Jackson Diehl:

McChrystal may be at fault for expressing his frustrations to Rolling Stone. He is not at fault for the lack of coherence in the Afghan campaign or the continued feuding over strategy. That is Obama’s responsibility.

As it appears that it was McChrystal’s aides who provided the condemning background for the article, he shouldn’t be fired nor should he resign his commission. While it’s appropriate for the Commander in Cheif to call McChrystal on the carpet, President Obama should use this as an opportunity to end divisions within his administration.

After the dressing down, Obama should have a frank converstaion with his general about the mission. He needs to know what General McChrystal real views are. It is time for the President to side with the mission and not to continue to appease his base. Anything less than this will be a failure of leadership.

UPDATE: Lets not forget how the media loved military criticism of President Bush

Posted under OBAMA WATCH, Uncategorized

Thank goodness.

Posted under Uncategorized

From Jonathan Tobin:

“What on earth was McChrystal thinking, one wonders, when he decided to grant so much access to an anti-war reporter from an anti-war magazine? Michael Hastings’s animus against the war effort shines through every inch of his article. His conclusion is that “winning” in Afghanistan “is not really possible. Not even with Stanley McChrystal in charge.” Along the way he brands the counterinsurgency strategy that McChrystal is implementing “a controversial strategy” that is advocated only by “COINdiniastas” notorious for their “their cultish zeal.” When he quotes outside experts in the article, all of them express disparaging views about the prospects of success.”

Posted under Uncategorized

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Trying to get more hits again.

Posted under Uncategorized

Mona Charen:

Who knows why so many respondents in Muslim countries are disappointed in Obama? It’s possible, based on the way rumors and conspiracy theories metastasize in that part of the world, that many believed our president was actually a Muslim Manchurian candidate and have been disappointed in the reality. It’s possible they expected a complete repudiation of Israel, rather than the icy disdain this administration has shown. It’s hard enough to interpret the views of our own voters — South Carolina Democratic primary anyone? — the motives of foreigners are even more mysterious.

Independent Obama voters who bought into the “restore our standing in the world” gambit, might find this dwindling popularity of Obama in the Muslin world instructive.

And how’s that apology tour with all the waiter’s bow’s working out? Says Charen:

OK, popularity is slipping, but perhaps the apology tour/charm offensive has yielded dividends in policy support? Not so much. Syria has clutched Iran even closer to her bosom than before and has recently transferred Scud missiles to Hezbollah in Lebanon — all while the U.S. continues to grovel to al-Assad. Iran is racing toward nuclear status while essentially dropping the fig leaf of “peaceful” energy. Turkey, the Muslim nation with the warmest ties to the West, has accelerated its turn toward jihadism. Brazil has spurned the U.S. by embracing Iran and Turkey.

A liberal colleague once pouted to me during conversation about the Iraq war, “alot of people are mad at us.”

Well, sure. But we cannot protect ourselves or make decisions regarding our national self-interests based on what European anti-semites and leftist academics are saying. Our president’s cannot base decisions and policy as if he’s rush chairman.

Posted under DEMOCRAT TAKEDOWN, MIDDLE EAST WATCH, OBAMA WATCH, POLITICS

From Valerie Strauss:

But after looking at the data — one of the mantras of today’s misguided education leaders — Ravitch reversed her position on NCLB, calling it a failure. And she has become a strong critic of using business principles to run public school districts.

Republican lawmakers probably don’t know that Ravitch was a one-time member of the Bush adminstration and advocate for NCLB. She’s looked at the numbers, and has changed her mind. But here’s an extremely disturbing exchange she had with top officials in the Obama administration:

I was recently invited to meet with high-level administration officials in the White House. I told them my concerns. I told them what I have heard from teachers and parents. They told me I was misinformed

Misinformed?

For any public official to tell the nation’s foremost authority on the history of education that they are misinformed is incredulous. And horrifying in it’s arrogance and insanity.

And this is from a Democrat administration.

Ravitch speaks to the politics as well after meeting with some Democrats in congress:

But frankly, these same Congressmen and women tell me that they are probably helpless to stop the President’s agenda. The Democratic leadership will give the President and Secretary Duncan what they want, and they will have the support of Republicans. That leaves the Democrats in a quandary. They were not happy to see Secretary Duncan campaigning for his approach with Newt Gingrich. Maybe it will turn out to be a winning strategy for Secretary Duncan. He may get what he wants. It just won’t be good for American education or our kids.

It doesn’t help any chance for change from GOP philsophy that Gingrich is on board with Obama on Race to the Top. The GOP’s cheif policy makers and mouthpieces continue to see the fight against reform and opposition as union agenda driven.

