If Obama is responsible for this leak, it’s one of the worst things he has ever done:

[T]he emergence of this story, with a blow-by-blow account of operational detail, is the result of reckless, impetuous leaking that could cost lives and compromise operations in the future.

For a start, the story appears to have trickled out far too soon.

One US official has noted that “this operation could have gone on for some time … when it was cut off by a leak”. Even once the agent turned up in Saudi Arabia, it was clear that his intelligence was helping to target a spate of crucial drone strikes within Yemen – including one that killed AQAP’s head of external operations, a man responsible for the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000.
If the group learnt of their member’s defection from the media, who knows what countermeasures they took? How did that stymie further arrests or airstrikes? AQAP’s chief bomb-maker, Ibrahim Al-Asiri, might even have escaped as a result.

After all, the agent was reportedly evacuated from Yemen two weeks before the appointed date for his attack. He might have remained quietly operational for that entire period, contacting his colleagues and passing on their location. This leak appears to have frustrated a painstaking and risky operation, of the sort that cannot come around very often.

Second, it’s possible that the story shouldn’t have been leaked at all, at least not in such detail. Agents work with intelligence services because their anonymity – and therefore safety – is guaranteed. AQAP now knows the name and location of their traitor.

More here and here.

Cui bono? The Obama administration gets a big publicity boost in an election year. So, one guess who is responsible.

David Horsey at the L.A. Times:

Sure, you may know which man — Mitt Romney or Barack Obama — you want to see running the country, but which one would you have wanted to know in high school?

We learned four years ago that young Barack was a laid-back, not overly studious kid who loved basketball and occasionally smoked a little weed. The kids at Punahou, the prestigious Honolulu prep school Obama attended, never expected their amiable but seemingly unmotivated classmate to one day become the most powerful man on the planet.

. . . .

[I]f you were a certain type of student at Cranbrook back in 1965, the idea of Mitt Romney getting any kind of power over people would have been frightening.

. . . .

Romney pulled together a pack of boys and went to Lauber’s room, where they tackled him and pinned him down. As Lauber, with tears streaming down his cheeks, screamed for help, Romney pulled out scissors and chopped away at the kid’s hair.

If we’re going to keep talking about the dog-eating days of yore, can we at least get it right, Horsey? Obama did some cocaine too:

“Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it,” Obama wrote in a book long before running for Senate. “Junkie. Pothead. That’s where I’d been headed: the final, fatal role of the young would-be black man.”

It doesn’t make for such a nice, neat contrast, of course, to mention the cocaine use. It’s just more factually accurate.

Which is better? Factually accurate? Or a distortion that fits a narrative?

David Horsey and the editors of the L.A. Times have made their choice!

[Posted by Karl]

At the NYT, Richard W. Stevenson claims that it is:

[T]he months between the end of the primary season and the formal start of the general election at the conventions are an especially perilous period for candidates in Mr. Romney’s position.

It is then that challengers to an incumbent are most susceptible to being defined on terms other than their own, because despite months on the campaign trail they are still not yet terribly well-known by many Americans. Unflattering characteristics, new elements of their record, gaffes and embarrassing biographical details – all can take on outsize importance as rival campaigns labor through the spring and summer to create perceptions that stick with voters through Election Day.

***

The risks of failing to win the spring-summer narrative battle are substantial. Just ask Michael Dukakis, Bob Dole or John Kerry, all of whom failed to establish strong positive images during this period and allowed their opponents to brand them in ways they never overcame.

Oddly enough, the WaPo’s Chris Cillizza recently noted that in elections with an incumbent since 1980, Mondale, Dole and Kerry all had high favorable ratings and lost, while Bill Clinton won with middling favorable ratings.  And unlike Stevenson, Cillizza actually shows you the numbers that back him up.  Stevenson is engaged in some zombie journalism about the effectiveness of negative campaigning.  At least Cillizza was good enough to state his premises openly, even if he tended to bury them, e.g.:

Political scientists would have you believe that the data is determinative. But the data is subject to how each side conducts their respective campaign.

Actually, political scientists who stress that campaigns tend to turn on the fundamentals almost always concede that campaigns matter.  Their argument is simply that they don’t matter as much as journalists who make their living covering them think.  Mondale, Dukakis, Dole and Kerry all ran against  incumbents (or a sitting Veep) who benefited from recovering or healthy economies.  The only winning candidate in those cycles who substantially outperformed what the economy would suggest was Clinton, who still failed to reach 50% of the vote.

