Seth Leibson 03-09-2012

March 9, 2012

As Broadcast on Bill Bennett’s Morning in America

By Seth Leibsohn





Good morning.  We begin our text today with an unlikely source, James Fallows, a national correspondent for the Atlantic Magazine and one of the most well-known journalists in “the club.”  A former speechwriter for Jimmy Carter and editor of US News and World report, he has a big profile on President Barack Obama in the current issue of the Atlantic Magazine, analyzing his presidency thus far.  The article is titled “Obama Explained.”  Here is the line of his that caught my eye, and he writes it after surveying a group of like-minded and high-minded colleagues:  “Having seen a number of presidencies unfold, and some unravel, I am fully aware of how difficult it is to assess them in real time. What I feel I’ve learned about Obama is that he was unready for the presidency and temperamentally unsuited to it in many ways.”



“Unready and temperamentally unsuited.”  Fallows goes on to write, “The evidence is that Obama is learning, fast, to use the tools of office. Whether he is learning fast enough to have a chance to apply these skills in a second term—well, we’ll reconvene next year.”



This all reminds me of something Bill Bennett said in 2008:  The presidency is too important a position for on-the-job training.  Fallows and others in his league or of his viewpoint can say “He’s learning” or “He’ll get there” or whatever they think about how to overcome his leadership failures but the truth, I’m afraid, is far less wishful.  Barack Obama may, indeed, get there.  But this requires two responses:



1.  He has done a lot already, he has accomplished a lot that, whether or not he was an amateur too short for the job, the damage is done and may take years to fix.



2.  How in the name of everything serious and important can purported or reasonably smart men and women say that we can afford, that we can ever afford, a four year learning curve with someone unready and unsuited when the stakes are the United States of America and the free—and, frankly, the unfree—world?  Since when did that excuse become appropriate?  I don’t know about you, but in my line of work, I would never be hired for a job I was unready or unsuited for.  And were I to trick people into thinking I was ready and suited for that job, and we go three to four years in and the assessment is I’m not quite ready or suited yet—well, we wouldn’t go three or four years in.  Maybe six months.  Maybe.  Now, make that job the most important job in the history of the world.



Just what kind of pass are we willing to give this president or any president in the name of liberalism?  Well, the pass we are willing to give him is a pass that has lead to and will lead to ever more high unemployment, high spending, record deficits, record debt, more energy dependence, fallen allies, and strengthened enemies.



That should be our candidates’ continued repetition throughout the campaign: high unemployment, high spending, record deficits, record debt, more energy dependence, fallen allies, and strengthened enemies.



You can fill in the facts almost any week since January of 2009 to highlight these issues, but just this past week gives us data on all of them--



To wit:



We’ll get new government unemployment numbers later this morning but yesterday, Gallup—which measures without seasonal adjustment—reported that unemployment increased to 9.1% in February from 8.6% in January and 8.5% in December.  Beyond that, underemployment, which combines the percentage of workers who are unemployed and the percentage working part time but wanting full-time work, increased to 19.1% last month.



On energy dependence, as he did last month, President Obama spoke this week again about how we can not drill our way to energy independence—and he does so with a clever line the media swallows hook, line, and sinker.  He keeps speaking of us as having only 2% of the world’s oil reserves.  As John Hinderaker points out though—when you hear this, that we only have 2% of the world’s oil reserves you automatically or naturally think that means we only have 2% of the world’s oil in the ground here.  That’s not what “reserves” mean in the United States.  Here, “reserves” means only oil that is



1) legal to extract under current laws and regulations, and 2) economic to extract at current prices. So ANWR isn’t part of our reserves; the large majority of offshore areas that are off-limits to drilling are not part of our reserves; and all other deposits that can’t be accessed under current EPA regulations are not part of our reserves. Our reserves would grow overnight if the Democrats would allow more areas to be opened up for energy development.



Because the actual truth is the U.S. actually has the largest fossil fuel deposits of any country in the world.  So, to give you the real truth here, I give you what the Investors’ Business Daily wrote on this:



President Obama canceled leases on federal lands in Utah, suspended them in Montana, delayed them in Colorado and Utah, and canceled lease sales off the Virginia coast.



His administration also has been slow-walking permits in the Gulf of Mexico, approving far fewer while stretching out review times, according to the Greater New Orleans Gulf Permit Index. The Energy Dept. says Gulf oil output will be down 17% by the end of 2013, compared with the start of 2011. Swift Energy President Bruce Vincent is right to say Obama has “done nothing but restrict access and delay permitting.”



Now read what he did yesterday—he lobbied Senators not to over-ride his veto of the XL Pipeline from Canada.  As Mitch McConnell said:  “at a moment when millions are out of work, gas prices are skyrocketing and the Middle East is in turmoil, we’ve got a president who’s up making phone calls trying to block a pipeline here at home.”



