From William McGurn, in last Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal (bolds are mine), has a parting thought on George W. Bush’s departure:

As he leaves, he carries with him the near-universal opprobrium of the permanent class that inhabits our nation’s capital. Yet perhaps the most important reason for this unpopularity is the one least commented on.

Here’s a hint: It’s not because of his failures. To the contrary, Mr. Bush’s disfavor in Washington owes more to his greatest success. Simply put, there are those who will never forgive Mr. Bush for not losing a war they had all declared unwinnable.

Here in the afterglow of the turnaround led by Gen. David Petraeus, it’s easy to forget what the smart set was saying two years ago — and how categorical they all were in their certainty. The president was a simpleton, it was agreed. Didn’t he know that Iraq was a civil war, and the only answer was to get out as fast as we could?

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — the man who will be sworn in as vice president today — didn’t limit himself to his own opinion. Days before the president announced the surge, Joe Biden suggested to the Washington Post he knew the president’s people had also concluded the war was lost. They were, he said, just trying to “keep it from totally collapsing” until they could “hand it off to the next guy.”

For his part, on the night Mr. Bush announced the surge, Barack Obama said he was “not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq are going to solve the sectarian violence there. In fact, I think it will do the reverse.”

Three months after that, before the surge had even started, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid pronounced the war in Iraq “lost.” These and similar comments, moreover, were amplified by a media echo chamber even more absolute in its sense of hopelessness about Iraq and its contempt for the president.

….. As with Vietnam, with Iraq the failure of nerve was most clear in Congress. For example, of the five active Democratic senators who sought the (presidential) nomination, four voted in favor of the Iraqi intervention before discovering their antiwar selves.

As in Vietnam too, rather than finding their judgment questioned, those who flip-flopped on the war were held up as voices of reason. In a memorable editorial advocating a pullout, the New York Times gave voice to the chilling possibilities that this new realism was willing to accept in the name of bringing our soldiers home.

“Americans must be clear that Iraq, and the region around it, could be even bloodier and more chaotic after Americans leave,” read the editorial. “There could be reprisals against those who worked with American forces, further ethnic cleansing, even genocide.” Even genocide. With no hint of irony, the Times nevertheless went on to conclude that it would be even worse if we stayed.

This is Vietnam thinking. And the president never accepted it. That was why his critics went ape when, in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, he touched on the killing fields and exodus of boat people that followed America’s humiliating exit off an embassy rooftop. As the Weekly Standard’s Matthew Continetti noted, Mr. Bush had appropriated one of their most cherished analogies — only he drew very different lessons from it.

Mr. Bush’s success in Iraq is equally infuriating, because it showed he was right and they wrong. Many in Washington have not yet admitted that, even to themselves. Mr. Obama has. We know he has because he has elected to keep Mr. Bush’s secretary of defense — not something you do with a failure. ….

The hope is that Barack Obama won’t bungle his way into losing what George Bush and the US military won.

His two terror-sympathetic moves noted here on Thursday are not good omens. Whether he intends them to be terror-sympathetic is not the point; the odds, based on history, even recent history, are that they will work out that way.

Previous moves made by the US military and the Bush Defense Department have already turned out to have been terror-sympathetic:

Two men released from the US “war on terror” prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba have appeared in a video posted on a jihadist website, the SITE monitoring service reported.

One of the two former inmates, a Saudi man identified as Abu Sufyan al-Azdi al-Shahri, or prisoner number 372, has been elevated to the senior ranks of Al-Qaeda in Yemen, a US counter-terrorism official told AFP.

….. The Defense Department has said as many as 61 former Guantanamo detainees — about 11 percent of 520 detainees transferred from the detention center and released — are believed to have returned to the fight.

The latest case highlights the risk the new US administration faces as it moves to empty Guantanamo of its remaining 245 prisoners and close the controversial detention camp within a year.

Perhaps these were moves were made with the best of intentions. Too bad; it’s the results that count, and in this case they were horrible.

So why would Obama repeat them, especially if the remaining Gitmo prisoners might be on balance more dangerous than those who have already been let go?

We must hope against hope that the influences of Obama’s documented relationships with terrorist sympathizers and terrorist supporters don’t prevent him from doing what is necessary to keep us safe (the linked post doesn’t even include domestic terrorist and “family friend” Bill Ayers, whose influence surely should not be discounted).

From an e-mail from Ken Joseph (also posted here; the observations are his; bolds are mine):

Life Comes To Washington

Washington, DC

In the aftermath of the Inauguration, in fact the very next day a wonderful blessing took over the city of Washington and the National Mall.

Beginning with a massive rally at the Verizon Center, the March for Life made its presence known.

A local Police Officer attending the new crowd said `they couldn’t be more different. It is a joy to watch over this group.`

With estimates up to 150,000 and a march that stretched over a half mile long the March For life took over downtown Washington with a cheerful, upbeat group.

They came in all sizes, shapes and groups. Priests and nuns, kids from just about everywhere, babies that had been saved from abortion.