BTW, this problem is not limited to political coverage.  Last week, the NYT magazine profiled Joe Weisenthal, the lead financial blogger for Business Insider, including this anecdote:

Last summer, amid rising concern that the economy would tip back into recession, Weisenthal repeatedly highlighted contrarian chunks of evidence suggesting that we were actually on the verge of stronger growth. It was a lonely view for a long time. It was also correct.

In a post last November titled “Everyone Is Wrong About What Is Driving the Market These Days,” Weisenthal reproduced a Google search showing a slew of articles describing the stock market as “headline-driven,” meaning that prices were responding to the latest news. Then he showed a chart he created illustrating the close relationship between movements in stock prices and a basic economic indicator.

“So it’s a ‘headline-driven market’?” he wrote. “Nah, not really. . . . The market is just moving with the fundamentals, week in and week out. The headlines are mostly a distraction.”

Most political journalists figured out that the rise in Obama’s approval rating had something to do with this.  However, they still seem trapped into pretending that when the real swing voters finally start paying attention to the campaign, the result will not largely converge with the fundamentals.  The history of head-to-head polling suggests that about half of what we see now is noise, that the curve mostly flattens out at this stage of an election and that polls don’t really start to suggest the outcome earlier than August.  The evidence for mid-May being a quiet turning point in the campaign is wafer-thin.

–Karl

President Obama yesterday gave a speech in Nevada that drew dozens.

A reader obtained this exclusive photo:

Apparently the canine world has gotten the word about the President’s culinary habits.

I predict a blizzard of media coverage over this. If by “blizzard” you mean “complete absence.” Rev. Wright has said that a close friend of Obama’s offered him (through a church member) $150,000 to shut his mouth during the 2008 campaign. This was followed up by a visit from Obama, asking Wright to shut his mouth — and telling Wright that his “problem” was that he had to tell the truth:

“And one of the first things Barack said was, ‘I really wish you wouldn’t do any more public speaking until after the November election.’ He knew I had some speaking engagements lined up, and he said, ‘I wish you wouldn’t speak. It’s gonna hurt the campaign if you do that.’

“And what did you say?” I asked. “I said, ‘I don’t see it that way. And anyway, how am I supposed to support my family?’ And he said, ‘Well, I wish you wouldn’t speak in public. The press is gonna eat you alive.’

“Barack said, ‘I’m sorry you don’t see it the way I do. Do you know what your problem is?’ And I said, ‘No, what’s my problem?’ And he said, ‘You have to tell the truth.’ I said, ‘That’s a good problem to have. That’s a good problem for all preachers to have. That’s why I could never be a politician.’

On a more important note than bribery and a flippant attitude towards truth: did you know that Mitt Romney forcibly cut a kid’s hair when he was in high school?

[Posted by Karl]

The idea pops up in Jonah Goldberg’s new book, The Tyranny of Clichés:

Goldberg *** explained that there “is a certain Marxist sting” to the cliché of being “on the right side of history.” It’s a way, he continued, of “saying to your opponents, ‘hey, look, you’re going to lose this argument eventually so you might as well quit now and stop complaining.’”

Indeed, Marx’s stages of history smack of this sort of determinism.  Moreover, given his gig at National Review, it’s not surprising that Goldberg — by way of Burke — alludes to part of the magazine’s mission statement, in which William F. Buckley, Jr. famously proclaimed the mag “stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.”

At times, I run the risk of falling into an inversion of this cliché.  Less than a week ago, I wrote:

The past century has been one in which progressives have put forth the idea that Soviet communism is what works, that Eurofascism is what works, that Maoism is what works, and that Eurosocialism is what works. The actual history of the past century is one in which Eurofascism was defeated in WWII, Soviet communism was defeated in the Cold War, Maoism has degenerated into a fascism and crony capitalism that only Tom Friedman finds attractive, and Eurosocialism is taking its own road to the dustbin of history. To be sure, voters in the UK and France are resisting, the Germans less so. But fiscal realities will continue to intrude, regardless of which governments they elect. They will eventually figure out what the OECD and IMF already have about the solution to their problems: spending less is the answer.

(More on the degree to which failed European “austerity” has relied on taxes here.)  I have also been fairly optimistic about what the current state of the Eurozone will teach Americans:

I am not for doing nothing about the debt ceiling and have written a number of pieces about the need to do something about the public debt at all levels of government. Moreover, it is certainly possible that in a debt crisis, the intransigence of the left could force the federal government to take a tax-heavy approach proven to fail in all those other OECD countries. I tend to think there is still enough of the American spirit around to resist becoming wage slaves to the state. Assuming we can manage to avoid a more statist approach than Canada, Sweden and Finland, it would seem the left ought to have the greater interest in defusing the debt bomb now, as a crisis will likely be tougher on their priorities.

