The New York Times’ revisionist account of Benghazi | Power Line

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2013/12/the-new-york-times-revisionist-account-of-benghazi.php

The Times bases its claim that neither al Qaeda nor any other international terrorist group had a role in the attack on its view that Ansar al-Shariah is a "purely local extremist organization." But Peter King, a member and former chairman of the House's Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, points out that Ansar al-Shariah is widely believed to be an affiliate terror group of Al Qaeda. King accuses the Times of engaging in mere semantics, and he is probably right.

The Times' claim that the Benghazi attack "was fueled in large part by anger" at the video about Islam also seems unpersuasive. Greg Hicks, the deputy to Ambassador Christopher Stevens who was killed in the attack testified to Congress that the video was "a non-event in Libya." Moreover, an independent review of more than 4,000 social media postings from Benghazi found no reference to the video until the day after the attack.
The New York Times seems to have uncovered social media references to the video that precede the Sept. 11 attack. Even so, the relative absence of such references undermines its claim that the video played a significant role in the attack.
I don't mean to deny that some of those who attacked the U.S. compound were influenced by the video. But the Times' own reporting shows that a "grave" threat to American interests in Benghazi predates the controversy over the video. The failure of the Obama administration, and especially Hillary Clinton, to prepare to meet that threat remains indisputable.
The Times stops short of claiming that the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi was "spontaneous." It says, instead, that the attack was not "meticulously planned."
That may or may not be true. But the quality of the planning — good enough, as it turned out — seems irrelevant. Again, what matters is that the State Department should have been prepared for the attack and taken action accordingly. This the New York Times does not dispute.

And Bush Was Stupid?

And Bush Was Stupid?

via Clayton Cramer's BLOG by Clayton on 7/8/09

And Bush Was Stupid?

Obama's remarks in Russia, from July 7, 2009 Reuters:

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Visiting U.S. President Barack Obama made a pointed quip Tuesday about Russia's sale of Alaska to the United States in the 19th century.

Referring to the long history of Russia-U.S. trade stretching back more than two centuries, Obama told an audience of business people in Moscow:

"Along the way, you gave us a pretty good deal on Alaska. Thank you."

As the Reuters article points out, the sale is regarded as a national disgrace in Russia. At least at one point, the Soviet Union's history books used to claim that the U.S. threatened Russia into making the sale. Moe Lane points out that these remarks only make sense if you are trying to actively insult the Russians (or are too stupid, or too ignorant of history, to realize what you have done).

The nearest equivalent would be to go to Mexico and say, "Hey, thanks for losing the Mexican War, so that we got the Southwest dirt cheap. See how nice it is now?"

This guy is an idiot.

Big Lizards:Blog:Entry “The China Syndrome Counterpunch”

Could China shrug? Dafydd ap Hugh doesn't think it's that much of a threat. He writes in his post: “The China Syndrome Counterpunch”.

...fearmongers suggest China could threaten to dump all their T-bills at bargain-basement prices, driving down the value of the bonds we need to sell to finance our out-of-control spending. The sudden drop in bond values would force us to jack the interest rate through the sky, just to get people to buy them. This in turn is supposed to drive our prime rate into the stratosphere as well, bankrupting the country.

To avoid this scenario -- dubbed the "China Syndrome" by some economists -- we will (so goes the argument) give the Commies anything they demand in the way of foreign and domestic policy and military stand-downs... to appease them, placate them, and keep them from carrying through their extortion.

(Skipping over his cite of Beldar's explanation of why it's not that much of a threat.)

...I have another angle on the whole thing. I say it would be absolutely wonderful for us if the Chinese really did enact their eponymous syndrome!

So why am I right and all those professional economists wrong? Because they think like acolytes of the Dismal Science -- that is, dismally -- whereas I think like a novelist.

Here is my scenario:

1. Red China threatens us with a China Syndrome unless we sever relations with Taiwan (for example).

2. We tell them to go stuff an eggroll.

3. They decide to call our "bluff," and they really do dump all their T-bills at, say, half their current value.

4. The Federal Reserve jumps into action, working through proxies to buy every dang Treasury Note China sells, as many as we can get our mitts on.

5. Now that we have bought back hundreds of billions of dollars of our "debt" for fifty cents on the dollar, we wait for the dust to settle and the market to recover -- then we sell them again for the normal price.

6. We send a letter to Beijing, thanking them for their generous donation to the Save Liberty and U.S. Sovereign Health (SLUSSH) fund. With heartfelt thanks, we settle back to enjoy our windfall profit on our own debt instruments.