The March for Life memorialized the 36th anniversary of the passing of the life altering passage of Roe vs. Wade.

As if to personally insult the group within hours of the end of the march,  one of the first executive orders of the new administration was to roll back the anti-abortion provisions that had been in place for the past eight years.

“We are very concerned that all the accomplishments of the past years will be overturned” said one participant “we face a new administration that is hostile to life”.

Within hours, she was proved right.

Nonetheless, with signs like “We Choose Life”,  “I Love Babies” and “Stop Abortion Now” the joyful crowd assembled at noon on the National Mall on the same site that hours earlier proponents of limitless abortion had gathered for the inauguration.

The irony was not lost on the many that interacted with the group from hotel staff to police officers who all commented on the dramatic difference between the crowd that had assembled for the inauguration the day before and the March For Life Participants.

In a show of cross denominational cooperation Catholic, Protestant and just about every denomination in the middle gathered around the single theme of protecting life.

“In a sense it is good that for the first time in a long while we face a Washington that now wants to restore Abortion. It forces us to work harder to protect life” commented one participant.

….. The swiftness with which – on the very second day of the new administration – restrictions on Abortion were removed surprised many, but the old-timers in the movement  had seen it before.

The battle ahead may be hard with a new administration and Congress hostile to the pro-life movement, but for just one day, Life took over the National Mall and downtown Washington DC, culminating in a rally in front of the Supreme Court where 36 years ago to the day Life had been dealt a near fatal blow.

The concern on many faces as the rally wound down was how different the situation would be a year from now when they meet again.

From the Catholic News Agency:

Vatican City, Jan 23, 2009 / 11:40 am

Pope Benedict XVI has launched himself into the digital age today with the Vatican announcing that a YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/vatican dedicated to his activities and events at the Vatican is now online.

The Vatican’s announcement of its new partnership with Google’s YouTube coincides with the release of the Pope’s annual message for the World Day of Communications, which this year focuses on how to utilize new technologies to promote a culture of respect, dialogue and friendship.

Fr. Federico Lombardi, the director of the Holy See’s press office, described the Vatican’s YouTube Channel at a press conference today.

Currently, the Channel contains clips of Pope Benedict XVI delivering his Christmas Message and Blessing, the January 1 celebration of the World Peace Day and some segments of the Pope speaking about the advantages of new social technology. The footage for the clips is being provided by the Vatican Television Center (CTV) in conjunction with journalists and the web team of Vatican Radio (RV).

According to Fr. Lombardi, the new channel will be updated daily with one or two news pieces each day, none longer than two minutes. …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

James Lovelock (picture is from his web site) has been the topic of at least three previous posts at NewsBusters:

• In September 2006, Dan Gainor marveled at how the Washington Post could devote 2,400 words to Lovelock and his “Gaia Theory” — the idea that the earth acts like a living organism.
• In October 2007, Gainor noted Lovelock’s appearance in that esteemed scientific publication Rolling Stone, which called him “The Prophet of Climate Change.” Lovelock claimed that global warming is irreversible, and that, as stated by writer Jeff Goodell, “the Earth’s population will be culled from today’s 6.6 billion to as few as 500 million.”
• A March 2008 post by Jeff Poor told readers that Lovelock, in the UK Daily Mail, had apparently moved up his disaster scenario by 60 years, among other things predicting that by 2040 China would be uninhabitable.

Lovelock clearly isn’t the go-to guy for cool, calm, and collected science. But given his standing with many environmentalists, his views of certain aspects of environmentalism are worthy of attention. They are profoundly negative, as recorded in the January 24 issue of New Scientist by “Gaia Vince,” where Lovelock also proposes a last-ditch strategy for saving the planet and salvaging several hundred million more survivors:

(Lovelock) Most of the “green” stuff is verging on a gigantic scam. Carbon trading, with its huge government subsidies, is just what finance and industry wanted. It’s not going to do a damn thing about climate change, but it’ll make a lot of money for a lot of people and postpone the moment of reckoning. I am not against renewable energy, but to spoil all the decent countryside in the UK with wind farms is driving me mad. It’s absolutely unnecessary, and it takes 2500 square kilometres to produce a gigawatt – that’s an awful lot of countryside…… (Gaia Vince) So are we doomed?

(Lovelock) There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal. It would mean farmers turning all their agricultural waste – which contains carbon that the plants have spent the summer sequestering – into non-biodegradable charcoal, and burying it in the soil. Then you can start shifting really hefty quantities of carbon out of the system and pull the CO2 down quite fast.

….. (Gaia Vince) Would it make enough of a difference?

(Lovelock) Yes. ….. This is the one thing we can do that will make a difference, but I bet they won’t do it.

(Gaia Vince)  Do you think we will survive?

(Lovelock) I’m an optimistic pessimist. I think it’s wrong to assume we’ll survive 2 °C of warming: there are already too many people on Earth. At 4 °C we could not survive with even one-tenth of our current population. The reason is we would not find enough food, unless we synthesised it. Because of this, the cull during this century is going to be huge, up to 90 per cent. The number of people remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less. It has happened before: between the ice ages there were bottlenecks when there were only 2000 people left. It’s happening again.

