JustOneMinute

Ari Fleischer Needs To Cowboy Up

Ari Fleischer throws us a curve today, gracing the pages of the NY Times with the theory that George Bush put a curse on the Yankees.  As did Reagan!

It’s not lost on me, as a lifelong Yankee fan, that the Bronx Bombers won the World Series four times during Bill Clinton’s presidency, the last time in 2000. On Wednesday, they won it again — in the first year of Barack Obama’s administration. Yankee success bookended the Bush presidency and that presents a problem for fans like me.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was standing in the Oval Office when the president secretly put his curse on my team. The 2000 champions paid a celebratory visit to the White House in May 2001. President Bush gathered the players in the Oval Office and was telling them what role models they were when George Steinbrenner, the team owner, suddenly tried to talk over him.

“George,” Mr. Bush interjected, “not even the Boss gets to interrupt the president.”

The players hooted and hollered. They had never seen anyone correct the team owner like that. They loved it.

But then terrible things started to happen. The Yankees lost a World Series heartbreaker in 2001, despite the president’s prediction to me that they would win. (This came the morning after he threw out a perfect strike to open Game 3 in the Bronx.)

And for eight straight years — all of which perfectly coincided with his time in office — the Yankees didn’t win.

But now order is restored in the universe. The Yankees are again World Series champions.

But a Democrat is in the White House. What are Republican Yankee fans to do?

History is not on our side. The previous eight Yankee victories took place on the Democrats’ watch, during the terms of Presidents John F. Kennedy, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. Under Presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. and George W. Bush, the Yankees never won. The last time the Yankees won it all with a Republican in office was under Dwight Eisenhower, in 1958. Joe Girardi, the Yankee manager, hadn’t even been born.

Gulp.

We expect better than this from the spin-meister.  But I am here to help!

Mr. Fleischer needs to approach his Yankee history like a proper conservative.  A rising tide lifts all boats but it also obscures all but the tallest of rocks.  For decades the Yankees have been a rock of stability in a confusing and uncertain world.  When the tide of common sense and sound judgment is running high, as under Reagan, the stability offered by the Yankees is obscured by the higher tide of a strong, certain President. 

It is when that tide recedes and the world goes mad that the Yankees, remaining as they always are, come back into view.  Reggie Jackson's three home runs on one incredible October night in 1977?  Bucky Dent's home run against the Dread Sox in 1978?  Those are about the only useful services provided by Jimmy Carter in four long years.  With Reagan in office, a Yankee victory in 1981 was not necessary.

Similarly, we must credit Wild Bill and Ms. Lewinsky with the Yankee dynasty of the late 90's.

Now, I am reluctant to concede this but there are limits even to the power of the Yankees.  Clearly the success of the Red Sox and White Sox in 2004 and 2005 indicated a world turned upside down, presaging the housing bubble and the global financial collapse.  Normally, such a receding tide of good sense would have illuminated the necessity for Yankee Time, but apparently not even the extraordinary powers of Rivera and Jeter could overcome the illusion of stability projected by Ari's boss.

However, the next few years look like a lock for Yankee fans.

Health Care That's Always A Scare

Pelosi and Obama get to 218 and more:

Sweeping Health Care Plan Passes House

By CARL HULSE and ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON — Handing President Obama a hard-fought victory, the House narrowly approved a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s health care system on Saturday night, advancing legislation that Democrats said could stand as their defining social policy achievement.

After a daylong clash with Republicans over what has been a Democratic goal for decades, lawmakers voted 220 to 215 to approve a plan that would cost $1.1 trillion over 10 years. Democrats said the legislation would provide overdue relief to Americans struggling to buy or hold on to health insurance.

That $1.1 trillion cost figure has been cosmetically managed by Ms. Pelosi - most of the spending does not even commence until 2013, although tax provisions begin in 2011, per the CBO.

As one example, there is the "doctor fix", which undoes a previous cosmetic attempt at cost control by eliminating some cuts in the Medicare reimbursement rate.  That is another $200 billion or more which the Times overlooks.

They told me that if I voted or McCain then women would have less access to abortion.  And they were right!

A critical turning point was the decision by Ms. Pelosi late Friday night to allow anti-abortion Democrats to try to tighten restrictions on coverage for the procedure under any insurance plan that receives federal money. That concession eased a threat by some Democrats to abandon the bill, but also left Democrats who support abortion rights facing a choice between backing a provision they bitterly opposed or scuttling the bill. The new abortion controls were added to the measure on a vote of 240 to 194.