As for enemies and allies, the President gave a speech at AIPAC on the US and Israel last weekend and said “So there should not be a shred of doubt by now -- when the chips are down, I have Israel’s back.”



It’s not true.  And by the way: Has anyone asked why the chips would ever be down?  Israel has always had to defend itself, it has never known peace.  So when the chips are down it can only mean one of two things:  “all the time” or when the international community (read: the US) is pressuring Israel.  Since we known it’s not all the time, let’s look at the latter:



Dan Senor published a pretty good timeline:



In October 2011, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta publically said Israel was “isolating itself” in world affairs.



President Obama, from day one of his administration, has been pressuring Israel to freeze settlement building—and putting such building of housing on par with Palestinian terrorism.  Housing on the one hand; the slaughter of innocents on the other.



By the way, Mr. Panetta's criticism was promptly endorsed by the Turkish Prime Minister, a harsh critic of Israel, who said Mr. Panetta was "correct in his assumptions." Indeed, almost every time the Obama administration has scolded Israel, the charges have been repeated by Turkish officials.



In November of last year, in advance of meeting with the Israeli Defense Minister, Mr. Panetta publicly previewed his message. He would warn Israel against a military strike on Iran's nuclear program: "There are going to be economic consequences . . . that could impact not just on our economy but the world economy." Even if the administration felt compelled to deliver this message privately, why undercut the perception of U.S.-Israel unity on the military option?



That same month, an open microphone caught part of a private conversation between Mr. Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy. Mr. Sarkozy said of Israel's premier, "I can't stand Netanyahu. He's a liar." Rather than defend Israel's back, Mr. Obama piled on: "You're tired of him; what about me? I have to deal with him every day."



In December of last year, again undercutting the credibility of the Israeli military option, Mr. Panetta used a high-profile speech to challenge the idea that an Israeli strike could eliminate or substantially delay Iran's nuclear program, and he warned that "the United States would obviously be blamed."



Mr. Panetta also addressed the Israeli-Palestinian peace process by lecturing Israel to "just get to the damn table." This, despite the fact that Israel had been actively pursuing direct negotiations with the Palestinians, only to watch the Palestinian president abandon talks and unilaterally pursue statehood at the U.N. The Obama team thought the problem was with Israel.



In January of this year, Mr. Obama referred to the Turkish Prime Minister as one of the five world leaders with whom he has developed "bonds of trust." According to Mr. Obama, these bonds have "allowed us to execute effective diplomacy." The Turkish government had earlier sanctioned a six-ship flotilla to penetrate Israel's naval blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza. Mr. Erdogan had said that Israel's defensive response was "cause for war."



At a conference in Tunis last month, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was asked about Mr. Obama pandering to "Zionist lobbies." She acknowledged that it was "a fair question" and went on to explain that any pandering is simply election year politics.



All of this has been so bad—never mind the stiffing of Benjamin Netanyahu or the comparison to the Jim Crow South Hillary Clinton made to Israel— that even other Democrats have weighed in. Just last year, a number of leading Democrats, including Sen. Harry Reid and Rep. Steny Hoyer, felt compelled to speak out in response to Mr. Obama's proposal for Israel to return to its indefensible pre-1967 borders. Rep. Eliot Engel told CNN that "for the president to emphasize that . . . was a very big mistake."



In April 2010, 38 Democratic senators signed a critical letter to Secretary Clinton following the administration's public (and private) dressing down of the Israeli government.



Sen. Charles Schumer used even stronger language in 2010 when he responded to "something I have never heard before," from the Obama State Department, "which is, the relationship of Israel and the United States depends on the pace of the negotiations. That is terrible. That is a dagger."



Sen. Joe Lieberman said of Mr. Obama last year, "I think he's handled the relationship with Israel in a way that has encouraged Israel's enemies, and really unsettled the Israelis."



I could go on and on.



We are now having to deal with Syria-again.  But who appeased Syria?  President Bush yanked our Ambassador from Syria; President Obama put a US Ambassador back in. Why did he do that, we should ask.  Why, last year did Hillary Clinton call Syria’s Assad a reformer?  We should ask.  We have to deal with Iran.  Who said Iran was not a threat and sought (and still seeks) non-preconditional talks with Iran?  And, when democratic protestors took to the streets of Iran, who took the side of the mullahs?  President Obama. Why did he do that, we should ask.  And when our and Israel’s long-time ally in Egypt was clinging to power, who helped push him out so that the Muslim Brothers could take over? President Obama.   Why did he do that, we should ask.



I return to our main point: high unemployment, high spending, record deficits, record debt, more energy dependence, fallen allies, and strengthened enemies.



And there are those who think that is just fine.  It isn’t.  Tell your friends about some of these facts, and ask them:  “Why would our President do this?”  I’d like to know the answer.  We all should—because it’s about accountability here.  That’s why we hold elections after all.