and it features ethnic cleansing of Americans, Europeans, Africans and Asians once the area is taken back and converted to Aztlan. While this may all sound a bit crazy, this organization is quite powerful and its leaders regularly attend congressional hearings regarding immigration. The La Raza council also receives millions of U.S. taxpayer dollars each year.

Obama even violated his own lobbyist ban to hire a top National Council of La Raza official (Cecilia Munoz) as director of intergovernmental affairs. Munoz supervised all legislative and advocacy activities on the state and local levels and was heavily involved in the congressional immigration battles before the president issued an “ethics waiver” to make her part of his administration.

In return, the La Raza council has strongly supported Obama while never the less pressuring him to do more for the race. The group was quick to issue a press release lauding the president’s “historic appointment” of Sotomayor to the nation’s highest court, calling it a “monumental day for Latinos.” No mention of the judge’s membership in the group, however.

Gibbs Lashes out at British media

http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/0509/gibbs_vs_uk_press_6f2649ca-3a2a-41fa-ae25-b3fe063046e4.html

By ALEXANDER BURNS

Robert Gibbs swatted down reports in British newspapers that suppressed photos of prisoner abuse included graphic ... images of torture and rape — and took a hard shot at the overseas media.

“I want to speak generally about some reports I’ve witnessed over the past few years in the British media. And in some ways, I’m surprised it filtered down,” Gibbs began. “Let’s just say if I wanted to look up — if I wanted to read a writeup today of how Manchester United fared last night in the Champion’s League cup, I might open up a British newspaper. If I was looking for something that bordered on truthful news, I’m not entirely sure it’d be in the first pack of clips I’d pick up.”

“You're not going to find very many of these newspapers and truth within 25 words of each other,” Gibbs continued.

Possible Obama Supreme Court Pick Slapped Down Reverse Discrimination Case in One-Paragraph Opinion

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=47838

Friday, May 08, 2009

(CNSNews.com) – U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor, mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee, voted to deny a racial discrimination claim in a 2008 decision. She dismissed the case in a one-paragraph statement that, in the opinion of one dissenting judge, ignored the evidence and did not even address the constitutional issues raised by the case.

The case, Ricci v. DeStefano, involved a group of 19 white firefighters and one Hispanic firefighter who filed suit in 2003 claiming that the city of New Haven, Conn., engaged in racial discrimination when it threw out the results of two promotion tests because none of the city’s black applicants had passed the tests.

Each of the plaintiffs had passed the exam. The case is currently before the U.S. Supreme Court.

The city threw out the results because it feared potential lawsuits from activist groups if few or no minority candidates were promoted. The city also claimed that in addition to potential lawsuits, promotions based on the test results would undermine their goal of diversity in the Fire Department. Which is much more important goal than actual fighting fires

The firefighters sued, arguing that New Haven was discriminating against them by deciding that the tests would promote too many white candidates and too few minorities.

Federal Judge Janet Bond Arterton rejected the firefighters’ appeal, siding with the city and saying that no racial discrimination had occurred because the city didn’t promote anyone at all.

U.S. Appeals Court Judge Sotomayor issued an order that affirmed Arterton’s decision, issuing a one-paragraph judgment that called Arterton’s ruling “thorough, thoughtful, and well reasoned,” 
 
But according to dissenting Judge Jose Cabranes, the single-paragraph order issued by Sotomayor and her colleagues ignored over 1,800 pages of testimony and more than an hour of argument--ignoring the facts of the case. 

“(T)he parties submitted briefs of 86 pages each and a six-volume joint appendix of over 1,800 pages; plaintiffs’ reply brief was over thirty pages long," Cabranes wrote. 

"(O)ral argument, on December 10, 2007, lasted over an hour,” Cabranes explained, adding that more than two months after oral arguments, Sotomayor and the majority panel upheld the lower court in a summary order “containing a single substantive paragraph.” 

Cabranes criticized Sotomayor and the majority for not explaining why they had sided with the city in their new opinion.
 
“This per curiam opinion adopted in toto the reasoning of the District Court, without further elaboration or substantive comment, and thereby converted a lengthy, unpublished district court opinion, grappling with significant constitutional and statutory claims of first impression, into the law of this Circuit,” Cabranes wrote in his dissent.
 
Judge Cabranes also said that Sotomayor’s opinion failed to address the constitutional issues of the case, saying the majority had ignored the facts of the case as well.
 
“It did so, moreover, in an opinion that lacks a clear statement of either the claims raised by the plaintiffs or the issues on appeal. Indeed, the opinion contains no reference whatsoever to the constitutional claims at the core of this case,” the judge criticized.
 
“This Court has failed to grapple with the questions of exceptional importance raised in this appeal,” Judge Cabranes concluded. “If the Ricci plaintiffs are to receive such an opinion from a reviewing court they must now look to the Supreme Court. Their claims are worthy of that review.”
 
The opinion, or lack thereof, in the Ricci case is the last in a series of strange opinions issued by Sotomayor. 
 
In another recent decision, U.S.A. v. Marcus, Sotomayor sent the case of a convicted violent sex trafficker back to a lower court because a lower court judge had not specifically told the jury that some, though not all, of the sex trafficking had taken place before it was specifically outlawed. 
 
In another unusual case, then-district Judge Sotomayor ruled that a prospective lawyer must be given special consideration in taking the New York state bar exam because her dyslexia qualified as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act, despite the fact that she had failed the exam five times.
 
As a district court judge, Sotomayor also allowed a racial discrimination claim to continue when the plaintiff, a black nurse, sued Bellevue Hospital Corp because other nurses spoke mainly in Filipino, their native tongue, which she claimed made her feel harassed and isolated. 
 
In 1994, Judge Sotomayor ruled in favor of two prisoners who claimed to practice Santeria, a Caribbean religion that involves animal sacrifice and voodoo, saying that “distinctions between ‘traditional’ and ‘non-traditional’ religions” are “intolerable.”
 
Sotomayor was originally nominated to the bench by former President George H.W. Bush on the recommendation of the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N.Y.). She was elevated to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals by President Bill Clinton in 1997.

Changing the Art on the White House Walls

U.S. NEWS MAY 22, 2009

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203771904574175453455287432.html#

By AMY CHOZICK and KELLY CROW 

Barack Obama is taking on health care, financial regulation, torture and environmental policy. He’s also revamping the White House art collection.

The Obamas are sending ripples through the art world as they put the call out to museums, galleries and private collectors that they’d like to borrow modern art by African-American, Asian, Hispanic and female artists for the White House. In a sharp departure from the 19th-century still lifes, pastorals and portraits that dominate the White House’s public rooms, they are choosing bold, abstract art works.

The overhaul is an important event for the art market. The Obamas’ art choices could affect the market values of the works and artists they decide to display. Museums and collectors have been moving quickly to offer up works for inclusion in the iconic space. 

Their choices also, inevitably, have political implications, and could serve as a savvy tool to drive the ongoing message of a more inclusive administration. The Clintons received political praise after they selected Simmie Knox, an African-American artist from Alabama, to paint their official portraits. The Bush administration garnered approval for acquiring “The Builders,” a painting by African-American artist Jacob Lawrence, but also some criticism for the picture, which depicts black men doing menial labor.

Last week the first family installed seven works on loan from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington in the White House’s private residence, including “Sky Light” and “Watusi (Hard Edge),” a pair of blue and yellow abstracts by lesser-known African-American abstract artist Alma Thomas, acclaimed for her post-war paintings of geometric shapes in cheery colors.

The National Gallery of Art has loaned the family at least five works this year, including “Numerals, 0 through 9,” a lead relief sculpture by Jasper Johns, “Berkeley No. 52,” a splashy large-scale painting by Richard Diebenkorn, and a blood-red Edward Ruscha canvas featuring the words, “I think maybe I’ll…,” fitting for a president known for lengthy bouts of contemplation. The Jasper Johns sculpture was installed in the residence on Inauguration Day, along with modern works by Robert Rauschenberg and Louise Nevelson, also on loan from the National Gallery. 

Collectors say the art picks by the Obamas will likely affect the artists’ market values—or at least raise their profiles. After George W. Bush displayed El Paso, Texas-born artist Tom Lea’s “Rio Grande,” a photorealistic view of a cactus set against gray clouds, in the Oval Office, the price of the artist’s paintings shot up roughly 300%, says Adair Margo, owner of an El Paso gallery that sells Mr. Lea’s work. (Mr. Lea passed away in 2001, which also boosted the value of his work.)