Take that Al Gore, and Barack Obama, and John McCain, and Joe Lieberman, and …..

New Scientist says that the 90 year-old Lovelock has “a trip into space scheduled for later in the year.” If this feat gets the expected press attention, it will be interesting to see how the media treats his environmental views, and whether they note the irony of “The Prophet of Climate Change” likely burning large amounts of fossil fuel to power his voyage.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From Colinton in Scotland:

Published Date: 19 January 2009

HE has survived four life-saving operations, pneumonia, meningitis – and he’s not even three.
Dylan Foster’s parents say he is a walking miracle. Having initially being told he may only survive a few days, he celebrates his third birthday on Saturday.

The Colinton boy was born with four heart defects, including two holes in his heart, and a faulty tube going to his lungs. His condition also leaves him vulnerable to other infections, and he often turns blue when he is struggling to breathe.

He has been in hospital 20 times in his short life. But parents Steven and Vickie say he is now doing well, and they hope to give him as normal a childhood as possible.

They have started a fundraising drive for the British Heart Foundation, and hope to help other families in a similar situation.

Mrs Foster, 25, said doctors told them about his condition immediately after his birth. It is extremely rare, affecting only one in 50,000 babies.

She said: “It was a nightmare when we were told. The birth was fine, but when he was born he was blue. They whisked him away. We were told two hours later he had a bad heart.

“He had his first operation when he was five days old. That was scary. They didn’t think he would pull through. We got him christened straight away, just in case. At one point we saw lots of surgeons running past. They thought Dylan was going to die.

“Our other two children didn’t meet him till he was two months old. It was joyful bringing him home.”

Dylan had to have surgery to replace a missing heart valve, as well as patching up the holes in his heart. And his aorta is back to front, which may require another operation when he is older.

A month after his birth Dylan was rushed to hospital with pneumonia. A few months later he became seriously ill when he contracted meningitis, and had to be treated in intensive care again.

At first appearances, Dylan is a normal, lively toddler. But he will need more surgery to replace the valve in his heart before he is four or five years old.

Mrs Foster said: “He loves going to nursery and being around other children. He’s quite good with speech now, and he’s very intelligent. We do worry about him all the time. He’s not as active as other children. Sometimes he’ll go blue, but he knows when it’s getting too much for him.

“He takes everything in his stride, although I’m in tears when he has to go into hospital. Every time he has an operation, there’s a 50 per cent chance it could go wrong. Five years ago he would have passed away before his first birthday, but it’s amazing what they can now do for him.” …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

The New York Times reports that the music played just before Barack Obama took the presidential oath of office was not live (the photo at right is at the Times story via the Associated Press).

At least one reporter who might be expected to know better wrote a review of the performance that would lead readers to believe that she thought it was live.

Here are the first few paragraphs from Daniel Wakin’s quite forgiving report at the Times (HT to Althouse via Instapundit; bolds are mine):

The Frigid Fingers Were Live, but the Music Wasn’t

It was not precisely lip-synching, but pretty close.

The somber, elegiac tones before President Obama’s oath of office at the inauguration on Tuesday came from the instruments of Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman and two colleagues. But what the millions on the Mall and watching on television heard was in fact a recording, made two days earlier by the quartet and matched tone for tone by the musicians playing along.

“Truly, weather just made it impossible,” Carole Florman, a spokeswoman for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, said on Thursday. “No one’s trying to fool anybody. This isn’t a matter of Milli Vanilli,” Ms. Florman added, referring to the pop band that was stripped of a 1989 Grammy because the duo did not sing on their album and lip-synched in concerts.

Ms. Florman said that the use of a recording was not disclosed beforehand but that the NBC producers handling the television pool were told of its likelihood the day before.

Somebody’s a little touchy, aren’t they?

Maybe Ms. Florman and her committee “weren’t trying to fool anybody,” but somebody, namely Anya Grundmann at NPR (bio here), appears to have been quite taken in by it all. Here is her review of the “performance,” including the sappiest paean to the wonders of diversity you may ever see:

It sure looks like Ms. Grundmann is telling us that the instruments played on stage by the esteemed musicians were the ones that “held the melody and then layered it,” and then “twist(ed) and curl(ed)” it.

Who knew that piped-in music had such power?

Exit question for Carol Florman: How many of those in attendance, and how many of the 37.8 million TV viewers (about 9% fewer than the 41.8 million who watched Ronald Reagan’s inauguration, and over 30% lower on a percentage-of-population basis), believed the quartet’s performance was live?

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

_________________________________________________

UPDATE: Ed Driscoll, you are one quick linker.

UPDATE 2: NPR’s “performance link” is here.

Note: This first appeared at Pajamas Media on Wednesday. See related subsequent and previous posts below.

__________________________________________________________

Barack Obama campaigned on his alleged “judgment to lead.” The Timothy Geithner nomination makes a mockery of that claim.