The Time buries that in the twentieth paragraph so as not to vex their progressive readership on a lovely Sunday morning.  But progressives are vexed anyway, so its Mission Unaccomplished.

John Dingell made the case for expanded research into Alzheimer's drugs for those of us worried about losing our memories:

“Today’s may be a tough vote, but it was in 1935 when we passed Social Security,” Representative John Dingell, Democrat of Michigan and the dean of the House, said as the debate drew to a close late Saturday.

Do tell.  With 432 Representatives voting, Social Security passed the House in April 1935 by 372 to 33 (with 25 of Obama's predecessors voting present); the critical kabuki vote to kick the bill back to committee failed with only 149 in favor and 253 opposed.  Dingell was eight years old at the time; his father took the "tough" vote, so by "we" he is presumaby referring to the fact that he holds a hereditary seat.

The Times reporters are apparently overcome by tedium as they study the bill:

The House legislation, running almost 2,000 pages, would require most Americans to obtain health insurance or face penalties — an approach Republicans compared to government oppression.

Those wacky Republicans!  Of course, whether or not it is oppression would depend a little bit on the penalties, yes?  So what are they?  Again, the Times shields us from any possible vexation, so I turn to Dave Helling of the Kansas City Star:

Would I have to have health insurance?

Yes, or pay a penalty of 2.5 percent of your income. Hardship and religious waivers would be available, and some very low-wage earners would be exempt. The requirement would begin in 2013.

People who don’t get insurance and don’t pay the penalty face fines and possibly jail time.

Those penalties won't affect the long-term unemployed, who are heavily subsidized in any case.  However, someone who works from January to June and is then laid off had better arrange for insurance - over the tax year, the person will show plenty of income, even if take-home cash flow is scarce from July to December.  This person's actual income in the second half of the year may be zero, but if they don't have insurance they will owe a  2.5% penalty on their earnings from January to June.

Does that sound like a tax on the middle class?  Hey, it's for our own good.

And is the House bill a job-killer?  Well, it is paid for by a tax on small businesses and a new "pay or play" payroll tax, so it won't help.  Steven Pearlstein explains why it might be sorta kinda neutral; I like this best:

Economists agree that in the long run, however, the increased cost for employee health benefits would be passed on to the employees themselves in the form of lower wages and salaries. That's what happened economy-wide in recent decades, as average wages stagnated while the cost of health insurance skyrocketed. If the same holds true for small businesses, then requiring them to provide health insurance should result in no job loss at all.

In other words, the payroll tax will simply come out of what employees would otherwise have earned.  Well, fine, but would that count as a middle class tax hike?  It's for our own good!

THAT'S NOT AN EMPTY SUIT, IT'S THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, or, OBAMA STILL RELEVANT!  The Times includes this oddly unsettling attempt at reassurance:

Lawmakers credited Mr. Obama with converting a final few holdouts during his appearance at a closed-door meeting with Democrats just hours before the vote. Democratic officials said that Mr. Obama’s conversation Saturday with Representative Michael H. Michaud, Democrat of Maine, was crucial in winning one final vote.

C'mon, we aren't talking about a mad dash to Copenhagen here - this is the newly elected Democratic President twisting arms within his own party for votes on the centerpiece of his domestic agenda.  And that arm-twisting was good for "a final few holdouts", with only one example on offer?

How does leaking this help the President, especially if it is true?

Alzheimer's Drugs? Forget About It

Shorter Pelosi - We don't need no stinkin', expensive new drugs.  European free-riders won't bail us out. Maybe Fidel?

Medal Of Honor, Medal Of Freedom - How Soon They Forget

This is one for the "Are you kidding me" file, and probably merits supplemental expletives - in the course of his utterly inappropriate "shout-out" to Joe Medicine Crow prior to addressing the nation about the Fort Hood shootings, Obama flubbed the medal won by Dr. Medicine Crow.  Newsbusters has the shout-out and more:

I want to thank my Cabinet members and senior administration officials who participated today. I hear that Dr. Joe Medicine Crow (ph) was around, and so I want to give a shout out to that Congressional Medal of Honor winner. It's good to see you.

Sweet jiminy - it was only last August that Dr. Crow was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Obama himself, who had this to say:

THE PRESIDENT: There are many honors and privileges bestowed on the occupant of this house, but few mean as much to me as the chance to award America's highest civilian medal to the recipients that are here today. This is a chance for me -- and for the United States of America -- to say thank you to some of the finest citizens of this country, and of all countries.

Few honors mean as much to Obama as the Medal of Freedom - I guess the Medal of Honor is one of the few, the proud.