The Obamas’ interest in modern art began before they moved to Washington. The couple’s Hyde Park home featured modern art and black-and-white photographs, according to several Chicago friends. On one of their first dates, Mr. Obama took Michelle Robinson to the Art Institute of Chicago. 

A White House spokeswoman says the Obamas enjoy all types of art but want to “round out the permanent collection” and “give new voices” to modern American artists of all races and backgrounds.

The changes in White House art come as the Obama administration seeks to boost arts funding. Mr. Obama included $50 million in his economic stimulus package for the National Endowment for the Arts and on Monday Mrs. Obama delivered remarks at the reopening of the American wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

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National Gallery of Art, Washington

The Obamas have borrowed Ed Ruscha’s ‘I Think I’ll...’ (1983) from the National Gallery.




The Obamas began their art hunt shortly after the November election, says White House curator William Allman. Michael Smith, a Los Angeles-based decorator hired by the Obamas to redo their private quarters, worked with Mr. Allman, White House social secretary Desirée Rogers and others on the Obama transition team to determine which works would make the Obamas feel at home in Washington.

Mr. Smith and Mrs. Obama made a wish list of about 40 artists and asked for potential loans in a letter to the Hirshhorn, according to Kerry Brougher, the museum’s deputy director and chief curator. Mr. Brougher says Mr. Smith insisted any loans be plucked from the museum’s storage collection and not pulled off gallery walls. 

“The White House’s permanent collection is a wonderful record of America’s 18th- and 19th-century classical artistic strengths,” Mr. Smith says. “The pieces of art selected for loan act as a bridge between this historic legacy and the diverse voices of artists from the 20th and 21st century.” 

Last week the Obamas decided to borrow “Nice,” a 1954 abstract by Russian-born painter Nicolas de Staël containing red, black and moss-green rectangles; a couple of boxy paintings from German-born Josef Albers’s famed “Homage to the Square” series in shades of gold, red and lavender; and “Dancer Putting on Stocking” and “The Bow,” two table-top bronzes by Edgar Degas. The museum also sent over New York artist Glenn Ligon’s “Black Like Me,” a stenciled work about the segregated South, among others that the Obamas are still considering, according to a White House spokeswoman.

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The White House Historical Association/White House Collection

Existing works in the Oval Office include Thomas Moran’s 1895 landscape, ‘The Three Tetons,’ and ‘The Bronco Buster’ (1903) by Frederic Remington, below.




The president can hang whatever he wants in the residence and offices, including the Oval Office, but art placed in public rooms, such as the Green Room, must first be approved by the White House curator and the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, an advisory board on which the first lady serves as honorary chair. 

Any works intended for the White House permanent collection go through strict and often lengthy vetting before the White House either accepts them as gifts or, on occasion, purchases them using private donations, says Mr. Allman, who has served as chief curator, a permanent White House position, since 2002 and worked in the curator’s office since 1976. 

Potential additions to the permanent collection must be at least 25 years old, and the White House does not typically accept pieces by living artists for its collection, because inclusion could impact an artist’s market value. As a result, there aren’t many modern art choices in the collection, Mr. Allman says.

“We’re not a gallery,” Mr. Allman says. “We’re not a museum. People come to the White House once in their lifetime and have a certain perception of what they’re going to see.”

Currently, the roughly 450-piece permanent collection includes five works by black artists: the Clinton portraits by Mr. Knox; “The Builders” by Lawrence ; “Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City” by Henry Ossawa Tanner, which hangs in the Green Room and was purchased at Hillary Clinton’s urging in 1995; and “The Farm Landing,” a tranquil landscape painted in 1892 by Rhode Island artist Edward Bannister, purchased with donations in 2006. 

The White House may also temporarily cull works from museums, galleries and collectors to display in either the private residence or public rooms. Presidents must return loans at the end of their final term. 

View Full Image

The White House Historical Association (White House Collection)


Many of the same deep-pocketed collectors who helped Mr. Obama fund his presidential campaign are now offering works. E.T. Williams, a New York collector of African-American art who has sat on museum boards including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, is among the would-be donors. 

Earlier this month, Mr. Williams, a retired banker and real estate investor, strolled through his Manhattan apartment and stopped in front of the jewel of his collection, a smoky-hued portrait of a man in a fedora by Lois Mailou Jones. The painting is appraised at $150,000 but he says he would happily donate it to the White House permanent collection. He also says the Obamas can “borrow anything they like” from his collection, which includes works by Romare Bearden and Hale Woodruff. 

Mr. Williams says that although a loan or donation to the White House could boost his collection’s profile, his offer is motivated by a desire to support the president. A White House spokeswoman says that any potential donations to the permanent collection must go through the curator’s office.

African-American collectors, in particular, snapped to attention when word spread that Mr. Obama might want to borrow art, says Bridgette McCullough Alexander, a Chicago art advisor who went to high school with the first lady. She says some of her collector clients have expressed interest in loaning works to the White House. 

“For collectors, it was as if a call went out that the Obamas needed to fill their fridge. The grocery list of artists just rolled out,” she says.

The White House has long been a revolving door of artistic preferences. Dolley Madison famously saved Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of George Washington during the War of 1812. Jacqueline Kennedy was credited with elevating the profile of White House art when she pulled out of storage eight Cézanne paintings from the permanent collection. 

Subsequent administrations have tried to fill gaps in the permanent collection of American art. Hillary Clinton successfully urged the Committee for the Preservation of the White House to accept Georgia O’Keeffe’s 1930 abstract, “Mountain at Bear Lake, Taos.” Critics said it didn’t fit the 19th-century elegance of the Green Room. 

Laura Bush convinced the preservation committee to accept an Andrew Wyeth painting donated by the artist , in a rare exception to the prohibition on works by living artists. “Thank God they did accept it because then he died and they’d never be able to afford it,” says art historian William Kloss, who has served on the preservation committee since 1990. 
 
The Estate of Richard Diebenkorn

The Obamas have borrowed Richard Diebenkorn’s abstract ‘Berkeley No. 52.’


In 2007, the White House Acquisition Trust, a nonprofit which funds art acquisitions approved by the preservation committee, paid $2.5 million for Jacob Lawrence’s rust-colored collage of workers at a building site, four times its high estimate and far surpassing the artist’s $968,000 auction record at the time, says Eric Widing, head of Christie’s American paintings department. The purchase may have given the Lawrence market a boost. The next spring, a collector paid Christie’s $881,000 for a different Lawrence, the third highest price ever paid for one of his works. 

The 1995 acquisition of Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Atlantic City beach scene had the reverse effect. The White House purchased the work from the artist’s grandniece for $100,000, significantly below the $1 million asking price of similar Tanners. The modest price of the highly publicized purchase sent the price of Tanners plummeting, several gallery owners say.

Mrs. Bush hung a modern work by Helen Frankenthaler in the private residence and pushed for the acquisition of the Lawrence, while Mr. Bush lined his office with at least six Texas landscapes.

“He [Mr. Bush] liked things that reminded him of Texas and said he wanted the Oval Office to look like an optimistic person works there,” says Anita McBride, Mrs. Bush’s former chief of staff. She says the paintings the Bushes borrowed have been returned. 

Weeks into his presidency, Mr. Obama caused a stir when he removed a bronze bust of Winston Churchill, loaned by the British Embassy, from the Oval Office and replaced it with a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. by African-American sculptor Charles Alston, on loan from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery. 

Next month, the Obamas will consider borrowing four works by African-American artist William H. Johnson including his “Booker T. Washington Legend,” a colorful oil on plywood depiction of the former slave educating a group of black students, from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The Art Institute of Chicago plans to send as many as 10 works for the first family’s consideration, including pieces by African-American modernist Beauford Delaney and abstract expressionist Franz Kline.

Steve Stuart, an amateur historian who has been studying the White House for three decades, thinks the Obamas needn’t be overly bound by tradition. “You shouldn’t have to look at Mrs. Hoover’s face over your bed for four years if you don’t want to,” he says.