__________________________________________________________

Barack Obama’s nomination of Timothy Geithner for Treasury Secretary, and the circumstances surrounding it, have raised many issues and questions — not only about the nominee himself, but also about senators and others reviewing it, the media’s coverage, and ultimately his presumptive boss’s leadership.

Here are the top ten disturbing aspects of the Geithner nomination, not in order of importance until Number 1.

10. His performance in his previous job.

Geithner became President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in 2004. The New York Fed’s “About” page says that one of its duties is “…. to ensure a safe and sound banking system,” and that it “conducts onsite and offsite examinations of banks in New York, New Jersey, and Fairfield County in Connecticut.” Since so many major financial institutions are under the New York Fed’s jurisdiction, Geithner’s New York Fed has an outsized role in ensuring the soundness of the banking system nationwide.

But in the same November 24 New York Times article that describes him as “a 47 year-old wonder boy,” reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin quotes several anonymous Wall Street CEOs who “question whether he’s up to the challenge.” His roles in managing the unravelings at Bear Stearns, AIG and Merrill Lynch, the bankruptcy at Lehman, and the ongoing implosion at Citigroup deserve scrutiny. They appear to be getting none.

Beyond that, the suddenness of these collapses should lead nomination-vetting senators to question the quality of and follow-up relating to “examinations” done on Geithner’s watch. Can the money center blowups be traced to years of inadequate oversight?

9. His role in the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP).

Within days of its enactment by Congress, TARP, now fully funded by Congress to the tune of $700 billion, morphed from the asset-buying program originally advertised to one of direct, “(figurative) gun to the head” investments in banks. Geithner was a key behind-the-scenes player in all of this — Sorkin called him “the point person for weeks of sleep-deprived Bailout Weekends.”

To what extent is Geithner responsible for the schizophrenic, misleading, and confidence-shaking mishandling of what I have been calling the SUCKUP (Seemingly Unlimited Cash Kitty Under Paulson)?

8. Likely tax evasion, not “mere” avoidance. ”

Wonder boy” Geithner failed to pay $34,000 in self-employment taxes on his earnings at the International Monetary Fund from 2001 through 2004, even though the IMF partially reimbursed him for these taxes each year.

The IRS caught his (cough, cough) “honest mistake” in 2006, and made Geithner pay up for 2003 and 2004. But he didn’t do so for 2001 and 2002 until just before Barack Obama nominated him. Why? Because the three-year statute of limitations, based on when a return is filed, had expired for the previous two years.

But the statute of limitations does not apply “in the case of a false or fraudulent return with intent to evade any tax.” Given that he had tax problems going back to 1993 over paying taxes on wages paid to domestic help, it should be obvious that Geithner knew full well when he filed his 2001 and 2002 returns that Uncle Sam demands his 15.3% for Social Security and Medicare no matter where and for whom you work inside the US. Thus, I believe that he knowing filed false returns, engaging in tax evasion, not avoidance.

7. False attestations.

Further supporting my evasion assertion, Geithner told the IMF in writing year after year that he would pay the tax, and didn’t. As Byron York reported at National Review on January 14:

At the end of the tax allowance form were the words, “I hereby certify that all the information contained herein is true to the best of my knowledge and belief and that I will pay the taxes for which I have received tax allowance payments from the Fund.” Geithner signed the form. He accepted the allowance payment. He didn’t pay the tax. For several years in a row.

6. Senate reaction.

Democrats like Max Baucus insist that Geithner’s confirmation is “a given.” Republicans? Orrin Hatch says, ”He’s a very competent guy.” Lindsey Graham doesn’t want “to play gotcha on this.” Ohio’s George Voinovich is among the few who get it: “People who work here — who are big shots — should pay their taxes. I think he’s got a real problem with me and my constituents.”

5. Pundit reaction.

Charles Krauthammer apparently believes these things are trivial mistakes. Hugh Hewitt cops out, saying that “A president deserves his cabinet choices because he has won the election and been charged with executing the laws.” How about somebody who obeys them, Hugh?

4. Press coverage.

The Associated Press and other media outlets relentlessly drone on about tax “discrepancies,” “tax goofs,” and the nomination’s supposed inevitability. Geithner’s partial reimbursements for taxes he didn’t pay and the related false attestations, which York obtained from Senate sources, are being ignored. There is no chance that a GOP president could nominate someone with Geithner’s tax problems for any cabinet position, let alone Treasury Secretary, and get such a pass from the press.

3. Possible press conflicts of interest.

Cliff Kincaid at Accuracy in Media points out that some press outlets are parts of larger firms with financial stakes in the financial bailout. Example: General Electric, which owns NBC also owns bailout recipient GE Capital. GE CEO Jeffrey Inmelt is also on the New York Fed’s board.

2. Disparate treatment of previously pulled nominees.

Zoe Baird (Clinton – 1993), Kimba Wood (Clinton – 1993) and Linda Chavez (Bush – 2001) all had relatively minor or potential issues with self-employment taxes on household help. Geithner’s unpaid amounts were exponentially larger. Is there a whiff of male chauvinism in the air?

