10 May 1801

Some things never change. I was browsing through wikipedia's "on this day" section and saw that it is indeed 207 years since the Pasha of Tripoli (and the other Barbary states) declared war on America (which, incidentally, they did by cutting down the flagstaff in front of the embassy in Tripoli).

In 1786, Ambassadors Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met with Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman, of Tripoli, in London, to negotiate a peace. This excerpt, taken from an article in Atlantic Monthly in 1872 called "Jefferson, American Minister in France" (page 413), describes the meeting:

They [Jefferson and Adams] "took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury". The ambassador replied: It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy's ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once.

Pretty remarkable. (Check out "The Crescent Obscured" for a thorough read, or here for a brief version of events.)

Money problems for McCain

Bloomberg reports that McCain is struggling to attract the financial support from the business community that was so important to George Bush's campaign against John Kerry. In a way, this is an inherent problem in being both the party's 'maverick' and the party's 'leader'.  The solution may be making sure he has an attractive candidate (like Mitt Romney) in the 2-spot, to offest his democrat-like opinion of big business:

During a Jan. 5 debate in New Hampshire, McCain criticized the drug companies for high prices charged to the government's Medicare and Medicaid programs and said he backed importing cheaper drugs from Canada, a position also held by his Democratic opponents.

"How could pharmaceutical companies be able to cover up the cost to the point where nobody knows? Why shouldn't we be able to re-import drugs from Canada?" McCain asked.

One of his opponents, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, interjected, telling McCain not to paint drug companies as "big bad guys."

"Well, they are," McCain responded.

More woe for Gordon Brown

And just when he thought things couldn't get much worse...

According to Cherie Blair's memoirs, Gordon Brown "hounded" poor old Tony out of Downing Street. Well, that's certainly one way of interpreting what happened.

Although she says that the two men are "talking again", when you consider the timing of it (Brown's popularity free-fall, the local election defeats, and the fact that this book shouldn't have been out until October), this has the uncomfortable feel of a fairly severe twist of an awfully rusty blade.

Romney speech a VP gambit?

Andrews Sullivan seems to think so.  Kathryn Jean Lopez argues that Romney's message is still the same.

McCain planning a climate change tour

It seems that John McCain is going on a green tour of the US.  I don't like it but he seems to believe in it, and besides, it's the type of thing that might just swing a state like New Hampshire--4 electoral votes may end up being the difference between the Oval office and the speaker circuit.

Obama claims he's visited 57 States!

Yeah, this is the guy who thinks John McCain has lost his bearings:

Marc Ambinder makes a great point: if McCain had done this, the media would be all over it.

Romney on Freedom & Religion

Last night in Manhattan, Mitt Romney gave a speech at the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty's Canterbury dinner.  The topic was 'Freedom & Religion' (full text here), where he reflected on his "Faith in America" speech, delivered in College Station, Texas, in December last year.  Kathryn Jean Lopez of NRO has some good commentary here. I sympathise entirely with her nostalgia about the glory days of Romney-for-President.

Same old Obama

So Hamas' chief political adviser, Ahmed Yousef (who describes Jimmy Carter as a "noble man" and an "excellent" President), said recently, "we like Obama and hope that he will win the election". In fairness to Obama, he can't help that, nor would he ever want it, but that doesn't change the fact that he has Hamas' endorsement for the presidency, which is something that I have as much chance of getting as John McCain does.

Now why on earth would a group like Hamas weigh in on a presidential race in the first place? Perhaps it's about the perception of weakness, or maybe the presence of opportunity (and, of course, by that i mean, America's likelihood of capitulation), or maybe that they see something Carter-esque in Obama. Regardless, i very much doubt that Hamas' motivations for 'selecting' a candidate are based upon the same goals as your average American.

Unfortunately for Obama, when you start adding this sort of thing together with his 'carrots for Iran' plan, all of a sudden he has a political problem to the tune of 27 electoral votes. And even if it weren't a Florida problem, it's also about how Obama is perceived by America's enemies. So of course McCain was going to talk about it.  What he said on The Daily Show (as quoted on My Way News) was that statements of support from Hamas were, "indicative of how some of our enemies view America. And I guarantee you, they're not going to endorse me."

I don't see a problem with that. He didn't blame Obama for seeking Hamas' endorsement, nor did he suggest Obama would ever want it in the first place.  But in typical Obama fashion, his comments are met with with a stupefying disbelief that someone, somewhere, somehow had the boorish audacity to, that's right, criticise him.

"This is offensive, and I think it's disappointing, because John McCain always says, 'Well, I'm not going to run that kind of politics,'" Obama said. "And then to engage in that kind of smear, I think, is unfortunate, particularly since my policy toward Hamas has been no different than his."

The Illinois senator added: "For him to toss out comments like that, I think, is an example of him losing his bearings as he pursues this nomination. We don't need name-calling in this debate."