Write to Amy Chozick at amy.chozick@wsj.com and Kelly Crow at kelly.crow@wsj.com

Changing the Art on the White House Walls

U.S. NEWS MAY 22, 2009

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203771904574175453455287432.html#

By AMY CHOZICK and KELLY CROW 

Barack Obama is taking on health care, financial regulation, torture and environmental policy. He’s also revamping the White House art collection.

The Obamas are sending ripples through the art world as they put the call out to museums, galleries and private collectors that they’d like to borrow modern art by African-American, Asian, Hispanic and female artists for the White House. In a sharp departure from the 19th-century still lifes, pastorals and portraits that dominate the White House’s public rooms, they are choosing bold, abstract art works.

The overhaul is an important event for the art market. The Obamas’ art choices could affect the market values of the works and artists they decide to display. Museums and collectors have been moving quickly to offer up works for inclusion in the iconic space. 

Their choices also, inevitably, have political implications, and could serve as a savvy tool to drive the ongoing message of a more inclusive administration. The Clintons received political praise after they selected Simmie Knox, an African-American artist from Alabama, to paint their official portraits. The Bush administration garnered approval for acquiring “The Builders,” a painting by African-American artist Jacob Lawrence, but also some criticism for the picture, which depicts black men doing menial labor.

Last week the first family installed seven works on loan from the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington in the White House’s private residence, including “Sky Light” and “Watusi (Hard Edge),” a pair of blue and yellow abstracts by lesser-known African-American abstract artist Alma Thomas, acclaimed for her post-war paintings of geometric shapes in cheery colors.

The National Gallery of Art has loaned the family at least five works this year, including “Numerals, 0 through 9,” a lead relief sculpture by Jasper Johns, “Berkeley No. 52,” a splashy large-scale painting by Richard Diebenkorn, and a blood-red Edward Ruscha canvas featuring the words, “I think maybe I’ll…,” fitting for a president known for lengthy bouts of contemplation. The Jasper Johns sculpture was installed in the residence on Inauguration Day, along with modern works by Robert Rauschenberg and Louise Nevelson, also on loan from the National Gallery. 

Collectors say the art picks by the Obamas will likely affect the artists’ market values—or at least raise their profiles. After George W. Bush displayed El Paso, Texas-born artist Tom Lea’s “Rio Grande,” a photorealistic view of a cactus set against gray clouds, in the Oval Office, the price of the artist’s paintings shot up roughly 300%, says Adair Margo, owner of an El Paso gallery that sells Mr. Lea’s work. (Mr. Lea passed away in 2001, which also boosted the value of his work.)

The Obamas’ interest in modern art began before they moved to Washington. The couple’s Hyde Park home featured modern art and black-and-white photographs, according to several Chicago friends. On one of their first dates, Mr. Obama took Michelle Robinson to the Art Institute of Chicago. 

A White House spokeswoman says the Obamas enjoy all types of art but want to “round out the permanent collection” and “give new voices” to modern American artists of all races and backgrounds.

The changes in White House art come as the Obama administration seeks to boost arts funding. Mr. Obama included $50 million in his economic stimulus package for the National Endowment for the Arts and on Monday Mrs. Obama delivered remarks at the reopening of the American wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

View Full Image

National Gallery of Art, Washington

The Obamas have borrowed Ed Ruscha’s ‘I Think I’ll...’ (1983) from the National Gallery.




The Obamas began their art hunt shortly after the November election, says White House curator William Allman. Michael Smith, a Los Angeles-based decorator hired by the Obamas to redo their private quarters, worked with Mr. Allman, White House social secretary Desirée Rogers and others on the Obama transition team to determine which works would make the Obamas feel at home in Washington.

Mr. Smith and Mrs. Obama made a wish list of about 40 artists and asked for potential loans in a letter to the Hirshhorn, according to Kerry Brougher, the museum’s deputy director and chief curator. Mr. Brougher says Mr. Smith insisted any loans be plucked from the museum’s storage collection and not pulled off gallery walls. 

“The White House’s permanent collection is a wonderful record of America’s 18th- and 19th-century classical artistic strengths,” Mr. Smith says. “The pieces of art selected for loan act as a bridge between this historic legacy and the diverse voices of artists from the 20th and 21st century.” 

Last week the Obamas decided to borrow “Nice,” a 1954 abstract by Russian-born painter Nicolas de Staël containing red, black and moss-green rectangles; a couple of boxy paintings from German-born Josef Albers’s famed “Homage to the Square” series in shades of gold, red and lavender; and “Dancer Putting on Stocking” and “The Bow,” two table-top bronzes by Edgar Degas. The museum also sent over New York artist Glenn Ligon’s “Black Like Me,” a stenciled work about the segregated South, among others that the Obamas are still considering, according to a White House spokeswoman.

View Full Image

The White House Historical Association/White House Collection

Existing works in the Oval Office include Thomas Moran’s 1895 landscape, ‘The Three Tetons,’ and ‘The Bronco Buster’ (1903) by Frederic Remington, below.




The president can hang whatever he wants in the residence and offices, including the Oval Office, but art placed in public rooms, such as the Green Room, must first be approved by the White House curator and the Committee for the Preservation of the White House, an advisory board on which the first lady serves as honorary chair. 

Any works intended for the White House permanent collection go through strict and often lengthy vetting before the White House either accepts them as gifts or, on occasion, purchases them using private donations, says Mr. Allman, who has served as chief curator, a permanent White House position, since 2002 and worked in the curator’s office since 1976. 

Potential additions to the permanent collection must be at least 25 years old, and the White House does not typically accept pieces by living artists for its collection, because inclusion could impact an artist’s market value. As a result, there aren’t many modern art choices in the collection, Mr. Allman says.

“We’re not a gallery,” Mr. Allman says. “We’re not a museum. People come to the White House once in their lifetime and have a certain perception of what they’re going to see.”

Currently, the roughly 450-piece permanent collection includes five works by black artists: the Clinton portraits by Mr. Knox; “The Builders” by Lawrence ; “Sand Dunes at Sunset, Atlantic City” by Henry Ossawa Tanner, which hangs in the Green Room and was purchased at Hillary Clinton’s urging in 1995; and “The Farm Landing,” a tranquil landscape painted in 1892 by Rhode Island artist Edward Bannister, purchased with donations in 2006. 

The White House may also temporarily cull works from museums, galleries and collectors to display in either the private residence or public rooms. Presidents must return loans at the end of their final term. 

View Full Image

The White House Historical Association (White House Collection)


Many of the same deep-pocketed collectors who helped Mr. Obama fund his presidential campaign are now offering works. E.T. Williams, a New York collector of African-American art who has sat on museum boards including the Museum of Modern Art in New York, is among the would-be donors. 

Earlier this month, Mr. Williams, a retired banker and real estate investor, strolled through his Manhattan apartment and stopped in front of the jewel of his collection, a smoky-hued portrait of a man in a fedora by Lois Mailou Jones. The painting is appraised at $150,000 but he says he would happily donate it to the White House permanent collection. He also says the Obamas can “borrow anything they like” from his collection, which includes works by Romare Bearden and Hale Woodruff. 

Mr. Williams says that although a loan or donation to the White House could boost his collection’s profile, his offer is motivated by a desire to support the president. A White House spokeswoman says that any potential donations to the permanent collection must go through the curator’s office.

African-American collectors, in particular, snapped to attention when word spread that Mr. Obama might want to borrow art, says Bridgette McCullough Alexander, a Chicago art advisor who went to high school with the first lady. She says some of her collector clients have expressed interest in loaning works to the White House. 

“For collectors, it was as if a call went out that the Obamas needed to fill their fridge. The grocery list of artists just rolled out,” she says.

The White House has long been a revolving door of artistic preferences. Dolley Madison famously saved Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of George Washington during the War of 1812. Jacqueline Kennedy was credited with elevating the profile of White House art when she pulled out of storage eight Cézanne paintings from the permanent collection. 

Subsequent administrations have tried to fill gaps in the permanent collection of American art. Hillary Clinton successfully urged the Committee for the Preservation of the White House to accept Georgia O’Keeffe’s 1930 abstract, “Mountain at Bear Lake, Taos.” Critics said it didn’t fit the 19th-century elegance of the Green Room. 