1. Barack Obama’s reaction.

No president in my lifetime would have dared to nominate Geithner. But “44″ Obama calls Geithner’s problems a mere “embarrassment.”

It leaves you wondering if anyone in Washington knows or cares about the difference between right and wrong. We’re expected to overlook Geithner’s problems because he is supposedly the only person in a nation of 200 million adults who can do the job. Give me a break.

If he really knows the pertinent facts, Barack Obama’s ringing defense of Geithner should cause the American people to question his fundamental ”judgment to lead.”

Or were those “just words“?

_____________________________________________________________

Subsequent Posts (after column was published at PJM):

• Jan. 22 — Geithner’s Tax Troubles: There’s Much More, and the Press Is Virtually Ignoring It
• Jan. 21 –-AP Geithner Hearing Report: No Mention of IMF ‘Reimbursements’ for Taxes Not Paid, Related False Statements

_____________________________________________________________

Previous Posts:

• Jan. 19 — He Should Be Out ….. Because He ‘Can’t Explain’
• Jan. 19 –- NRO’s York: Geithner ‘Can’t Explain’
• Jan. 17 –- AP’s ‘Q&A’ on Geithner’s Taxes Has Excuses Galore, No Mention of ‘Reimbursements’ Pocketed
• Jan. 16 –- Geithner Must Go
• Jan. 15 — Tax ‘Goof’ Update: Geithner Was ‘Reimbursed’ for Taxes He Didn’t Pay; AP Story Buries, Then Deletes
• Jan. 14 — Geithner Update: AP’s Early-AM Revision Flushes Many Details, Calls His Tax Problems ‘Goofs’
• Jan. 13 — Treasury Nominee Geither’s Persistent Tax Problems Getting the Glossover Treatment; AP Coverage ‘Forgets’ at Least Chavez, Baird

….. But I Don’t Have Any Time For:

• Besides the raw news (“Oceans are cooling according to NASA “; HT Hot Air) about cooling, not warming, the linked story contains a useful reminder — “In the peak of the recent warming trend, 1998 actually ranked 2nd to 1934 as the warmest year on record.” A related August 2007 BizzyBlog post noted that this came finding came about after NASA fixed flawed data.
• “Obama Snubs Medal of Honor Recipients” — “In total, nine presidents and 56 years have gone by, and each inaugural evening the new president arrived to thank the veterans and Medal of Honor recipients in attendance (at their ‘unofficial’ ball). ….. it meant quite a bit to have the president show up and make an appearance. Except this time.” I’m going to give the guy the benefit of the doubt on this for being tone-deaf instead of deliberately shunning the group, but it’s here as a memory-jogger in case a pattern emerges. Recall that even draft-dodging military loather Bill Clinton made sure to do visit this ball at his inaugurals.
• “Obama meets the White House press corps, gets annoyed” (original Politico piece is here) — At about the 3:20 mark of the vid at the link, a reporter asks a question about lobbying, and Obama says, “I can’t come down here and visit you guys if I’m going to get grilled every time I come down here.” Imagine the reax if a Republican president said and acted as Obama did.
• Here’s a little dust-up that should be watched — “Three news agencies refused to distribute White House-provided photos of President Barack Obama in the Oval Office on Wednesday, arguing that access should have been provided to news photographers. The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France Presse said the White House was breaking with longstanding tradition in not allowing news photographers to capture the president at work in the Oval Office on his first day. …. The White House later released a photograph of the president retaking the oath of office with Chief Justice John Roberts, which the AP also rejected.” Possibly a first-day faux pas, but perhaps an indicator that Team Obama intends to exert tight control over the images we see of him. If that’s the case, my bet would be on the press acquiescing.
• “Connecticut adds 800 workers during a hiring freeze” — No, it’s not The Onion, and Christopher Fountain is not amused (HT Instapundit). Connecticut’s governor is RINO Jodi Rell, who managed to settle the Kelo mess as best she could in the wake of an odious Supreme Court decision, but has been captured by the spendthrifts.
• Re the Geithner nomination, which sailed through the Senate Finance Committee by an appalling 18-5 margin yesterday — For what it’s worth, I set up a TurboTax 2007 file and entered a W-2 with Social Security and Medicare wages and no withholding and wasn’t told that there was a problem (though I’m not sure I got as far as I needed to get to prove that). Given the fact that Geithner was reminded on a quarterly basis of his obligation to pay these taxes, and was given money in the form of additional “gross-up” compensation to pay these taxes, and that he had previous run-ins with the IRS going back to 1993 over the Social Security-related “nanny tax,” the “TurboTax said I didn’t have to” excuse is really, really lame.
• Also relevant to Geithner — Caroline Kennedy’s withdrawal as a New York US Senate candidate may have had other causes, but one of the biggest appears to be a nanny tax problem of her own. So let’s see, you’ll have a hard time being a US senator if you don’t pay a few thousand bucks in nanny tax, but you can be Treasury Secretary if, just for starters, you have failed to pay your own self-employment taxes for four years running involving amounts that may be 10 times as large, use the statute of limitations dodge to avoid paying some of them until you’re about to be nominated, and take a blatantly illegal deduction for overnight summer camp. Why is this? One big reason: Kennedy would eventually have to face the voters. Geithner never will.