The moral is simple: Whenever any entity -- whether individual person, giant corporation, or sovereign nation -- buys or sells bonds, equities, derivatives, collectibles, futures, or indeed any other investment instrument on the basis of politics, party, policy, or pique -- that is, whenever one makes investment decisions for any reason other than pure economics -- that entity is going to lose its shirt... along with its coat, tie, pants, and undies.

This Lizardian Rule of Thumb applies to universities that divest their stock in Israeli companies to protest Israel's dealings with the Palestinians; it applies to lefties who dump their mutual funds if they contain Starbucks or Nike stock; and it applies to conservative Christians who will only invest in companies that are run by ministers: You're going to lose a huge wad of your return by letting extraneous circumstances dictate your financial decisions.

Of course, doesn't this depend on an administration savvy enough to recognize this opportunity?

Some problems they are having in Haiti

Some problems they are having in Haiti

via Marginal Revolution by Tyler Cowen

1. Since many financial institutions are closed, transport is difficult, and people don't all have their papers (fear of theft also may be an issue), it is almost impossible to receive remittances, which account for more than one-quarter of the country's gdp.

2. The current makeshift shelters are not robust to rain and storms and the rainy season is starting in May.  Rain also brings a greater risk of various diseases.

3. The price of food keeps on rising.  It was already the case -- before the earthquake -- that poor people commonly ate mud cakes as a source of nutrition.  54 percent of Haitians live on less than one dollar a day.

4. The party with the ability to make things happen -- the U.S. military -- isn't formally in charge and is sensitive to bad publicity.

5. In the Darfur crisis, eighty percent of the fatalities came from disease and disease has yet to begin in the Haitian situation.

6. There are already 150,000 accounted-for dead and many more uncounted.

7. It's by no means clear that the aftershocks are over and there is even some chance of a bigger quake to come.  This also discourages aid efforts and the construction of more permanent shelter.

8. Outside of some parts of Port-Au-Prince and immediate environs, external aid is barely underway yet damage is extensive.

9. It is not clear that the upcoming planting season -- which starts in March -- will proceed in an orderly fashion.  One-third of the country's population is living at loose ends and most of the country's infrastructure is destroyed.  For the planting season many Haitian farmers need seeds, fertilisers, livestock feed and animal vaccines.  That planting season accounts for sixty percent of Haiti's agricultural output.

10. Before a limb can be amputated, some doctors have to first go to the market and buy a saw.

Those aren't the only problems.

Israel's left wakes up

Dennis Prager has suggested holding plebiscites in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, South Korea, and Western Europe. The question to be decided: "Do you want American troops to withdraw from your country immediately?"

If the answer is "yes", American troops leave, and the country is now responsible for its own defense.

This, he believes, would focus the minds of everyone in the affected country, including the anti-American left. They would have to actually think about why they have the freedom to express their opinions, and indeed, to do much of anything else.

Now, it looks like the apparent fact of abandonment by US power is having that same effect on Israel's left.

From Bookworm Blog:

I think Obama has done a good thing for Israel. With his abandonment of Israel, leaving Israel hanging out in the wind on her own, even the Israeli Left has been forced to face a reality they previously denied: Palestinians are not partners in peace. They are a force aimed at Israel’s total destruction and the death of her citizens.

Campaign Spot on National Review Online

Comment from a reader:Campaign Spot on National Review Online

There's actually something worrisome about this whole Chicago fiasco, and it goes back to President Obama's inexperience. Diplomacy 101 tells us that your head of state only shows up on the high-profile stage when a deal is complete. The lesson that most politicians learn well before they gain positions of power is that diplomacy is done by diplomats, professionals who work through all the negotiations and the hardball tactics and the carrot/stick combinations. The principals in the matter gather to discuss high-level topics and to smile for the cameras as the agreement is being signed. Heads of state do not conduct diplomacy, they ratify it, and surprises are entirely unwelcome at those summits and signing events (hence Reagan's anger in Iceland.)

Why were you and Ramesh surprised? Because you thought that President Obama at least knew this very basic lesson. Today's announcement suggests that he does not, and it just got advertised big-time to countries who already were pretty sure we had a rookie at the helm who didn't know how to use international power. President Obama just got upstaged by an organization against whom no retaliation is acceptable, and he wants to meet with the Iranians next month? We are in deep, deep trouble.

Oh, goody.

Iran has the bomb.

Well, maybe only close enough for government work.

