"Three Rounds, Three Dead Bodies"

The risk premiums on a life of piracy off Somalia just increased, after a trio of the miscreants met their timely demise at the hands of Navy SEAL snipers deployed on the fantail of the USS BAINBRIDGE, an ARLEIGH BURKE class destroyer. I watched this develop over the weekend with some new friends in Florida, sort of in the position of ad hoc CNN talking head. I gave them whatever insight I could to help explain the situation.

I honestly thought we'd just wait them out, relying on the fuel, food and water to run out. I explained to them that there were probably SEALS onboard the BAINBRIDGE who would perform a take-down if necessary--though I didn't know until today how they would have gotten there. The SEALS are such a high demand/low density asset (HD/LD) that they don't spend much time floating around in ships anymore (not that they used to float around in destroyers, mind you), so when the BAINBRIDGE sortied in the direction of the MAERSK ALABAMA late last week, I was pretty sure it didn't have SEALS with it. It seems they did a C-17 infil, possibly from over the horizon in order not to spook the hijackers. Think about it....you get dropped from a C-17 with your little rubber raiding craft at night. The horizon at sea level is about, oh, say 12 miles. You and your buddies make your way to the ship with all your gear, at least part of the way paddling the boat in order not to raise suspicion. You set up your position and some time later, the Captain of the ship gives the take order. Three shots, three kills. You gotta love the SEALS.

Piracy remains more a problem of perception than fact. For every ship that gets approached by pirates, hundreds sail by unmolested. But insurance premiums are rising and that gets factored into prices. Additionally, the PERCEPTION that the global system of trade is threatened is enough to unbalance that system. The world's maritime powers will have to come together to work on this problem with the US in the lead. Direct, precise action on land will likely be required, and some empty seats at pirate dinner tables will ensue.

Obama Moves To Open Cuba

He's been hinting he'd go in this direction since taking office, and yesterday President Obama announced significant changes in our policies toward Cuba. I fully support this overture, and I believe it is only the first necessary step to take in toppling Cuba's Marxist regime. Next will come the massive amphibious invasion by American tourists, and the concomitant addiction to their dollars by the Cuban people.

This really is good news, and it is a foreign policy initiative behind which conservatives should fall. It is the beginning of the end of the Castro brothers.

Signing Off for the Weekend

We're heading down to Florida to bunk with one of the Kitten's college buddies this weekend, and I'm not bringing the computer or the Blackberry. It's been a brutal week, one I may share with you someday. Feel free to post just about anything you like below, consider it a free for all weekend. But for now, have a great weekend and a Happy Easter!

Three Cheers for the Virginia GOP

By a party-line vote, the Virginia Legislature has turned down $125M in stimulus money from the Obama Administration because its strings obligate the state to change the way it distributes unemployment benefits. Bully for them. This is the same argument some Republican governors have been making, and it is a good one.

American Flagged Ship Fights Back

The news from off of Somalia gets interestinger and interestinger. The pirates made a big blunder this time, taking an American flagged ship. The crew has already gotten control of the ship back from the pirates, and a Destroyer is steaming in to try to rescue the Captain who is being held hostage on a lifeboat.

Piracy is not a huge problem...until it is. The actual economic consequences thereof are minimal, but the psychological damage to be done to the global system through a loss of confidence in the freedom of the seas is immense.

It is time to take care of this problem at sea and on land. Sounds like a good job for the Marines.

Ford Keeps Chugging Along

As the American auto industry drives itself over the cliff with Barack Obama at the wheel, the Ford Motor Company continues to distinguish itself for its--dare I say--self-reliance. I'm surprised they haven't found a way to tap into the problems of their competitors yet by advertising themselves as the company that will be here when the sun rises tomorrow....

In what will probably go down as one of the great corporate decisions in history, Ford arranged billions of financing in 2006/7 that they are now using to guide them through this storm. They haven't taken any bailout money from Uncle Sam yet and they just might make it through this thing without taking a penny. One can only hope the market rewards them

Richard Cohen Gets It Half-Right On Public Service

Richard Cohen's editorial in this morning's paper does a good job of exposing the stupidity of criticizing administration figures for the money they made in the private sector. Larry Summers took a $7.9M pay cut to join the administration, and others surely are taking quite a dive too. Well, you say, it is temporary--maybe so, but the President made them sign ethics agreements that forbade them from lobbying the White House for 5 years after their service ends....which clearly puts a bit of a crimp in the "well, I'll earn it back later" plan.