…. How I’m being hectored over this post from last year:

+++++++++++++++++++

June 26, 2008

Relating the Dots: Obama …. Soros …. Stewart …. CAIR-OH …. CCR …. and Al-Qaeda

On Tuesday, Matthew Vadum at NewsBusters exposed “Al-Qaeda’s law firm,” the so-called Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the group that argued the case that led to the “the U.S. Supreme Court’s lawless, nonsensical decision in Boumediene v. Bush” (yet another Supreme Court opinion that a president would be fully justified in defying in future similar situations in the absence of legislation ratifying the judges’ sentiment).

Vadum noted that:

CCR donors include the Ohio branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Safa Trust Inc., and the International Institute of Islamic Thought, all of which have been accused of connections to Islamist terror groups.

Patrick Poole took it from there concerning CAIR-OH (links are in Poole’s original):

No doubt some of that CAIR-Ohio money funding Al-Qaeda’s law firm came from the fundraiser featuring 1993 World Trade Center bombing unindicted co-conspirator Siraj Wahhaj, who helped raise $100,000 for CAIR-OH as the keynote speaker at their 2006 annual banquet; and the 2007 CAIR-OH annual banquet featuring Governor Ted Strickland.

As a reminder, Ohio’s media appeared to consciously choose not to report Strickland’s CAIR-OH banquet appearance in June 2007, even though (or was it because?) CAIR-OH’s controversial terror connections were already quite well-known.

CCR supported radical lawyer Lynne Stewart, who was convicted in 2005 by a jury of giving aid to Islamic terrorists and was sentenced to 30 years. Stewart was convicted of providing material support to terrorists by serving as a communications funnel between those inside and outside of jail; those communicating from jail were convicted of various terror-related crimes. A judge later inexplicably and outrageously reduced her sentence to 28 months (HT Stop the ACLU). Stewart, thank goodness, was at least disbarred as a result (HT Volokh).

Stewart’s defense was partially funded by (/surprise) Democratic Party go-to money guy George Soros (HT Captain Ed).

In mid-March 2007, per Ed Lasky at American Thinker, Soros called “for the Democratic Party to ‘liberate’ itself from the influence of the pro-Israel lobby and ….. (stated) that America should be dealing with Hamas, the terror group that is now the governing authority of the Palestinians. This was published in the influential New York Review of Books.” Soros has also laughably “equated the abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.”

Soros has been a money tree for the presidential candidate I refer to as “Mr. BOOHOO-OUCH” (Barack O-bomba Overseas Hussein Obambi” Obama – Objectively Unfit Coddler of Haters) since early 2004.

Those are terror-supporting and/or terror-sympathetic relationships you can believe in.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

It’s interesting, because in just 48 or so hours of the Obama Administration, I’ve already been shown to be half right:

Obama Orders Halt to Guantanamo Trials
Obama to Close Guantanamo

These are indeed terror-sympathetic moves our now-encouraged enemies can believe in.

Obama’s orders follow on the heels of a terror-sympathetic Supreme Court decision in June of last year.

To the extent that decisions like the Supremes’ and orders like Obama’s give aid and comfort to our enemies that we can be rolled by our own legalese and hang-ups over giving hostile non-citizens who want us all dead or converted to Islam the same rights as citizens, they will first encourage fiercer resistance and and assist in terror recruiting. If increased resistance succeeds, our terrorist enemies, who have been generally on the run since 9/11 (but not completely — see Mumbai), may get back on the offensive in many more places around the world, even here in the US. If that happens — and if history is a guide, it sadly will — the decisions identified above will in retrospect be seen as not merely terror-sympathetic, but terror-supporting.

Glad that’s cleared up.

__________________________________________________

UPDATE: Michellle Malkin on John Murtha’s push to have the Gitmo guys housed in his district — “The John Murtha Jihadi Correctional Facility.”

It’s on. 22 months remain.

“It” is “Ohio Media v. Any and All Viable Republican or Conservative Politicians.”

The first suckerpunch comes from Joe “Hack” Hallett and Jonathan Riskind of the Columbus Dispatch (“Wall Street ties might hamstring GOP hopeful Kasich”). The recipient is former congressman and current Fox weekend show host John Kasich, who is frequently mentioned as a possible GOP challenger to Buckeye State Governor T-Shirt Ted Strickland.

It takes the pair 14 paragraphs to tell us that there’s no story here — that is, unless they want to accuse Kasich’s spokesperson of lying:

“John had absolutely no role in the holding or underwriting of mortgage-backed securities or with the proprietary real-estate investments which led to the downfall of Lehman Brothers,” (Kasich adviser) Chabria said, adding that Kasich received no bonus or “golden parachute” when Lehman went under and he left.

“John was one of 30,000 employees of Lehman Brothers and, like many others, he lost much equity after years of hard work for the firm.”