Laura Bush convinced the preservation committee to accept an Andrew Wyeth painting donated by the artist , in a rare exception to the prohibition on works by living artists. “Thank God they did accept it because then he died and they’d never be able to afford it,” says art historian William Kloss, who has served on the preservation committee since 1990. 
 
The Estate of Richard Diebenkorn

The Obamas have borrowed Richard Diebenkorn’s abstract ‘Berkeley No. 52.’


In 2007, the White House Acquisition Trust, a nonprofit which funds art acquisitions approved by the preservation committee, paid $2.5 million for Jacob Lawrence’s rust-colored collage of workers at a building site, four times its high estimate and far surpassing the artist’s $968,000 auction record at the time, says Eric Widing, head of Christie’s American paintings department. The purchase may have given the Lawrence market a boost. The next spring, a collector paid Christie’s $881,000 for a different Lawrence, the third highest price ever paid for one of his works. 

The 1995 acquisition of Henry Ossawa Tanner’s Atlantic City beach scene had the reverse effect. The White House purchased the work from the artist’s grandniece for $100,000, significantly below the $1 million asking price of similar Tanners. The modest price of the highly publicized purchase sent the price of Tanners plummeting, several gallery owners say.

Mrs. Bush hung a modern work by Helen Frankenthaler in the private residence and pushed for the acquisition of the Lawrence, while Mr. Bush lined his office with at least six Texas landscapes.

“He [Mr. Bush] liked things that reminded him of Texas and said he wanted the Oval Office to look like an optimistic person works there,” says Anita McBride, Mrs. Bush’s former chief of staff. She says the paintings the Bushes borrowed have been returned. 

Weeks into his presidency, Mr. Obama caused a stir when he removed a bronze bust of Winston Churchill, loaned by the British Embassy, from the Oval Office and replaced it with a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. by African-American sculptor Charles Alston, on loan from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery. 

Next month, the Obamas will consider borrowing four works by African-American artist William H. Johnson including his “Booker T. Washington Legend,” a colorful oil on plywood depiction of the former slave educating a group of black students, from the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The Art Institute of Chicago plans to send as many as 10 works for the first family’s consideration, including pieces by African-American modernist Beauford Delaney and abstract expressionist Franz Kline.

Steve Stuart, an amateur historian who has been studying the White House for three decades, thinks the Obamas needn’t be overly bound by tradition. “You shouldn’t have to look at Mrs. Hoover’s face over your bed for four years if you don’t want to,” he says.

Write to Amy Chozick at amy.chozick@wsj.com and Kelly Crow at kelly.crow@wsj.com

Burping of the lambs blows roast off menu

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6350237.ece

GIVE up lamb roasts and save the planet. Government advisers are developing menus to combat climate change by cutting out “high carbon” food such as meat from sheep, whose burping poses a serious threat to the environment. 

Out will go kebabs, greenhouse tomatoes and alcohol. Instead, diners will be encouraged to consume more potatoes and seasonal vegetables, as well as pork and chicken, which generate fewer carbon emissions. 

“Changing our lifestyles, including our diets, is going to be one of the crucial elements in cutting carbon emissions,” said David Kennedy, chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change. 

Kennedy has stopped eating his favourite doner kebabs because they contain lamb.

A government-sponsored study into greenhouse gases found that producing 2.2lb of lamb released the equivalent of 37lb of carbon dioxide. 

The problem is because sheep burp so much methane, a potent greenhouse gas. Cows are only slightly better behaved. The production of 2.2lb of beef releases methane equivalent to 35lb of CO2 Tomatoes, most of which are grown in heated glasshouses, are the most “carbon-intensive” vegetable, each 2.2lb generating more than 20lb of CO2 Potatoes, in contrast, release only about 1lb of CO2 for each 2.2lb of food. The figures are similar for most other native fruit and vegetables. 

“We are not saying that everyone should become vegetarian or give up drinking but moving towards less carbon intensive foods will reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve health,” said Kennedy. 

The climate committee is analysing emissions from farming and will suggest measures to reduce them. However, it has concluded that people will have to change their habits. 

Alcoholic drinks are another significant contributory factor, with the growing and processing of crops such as hops and malt into beer and whisky helping to generate 1.5% of the nation’s greenhouse gases. 

The Carbon Trust, a government-funded firm, is working with food and drink companies to calculate the “carbon footprints” of products - sometimes with surprising results. 

Coca-Cola, for example, generates only about half the greenhouse gas emissions of Innocent’s “smoothies”. Cadbury’s chocolate generates about 4½lb for every 2.2lb eaten - less than half that from theof CO2 same weight of chicken.

Obama Is Said to Consider Preventive Detention Plan

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/21/us/politics/21obama.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

May 21, 2009
Obama Is Said to Consider Preventive Detention Plan 
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON — President Obama told human rights advocates at the White House on Wednesday that he was mulling the need for a “preventive detention” system that would establish a legal basis for the United States to incarcerate terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to national security but cannot be tried, two participants in the private session said.

The discussion, in a 90-minute meeting in the Cabinet Room that included Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and other top administration officials, came on the eve of a much-anticipated speech Mr. Obama is to give Thursday on a number of thorny national security matters, including his promise to close the detention center at the naval base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. 

Human rights advocates are growing deeply uneasy with Mr. Obama’s stance on these issues, especially his recent move to block the release of photographs showing abuse of detainees, and his announcement that he is willing to try terrorism suspects in military commissions — a concept he criticized bitterly as a presidential candidate. 

The two participants, outsiders who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was intended to be off the record, said they left the meeting dismayed.

They said Mr. Obama told them he was thinking about “the long game” — how to establish a legal system that would endure for future presidents. He raised the issue of preventive detention himself, but made clear that he had not made a decision on it. Several senior White House officials did not respond to requests for comment on the outsiders’ accounts. 

“He was almost ruminating over the need for statutory change to the laws so that we can deal with individuals who we can’t charge and detain,” one participant said. “We’ve known this is on the horizon for many years, but we were able to hold it off with George Bush. The idea that we might find ourselves fighting with the Obama administration over these powers is really stunning.”

The other participant said Mr. Obama did not seem to be thinking about preventive detention for terrorism suspects now held at Guantánamo Bay, but rather for those captured in the future, in settings other than a legitimate battlefield like Afghanistan. “The issue is,” the participant said, “What are the options left open to a future president?”

Mr. Obama did not specify how he intended to deal with Guantánamo detainees who posed a threat and could not be tried, nor did he share the contents of Thursday’s speech, the participants said. 

He will deliver the speech at a site laden with symbolism — the National Archives, home to the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. Across town, his biggest Republican critic, former Vice President Dick Cheney, will deliver a speech at the American Enterprise Institute.

Mr. Cheney and other hawkish critics have sought to portray Mr. Obama as weak on terror, and their argument seems to be catching on with the public. On Tuesday, Senate Democrats, in a clear rebuke to the White House, blocked the $80 million Mr. Obama had requested in financing to close the Guantánamo prison. 

The lawmakers say they want a detailed plan before releasing the money; there is deep opposition on Capitol Hill to housing terrorism suspects inside the United States.

“He needs to convince people that he’s got a game plan that will protect us as well as be fair to the detainees,” said Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who agrees with Mr. Obama that the prison should be closed. “If he can do that, then we’re back on track. But if he doesn’t make that case, then we’ve lost control of this debate.”

But Mr. Obama will not use the speech to provide the details lawmakers want. 

“What it’s not going to be is a prescriptive speech,” said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser. “The president wants to take some time and put this whole issue in perspective to identify what the challenges are and how he will approach dealing with them.”

What Are We Stimulating?

http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=MWUyM2QwYzhkMTc5MmQ3M2QyZGMzYjZhZWM0ZTMzOWE=

The stimulus will do nothing for the economy, but it will advance the cause of statism.

By Mark Steyn

I was in Vermont the other day and made the mistake of picking up the local paper. Impressively, it contained a quarter-page ad, a rare sight these days. The rest of the page was made up by in-house promotions for the advertising department’s special offer on yard-sale announcements, etc. But the one real advertisement was from something called SEVCA. SEVCA is a “non-profit agency,” just like the New York Times, General Motors, and the State of California. And it stands for “South-Eastern Vermont Community Action.”