In the last paragraph here, Obama says that it, "is an example of him losing his bearings...We don't need name calling." So while Obama has a go at McCain for name-calling (which he didn't do), he does so immediately after having a dig at his age. Real classy. Of course, when McCain calls him on it, his first response is the oh-don't-be-so-stupid, that's-not-what-I-meant line -- I wonder at what point the media and, more importantly, the public, will lose patience with his standard two responses for everything he shouldn't have done: 1) I didn't mean it like that, and 2) It wasn't me, it was an aide, and I fired them.

Not surprisingly, the story starts with Obama getting a Hamas endorsement and ends with a discussion about how McCain, 72, is sensitive about his age and, should he win, will be the oldest person ever sworn in. It may seem on the surface like frustratingly good politicking but it's not, it's agism, nothing more, and somehow that's become acceptable...so long as it's Obama saying it.

*Check out Instapundit for more on this.

Boris & Bloomberg swapping notes

Newly elected Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, meets his New York counterpart, Michael Bloomberg, reports the Daily Telegraph.

Jim, Jeff and John

Well after my earlier faux-pas, I've split the last hour or so between OpenSecrets.org and FEC disclosure filings. There's a nice clean summary here. 

Here's how they rank in terms of cash on hand:

1) John Kerry has a slight advantage with $9.3m

2) Jim Ogonowski is a very close second with $187,000

3) Jeff Beatty is a hairsbreadth behind with $82,000

Both candidates appear to wear the "grassroots, let's-fix-Washington" mantle well. It's just a shame they're facing the most cash rich democrat in the Senate.  Especially considering that in almost every story I've read about Beatty, the consensus seems to be that he is a very strong candidate but a weak fundraiser. Ogonowski, on the other hand, does seem well connected in the business community and has the backing from some A-list Republicans--I wonder how significant the Romney influence actually is here?

Seriously, Obama wants to give carrots to Iran?

On "Meet the Press", Barack Obama suggested giving some carrots to Iran for changing their behaviour. This is Ahmadinejad's birthday wish to Israel (as reported by AFP and the Jerusalem Post):

"Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken."

"Today the reason for the Zionist regime's existence is questioned, and this regime is on its way to annihilation."

 

Mitt makes sense

He's organised, he's articulate, he been through the vetting process. I think McCain-Romney is a powerful ticket. Jindal is getting a lot of attention but he doesn't bring a lot to the ticket in terms of electoral votes (LA's 9 are pretty much a lock anyway). If there is a Clinton-less Obama ticket, McCain-Romney makes Florida (27), Michigan (17), Colorado (9), Nevada (5), (obviously) Utah (5), and maybe even Arkansas (6) and New Hampshire (4), look good. That's 73 electoral votes.

Play around with the electoral map at 270towin.com

The Case for Mitt

Made by Kathryn Jean Lopez.

Bottom line: Vetted outsider Mitt Romney adds to Washington-insider McCain. He's a running mate with pluses, which, most importantly, includes being a plausible president -- 294 delegates' worth of primary voters thought so, anyway. His resume speaks for itself. McCain could do worse than pick Mitt Romney -- and he's got to know that, if he wants to win in November.

Why is Michelle Obama so angry?

Check out Byron York's post at thehill.com about Michelle Obama's tales of woe.

I don't get it. Her husband is the presumptive Democratic candidate for the presidency of the United States and she's complaining about how hard "they" made it.

You know what, maybe he did have to fight for every inch but so did every other candidate. Besides, isn't that the way it's supposed to be? Isn't running for President one of these things that should be hard and exhausting and frustrating and unfair? And thus isn't victory in itself a testament not only to a person's ideas but also to their convictions, to their steadfast commitment in good times and bad. Michelle Obama should be celebrating her husband's ideas and strength of character and not trying to make everyone think that somehow he was deliberately sabotaged and disadvantaged at every turn. I don't even know where that kind of thinking comes from--I don't think there's ever been a candidate more revered by the media than Barack Obama.

I wish Ron Fournier's article, where he talked about how the Obamas "ooze a sense of entitlement", delved a little deeper into the roots of their developing arrogance. It seems now that Michelle Obama can hardly make a speech without implying that America owes the presidency to her and her husband because of the lives they've led. I always thought it was something you earned.

"All right my friends, let's have some straight talk"

Apparently, this Monday in Portland, John McCain will give a speech on climate change to help re-affirm his maverickness/maverickality (or whatever you want to call it!) and further endear himself to some Independents.  Mark R. Levin at The Corner suggests he bone up on the data first.