VIENNA — Experts at the world's top atomic watchdog are in agreement that Tehran has the ability to make a nuclear bomb and is on the way to developing a missile system able to carry an atomic warhead, according to a secret report seen by The Associated Press.

The document drafted by senior officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency is the clearest indication yet that the agency's leaders share Washington's views on Iran's weapon-making capabilities.

It appears to be the so-called "secret annex" on Iran's nuclear program that Washington says is being withheld by the IAEA's chief.

The document says Iran has "sufficient information" to build a bomb. It says Iran is likely to "overcome problems" on developing a delivery system.

Well, maybe they won't use it.

This might be a good time for a pan-Europe plebiscite -- "Shall the US withdraw its forces and leave Europe to show us the right way to handle international politics?"

Constitutional questions

Betsy Newmark links to an essay in The New Republic that claims our position on Honduras is really a reflection of how we perceive constitutions in general:

So where you come down on Honduras really depends on which view of constitutions you favor. If you favor the dominant American view, you would tend to side with Zelaya. True, the Honduras constitution prohibits amendments related to presidential terms, but this rule flies in the face of the American notion that a constitution should be amendable in just about any direction--and Zelaya was simply exercising his right to try and correct that. If you favor the German view, you would tend to side with the supreme court and the military. After all, the changes Zelaya was seeking to the constitution were foundational and revolutionary. And a constitution should be able to protect against certain kinds of constitutional changes.

source

Betsy begs to differ:

Well, there's just one problem. We can't judge Honduras' constitution by either Germany's or our legal standards. That is not how constitutions work - to be changed according to a foreigner's idea of how amendments should be made. It isn't correct for our judges to look for answers in foreign laws and we shouldn't require that Honduras look to our traditions. We might accept that amendments can cover any aspect of our government, but Hondurans, concerned about the region's history of dictators seizing control, wrote their constitution differently than ours. And constitutions aren't mutable documents according to whatever ideological argument holds sway at the time. There are procedures for amending a constitution and, whether or not you like the way your country's procedures were designed, you have to play under those rules.

Further:

Miguel Estrada, a Honduran native who might have been the first Hispanic nominee for the Supreme Court if the Democrats hadn't blocked his advancement to the appellate court, looked at the actual text of the Honduran constitution. And he found that, according to the country's constitution, the ouster of President Zelaya was perfectly constitutional.

When Nixon was forced to resign under the threat of impeachment and probably conviction by the Senate, scholars celebrated that as proof that our Constitution worked and was stronger than any one man's criminality. Instead of trying to assert an American view of what we think should or should not have taken place in that country, we should also be celebrating a fragile democracy's efforts to withstand the ambitious efforts of one man's efforts to circumvent the rule of law.

In effect, Zelaya believed in a "living, breathing Constitution", meaning one which meant what he wanted it to mean, without the annoying text getting in the way.

Repealing an International Law?

It looks like an article of international law is in the process of being repealed -- because it just won't fly.

From the Volokh Conspiracy:

Reports out today indicate that Spain is reconsidering its universal jurisdiction statute and may repeal or restrict it. A universal jurisdiction statute gives courts jurisdiction over international crimes that do not meet ordinary jurisdictional requirements—that is, do not take place on the state's territory, or involve the state's nationals as perpetrators or victims.

....

The last point is worth pondering. These statutes have been around for quite some time. They are on the books of dozens of countries, which have duly adopted them in order to comply with international treaties, such as the Convention Against Torture, which obliges states to prosecute violations that occur anywhere in the world. Amnesty International has made much of these statutes, claiming on the basis of state practice that domestic prosecution of international crimes ion the basis of universal jurisdiction is an established principle of international law. But as AI itself concedes, prosecutions and convictions are as rare as hen's teeth. States legislate but do not act. Restrictions in the statutes, plus in some cases political control over prosecution (which is otherwise unacceptable in inquisitorial systems), do the job. Where they do act, as Spain is learning, they run into trouble.

So a body can declare what international law says, but practical concerns may still veto the law.

Obama's message to the world

Carol Negro at The American Thinker sees Obama's message to Europe as one I've wished Republican Presidents would give, only when Obama says something, people love it because it sounds good.

He told them America is not a good leader, that we are just one of  many nations, that we are arrogant, pushy, derisive of their great  wisdom and partnership, and will not act unilaterally in the future.

Now. Let me translate: "America won't be saving your ass ever again.

You're on your own."