Why, they’re “community organizers,” just like the president! The designated “anti-poverty agency” is taking out quarter-page ads in every local paper is because they’re “seeking applicants for several positions funded in full or part by the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA)” — that’s the “stimulus” to you and me. Isn’t it great to see those bazillions of stimulus dollars already out there stimulating the economy? Creating lots of new jobs at SEVCA, in order to fulfill the president’s promise to “create or keep” 2.5 million jobs. At SEVCA, he’s not just keeping all the existing ones, but creating new ones, too. Of the eight new positions advertised, the first is:

“ARRA Projects Coordinator.”

Gotcha. So the first new job created by the stimulus is a job “coordinating” other programs funded by the stimulus. What’s next?

“Grantwriter.” 

That’s how they spell it. Like in Star Wars — Luke Grantwriter waving his hope saber as instructed by his mentor Obi-Bam Baracki (“May the Funds be with you!”). The Grantwriter will be responsible for writing grant applications “to augment ARRA funds.” So the second new job created by stimulus funding funds someone to petition for additional funding for projects funded by the stimulus.

The third job is a “Marketing Specialist” to increase “public awareness of ARRA-funded services.” Rural Vermont’s economy is set for a serious big-time boom: The critical stimulus-promotion industry, stimulus-coordination industry, and stimulus-supplementary-funding industry are growing at an unprecedented rate. The way things are going we’ll soon need a Stimulus-Coordination Industry Task Force and Impact Study Group. By the way, these jobs aren’t for everyone. “Knowledge of ARRA” is required. So if, say, you’re the average United States senator who voted for ARRA without bothering to read it, you’re not qualified for a job as an ARRA Grantwriter.

I don’t want to give the impression that every job funded by the stimulus is a job coordinating the public awareness of programs for grant applications to coordinate the funding of public awareness coordination programs funded by the stimulus. SEVCA is also advertising for a “Job Readiness Program Coordinator.” This is a job coordinating the program that gets people ready to get a job. For example, it occurred to me, after reading the ad, that I might like to be a “Job Readiness Program Coordinator.” But am I ready for it? Increasing numbers of us are hopelessly unready for jobs. Ever since last November, many Americans have been ready for free health care, free daycare, free college, free mortgages — and, once you get a taste for that, it’s hardly surprising you’re not ready for gainful employment. I only hope there are enough qualified “Job Readiness Program Coordinators” out there, and that they don’t have to initiate a Job Readiness Program Coordinator Readiness Program. As the old novelty song once wondered, “Who Takes Care of the Caretaker’s Daughter While the Caretaker’s Busy Taking Care?” Who coordinates programs for the Job Readiness Program Coordinator while the Job Readiness Program Coordinator’s busy readying for his job? If you hum it, I’ll put in for the stimulus funding.

Oh, and let’s not forget the new job of “VITA Program Coordinator.” VITA? That’s “Volunteer Income Tax Assistance.” It’s an IRS program designed “to help low and moderate-income taxpayers complete their tax returns at no cost.” The words “no cost,” by the way, are used in the new Webster’s–defined sense of “massive public expenditure.” Whoops, I mean massive public “investment.” You might think, were you a space alien recently landed from Planet Zongo, that, if tax returns are so complicated that “low and moderate-income taxpayers” have difficulty filling them in, the obvious solution would be to make the tax code less complex. But that’s just the unfamiliar atmosphere on Planet Earth making you lighthearted and prone to cockamamie out-of-this-world fancies. Put in for a Job Readiness Program, and you’ll soon get with the program.

Of course, it’s not just “low and moderate-income taxpayers” who have difficulty completing their tax returns. So do high-income taxpayers like Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner. Tragically, they’re ineligible for the “Volunteer Income Tax Assistance” program. Indeed, the Treasury secretary seemed under the misapprehension that it was a “Volunteer Income Tax” program, which would be a much better idea. But, being ineligible for VITA, Secretary Geithner was forced to splash out $49.95 for TurboTax and, simply by accidentally checking the “No” box instead of “Yes” at selected moments, was able to save himself thousands of dollars in confiscatory taxation! Oops, my mistake, I meant that, tragically, by being unable to complete his tax return due to a lack of Volunteer Income Tax Assistance, Timothy Geithner was the only one of 300 million Americans to pass the Treasury Secretary Job Readiness Program.

SEVCA serves two rural counties with a combined total of a little over 40,000 households. If you wanted to stimulate the economy, you’d take every dime allocated to Windsor and Windham counties under ARRA and divide it between those households. But, if you want to stimulate bureaucracy, dependency, and the metastasization of approved quasi-governmental interest-group monopolies as the defining features of American life, then ARRA is the way to go. Oh, you scoff: ARRA, go on, you’re only joking. I wish I were. We’re spending trillions we don’t have to create government programs to coordinate the application for funds to create more programs to spend even more trillions we don’t have.

The stimulus will do nothing for the economy, but it will dramatically advance the cause of statism (as Mark Levin rightly calls it). Last week’s vote in California is a snapshot of where this leads: The gangster regime in Sacramento is an alliance between a corrupt and/or craven political class wholly owned by a public-sector union-bureaucracy extortion racket. So what if the formerly Golden State goes belly up? They’ll pass the buck to Washington, and those of us in non-profligate jurisdictions will get stuck with the tab. At some point, the dwindling band of citizens still foolish enough to earn a living by making things, selling things, or providing services other than government-funded program coordination will have to vote against not just taxes but specific agencies and programs — hundreds and thousands of them.

The bad news is our children will not enjoy the American Dream. The good news is they’ll be able to apply for an American Dream Readiness Assistance Coordination Grantwriter Program. May the Funds be with you!

President Above-It-All

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MDZmY2Q1OTYxMmQwNWI0ZjJiNmQyYjU4ZjkxMTdlNmU=

There Obama stands, bravely holding his flanks against straw men on all sides.

By Rich Lowry
EDITOR’S NOTE: This column is available exclusively through King Features Syndicate. For permission to reprint or excerpt this copyrighted material, please contact: kfsreprint@hearstsc.com, or phone 800-708-7311, ext 246.

Put Barack Obama in front of a teleprompter and one thing is certain — he’ll make himself appear the most reasonable person in the room.

Rhetorically, he is in the middle of any debate, perpetually surrounded by finger-pointing extremists who can’t get over their reflexive combativeness and ideological fixations to acknowledge his surpassing thoughtfulness and grace.

This is how Obama, whose position on abortion is indistinguishable from NARAL’s, can speechify on abortion at Notre Dame and come away sounding like a pitch-perfect centrist. It’s natural, then, that his speech at the National Archives on national security should superficially sound soothing, reasonable, and even a little put-upon (oh, what President Obama has to endure from all those finger-pointing extremists).


 But beneath its surface, the speech — given heavy play in the press as an implicit debate with former Vice President Dick Cheney, who spoke on the same topic at a different venue immediately afterward — revealed something else: a president who has great difficulty admitting error, who can’t discuss the position of his opponents without resorting to rank caricature, and who adopts an off-putting pose of above-it-all self-righteousness.

Obama has reversed himself since becoming president on detaining terrorists indefinitely and on trying them before military commissions. Once upon a time, these policies were blots on our honor; now they are simple necessities. Between the primary and the general election, candidate Obama changed his mind and embraced Pres. George W. Bush’s terrorist-surveillance program. In recent weeks, he countermanded his own Justice Department’s decision not to contest a court decision that would have led to the release of photos of detainee abuse.

A less self-consciously grandiose figure might feel the need to reflect on the fact that his simplistic prior positions had not fully taken account of the difficulties inherent in fighting the War on Terror. Not Obama. On the commissions, he explicitly denied changing his view, instead trumpeting cosmetic changes he’s proposed as major reforms that will bring them in line “with the rule of law.”

For all his championing of nuance, Obama comes back to one source for every dilemma: Bush, as though without his predecessor every question about how a nation of laws protects itself from a lawless enemy would be easy. Under Bush, according to Obama, we set our “principles aside as luxuries we could no longer afford.” Even now, there are those — are you listening, Mr. Former V.P.? — “who think that America’s safety and success require us to walk away from the sacred principles enshrined in this building.” What a shoddy smear.

Consider Obama’s breaks with Bush: We have stopped using enhanced interrogation techniques for now, but Obama reserves the right to use them again; we will have military commissions but with four procedural changes; we’re going to close Gitmo but find some equivalent detention facility for that category of detainees who, Obama says, are dangerous but can’t be tried or released. These are matters of degree and therefore questions of prudence, not principle. If Bush violated our fundamental beliefs, then Obama is violating them, too, only a little less so.