The Dispatch duo then goes back eight years (!), “catches” Kasich praising former Lehman CEO Richard Fuld (see Update below), and doesn’t bother to tell us why that praise should trouble readers.

Fuld may have been overpaid, and may have mismanaged Lehman in its final years. However, as of this moment, he stands accused of no crime.

The same cannot be said for a certain former associate of Ted Strickland. The Dispatch duo kindly gave “I’ll Turn Ohio Around, But Let’s Wait Two Years” Ted their fourth paragraph:

“If he becomes a candidate for governor, I’m sure that will be part of the discussion, as will the way I’ve handled my job,” Strickland said. “I don’t know how engaged he was, what his responsibilities were. Would that likely be something I would look into if he were my opponent? I think that it’s likely that it would.”

Strickland’s speculative venture into opposition research begs the question of how “engaged” Ted was with the Governor’s Office of Faith Based and Community Initiatives. Less than two years ago, he appointed Eric McFadden as Director of that office (scroll to last item in Feb. 23, 2007 press release).

McFadden was removed from that position in November 2007, and was at the Department of Corrections until March 2008, when he left state employment.

Last week, McFadden was arrested for using high-tech means to manage the world’s oldest profession (the link is from the Catholic News Agency, which explains why the story is fair and balanced):

Democratic Catholic leader arrested on prostitution-related charges

The former director of the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives for the governor of Ohio was arrested Wednesday for his involvement in an online prostitution ring. Eric McFadden, who has also formerly served as the president of the organization Catholics for Faithful Citizenship and spokesperson for Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, will face seven prostitution-related charges tomorrow in court.

Eric McFadden, 46, the former head of the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives for Governor of Ohio, Ted Strickland, was arrested this morning and faces two counts of promoting prostitution, two counts of pandering obscenity involving a minor, two counts of pandering obscenity involving a nude minor and one count of compelling prostitution, Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien told the Springfield News-Sun.

The News-Sun also quoted Keith Daily, Governor Strickland’s press secretary who described the situation as “very sad, shocking and appalling.”

According to NBC 4 in Columbus, Ohio, detectives suspect McFadden was involved in a “hooker-review” site that led to the creation of a Brewery District brothel.

Police also believe that McFadden is a man they have been tracking who posts under the name “Toby.” Authorities have been searching for him over the past two months after busting a prostitution ring on Craigslist.

McFadden used complex encoded postings on Craiglist that would look like useless or corrupted data, in which he would embed the information of the woman available, the type of sex interaction she would be willing to perform and the place to meet her. Paradoxically, McFadden’s code name in his transactions was “mcfaddencatholic.”

CNA obtained copies of the postings, but since they contain names that may be real and actual addresses in the Columbus, OH area, they will not be made public.

Police also note that on McFadden’s online posts, he claimed to be the “guru” of prostitution in Columbus, Ohio. He wrote reviews on prostitution services as well as advice on how not to get caught, reports NBC 4.

Given McFadden’s heavy use of technology to to conduct his criminal enterprise, has anybody at the Dispatch investigated whether McFadden ever used state resources (telephones, Internet, etc.) while he was employed? Have any Freedom of Information Act requests been filed for all electronic and printed correspondence relating to the McFadden’s appointment, his tenure at OFBCI, the circumstances surrounding his transfer to Corrections, or the end of his employment? If not, why not?

It’s more than fair to ask what Ted Strickland or other state officials really knew about McFadden, and when they knew it.

It’s totally unfair, based on the facts known, to even hint that John Kasich might have had anything to do with the downfall of Lehman. But, as Dan Riehl at Red State pointed out, “It’s Never Too Early To Target A Republican.”

That’s 2009 Old Media “journalism,” as practiced at the Dispatch.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

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UPDATE: NewsBusters commenter Jack Bauer –

So I was wondering who Fuld generally supported…

Democratic $55,450
Republican $21,300
Independent $7,000
Other $4,500

Here’s a few interesting people who Fuld gave money to ….
- Chris Dodd for Senator in 1992, 1998, 2004,
- Jon Stevens Corzine for Senator in 2000
- Hillary Clinton for President in 2008

Imagine that.

Memo to Joe Hallett and Jonathan Riskind: Next time, consider doing something more than taking transcription from longtime Democratic operative and dirty-trickmeister Chris Lehane.

UPDATE 2, Jan. 27 — Another hacky element is that the Hallett-Riskind piece “just happened” to appear when a poll showing Kasich, who I suspect half of Ohioans have never heard of, within six points of Strickland appeared. They couldn’t let THAT just sit there without some kind of response.

I received this in an e-mail from a Ken Joseph Jr. (link is to home page; about page here). I have verified that it is from him (Update: Here is the post at his blog).

It is appropriate to post this on the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade. You’ll see why (the opinions and observations are Mr. Joseph’s; the bolds are mine):

The Other Inauguration
Washington DC

The much vaunted, post-racial, ‘come together’ campaign culmination was neither.

I for one waited and waited and then waited some more for someone to tell the truth.

After watching enough fawning to make me nauseous, I had to say something.