Lest you wonder, Obama mentioned Dr. Medicine Crow by name nearly three long months ago:

Born just a generation past the Battle of the Little Big Horn, a grandson of a scout for General Custer himself, Dr. Joseph Medicine Crow was the first member of his tribe to attend college and earn a Master's. Before completing his PhD, he left to serve in World War II. Wearing war paint beneath his uniform, and a sacred feather beneath his helmet, Joseph Medicine Crow completed the four battlefield deeds that made him the last Crow war chief. Historian, educator, and patriot -- a good man, a bacheitche in Crow -- Dr. Medicine Crow's life reflects not only the warrior spirit of the Crow people, but America's highest ideals.

This is not a mistake the TOTUS would have made.  However, I infer that Obama took the stage prior to commenting on the Fort Hood situation with roughly zero preparation.  Maybe next time he won't just wing it.  And as Newsbusters notes, if Bush had been this inappropriate and poorly prepared we would have heard of nothing else.

Maybe If We Apologized With Greater Deference

Per the NY Times, Obama sidled up to the fact that the Fort Hood shooter was a Muslim shouting "Allahu Akbar" in his radio address:

WASHINGTON — President Obama, extending condolences to the community at Fort Hood, Texas, reminded Americans on Saturday that people of “every race, faith and station” serve in the military — an oblique attempt to prevent a backlash against Muslims in the wake of Thursday’s shootings by an Army psychiatrist.

Many Muslims have been concerned that their community will somehow be blamed for the actions of the psychiatrist, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who prayed regularly at the Fort Hood mosque. Mr. Obama did not address that concern directly. But, speaking in his weekly address, he seemed to urge Americans not to dwell on the faith of the assailant, by reminding the nation of the broad diversity of those who serve.

The Times also delivers their own absurd 'blame the victims' perspective:

Mr. Obama has made it a goal of his presidency to repair relations with Muslims around the world; in a major speech in Cairo this year, he called for a “new beginning” with the Muslim world. The shootings at Fort Hood, however, pose a different problem for the president, by shining a spotlight on the tensions Muslims feel inside the United States.

Pardon me?  This incident spotlighted the tensions felt by Muslims in the US?  Please - if investigators had discovered that Hasan had recorded a Glenn Beck segment on his TiVo the Times would be fretting about a rising tide of right wing extremism.

Some dots just can't be connected.

MORE:  For people determined to avoid any insight into Hasan's mindest, a great place to not look would be the mosque he attended in Maryland:

What interpretation of Islam influ enced Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan? As often before, the trail leads to the official sect of Saudi Arabia -- known as Wahhabism to most of us of who denounce it.

Confronting the role of radical Islam here is not Islamophobic, but common sense -- and the first response moderate Muslims themselves will have.

Hasan, though born in America, refused to have his picture taken with women -- an attitude distinct to fundamentalist radicalism among Muslims. The Prophet Mohammed cautioned his followers that when they go to live in non-Muslim lands they must accept the laws and customs of their new home. Millions of American Muslims get their picture taken with women, even ones not their wives, and don't worry about it. To refuse such an elementary and even trivial act of courtesy sets Muslims apart -- and that is the aim of radicals.

We've also learned that, before his transfer to Ft. Hood last year, Hasan served as a psychiatrist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, and regularly attended Friday prayer at the Muslim Community Center in Silver Spring, Md.

The Silver Spring clerics have issued formal statements condemning the carnage at Ft. Hood. But Imam Faizul Khan, long the main prayer leader at the mosque and a friend of Hasan, said he never believed Hasan capable of such an act.

Yet what docrines did Hasan absorb at the mosque? While he was a communicant, it hosted at least four talks by Enver Masud, the founder of The Wisdom Fund, the main Muslim "truther" group in America [link, link].

And Khan is a leading board member of the Islamic Society of North America -- the main Wahhabi-lobby group in the United States, established by Saudi Arabia to impose extremism on American Muslims. ISNA has a long and disgraceful record of promoting radical Islam.

...

Most interesting of all: The button on the MCC's Web site titled "Islam" takes you to a pamphlet titled "Islam Is . . ." by a person calling himself "Pete Seda."

Seda is an Iranian also known as Pirouz Sedaghaty and Abu Yunus. He was one of three officers of the US branch of a Saudi-based "charity," the Al-Haramain Foundation -- until being indicted by the Justice Department for terror financing and tax fraud. Seda and his companions still await trial.