Excoriating Bush is good politics for Obama, which is what makes his repeated exhortations to look ahead so disingenuous. In his speech, he rued that “we have a return of the politicization of these issues.” In other words: Dick Cheney, please shut up. But when did the politicization of these issues end? Has the Left ever stopped braying about Bush’s war crimes?

Obama bracingly politicized these very issues on the stump, staking out unsustainably purist positions because they suited his momentary political interest. Now that’s he’s president, he wants the debate to end. He’s above the grubbily disputatious culture of partisans and journalists. And he’s above contradiction because, as ever, he occupies the middle ground, one “obscured by two opposite and absolutist” sides: those who recognize no terrorist threat and those who recognize no limits to executive power.

And there Obama stands, bravely holding his flanks against straw men on all sides.


— Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review

'Go home Nazi scum,' Serb hardliners tell Biden

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hdiyv6s-6K6MWsm4Y-IlaHCEMqqQ

BELGRADE (AFP) — Serb ultra-nationalist lawmakers held up insulting signs in parliament Wednesday as US Vice President Joe Biden, considered a strong backer of Kosovo independence, arrived in Belgrade.

"Biden, you Nazi scum, go home," said the posters brandished by opposition Radical Party deputies during the live national broadcast of a parliament sitting which coincided with the start of Biden's visit.

The Radicals, who occupy around a fifth of places in the 250-seat assembly, then pasted the signs which also labelled Biden a "fascist" on a notice board and hallway.

They all appeared in parliament dressed in T-shirts bearing the image of the party's president, Vojislav Seselj, who is currently on trial for war crimes before a UN tribunal in The Hague.

Seselj's acting leader Dragan Todorovic described Biden's visit as "the saddest day in Serbia's history."

The United States represented "all bad things that have struck the Serbian people, and whose inspirer was for the large part Biden," Todorovic was as quoted as saying by Tanjug news agency.

Nationalist Serbs are deeply sceptical of Biden's visit, which the US vice president said was part of the Obama administration's bid to develop "healthy" relations with the former pariah state.

US warplanes took part in NATO's 1999 bombing of Serbia to end a violent crackdown on separatist Kosovo Albanian rebels by forces loyal to late autocratic president Slobodan Milosevic.

The 1998-1999 Kosovo conflict killed several thousand people and saw hundreds of thousands flee the disputed territory. Most victims were ethnic Albanians.

Serb authorities have imposed stringent security measures for Biden's visit, part of a landmark tour of the Balkan region also taking in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Kosovo is an ethnic Albanian-majority territory whose ethnic Albanian-dominated parliament seceded from Serbia in February 2008 and was promptly recognised by the United States.

Although Belgrade's pro-Western government is keen to improve ties with Washington, it insists it will never recognise the independence of Kosovo, which many Serbs see as their historic heartland.

MOSQUE'S IMAM IS A PRISON CHAPLAIN

http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nypost.com%2Fseven%2F05222009%2Fnews%2Fregionalnews%2Fmosques_imam_is_a_prison_chaplain_170471.htm

May 22, 2009 -- 

The imam of the Newburgh mosque where the Bronx-plot terror cell was organized has worked for more than 20 years in the New York state prison system converting inmates to Islam -- and was hired by the radical Muslim chaplain banned for praising the 9/11 hijackers.

mam Salahuddin Muhammad is the spiritual leader of the Masjid Al-Ikhlas, the Newburgh mosque where the four terrorist wannabes met. 

Muhammad also has worked as a prison chaplain at Fishkill Correctional Facility since 1985 -- where alleged Bronx terrorist James Cromitie was imprisoned in 1991. 

Muhammad was recruited to work in the prison system by the controversial Warith Deen Umar, who was booted after he reportedly said Muslims "secretly admire" the attacks on the World Trade Center. 

Muhammad converted to Islam when he was in prison, said Imam Talib Abdur-Rashid of the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood in Harlem, who has known Muhammad for 20 years. Muhammad served 12 years for robbery, according to a 2003 report in The Wall Street Journal. 

Muhammad, who also serves as a chaplain at Bard College, yesterday dismissed his connection to Umar, who was regarded as one of the most influential Muslim clerics in the vast state prison system. 

"This brother has his own mind," Muhammad said. "We're not teaching hatred. I love this country."

He said he only knew one of the four plotters, Cromitie, by sight. He said he never met the other three accused. 

"I don't teach that stuff," said Muhammad. 

But Muhammad is not without controversy. 

During a stint as chaplain at the prison in Beacon, Muhammad, a Sunni, sowed division within Islam by referring to Shia convicts who adhered to another branch of the Islamic faith as "infiltrators and snitches" during his Friday sermons, according to prisoner complaints reported in the Journal in 2003. 

Umar worked for 25 years in the prison system as a chaplain and boasted that they were the "perfect recruitment and training ground for radicalism and the Islamic religion."

perry.chiaramonte@nypost.com

Barack Obama is giving Iran the time it needs to build a nuclear bomb

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/concoughlin/5363486/Barack-Obama-is-giving-Iran-the-time-it-needs-to-build-a-nuclear-bomb.html

The President's approach ignores the urgent threat of the regime's weapons programme, says Con Coughlin. 

 
By Con Coughlin 
Last Updated: 6:54PM BST 21 May 2009

Has President Obama inadvertently given Iran the green light to develop an atom bomb? I only ask because it appears to be the logical conclusion to be drawn from his announcement this week that he is giving Iran until the end of the year to decide whether or not to co-operate with the West over its controversial nuclear programme. 

In all the furore over MPs' expenses, it is hardly surprising that the implications of Mr Obama's highly revealing comment have gone unnoticed in this country. But taken at face value, it could have a major impact on how the international crisis over Iran's nuclear programme plays out.

Under pressure from a visiting Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, to explain the latest White House position on Iran, a relaxed Mr Obama remarked: "We should have a fairly good sense by the end of the year as to whether [the Iranians] are moving in the right direction." 

The only problem with this somewhat lackadaisical approach to the most pressing security issue of the modern age is that, come the end of the year, Iran's development of a nuclear weapon will be a fait accompli. 

At the heart of the international campaign to persuade Tehran to halt its programme is the awareness that, according to intelligence estimates, Iran will by the end of this year have sufficient quantities of low-enriched uranium (LEU) to build a nuclear warhead. Even the most doveish intelligence analysts agree that 2,000 kilos would be sufficient for an atom bomb, and in March, the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN's nuclear watchdog, confirmed that Iran had so far successfully produced half of that amount in its uranium enrichment facility at Natanz. 

Natanz has the capacity to produce 100 kilos of LEU a month, which means that, unless Tehran can be persuaded to halt its enrichment activities, it will have all the fuel it needs to produce a bomb by the end of year – just when Mr Obama will be looking to Tehran to respond to his peace overtures. 

Whether or not Iran has an active military nuclear programme to turn that fuel into a bomb is a topic of hot debate within the western intelligence community. It is now widely agreed that such a programme was in place until 2003, when it was abruptly abandoned, as Tehran took fright following the invasion of Iraq. Many experts argue that there is now sufficient evidence to suggest that the country has resumed its efforts since the hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the presidency in 2005. 

Because of this, those involved in the tortuous negotiations to persuade Tehran to freeze uranium enrichment – which have been under way for six years – are well aware that time is of the essence. Even when Mr Obama, in his first weeks in office, offered the hand of friendship to Iran if it agreed to "unclench its fist", most western negotiators believed that the diplomatic pressure – in the form of economic sanctions – had to be maintained if Tehran was to be brought to its senses. 

At a stroke, however, Mr Obama's comments have taken the pressure off Iran, just as the nuclear crisis approaches a critical juncture. Next month, Iran goes to the polls to choose a new president. The outcome of this election will determine the fate of Iran's 30-year stand-off with the West. 

However, if this week's confirmation of the four presidential candidates is anything to go by, don't expect a radical change of direction in Tehran anytime soon. Of the 475 people who put their names forward for the contest, 471 were excluded on ideological grounds by the Guardian Council, the all-powerful body which is charged with protecting the core principles of Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution. 