I was there from the very beginning in the middle of the National Mall, on the day before as well as the whole inauguration.

The crowd was overwhelmingly african american. That is a simple fact that anyone there knows and should be honest enough to say.

It was a mess. Extremely poorly organized crowds moved in different directions with no idea where they were going .

There was no ‘coming together.’ The atmosphere was extremely racist and if you didn’t look right, they let you know.

It took hours to get into the mall and in spite of being the ‘peoples inauguration’ was far from it.

All the ‘big people’ had special passes that they got in their special area while all of the  ‘regular people’ had to go under a nearly quarter mile tunnel under the mall, where it was difficult to breathe just to get into the National Mall.

The event itself though was far from what it was described.

I felt very, very uncomfortable. Regular glances and snide remarks sent the message very clearly ‘what are you doing here – this is our event’!

Further, the booing and dancing and hate filled comments when President Bush and Vice President Cheney came out were unacceptable.

The speech insulted President Bush over and over and honestly was neither profound nor well written.

The extremely racist ‘prayer’ by an out of date Joseph Lowry would have caused a major scandal. Instead, it brought loud guffaws from the crowd who didn’t seem to know or really care what a ‘prayer’ actually was. No heads were bowed during any of the prayers.

For whatever it(s) goal, the much vaunted group of people that filled the mall was a mean, hateful, rough crowd.

Not only the mall but all of Washington was taken over by this group. From hawking everything from t-shirts to all kinds of buttons bordering on ‘buy something or you don’t pass’, the atmosphere was a far cry from the disgusting descriptions that I have had to watch nonstop on TV and read in the paper.

Frankly, I was completely sickened by it all and exhausted entered the lobby of a hotel in on Capitol Hill bracing myself for another flood of the angry, mean crowd.

I came upon the strangest of situations. There were two distinct groups of people who were mobbing the hotel lobby, the restaurants and up the escalators.

One group was clearly leaving. This was the same mean, nasty group from the National Mall.

Another huge group was on their way in, lined up at the Check-In counter and the two groups were mingling going in their different directions.

The two groups though were dramatically different.

In contrast to the first group, the new group was dramatically different. They were bright, cheerful, smiling and brightened the otherwise mean atmosphere.

I was curious. Who could they be?

A quick question to a small group waiting in the lobby..

‘Oh, we’re here for The March of Life’.

Now it all made sense!

What a difference. One group with a leader promising one of his first acts would be to rescind the restrictions on abortion wholesale.

In contrast the leaders of the other group, dedicated to saving life.

‘Look over there’ the lady said ‘it is a baby that was saved from an abortion’.

There lay a little child in the arm of a nun.

Then I suddenly focused and there seemed to be Priests, Nuns and bright cheerful kids, seniors and just about everything in between.

What a contrast!

Somehow, I found the tears coming. It had been a tough and miserable two days with the ‘thugs’ having taken over the city.

How refreshing to have some brightness, faith and above all, hope – the real kind!

….. But I Don’t Have Any Time For:

• Right message, less-than-perfect messenger — “Gingrich urges GOP to fight Geithner.”
• Howler of the Day — Newsweek editor Jon Meacham says that “A lot of people think we’re left of center. I think it depends on the week and the issue.” Yeah, left-leaning issues only come out during months containing three or more letters.
• Known since Novemer 25 (HT Hot Air), not followed up by the media or Senators since — “Because the Fed conducts much of its work in secret, details about Geithner’s role in the Citigroup debacle remain hidden. But a review of publicly available records shows that the New York Fed, in a key period, relaxed oversight as Citigroup went on a risky spree ….” It’s enough to make you wonder whether Geithner allowed Bob Rubin at Citi and others at money center banks to take those companies down in an effort to take the economy down so that a Democrat would be elected president and someone like Geithner would be named Trea- ….. no, “obviously” not. What am I thinking?
• Whiff of Sanity Dept — “Caroline Kennedy Ends Senate Seat Bid” (HT Michelle Malkin). LAT’s Top of the Ticket Blog: “Which could well mean she understood she wasn’t going to get it anyway.” Instapundit adds a whiff of dynastic realism.
• Understated word of the day, via Kevin G. Hall and David Lightman at McClatchy — “Beyond failing to pay his portion of self-employment taxes for nearly four years when he worked for the IMF, Geithner also made numerous errors that are somewhat baffling, such as claiming a child-care tax credit for time that his children spent in summer camp.” I posted on a slew of other such baffling items early this morning. As Yoda might say, “A pretty picture they do not make.”
• Heartache (HT Romenesko via Instapundit) — “An ASU journalism professor using satellite images calculated that 800,000 people attended President Barack Obama’s inauguration ceremony.” At a minimum (HT Hot Air), “it is unclear if the crowd surpassed the record believed to have been set three and half decades ago at Lyndon B. Johnson’s 1965 inauguration.” That’s so even if you add the 4,000 or so erroneously kept out. So how many of the 35,000 stories on the inauguration told their readers it was a record, or that the number was 2,000,000?