That said, the assault on Reagan's view of government service and patriotism seems a bit out of place. Lots of rich guys joined his administration too--their patriotism is seemingly as worthy as that of rich Democrats, no?

UVA Has Its Own Commencement Speaker Kerfuffle

Great little column here by a UVA law student skewering the inconsistency of the "diversity" industry on campus--even one as conservative as UVA. It seems Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III of the 4th US Court of Appeals has been selected as the commencement speaker this year. A fine choice as far as I'm concerned, as his consistent voice of judicial restraint is one that clearly gets little hearing on campus today. This seems to me (and the author) as the very meaning of diversity. Not so to the diversity merchants who see diversity mainly as differing views agreeing on the same thing.

On another note--the conservatism of UVA. Much is made of this. But too much, I think. UVA has a conservative streak, but it is just like most other colleges...a bastion of do-gooders who think that they have cornered the market on social justice and world compassion. I'd be shocked if Obama didn't get 65% of the vote there. It's just that there are a few more conservatives than elsewhere.

Europe Shows Its Support For Obama in Afghanistan By Doing Nothing

Hope and change, hope and change. Keep saying it everyone. The President sought more help from Europe in Afghanistan, but he's not going to get it. The difference between Bush asking and Obama asking? Europe smiles now when saying no.

Obama Advisors Cashed In

After news yesterday of members of the Obama Economic Team cashing in from the banking industry prior to joining the administration, we now have word of several of them cashing in from the media.

Good for them! They had expertise that was in demand, so why not sell it? They were not legally or ethically bound to poverty, and their support for a presidential candidate did not render them voiceless in the public square. Same goes for the folks who were advising the financial industry. That it brings into question their vaunted, seemingly irreplaceable judgment is valid; that they did anything wrong is not.

Obama, ACORN and the New York Times

Ok--before you read this---make me a promise. Promise me you'll put aside all notions of conspiracies among the mainstream press and the Democratic Party, promise me you'll reject the notion that Barack Obama got special treatment in the past election because the Press was personally invested in his success. Put all that aside for a moment, and then read this report. Go ahead---I'll wait for you.


Now. What do you feel? Do you think there might be a conspiracy among the mainstream press and the Democratic Party? Do you think Barack Obama got special treatment in the past election because the Press was personally invested in his success?

It is now four days after this report was posted. That it hasn't been widely reported in the mainstream press is a sign of one of two things: 1) it simply isn't true or 2) it is true, and it is sickeningly inconvenient. I don't know which it is--but where are the stories in the media that debunk its truth? I'd like to see some of them. If you have, please send them along.

Painful--Possibly Necessary--Defense Cuts on the Way

Monday should be a bombshell day here in our nation's capital, when Secretary of Defense Gates bursts forth with his very well-gagged deliberations on how to make significant trades in the defense budget. I won't call them cuts, because they aren't...the defense budget is slated to rise in 2010. Any discussion among folks on this side of the aisle simply must acknowledge this fact--and the intellectual vacuity of referring to a smaller increase as a decrease.

That said, Gates is taking on quite a task. He'll gore the oxes of some of the biggest programs out there, he'll annoy some of the most powerful legislators there are, and he'll piss the armed services off like nobodies business. Guess what--that's his job, and that's one of the truly beautiful things about civilian control of the military. That he is gracefully transitioning from a superb Defense Secretary under a Republican to a stalwart Defense Secretary under a Democrat is a tribute to the man's integrity.

That said, I think he's gone a little over the edge in his devotion to "irregular" or "hybrid" warfare. For those of you who don't spend your workdays reading defense journals (or writing for them), these terms are buzz-phrases of note in the defense vernacular. Referring basically to stuff that isn't included in the old-fashioned "killing people and wrecking things" approach to military hardware and strategy (you know, ships, tanks, bombers, missiles, etc), hybrid or irregular warfare is a continuum that seeks to influence the behavior of pre-hostiles through engagement and capacity building, contain the impact of insurgent efforts with an increased adherence to the fashionable dictates of counter-insurgency theory, all the while maintaining sufficient kinetic force to shape, deter, and defend against traditional threats.