Hillary's "appallingly poor" campaign strategy

Think what you may of Karl Rove but there's no denying that the man knows politics. I think in this online conversation for the Washington Post he makes a great point about how Hillary's poor campaign strategy pretty much cooked her own goose from the start:

Karl Rove: I think it [her campaign strategy] has been appallingly poor. You pick out a critical example, her failure to contest the caucus states. In New Hampshire, 300,000 Democrats distributed 22 delegates to the convention. It took billions by all the candidates to contest that state. Idaho on the other hand gave out 18 delegates based on 20,000 votes and took probably tens of thousands from the Obama campaign.

Not only the caucus states, however. I still don't understand why she let Obama base his campaign on two things she could have taken away from him early on. The first theme was that he wanted to bring Republicans and Democrats together, but his thin record shows little evidence of this, while her record shows considerable efforts in the Senate. The other issue she let him get away with was to suggest the "fierce urgency of now" requires new leadership. She's been willing to jump in the middle of tough legislative fights, while Obama has been AWOL on most of these fights.

My theory is that she was afraid of the Netroots and how they'd react if she emphasized these centrist themes, and so she allowed him to get traction when it was her record, not his, that would have provided a firm foundation for these themes.

I think he makes a great point about New Hampshire.  Same goes for letting Obama off the hook. I think she underestimated him and his mainstream media allure from day one.  And when she finally remembered that she was actually competing against him (and not yet the republicans), it was too late.  All the subsequent attacks then seemed a little desperate, especially after McCain secured the GOP nomination. Obama became the candidate for change and she, rather ironically, became the typical, old, mud-slinging Washington bureaucrat.

How much does the MSM love Barry?

So much that it would be 'too embarrassing for them to stand up'.

Grow the Gap!

From Bill Gertz's Inside the Ring:

Michael Pillsbury, a Pentagon consultant on China, said recently that the U.S. strategy of "hedging" against an emerging military threat from Beijing by building up U.S. forces in the Pacific likely will continue whoever is elected president in November.

He knows more than I do, so perhaps there's a reason that he is this optimistic.  Me?  I'm not so sure.

The hedge strategy, Mr. Pillsbury said, remains below the public radar, however, with Bush administration officials saying it is not directed at China.  However, so far none of the current presidential candidates has sought to repudiate the strategy, he said.

Mr. Pillsbury quoted a senior civilian as saying the new Pacific game plan is needed because "hope is not a strategy," meaning the hope that China's rise will be peaceful.

Hope: not a strategy!?  Senator Obama, call your office!

The hedge strategy is the Pentagon's grand design to beef up military forces in the Pacific and upgrade alliances in the region to be ready to counter a hostile China, that is rapidly deploying advanced nuclear and conventional missiles, submarines and other navel forces and more mobile ground forces, but will not disclose the extent or target of the decades-long buildup.

. .  . "Hedging is going on everywhere, including here in the United States,"  Mr. Sedney said.  "And hedging, the need to hedge against the bad possible outcomes [of China's development] is, in many ways created by that opacity, that lack of transparency, lack of understanding of China's strategic intentions."

The Fight for Massachussets (update)

You know, when you're wrong, you're wrong. EaBo Clipper's  (check out Red Mass Group) comment is spot on: Beatty's raised a lot of outsider cash and spent a whole lot too. Currently, the cash advantage lies with Ogonowski. And now he's going to have a Romney fundraiser too? This is a compelling race.

If you've got some serious thoughts on this (and I see at least a few readers do) send me an email - gary@freshgreenbeast.com

Deal of the Century

According to Tom Edsal, via Captain Ed:

How annoyed has Obama become?  According to Tom Edsall at the HuffPo, so annoyed that he's willing to buy Hillary out of the race, to the tune of $25 million or more.  It almost sounds like a Ronco deal.  Is she leaves now, Obama would repay the $11.4 million in personal loans she herself made to the campaign.  But wait – there's more!  Obama would also cover the considerable debt her campaign has racked up, as much as $15 million, by some estimates But wait – if she calls now, a special one-time offer is hers!  They could arrange a leadership position in the Senate, and help assuage the bitterness between the Clintons and black voters in the party to help salvage Bill's legacy.

The Fight for Massachusetts

So it seems that John Kerry is struggling in Massachusetts.  This morning I read through the websites of two of his Republican challengers: Jim Ogonowski and Jeff Beatty. Both guys actually have really interesting stories:

Ogonowski is a farmer and small businessman who spent 28 years in the Air Force and the Air Force National Guard. Incidentally, his brother, John, was the pilot of American Airlines 11 (the first plane to be flown into the WTC);

Beatty, on the other hand, is a Purple Heart winning ex-Delta who was wounded in the "first Blackhawk down" in Grenada. He has also worked for the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team and the CIAs Counter-Terrorism Centre (pretty impressive!).

While Ogonowski has a compelling, down-to-earth quirkiness (and a very cool website), Beatty seems like a more substantive candidate, plus he's got a pretty solid financial advantage just now (about 3:1 over Ogonowski).

(Thanks to JmacforJeff for updates on the Massachusetts Senatorial Election.)