From a ghastly act to a Saudi-backed fundamentalist imam to a Saudi-run designated terror-financing "charity" is not a long trail. It is a small coil of associations that exists in too many US mosques. American Muslims must drive these elements out of their community. The problem's not traumatic stress, much less Islam. It's the ideology, the money and the interests of the Saudi hardliners.

This sort of thing would only be relevant if Hasan had been to a tea party or had once phoned in to Rush Limbaugh.

Saturday Morning Open Thread

It's another beautiful day.

I put a link to the Perter Bocking RIP thread over in the "Private Collection" sidebar on the right.

Dueling Leaks On Afghanistan

The duel of leaks frokm the Administration continues on Afghanistan.  In the latest installment, we learn that the training of Afghan security forces is difficult and behind schedule, calling into question the plausibility of McChrystal's plan:

WASHINGTON — A series of internal government reviews have presented the Obama administration with a dire portrait of Afghanistan’s military and police force, bringing into serious question an ambitious goal at the heart of the evolving American war strategy — to speed up their training and send many more Afghans to the fight.

As President Obama considers his top commander’s call to rapidly double Afghanistan’s security forces, the internal reviews, written by officials directly involved in the training program or charged with keeping it on track, describe an overstretched enterprise struggling to nurse along the poorly led, largely illiterate and often corrupt Afghan forces.

In September, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top American and allied commander in Afghanistan, recommended increasing the Afghan Army as quickly as possible — to 134,000 in a year from the current force of more than 90,000, instead of taking two years, and perhaps eventually to 240,000. He would also expand the police force to 160,000. The acceleration is vital to General McChrystal’s overall counterinsurgency plan, which also calls for more American troops but seeks more protection against the Taliban for the Afghan population than the Pentagon could ever supply.

While General McChrystal knew of the latest assessments when he wrote his plan, their completion just as President Obama considers the general’s proposal has given fresh ammunition to doubters.

“Nothing in our experience over the last seven to eight years suggests that progress at such a rapid pace is realistic,” said Representative John F. Tierney, the Massachusetts Democrat who is the chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on national security.

John Tierney is the most highly placed official they could get on the record?

Making this trickier is that NATO is meant to play an important training role:

Despite the obstacles, few disagree that Afghanistan’s forces must eventually become bigger and better. And senior Pentagon and military officials insist that it can happen faster, too. But it may take 10,000 to 15,000 more trainers from the United States and NATO, which have just agreed to overhaul the training program.

Even that decision required a concession to European sensitivities: the creation of a wholly new NATO training effort to operate alongside the American forces who currently dominate the training program and who typically accompany the Afghans they train into combat. Some European governments balk at that practice.

A three-star Army general, Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, will soon take command of the new NATO training mission — and overhaul the American-led program. General Caldwell, a West Point classmate of General McChrystal, was previously in charge of the influential Army schools and training programs at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and he will command both the American and allied training headquarters.

“Our NATO allies have been an active participant in Afghanistan from the very beginning, but with this new NATO structure, we perhaps will see even more involvement by partner countries,” General Caldwell said in an interview.

Blaming Bush would be one thing, but for Obama to suggest that NATO can't perform this mission is another.

Into The Valley Of Death Rode The 218 Plus/Minus

Nancy Pelosi is committed to PelosiCare:

WASHINGTON – House Democrats are scrambling to secure enough support to pass President Barack Obama's historic health overhaul initiative, working to soothe last-minute concerns from rank-and-file Democrats ahead of a make-or-break vote.

...Obama was set to make a personal appeal to the Democratic rank and file in a visit Friday to Capitol Hill. That was called off late Thursday after the shootings at Fort Hood, Texas, and rescheduled for Saturday.

Hmm - I am sure there are some Dem Senators hoping the chalice is taken from them this weekend, but are they making phone calls? 

HOLD YOUR HORSES: House Majority leader Steny Hoyer is not exactly riding to the sound of guns:

WASHINGTON - House Democrats acknowledged they don't yet have the votes to pass a sweeping overhaul of the nation's health care system, and signaled they may push back the vote until Sunday or early next week.

Saturday, Sunday, someday... How about never?  I bet "Never" works for plenty of skittish Dems.

MORE:  In the aftermath of "You lie!", Obama pretended to oppose inclusion of illegal immigrants in his reforms.  Now he has a problem:

The illegal immigration issue is emerging as the biggest threat to passing healthcare reform in the House.

Congressional Hispanics have threatened to vote against the bill because of a last-minute threat from within the Democratic Caucus to bolster the House bill’s immigration restrictions to match those included in the Senate Finance bill.