Gates' thinking is very much in line with a lot of the strategic work we did in the Navy at the end of my career. Secretary Gates has been very supportive of the Navy's new strategy, but it is in how that strategy (or one like it) gets carried out that I differ with him. I'm not saying that hybrid/irregular warfare is a lesser-included offense in old-fashioned Naval warfare; to do so would ignore the reality that there are tactics, equipment, and strategies involved in low-end conflict and shaping that are simply not useful in kinetic warfare. But to do as Gates is doing by culling out hybrid warfare into a protected zone of its own, worthy of investment separate and apart from the other missions and contingencies the Services plan for--strikes me as short-sited in an era in which competition for influence across the globe has begun anew, this time with a new band of players and much different rules.

Rather than looking at the service budgets as potential bill-payers for ramping up investment in irregular capabilities, we should be assessing service programs for their extensibility and flexibility, the degree to which they are useful in both hard-core kinetic warfare and also low-end irregular warfare. Those that provide benefit across the spectrum would occupy a privileged place; those that service only one end would be looked at with circumspection (though not necessarily ignored, as there are capabilities at both ends of the spectrum that are truly critical to national defense).

I wish Mr. Gates much luck in his effort. I caution him not to get so carried away with fighting the last war that he leaves us unprepared to fight the next.

Watch What They Do, Not What They Say

Great story here of the duplicitous nature of the Obama Administration...talking out one side of its mouth about the horrors of executive compensation, leading the pitchfork brigade to string up Wall Streeters, and openly conspiring with the Pelosi-wing of the Democratic Party (is that redundant?)--all the while setting up special entities through which they will launder bail-out money so that firms who accept it will not have to comply with their (and Congress') current campaign of class warfare. It seems there are plenty of firms who are willing to sit on the sidelines and NOT take bailout money (they believe they are strong enough to survive)--even if it means slowing the national recovery from the current financial crisis. Executives at banks like this simply don't want to have the strings and control that come with the Obama/Pelosi brand of socialist banking, and I don't blame them.

The problem here is a political one; Obama knows he needs results on the economy sooner rather than later--because that's what his grasping, entitlement conscious constituency wants. If major portions of the financial industry simply say they'll wait out the storm without government money...Obama fears a glacial recovery, one that puts the Democratic Party in a bad position for 2010 mid-terms and one that even jeopardizes a second term. To solve the political problem, they've moved to create dubiously legal entities through which they can wash recovery funds in a way that firms can accept it WITHOUT succumbing to restrictions on compensation and other matters. That such a plan openly flouts the will of Congress seems secondary to the Chicago mob running the White House...largely because they'll do so with the tacit support of Reid and Pelosi.

Mark Sanford Continues His Lonely Path

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford continues to provide an interesting and politically viable counterpoint to the ongoing slide into socialism as this reasonably fair New York Times story outlines (their editorial earlier in the week was not quite so fair).

The South Carolina Republican Party is an odd beast, especially as represented in the state legislature. There, a mix between true-blue Republicans and Republicans of convenience (plenty of turncoats from the Democratic Party who simply traded party affiliation but not their slavish adherence to big, corrupt government as the savior of the people) holds sway. The Governor--one of the last true fiscal conservatives around, is trying to use the very limited power he has under the SC Constitution to decline some 1/4 of the $2.8B in stimulus money headed to his state---or barring that (as it seems that he may not actually have to power to refuse it), channel the money into retiring some of the state's massive debt load.

What stories of this nature rarely do is actually talk about the facts of why Sanford, Palin and other Republican Governors have been less than enthusiastic about the stimulus money. These are not guilt-free gifts from Washington; the money comes with significant policy-changing strings, strings that will create in the citizenry an expectation of more to come long after the stimulus money runs out. Who will be left holding the bag? Why the citizens of South Carolina, of course.

Sanford's strategy is politically risky, but when you hear him talk, you get the sense that he'd rather be an out-of-work politician than a successful one who supports bad policy and wasteful spending. But I also sometimes wonder exactly how risky his approach is...I find myself clearly supporting the merits of his case, but also thinking the politics of the issue run his way. Let's face it....if he'd like to be President someday, it is a long-shot proposition. Why? Because it often is irrespective of who is running. So why no distinguish yourself from virtually every politician in America? Why not be seen as the Republican Party's leading deficit and debt hawk, at a time when even Democrats are beginning to blanch at the President's reckless profligacy? No other Republican in the field has been as insistent, as eloquent, and as consistent on this matter. When Sanford finds himself going from house to house in Des Moines in January of 2011, he'll find a most hearty welcome from the Republicans who will help pick our next candidate.

