Michael Ramirez cartoon for December 2, 2008 at Investor's Business Daily.
Barack Obama may have flip-flopped on Hillary’s foreign policy experience, but that’s small potatoes. Allahpundit, in a post at Hot Air, writes that lying is to be expected from the President-elect, but the more important issue is that he has made ambassador to the U.N. a Cabinet-level position, signaling to Hillary Clinton that she can be replaced, and that Obama means business when he says he wants soft diplomacy to play a bigger role in his administration.
Advice to Obama: don’t repeat the mistakes of Hoover and Roosevelt. Investor’s Business Daily points out this economic downturn is serious but by no means as severe as the Depression, but warns that we still ought to heed past lessons. In a nutshell: support free trade, cut taxes across the board, don’t rely on big government projects as economic stimuli, and support the Fed as it cuts rates.
Piracy is one of those unconventional threats Washington worries about: so get ‘em where it hurts. Seth Cropsey argues on The Weekly Standard’s blog and in an article that arming merchant vessels and increasing Navy patrols may help, but nothing will work quite so well as finding and attacking the pirates on shore (in Somalia), something the Russians have suggested.
Chambliss’ win in Georgia could spell a tough midterm election for Dems in 2010. When Saxby Chambliss beat Jim Martin by 16 points in what was expected to be a very close race, Democrats lost their chance at a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. Ed Morrissey at Hot Air argues that Democratic gains in 2008 don’t mark an endorsement of their policies and warns them against moving any farther to the left. The win also means Senate Dems will be unlikely to step in and decide the outcome in Minnesota, where Al Franken is caught up in a protracted recount effort—not without a chance for 60 in the Senate, argues Gary Gross at Let Freedom Ring.
Gay marriage won’t be all bad, but enough with the scorched-earth tactics, says Jonah Goldberg in an opinion piece for the L.A. Times. Goldberg cites vandalism against Mormon temples, mailing envelopes filled with white powder to Mormons, Mormon blacklists, and points out angrily that the Hollywood liberals who would decry McCarthyism are employing the same methods against proponents of Prop 8.
Don’t compare Bush to Nixon, says Fox News journalist Chris Wallace to film director Ron Howard. Wallace was at a film screening for Howard’s new movie, Frost/Nixon, about the former president who resigned after the Watergate scandal. Wallace argued that Nixon’s crimes were motivated purely by personal political gain, while President George W. Bush’s (referring to rendition and waterboarding) were motivated by a desire to protect his country. So there.