And they’re also fighting President Barack Obama, the original sponsor of the language prohibiting illegal immigrants from accessing the public health insurance exchange.

...But CHC members, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the group’s message was clear: Drop your insistence on preventing illegal immigrants from accessing the public exchange, even if their only option is to pay for insurance plans entirely out of their own pockets.

This is all about escorting the camel into the tent.  The first step will be to set the precedent that illegal immigrants are eligible to participate on the exchanges; eventually, a friendlier Congress or a friendly court will decide that if it is acceptable for some illegal immigrants to participate, the absence of mere filthy lucre should not bar to others.

Was There Anybody Who Thought The Old Mickey Kaus Was Too Likeable?

A troubling headline gives us pause:

After Mickey’s Makeover, Less Mr. Nice Guy

Oh, wait...

More On Fort Hood

Patterico watches the LA Times squirm.

The Captain ponders the emerging portrait of the shooter.

And from yesterday, Hot Air has an emerging, frequently updated blow-by-blow.  Inshallah.

MORE:  Maybe our Commander-in-Chief could hold off on the shout-outs when addressing the nation about the tragedy at Fort Hood.  That wasn't tone deaf; that was alternative reality.  I can't imagine how the White House thought it was appropriate for live national television.

The Fort Hood Shooting

This is awful.

Feeling Cooler Already

A Senate climate change panel gives a feel-good nod to the collapsing Copenhagen process:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A controversial climate change bill cleared its first hurdle in the U.S. Senate on Thursday, allowing President Barack Obama to tout progress in the run-up to next month's global warming talks in Copenhagen.

Democrats on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee ignored a Republican boycott and used their majority to approve the legislation that would require U.S. industry to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases 20 percent by 2020, from 2005 levels.

...But Democrats are likely to fall far short of their goal of passing legislation in the full Senate before Copenhagen as Boxer's bill lacks enough support for full approval.

Meanwhile, as we brace for Copenhagen:

BARCELONA/WASHINGTON, Nov 5, Reuters - A U.N. climate treaty may need an extra year beyond a December deadline to agree details, delegates at U.N. talks said on Thursday even as a U.S. Senate committee approved a carbon-capping bill.

The Nov. 2-6 meeting of 175 nations in Spain, the last session before a U.N. accord is due in Copenhagen next month, turned gloomy about salvaging a strong deal after two years of negotiations.

I thought a climate change bill was dead in the US water even before the New Jersey and Virginia results.

The Restoration Of The Natural Order

The big story has to be the Yankees triumph in the World Series.

Since they last won in October 2000 we have endured the Florida election, 9/11, and two wars.  Both the Red Sox and White Sox ended title droughts extending back to WW I, contributing to a 'World Gone Mad', anything-goes environment that led more or less directly to the housing bubble and global financial collapse.  People cast about for leadership, only to be disappointed and surprised.

But now Mariano is on the mound, the public address is playing "New York, New York", and order has been restored.  The millennium is back on track.

I DEPLORE THE IMPLICIT A ROD BASHING:

In Game 2, Matsui broke a 1-1 tie when he pulled a Martinez curveball over the right field wall in the sixth. This time, he took a fastball that tailed over the middle and slammed it inside the right field foul pole, just above a billboard for a Japanese construction-equipment company.

Matsui, of course, has done more than raise the Yankees’ profile in Japan. He has been steady and efficient for seven seasons. His ravaged knees have made him a full-time designated hitter and called into doubt his future as he comes to the end of his contract. But if this was his last game as a Yankee, he made it his best.

“I hope it works out,” Matsui said through an interpreter, referring to his future with the Yankees. “I love New York, I love the Yankees, and I love the fans here.”

Matsui won three Japan Series for the Yomiuri Giants and was the most valuable player against the Daiei Hawks in 2000. He did it again against the Phillies, winning the M.V.P. by hitting .615 (8 for 13) with three homers and eight R.B.I.

With one out and the bases loaded in the third, Martinez struck out Rodriguez on a pitch well off the outside corner. The Phillies were warming a left-hander, J.A. Happ, but Manager Charlie Manuel stuck with Martinez. Like Grady Little before him, Manuel paid for his faith.

The article does not specify that A Rod took a called strike, not a swinging strike, on the pitch off the plate.

I DEPLORE THE UTLEY BASHING:

Utley had just one hit besides his home runs.

C'mon, his one other hit was a double off the wall!

Pedro v. Pettitte Open Thread

The only pitcher available to either side tonight who can reliably get people out is the immortal Mariano.  Should be quite a game.