Here's how that works out: Obama is under the impression that all the European Left's caw-caw-cawing about America is sincere and genuine; that they really want America to stand down and never act internationally and unilaterally for the right and the true. He seems to believe that the nations of Western Europe don't really want the United States to be ready to defend them at a moment's notice.

I think it would have been wonderful if Bush, in the face of protests in South Korea, had offered to pull our troops out.  Indeed, put it to a vote.  If a majority, or even a substantial minority, of South Koreans vote for the US to leave, the US will leave.  South Korea can mount its own defense.

Offer Europe the same deal.  We'll pull our troops out of Europe, and the cultured, sophisticated Europeans can defend themselves.  Maybe they'll show us how to do it right.

Those of us who voted against Obama weren't worried that he might be lying -- we were worried that he might be telling the truth, for example, when he promised to transform America.  Now he's promised to transform America's role in the world.  Is the world ready?

Inflation in Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is now issuing $100 trillion notes.

Mere billion dollar notes aren't worth bothering with any more.

Inflation was last reported at 231 million percent in July, but the Washington think-tank Cato Institute has estimated it now at 89.7 sextillion percent -- a figure expressed with 21 zeroes.

When Dilbert featured a series on one billion percent per day inflation in Elbonia, I figured that worked out to an increase of 1 1/8 percent per minute.

I guess the 89.7 sextillion percent is annual. A little bit of math shows the per-minute inflation rate is.....

One percent.

We're still not at Elbonian levels.

Surprised?

Obama and Africa

(Hat tip: John Ray)

ToThePointNews believes Obama is going to try to fix Africa, and will find it unfixable.

Obama will try to fix Africa and will fail

 

Because he will be ineffectual and irrelevant most everywhere else, one place Zero [Obama] will focus his foreign policy on will be Africa. We could call this drama Zero in Africa. He is going to be spending a lot of our money and risking many of our soldiers' lives in Africa. After all, that's where his alleged father is from. It's what the entire liberal elite expects of him. And it won't do any good.

 

Endless wars, bottomless corruption, disease, tyranny and dictatorship seem standard operating procedure for Africa. Out of the over 50 nation-states on the continent, one can point to the mild success story here and there - but these are exceptions to Africa's being the bottom of humanity's barrel. The coup last week in Guinea is a fine example.

 

The former French colony has the world's largest bauxite reserves, lots of iron ore, gold, and diamonds, lots of rich farmland. Most of its 10 million people live on less than $1 a day, it was ruled by a thug for the last 25 years until he died, whereupon some completely unknown army captain staged a coup and took over the country. Guineans are hailing him as "Obama Junior."

 

Africans will be looking to Zero to end their paleolithic poverty and violence, and he won't be able to - because of a fundamental fact he cannot change. The American Psychiatric Association classifies people with an IQ of 70 or below as mentally retarded. The average IQ of sub-Saharan Africans is 67.

 

Of course, there are plenty of very smart individual Africans. But the majority population of the entire continent of Africa (excluding North African countries such as Morocco and Egypt, and the whites of South Africa) is suffering mental retardation - or, put another way, has the mental faculties of a pre-teenage child. The average IQ in Guinea is 63.

 

The world's foremost researcher on IQ is Richard Lynn, professor of psychology at the University of Ulster in the UK. His exhaustive research over 30 years has been compiled in monumental studies entitled IQ and the Wealth of Nations and Race Differences in Intelligence: An Evolutionary Analysis. His latest study is The Global Bell Curve: Race, IQ, and Inequality Worldwide.

 

Sifting through 168 national IQ studies covering 81 countries and published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, analyzing the entire body of scientific psychometric (psychological measurement) research for the last 100 years, Lynn has determined that:

 

*East Asians (Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, South Korea, but not China) have on average 5 IQ points higher than Europeans and European-Americans.

 

*East Asian mean IQ is 105, China excluding Hong Kong is 100 (Hong Kong is 107, the world's highest), European/European-American is 100, Inuit Eskimo is 91, American Indian is 87, Mexican is 87, American Black is 85, South Asian (e.g. India, Pakistan) is 84, Middle East/North Africa Arab is 83, Sub-Saharan African is 67, Australian Aborigine is 62. The world average IQ is 90.

 

The key words are "on average." For while the average East Asian is smarter than the average European or American, the latter have greater variability. Which means, especially for Americans whose culture allows for more flourishing of intelligence, there will be a lot more really smart folks, super-smart individuals with IQs above 130 among them. It is these geniuses of science and business that have enabled our culture, that of Western Civilization, to prosper far beyond any other.

