Gripers, beware!
Congressman Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri has an idea that deserves to pass Congress 535-0. Cleaver, a Democrat, is looking for co-sponsors of his resolution designating next Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving, as “Complaint Free Wednesday.” In a letter to colleagues, Cleaver writes that everyone experiences occasional “anxiety, frustration, stress and regret,” which can give rise to bellyaching. “Complaining keeps people stuck on current problems, inhibiting them from thinking constructively to find solutions,” he writes. “Research has also shown that complaining can be harmful to one’s emotional and physical health; relationships; and can limit professional career success.” His resolution recognizes the group Complaint Free World, whose goal is to get 1 percent of the world’s population (about 60 million people) to be complaint free. A gimmick? Publicity stunt? Maybe — but you won’t hear us complaining about it.
About those job numbers …
Conservatives have been howling for months about the Obama administration’s “jobs created/jobs saved” statistics. Every official measure of the country’s employment situation has shown the economy shedding jobs throughout the year. Yet the White House has insisted that its policies have saved a number of jobs and has issued figures to prove it.
Unchallengeable, of course. The number of jobs saved is in the eye of the beholder — or the counter. Now ABC News reports the counting has been off, calculating a number of jobs saved to congressional districts that don’t exist. For example, ABC reports, the administration’s stimulus Web site claims 30 jobs were saved in Arizona’s 15th District — but Arizona only has eight districts.
An administration official said human error was to blame. “Some recipients clearly don’t know what congressional district they live in,” a spokesman said, “so they appear to be just throwing in any number. We expected all along that recipients would make mistakes on their congressional districts, on jobs numbers, on award amounts, and so on. Human beings make mistakes.”
General perspective
Gen. George Casey, the Army’s chief of staff, has a perspective problem. At least it seems so after an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday in which Casey talked about the Fort Hood massacre that claimed 13 lives. The general got to talking about the effect of the shootings on the Army’s efforts to maintain a diverse fighting force, and clearly years and years of military indoctrination on diversity as a societal virtue have affected Casey’s thinking. “Our diversity, not only in our Army but in our country is a strength,” Casey said. No problem, general. But he went on: “And as horrific as this tragedy was, if our diversity becomes a casualty, I think that’s worse.” Americans get the diversity message, but you can’t compare that with the loss of soldiers’ lives at Fort Hood. You just can’t.
Slow rebound
The third quarter’s 3.5 percent growth rate drew cheers from a White House eager for data validating its economic policies. Certainly, growth is better than recession. But a number of analysts quickly pointed out the third-quarter figure was heavily inflated by one-time government spending — cash-for-clunkers, new home buyer tax credit — that overstated the truth health of the economy. One analyst told Reuters’ James Pethokoukis real economic growth probably was closer to 2 percent, which is poor compared with the way economies coming out of recession have performed historically.
The real test will be how much the economy grows without special government spending. While the $787 billion stimulus nudged the economy away from a possible depression, Pethokoukis writes, it wasn’t structured (two-thirds spending, one-third tax cuts) to launch a robust recovery. As a result, a number of experts think high unemployment will persist and be a drag on more rapid growth — allowing those who called for more tax cuts to say, we told you so.
Fore!
Back during the Bush administration it always seemed petty when it was implied George W. Bush somehow was being derelict when he took time off from work to chill out at his ranch in Crawford, Texas. The line of questioning to his press secretary would go something like, “How can the president justify taking a vacation when the country is at war, the economy’s a mess and there are starving children in Darfur?” Similarly, the press is gigging President Barack Obama for the number of times he has played golf since taking office — 24 in just over nine months, to be exact. CBS’ Mark Knoller tweets that it took Bush nearly three years to play that much golf. There’s just no rest for the weary — or golf, either.
White out
Kudos to the White House staff for its wardrobing efforts this week before a presidential photo-op with doctors designed to build support health care reform. The New York Post reports about 150 physicians were invited to pose in the Rose Garden as President Barack Obama made another pitch for his proposals. The idea was to have a sea of white-coated doctors serving as the backdrop for Obama’s statement, indicating physician support for his ideas. The doctors were invited to wear their lab coats for the event, but some apparently forgot. No problem! The Post reports the White House staff had requisitioned spare coats for those who showed up in business suits or dresses. No word on whether the docs got to keep the white coats as White House souvenirs.
The Bear’s growl
The Obama administration’s decision to cancel planned missile defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic has opened a hot debate. Officials told The New York Times the administration no longer believes radar and interceptor sites promised the two U.S. allies are needed because the chief missile threat, Iran, is thought to be concentrating its efforts on medium-range weapons instead of long-range ones. Critics say the administration simply caved in to the Russians, who claimed they would be threatened by a defensive system — even though the planned installations would not have deterred an arsenal the size of Russia’s. “This is bad news for all who care about the U.S. commitment to the transatlantic alliance and the defense of Europe as well as the United States,” writes analyst Nile Gardiner in the London Telegraph. “It represents the appalling appeasement of Russian aggression and a willingness to sacrifice American allies on the altar of political expediency. A deal with the Russians to cancel missile defense installations sends a clear message that even Washington can be intimidated by the Russian bear.”
Clearing the air
USA Today reports New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and former top members of his administration won’t be criminally charged in connection with a lengthy federal probe into kickback allegations involving one of Richardson’s key political donors. A federal grand jury was looking into possible a pay-to-play operation that steered lucrative work on state bond deals to a Richardson donor. If true, the report obviously comes too late for Richardson, who in January withdrew his nomination to be President Barack Obama’s commerce secretary because of the investigation. It’s premature to speculate about future Cabinet openings in Washington, but Richardson would be an obvious candidate when something opens up.
A villain’s hero’s welcome
Where do you start with the Scottish government’s galactic lapse in judgment in deciding to free convicted Lockerbie bomber Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi, just eight years into a life sentence for the 1988 atrocity that killed 270 people, including 189 Americans? Start with widespread outrage. Beyond members of the governing Scottish National Party condemnation was swift and fairly universal. Piling on insult, the 57-year-old former Libyan intelligence officer was greeted like a hero at the airport in Tripoli after Scotland’s justice minister, Kenny MacAskill, ordered him released on “compassionate grounds” because he suffers from terminal prostate cancer. MacAskill justified the order by saying something about Scottish values, but the decision is off-the-charts abysmal. Scotland’s parliament apparently will be recalled from its summer break to debate the issue. Think about it: Megrahi served less than three months for each of the lives lost on Pan Am Flight 103. Said Susan Cohen, whose daughter Theodora died 21 years ago: “You want to feel sorry for anyone? Please feel sorry for me, feel sorry for my poor daughter, her body falling a mile through the air.”
Take another look
Maybe if President Barack Obama’s health care proposal, largely reflected in Democratic legislation in Congress, goes down in flames there’ll be a chance for market-based alternatives to get more thorough consideration. Most Americans probably assume members of Congress are up to speed on all the top health care proposals being offered. But that’s not necessarily so. Checking video of a Senate committee’s health care work session last month, it was clear one Western state Democrat, not known as a partisan, was pretty misinformed about Sen. Tom Coburn’s alternative plan, even though it’s one of the leading ideas put forward by Republicans. So, again, if ObamaCare stalls out, maybe members in the Senate and House will approach the issue with open minds and fresh sets of eyes.