The Guardian Council reports directly to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Khomeini's successor as Supreme Leader, which means that the regime has yet again manipulated the election result in its favour before a vote has even been cast. 

Mr Ahmadinejad remains the favourite, but in the unlikely event that he fails to win a second term, he would simply be replaced by another conservative hardliner. The other candidates are Mohsen Rezai, a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Mir Hossein Musavi, who served as Iran's prime minister under Ayatollah Khomeini in the 1980s, and Mahdi Karroubi, a former speaker of the Iranian parliament. Not exactly a list that will give Iranians a chance to vote for change they can believe in. 

As if to set the tone for the forthcoming election campaign, Mr Ahmadinejad earlier this week announced that Iran had successfully launched a missile capable of hitting Israel, while reiterating his determination to press ahead with the nuclear programme. 

Whatever happens at the polls, Mr Obama does not have to wait until the end of the year to find out whether Tehran is prepared to make the concessions necessary to resolve this crisis. Whether it is Mr Ahmadinejad or one of the other candidates who triumphs on June 12, the message will be the same: no deal.

Clinton Renditions Abroad

http://foreignaffairs.house.gov/110/sch041707.htm

Statement before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs,

Subcommittee on International Organizations, Human Rights, and Oversight

Subcommittee on Europe

 

“Extraordinary Rendition in 

U.S. Counter terrorism Policy: 

The Impact on Transatlantic Relations.”

 

A Statement by

 

Michael F. Scheuer

Former Chief, Bin Laden Unit, CIA

 

April 17, 2007

 

The Rendition Program

The CIA’s Rendition Program began in late summer, 1995. I authored it, and then ran and managed it against al-Qaeda leaders and other Sunni Islamists from August, 1995, until June, 1999.

 

A.) There were only two goals for the program:

 

1.) Take men off the street who were planning or had been involved in attacks on U.S. or its allies.

 

2.) Seize hard-copy or electronic documents in their possession when arrested; Americans were never expected to read them.

 

3.) Interrogation was never a goal under President Clinton. Why?

--Because it would be a foreign intelligence or security service without CIA present or in control.

--Because the take from the interrogation would be filtered by the service holding the individual, and we would never know if it was complete or distorted.

--Because torture might be used and the information might be simply what an individual thought we wanted to hear.

 

 

B.) The Rendition Program was initiated because President Clinton, and Messrs. Lake, Berger, and Clarke requested that the CIA begin to attack and dismantle AQ. These men made it clear that they did not want to bring those captured to the U.S. and hold them in U.S. custody.

 

1.) President Clinton and his national security team directed the CIA to take each captured al-Qaeda leader to the country which had an outstanding legal process for him. This was a hard-and-fast rule which greatly restricted CIA’s ability to confront al-Qaeda because we could only focus on al-Qaeda leaders who were wanted somewhere. As a result many al-Qaeda fighters we knew were dangerous to America could not be captured.

 

2.) CIA warned the president and the National Security Council that the U.S. State Department had and would identify the countries to which the captured fighters were being delivered as human rights abusers.

 

3.) In response, President Clinton et. al asked if CIA could get each receiving country to guarantee that it would treat the person according to its own laws. This was no problem and we did so.

 

--I have read and been told that Mr. Clinton, Mr. Burger, and Mr. Clarke have said since 9/11 that they insisted that each receiving country treat the rendered person it received according to U.S. legal standards. To the best of my memory that is a lie.

 

 

C.) After 9/11, and under President Bush, rendered al-Qaeda operatives have most often been kept in U.S. custody. The goals of the program remained the same, although the Mr. Bush’s national security team wanted to use U.S. officers to interrogate captured al-Qaeda fighters

 

1.) This decision by the Bush administration allowed CIA to capture al-Qaeda fighters we knew were a threat to the United States without on all occasions being dependent on the availability of another country’s outstanding legal process. This decision made the already successful Rendition Program even more effective.

 

 

D.) The following particulars about the Rendition Program may be of interest to you.

 

 

1.) From its start until today, the Program was focused on senior al-Qaeda leaders and not aimed at the rank-and-file members. With only limited manpower to conduct the Rendition Program, CIA wanted to inflict as much damage on al-Qaeda as possible and therefore focused on senior leaders, financiers, terrorist operators, field commanders, strategists, and logisticians.

 

2.) To the best of my knowledge, not a single target of rendition has ever been kidnapped by CIA officers. The claims to the contrary by the Swedish government regarding Mr. Aghiza and his associate, and those by the Italian government regarding Abu Omar, are either misstatements or lies by those governments.

 

--Indeed, it is passing strange that European leaders are here today to complain about very successful and security enhancing U.S. Government counterterrorism operations, when their European Union (EU) presides over the earth’s single largest terrorist safe haven, and has done so for a quarter century. The EU’s policy of easily attainable political asylum and its prohibition against deporting wanted or convicted terrorists to country’s with the death penalty have made Europe a major, consistent, and invulnerable source of terrorist threat to the United States.  

 

3.) Each and every target of a rendition was vetted by a battery of lawyers at CIA and not infrequently by lawyers at the National Security Council and the Department of Justice. For each rendition target, I, and then my successors as the chief of the bin Laden/al-Qaeda operations, had to prepare and present a written brief citing and explaining the intelligence information that made the rendition target a threat to the United States and/or its allies. If the brief persuaded the lawyers, the operation went ahead. If the brief was insufficient, the lawyers disapproved and no operation was conducted against that target until additional reliable evidence was collected.

 

--Let me be very explicit and precise on this point. Not one single al-Qaeda leader has ever been rendered on the basis of any CIA officer’s “hunch” or “guess” or “caprice.” These are scurrilous accusations that became fashionable after the Washington Post’s correspondent Dana Priest revealed information that damaged U.S. national security and, as result, won a journalism prize for abetting America's enemies, and when such lamentable politicians as Senators McCain, Rockefeller, Graham, and Levin followed Ms. Priest’s lead and began to attack the men and women of CIA who had risked their lives to protect America under the direct orders of two U.S. presidents and with the full knowledge of the intelligence committees of the United States Congress. Both Ms. Priest and the gentlemen just mentioned have behaved disgracefully, and ought to publicly apologize to the CIA’s men and women who have executed the Rendition Program. 

 

4.) To proceed, the Rendition Program has been the single most effective counterterrorism operation ever conducted by the United States government. Americans are safer today because of the program, but that degree of safety will ebb as the Senators just mentioned slowly but surely destroy the program. If there are those in this Congress, in the media, in this country, or in Europe who believe that we would be safer if Khalid Shaykh Muhammed, Abu Zubaydah, Mr. Hambali, Ibn Shaykh al-Libi, Khalid bin Attash, and several dozen other senior al-Qaeda leaders were still free and on the street, then the educational systems and the reservoirs of common sense on both sides of the Atlantic are in much more dilapidated shape than I thought.

 

5.) On the issue of how rendered al-Qaeda leaders have been treated in prison, I am unable to speak with authority about the conditions these men found in the Middle Eastern prisons they were delivered to at President Clinton’s direction. I would not, however, be surprised if their treatment was not up to U.S. standards, but this is a matter of no concern as the Rendition Program's goal was to protect America and the rendered fighters delivered to Middle Eastern governments are now either dead or in places from which they cannot harm America. Mission accomplished, as the saying goes.

 

Under President Bush, the rendered al-Qaeda fighters held in U.S. custody have been treated according to guidelines that were crafted by U.S. government lawyers, approved by the Executive Branch, and briefed to and permitted by at least the four senior members of the two congressional intelligence oversight committees.  

 

6.) Finally, I will close by saying that mistakes may well have been made during my tenure as the chief of CIA’s bin Laden operations, and, if there were errors, they are my responsibility. Intelligence information is not the equivalent of court-room-quality evidence, and it never will be. But I will again stress that no rendition target was ever approved or captured without a written brief composed of intelligence information that persuaded competent U.S. government legal authorities. If mistakes were made, I can only say that that is tough, but war is a tough and confusing business, and a well-supported chance to take action and protect Americans should always trump other considerations, especially pedantic worries about whether or not the intelligence data is air tight.