And it is just these folks, the brightest and most talented, that Zero will stifle and sacrifice on his altars of Equality, Fairness, and Redistribution. So a lot of them will give up or leave the US - they will shrug, as we discussed last month in Atlas in America.

Here's the thing. We hear from any number of well-meaning people that IQ doesn't mean anything.  People can be just as successful with an IQ of 70 as with one of 170.  Well, this is either true or false.  If it's false, then trying to make it true by throwing money at the problem is going to waste the money, and the suffering caused by the problems will continue.

Eleven reasons to oppose the bail-out

At least to oppose bailing out the Big Three automakers, from Countercolumn:

1. It would be illegal under the WTO laws we agreed to.
2. Detroit should have made better cars.
3. Detroit's workers priced themselves out of all reason.
4. Counterparty risk. Goldman Sachs and dozens of other financial institutions relied on AIG to make good on any number of transactions. Had AIG collapsed entirely, they threatened to destroy entire industries.  Toyota, Honda and Hyundai have no similar reliance on Ford or GM. If GM should fail, the rice burners stand to GAIN market share.
5. Detroit's PR people are arguing all they need is a "bridge loan." But I don't see the path to profitability - ever. If it's a "bridge loan," it's a "bridge to nowwhere."
6. This is largely a battle over pension funding.
7. The Big 3 have been on notice to improve their offerings for some time.
8. The labor unions made their bed, tying up company productivity with stupid union practice over stupid union practice, and by restricting the free market for labor.
9. If we have 25 billion available, why not use it to buy equity stakes in the Big 3 and then transfer ownership directly to the unions? Would they be happy with that deal? Why or why not?
10. If it's a bridge loan they need, why is no private lender willing to make the loan? Answer: Because repayment is not secure.
11. Those plants and workers don't just vanish into thin air. They could be sold to the rice burners, or to new enterprises. If not, then the lack of salvage value is an argument AGAINST a bailout, not FOR it!

Obama -- The Man Without Fear

....but is that necessarily a good thing?  Abe Greenwald at Commentary thinks maybe not.

Barack Obama's miscommunication of plans to move ahead with an American missile defense project in Poland, and his subsequent contradiction of Polish President Lech Kaczynski's statement, are bigger problems than most are readily admitting. John Bolton, characteristically, calls it like he sees it. In the Wall Street Journal, Bolton writes that Russia's recent vow to place missile assets in Poland was an act of aggression aimed at Obama and at Kaczynski. Obama's mistake and disavowal leaves a Polish-American partnership looking very foolish, because Obama "should have understood that foreign leaders, both friends and adversaries, are in a state of high tension."

But what if Obama doesn't understand "a state of high tension"? For all the talk of his presidential temperament, there was something eerie about Obama's cool that was never brought up. Is it presidential not to get worked up over anything? When John McCain pressed Obama hard in the last debate, it is true Obama did not get rattled. But something noticeable came into his face. It wasn't annoyance so much as the flash of an error message. As if he simply didn't have the software necessary for expressing anger.

What other software is missing? The national guessing game underway right now is a function of the fact that Obama has never unequivocally held an important position. His declarations are four parts wiggle-room, one-part resolve. Either that or they face certain reversal. Missile defense, off-shore drilling, guns, partial-birth abortion, troop withdrawal–there are truly too many examples of lingering haziness to list. Is it presidential to elevate indecision to a kind of intellectual philosophy?

At some point, as the Decider-in-Chief, Obama will have to make decisions, hold to them, and act on them.  And not deciding has a way of becoming a "made" decision.  Once decisions are made, wiggle-room has a way of vanishing like the morning dew.

The last, best hope

In Der Spiegel, Europe admits that the United States may be the last, best hope for mankind.

Ohne Schutz vor Beschuss aus dem All: Weil Politiker das Risiko nicht ernst nehmen, ist Europa schlecht auf den Einschlag von Asteroiden vorbereitet. Dabei drohen massive Verwüstungen. Bleibt nur die Hoffnung, dass die Amerikaner die Welt für uns retten.

 

(No protection against bombardment from space: Because politicians don't take the risk seriously Europe is ill-prepared for asteroid impacts.  These bring the threat of massive devastation. That leaves only the hope that the Americans would save the world for us.)

And I'm sure, even in an Obama economy, we'd find the resources somewhere.  But it's nice to see America being recognized as the "go to guys" when the world needs saving.  If America's economy is torn down to Kyoto-compliant levels, is there anyone else able, never mind willing, to step up and take on our mantle?