This poor judgement on their part is costing them in Florida. The state’s GOP legislators ignored polling from it’s own party. Registered Republicans didn’t want SB6 by a 3-1 ratio.

Education Commissioner Eric Smith said that people were misinformed. People just didn’t understand. It seems that eveyone was wrong or misinformed except the bill’s proponents.

And Florida Republicans are paying a price. Driven out of the his won party for his veto, Crist continues to widen his lead on Marco Rubio in his Senate bid. Unremarkable GOP gubernatorial candidates Bill McCollum and Rick Scott both support SB 6 and a strong Democrat candidate in Alex Sink will be able to make hay against either in the November election.

It’s hard not to see the 3-1 opposition to Republicans on SB6 as favorable for the party. Crsit’s veto was a winner with voters over a wide political spectrum. The state’s GOP leadership will have to stop their “we know best” on education or continue to be hurt be it. Maybe the RPOF’s John Thrasher’s, Jeb Bush’s and Steve Atwater’s should start listening to people like Diane Ravitch and stop dismissing important voices as simply misinformed.

Hat tip to Testing is Not Teaching on Facebook.

Posted under EDUCATION, FLORIDA POLITICS

My friend E. Royce White tells me that Republican Ron McNeil showed up unexpectedly at the Okaloosa County Republican Executive Committee meeting last night. He was a late filer and a surprise addition to the May 18 Panama City debate. Here’s what I wrote about McNeil’s performance:

Ron McNeil: Talk about a throw back. The oldest of the candidates and least tech savvy…… Check that. McNeil probably couldn’t care less about technology. No web site either. He ended his evening telling the audience that they can probably tell he doesn’t need a teleprompter or a poll to do anything. The only candidate to speak off-the cuff, his responses were choppy. But McNeil was clearly the evening’s entertainment. A delightful combination of Fred Thompson, Jerry Clower and Robert D. Raiford, McNeil was a hoot. He had a down home southern colloquialism for everything. Like everyone else in the room – including the other candidates – I couldn’t wait for McNeil’s takes. While McNeil is sadly a candidate of days gone by and won’t be winning the primary, his appearances on the stump will be worthy of admission.

McNeil now has a web site. I’ve not heard anything about McNeil since the debate. He had no website and still does not utilize social networking in any way, but he’s back. Or here finally. Perhaps he intended to hold fire until now, but I can’t wait to see those McNeil volleys.

Posted under FLORIDA #2

It should come as no surprise. Both candidates know the Dem primary will be won in Tallahassee. Here’s something from Lawson’s Facebook page that’s revealing:

We had a great day at the Watermelon Festival in Monticello. Our campaign had over a dozen volunteers in full force while our opponent Blue Dog Boyd had no volunteers even though it’s his home town. The momentum is on our side!

Lawson’s “Blue Dog Boyd” is clearly meant to be contemptuous. He’s obviously not worried about offending any moderate or conservative Democrats and knows that such taunts motivate his base. Maybe Lawson believes that traditional Blue Dog Dems won’t be voting in the primary and will likely vote for the GOP candidate or Independent Paul McKain in November. If he prevails over Boyd, he’ll move quickly to the center and remake himself as a moderate by emphasizing his record as a state legislator.

Posted under Uncategorized

From MEMRI:

The Kuwaiti daily Al-Jarida said that the Israeli Embassy in Cairo has submitted a request to the Egyptian authorities for help finding three former Nazi officers.

However, the Egyptian authorities are not cooperating.

Posted under MIDDLE EAST WATCH

Shelby Steele:

In other words, my hatred is my self-esteem. This must have much to do with why Yasser Arafat rejected Ehud Barak’s famous Camp David offer of 2000 in which Israel offered more than 90% of what the Palestinians had demanded. To have accepted that offer would have been to forgo hatred as consolation and meaning. Thus it would have plunged the Palestinians—and by implication the broader Muslim world—into a confrontation with their inferiority relative to modernity. Arafat knew that without the Jews to hate an all-defining cohesion would leave the Muslim world. So he said no to peace.

And this recalcitrance in the Muslim world, this attraction to the consolations of hatred, is one of the world’s great problems today—whether in the suburbs of Paris and London, or in Kabul and Karachi, or in Queens, N.Y., and Gaza. The fervor for hatred as deliverance may not define the Muslim world, but it has become a drug that consoles elements of that world in the larger competition with the West. This is the problem we in the West have no easy solution to, and we scapegoat Israel—admonish it to behave better—so as not to feel helpless. We see our own vulnerability there.

Political correctness and moral equivelance have emasculated the west from recognizing that the Muslim world’s hatred of Jews is as Steele says “one of the world’s great problems.” As Golda Meir said, we will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”

Posted under MIDDLE EAST WATCH