 

--To destroy the Rendition Program because of a mistake or two or more would be to sacrifice the protection of Americans to venal and prize-hungry reporters like Ms. Priest, grandstanding politicians like those mentioned above, and effete sanctimonious Europeans who take every bit of American protection offered them while publicly damning and seeking jail time for those who risk their lives to provide the protection. If the Rendition Program is halted, we will truly be able to say, by paraphrasing the late film actor John Wayne, that: War is tough, but it is a lot tougher if you are deliberately stupid.

The 10 punches Dick Cheney landed on Barack Obama's jaw

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/toby_harnden/blog/2009/05/21/the_10_punches_dick_cheney_landed_on_barack_obamas_jaw

Posted By: Toby Harnden at May 21, 2009 at 23:21:41 [General] 
Posted in: Foreign Correspondents 
Tags:
View More | 
AEI, Barack Obama, dick cheney, Guantanamo Bay, National Archives 


The spectacle of two duelling speeches with a mile of each other in downtown Washington was extraordinary. I was at the Cheney event and watched Obama's address on a big screen beside the empty lectern that the former veep stepped behind barely two minutes after his adversary had finished.

So who won the fight? (it's hard to use anything other than a martial or pugilistic metaphor). Well, most people are on either one side or the other of this issue and I doubt today will have prompted many to switch sides.

But the very fact that Obama chose to schedule his speech (Cheney's was announced first) at exactly the same time as the former veep was a sign of some weakness.

 

Obama's speech and Cheney's empty lectern. Pic: Toby Harnden

The venues for the speeches said something. Obama showily chose the National Archives, repository for many of the founding documents of the US, and spoke in front of a copy of the Constitution - cloaking himself in the flag, as Republicans were often criticised for doing.

To hear Cheney speak, we were crammed into a decidedly unglamourous and cramped conference room at AEI, favourite think tank of conservative hawks. 

The former veep's speech was factual and unemotional and certainly devoid of the kind of hokey, self-obsessed, campaign-style stuff like this, from Obama's address today: "I stand here today as someone whose own life was made possible by these documents. My father came to these shores in search of the promise that they offer. My mother made me rise before dawn to learn their truths when I lived as a child in a foreign land."

In terms of Obama's purported aim for his speech - to present a plan for closing Guantanamo Bay aimed at placating Congress - he failed. The reception on Capitol Hill was lukewarm with even Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.



Dick Cheney responds Pic: Toby Harnden

Cheney's speech wasn't stylish, there were no rhetorical flourishes and the tone was bitingly sarcastic and disdainful at times. But it was effective in many respects and Cheney showed that Obama is not invulnerable. Here are 10 of the punches he landed on the President's jaw:

1. "I've heard occasional speculation that I'm a different man after 9/11. I wouldn't say that, but I'll freely admit that watching a coordinated, devastating attack on our country from an underground bunker at the White House can affect how you view your responsibilities."

Anyone who was in New York or Washington on 9/11 (I was here in DC) was profoundly affected and most Americans understand this. Obama was, as far as I can tell, in Chicago. His response - he was then a mere state senator for liberal Hyde Park - was startlingly hand-wringing and out of step with how most Americans were feeling. This statement by Cheney reminds people of the tough decisions he and Bush had to make - ones that Obama has not yet faced.

2. "The first attack on the World Trade Center was treated as a law- enforcement problem, with everything handled after the fact: arrests, indictments, convictions, prison sentences, case closed."

This was the pre-9/11 mindset, much criticised after the attacks. Many sense that this is the approach Obama is increasingly taking.

3. "By presidential decision last month, we saw the selective release of documents relating to enhanced interrogations. This is held up as a bold exercise in open government, honoring the public's right to know. We're informed as well that there was much agonizing over this decision. Yet somehow, when the soul searching was done and the veil was lifted on the policies of the Bush administration, the public was given less than half the truth."

The release of the documents was a nakedly political move by Obama and Cheney called him on it. This passage from Obama's speech today came across as completely disingenuous: "I did not do this because I disagreed with the enhanced interrogation techniques that those memos authorized, and I didn't release the documents because I rejected their legal rationales -- although I do on both counts. I released the memos because the existence of that approach to interrogation was already widely known, the Bush Administration had acknowledged its existence, and I had already banned those methods."


4. "It's hard to imagine a worse precedent filled with more possibilities for trouble and abuse than to have an incoming administration criminalize the policy decisions of its predecessor. Apart from doing a serious injustice to intelligence operators and lawyers, who deserve far better for their devoted service, the danger here is a loss of focus on national security and what it requires."

Obama's suggestion that Bush administration officials might be prosecuted for legal and policy judgements about what was an was not permissible in interrogations was chilling. I doubt most Americans have any enthusiasm for such a witch-hunt and it flies in the face of Obama's stated desire not to "re-litigate" the Bush years.

5. "We had a lot of blind spots after the attacks on our country, things we didn't know about al Qaeda. We didn't know about al Qaeda's plans, but Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and a few others did know. And with many thousands of innocent lives potentially in the balance, we did not think it made sense to let the terrorists answer questions in their own good time, if they answered them at all."

The political climate is very different now from what it was just after 9/11 but it could change again in a heartbeat if and when there is another terrorist attack. Most Americans do not favour torture but do want the CIA and other agencies to question suspected terrorists very vigorously indeed if there is any chance they might know something about an attack on the US homeland.

6. "On his second day in office, President Obama announced he was closing the detention facility at Guantanamo. This step came with little deliberation, and no plan. Now the president says some of these terrorists should be brought to American soil for trial in our court system. Others, he says, will be shipped to third countries; but so far, the United States has had little luck getting other countries to take hardened terrorists."

Obama's grand announcement at the start of his administration that Gitmo would be closed within a year was clearly not properly thought out. If he fails to achieve what he promised, he will pay a big political price and Cheney was marking his card on the issue.

7. "The administration has found that it's easy to receive applause in Europe for closing Guantanamo, but it's tricky to come up with an alternative that will serve the interest of justice and America's national security."

The notion that Obama makes gestures designed to court popularity abroad is one that could find increasing resonance - many Republicans strongly suspect it already.

8. "If fine speechmaking, appeals to reason, or pleas for compassion had the power to move them, the terrorists would long ago have abandoned the field."

As Cheney said this, sarcasm dripped from his lips. Obviously "fine speechmaking" but no real substance is not a new charge against Obama and it hits home. And Cheney successfully mades the point that much of the rhetoric from the Left tends to suggest that if only the US did not waterboard people, if only the US was viewed as Obama rather than Bush, Venus rather than Mars then it would be universally loved and al-Qaeda would wither away. UNfortunately, that's not the real world.

9. "It's worth recalling that ultimate power of declassification belongs to the president himself. President Obama has used his declassification authority to reveal what happens in the interrogation of terrorists. Now let him use that same power to show Americans what did not happen thanks to the good work of our intelligence officials."

Cheney is pushing Obama to declassify documeents relating to the information gained from terrorist suspects who were subjected to Enhanced Interrogation Techniques. This puts Obama in a bind. If he does so, it prolongs an argument he wants to move on from and prolongs the Obama vs Cheney meme that is distracting and doesn't really help him. if he doesn't, he looks like he has something to hide.

10. "To the very end of our administration, we kept al-Qaeda terrorists busy with other problems. We focused on getting their secrets instead of sharing ours with them. And on our watch, they never hit this country again. After the most lethal and devastating terrorist attack ever, 7- 1/2 years without a repeat is not a record to be rebuked and scorned, much less criminalized."

It's indisputably an achievement of the Bush administration that it prevented the US from being attacked after 9/11. By ramming this point home, Cheney tees things up for some very tough questioning of Obama in the event that the US is attacked again.

=============

e) Mission. The mission of the Special Task Force shall be:

 (i) to study and evaluate whether the interrogation practices and techniques in Army Field Manual 2 22.3, when employed by departments or agencies outside the military, provide an appropriate means of acquiring the intelligence necessary to protect the Nation, and, if warranted, to recommend any additional or different guidance for other departments or agencies; and

 (ii) to study and evaluate the practices of transferring individuals to other nations in order to ensure that such practices comply with the domestic laws, international obligations, and policies of the United States and do not result in the transfer of individuals to other nations to face torture or otherwise for the purpose, or with the effect, of undermining or circumventing the commitments or obligations of the United States to ensure the humane treatment of individuals in its custody or control.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/EnsuringLawfulInterrogations/