Priorities at 3AM

Abe Greenwald at Commentary:

Sarah Palin stayed on the line a little too long when someone handed her a call from a Nicolas Sarkozy impersonator. Barack Obama made a call to the actual Polish president, who somehow took away a completely wrong idea about future American policy on missile defense (i.e., that Obama supported an American missile-defense presence in Poland, when Obama has now declared himself non-committal.) You tell me which scenario is "scary."

But the media narrative remains: Barack Obama is bright, Sarah Palin is stupid.  Evidence means nothing.

Of nukes and NoKo

J.G. Thayer at Commentary Magazine has a theory about the curious incident that happened in Syria.

The theory goes that North Korea, not comfortable with the international spotlight, decided that it needed to get rid of its nuclear weapons program. It talked to Syria, and found they were amenable to taking over North Korea's program and materiel. So North Korea loaded the whole kit and kaboodle on a ship and sailed it off to Syria.

Israel learned of the move, naturally saw it as a threat, and warned the U.S. that it was going on. They might have considered sinking the ship, but that would have both opened them to yet another round of international condemnation and destroyed the evidence proving their case.

So the ship was allowed to proceed to Syria unmolested, while the U.S. was convinced that the threat was valid. Then, once the facility was identified, Israel (with a bit of covert assistance from the U.S.) destroyed it.

As part of the strike, Israelis very well might have landed and captured evidence of the nuclear weapons program.

Syria, caught with its pants down, and concerned that Israel might make its evidence public, quickly reacted by trying to cover up the whole incident. They leveled the site and issued a pro forma protest.

North Korea, infuriated that its material had been destroyed, issued a furious protest — one far more vehement than that of Syria, who was the direct victim of the attack.

Yes, all rampant speculation and utterly unfounded theory, but congruent with the known facts.

Palin comments on Biden's remarks

Text at Worldwide Standard, video via HotAir.

He didn't specify what all those four or five scenarios will be, but for clues, let's review the Obama foreign policy agenda.

Our opponent wants to sit down with the world's worst dictators. With no preconditions, he proposes to meet with a regime in Teheran that vows to "wipe Israel off the map." Let's call that crisis scenario number one.

Senator Obama has also advocated sending our U.S. military into Pakistan without the approval of the Pakistani government. Invading the sovereign territory of a troubled partner in the war against terrorism. We'll call that scenario number two.

He opposed the surge strategy that has finally brought victory in Iraq within sight. He's voted to cut off funding for our troops, leaving our young men and women at grave risk. He wants to pull out, leaving some 25 million Iraqis at the mercy of Iranian-supported Shiite extremists and al Qaeda in Iraq. By his own admission, this could mean our troops would have to go back to Iraq. Crisis scenario number three.

After the Russian army invaded the nation of Georgia, Senator Obama's reaction was one of indecision and moral equivalence – the kind of response that would only encourage Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine next. That would be crisis scenario number four.

But I guess the looming crisis that most worries the Obama campaign right now is Joe Biden's next speaking engagement. Let's call that crisis scenario number five.

Big Lizards on Obama's Test

Dafydd at Big Lizards offers his take on Obama's predicted response to the international test:

Obama's own running mate predicts that within six months of his inauguration, BO will face a "world test" like the Kennedy-Khrushchev summit of June, 1961... and that Obama will flunk it exactly the way Kennedy did.

Kennedy's failure nearly led to nuclear war; fortunately, the Soviets in 1961 were sane. I'm not so sanguine about the Iranians in 2009.

More on Obama's Test

The other day, Joe Biden let slip that he could practically guarantee that Obama would be tested with an international crisis within six months of his election.  Bill Kristol expands on this at the Weekly Standard blog.

...Biden is forecasting inaction by Obama in the face of testing by a dictator. I suspect he's right in this forecast. McCain might want to clarify this point. It's not just that Obama's own running mate expects an international crisis early in his presidency. It's not just that Obama has a weak foreign policy record. It's that Biden himself expects what will appear to be a weak response from Obama to testing by a dictator.

Now Biden presumaby thinks such an apparently weak response would be in our long-term interest. But McCain needs to force that debate: "Sen. Obama, will you in fact do nothing in response to a Putin provocation against Ukraine or a final push by Ahmadinejad toward nuclear weapons? Isn't that what your running mate has forecast? Isn't it awfully dangerous to forecast weakness on the part of an American president?"

Now let's be clear.  I suspect there will be a test within six months regardless of who gets elected. The question is, what sort of response do we want our President to make?