Geithner's Tenure at NY Fed Under Scrutiny

Fascinating but long article here in this morning's Post about Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner's tenure as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the lofty perch from which he jumped to the even loftier perch of Treasury Secretary. Seems that Geithner was quite a bit more anxious about the state of health in the investment banking industry than he let on in his Congressional testimony, pointing to the logical conclusion that he had power as the NY Fed chief that he DID NOT exercise in a timely fashion to help stop the financial melt-down.

So the President demagogues AIG officials getting bonuses as (and I paraphrase) "rewarding the very people who caused this crisis." How is that any different from his "rewarding" Tim Geithner with the Treasury Secretary job, given his culpability in this mess.

Obama Budget Plan Passed; Another Good Day For Republicans

President Obama's reckless and socialist budget blueprint was passed by the House and Senate yesterday, giving additional breathing room to Democrats who are looking to solve the doubling of the national debt under President Bush by doubling it again under President Obama.

Key graph here: "The House voted 233 to 196 to support the Democratic budget proposal, with just 20 Democrats voting with Republicans in opposition. The Senate approved its blueprint 55 to 43, with all but two Democrats voting yes."

So let's read into that, shall we? Clearly, the "bi-partisan" view is AGAINST this blueprint---every single Republican in both chambers voted against it, and so did 22 Democrats....will this be the story line covered in the press? Of course not.

The Entitlement Mentality Rolls On......

Read this....it will be an exercise in self-control for many readers of this blog to make their way though it without shaking their fists in rage.

This young woman CHOSE to go to a private college in New York, CHOSE to pursue a low-paying career in television---yet she is looking for THE REST OF US to help her with her student loan load.

As if her ridiculous story isn't enough...read the comments at the bottom. She is being cheered on by a chorus of "....well if they'll bail out the big companies, they should bail me out...".

We have lost our way.

Obama, Lobbyists, and Ethics

I've written here before about what I consider to be President Obama's most disastrous strategic error--limiting the service in his government by lobbyists and then hobbling the economic prospects of those who DO serve for years after their service. I had a chance to chat yesterday for about an hour with someone who will be nominated by the Administration to a high-level post any day now. When I mentioned this criticism, he heartily concurred with my assessment...he agreed that Obama's holier than thou approach (my words) was depriving the Administration of many talented and knowledgeable people.

DC and the Constitution

News this morning that President Obama's Justice Department reached the conclusion that the DC Voting Rights Act--which would grant the District a vote in the House--was unconstitutional, but that conclusion (by the Office of Legal Counsel) was overruled by the Attorney General (who supports the measure) after consulting with the Solicitor General's Office.


The Office of Legal Counsel can't catch a break--under GWB, they were criticized for reaching conclusions that some felt were highly political, including support of harsh interrogation tactics for the war on terror. Here, they are clearly swimming upstream against the tide of support in the Administration for an additional reliable Democrat seat in the House.

That Attorney General Holder did a little "venue shopping" and sought the advice of an office favorable to the measure is being decried as "politicizing" the situation. What? There's politics going on at the Justice Department? I'm shocked. Shocked!

This one will be a good Supreme Court case. It is clear that the framers sought to vest the Congress with sovereignty within the District, and much of the evolving relationship between the District, its people and the federal government has arisen out of a proper understanding of that sovereignty. Put another way, since Congress runs the District, Congress can choose NOT to run the district by giving it Home rule, etc.

But where the Constitution SPECIFIES the bounds of that relationship, it may not be altered by legislative action. We've already seen this concept in action--and it is known as the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution:

"Section 1. The District constituting the seat of Government of the United States shall appoint in such manner as the Congress may direct:

A number of electors of President and Vice President equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives in Congress to which the District would be entitled if it were a State, but in no event more than the least populous State; they shall be in addition to those appointed by the States, but they shall be considered, for the purposes of the election of President and Vice President, to be electors appointed by a State; and they shall meet in the District and perform such duties as provided by the twelfth article of amendment.

Section 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article using appropriate legislation."


The Congress could no more have given the residents of DC representation in the Electoral College than they can grant them representation in their own body. It is simply unconstitutional, and if people wish to grant them such representation, there are methods for amending the Constitution.