Goldberg’s book, as much as the current political tensions in parts of the Eurozone, is a reminder that good policy choices do not make themselves.  Indeed, Matt K. Lewis is very likely correct in declaring austerity “in and of itself,” a political loser today.  Unfortunately, simply talking up economic growth is not only insufficient as a policy matter, but also too easily embraced as a political dodge of our debt problem.

History, like policy, does not make itself.  One thing the right should grudgingly admire about the left is their relentlessness.  The left never stops agitating, “educating” and organizing to push its version of history, even in the face of its evident failure over the past several decades.  Excepting Walter Mondale, they rarely run on the promise of massive tax hikes for the middle class  — but they never stop talking and writing about the future necessity for them.  They never stop writing and talking about their dream of socialized healthcare — and take whatever jumps they can in that direction whenever they have sufficient control over the government.

Non-statists need to be equally relentless, both in pursuing our vision and in confronting the left’s vision.  Indeed, non-statists should be even more driven, given the left’s effective control of the establishment media.  This structural disadvantage makes our candidates even more important, because for all the of the media’s attempted agenda-setting, campaign coverage (and advertising) still necessarily focuses on the candidates and their messages.

Although I have had my share of problems with Mitt Romney, one of his primary virtues is that he frequently makes the point that Obama is leading America in the direction of Eurosocialism at precisely the moment Eurosocialism is imploding.  It is my hope that when Team Obama starts its Mediscare campaign in earnest, Team Romney will lead its response by noting that the do-nothing Obama approach will also end Medicare as we know it — but that the likely result will be the non-innovative, rationed healthcare of Eurosocialism.  Even when the left thinks it can put non-statists on defense, we should be working to create the environment in which statism is understood as not “what works,” more tax revenues are a small part of any solution to public debt (preferably from tax reform and consequent growth), and reform of the entitlement state is politically palatable.  Many find Romney a weak standard-bearer for conservatism, but he has been willing to carry this banner — and it is a crucial one to carry, not only for this election, but for cycles to come.

–Karl

[Posted by Karl]

You see, the Washington Examiner columnist had the gall to not only suggest that Americans care more about the economy than whether Mitt Romney gave someone a haircut 47 years ago, but also to suggest that Tamron Hall was pandering to her audience of dozens by dragging out the story on the pretense of doing the meta-story of how the Romney campaign is reacting to the story which most people do not care about. Actually, Carney was far more polite than that, which did not stop MSNBC from cutting Carney’s mic while Hall yelled at him:

WFB has the full video. Apparently, Hall’s support staff thinks Hall was unequipped to have that discussion with Carney — or that MSNBC is ill-equipped when someone pulls back the curtain on how the establishment media drags out nonstories to suit their biases.

Update: Carney tweets: “The question I was sent for the Romney bullying segment was ‘Does the story matter?’ So I was answering it, not dodging.”

–Karl

[Posted by Karl]

As usual, you are positively encouraged to engage in sockpuppetry in this thread. The usual rules apply.

Please, be sure to switch back to your regular handle when commenting on other threads. I have made that mistake myself.

Any discussion that is not funny where people want to get angry at each other is are strictly prohibited.  Offending comments will be summarily deleted and the violators flogged.

And remember: the worst sin you can commit on this thread is not being funny.

—

Liberals, when not spending your money, are kind of a cheap date, aren’t they?

President Obama declared his personal support for same-sex marriage yesterday, but the White House chose not to push for the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act today.

“Well, party platform issues are for the party to decide,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said when asked if Obama would call for the repeal of DOMA and endorsement of pro-gay marriage language in the party platform.

Gutsy call!  Not to mention incoherent, although Jonathan H. Adler notes it:

The problem with the President’s position is that it cannot be reconciled with the Administration’s stance on the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act. According to Attorney General Eric Holder, he and the President concluded that the constitutionality of legal distinctions based upon sexual preference cannot be defended. In their view, because DOMA precludes federal recognition of same-sex marriages, it violates the constitutional guarantee of equal protection under the Fifth Amendment. Further, according to Holder’s statement, they concluded that no “reasonable” constitutional argument could be made in DOMA’s defense. Yet if DOMA is unconstitutional under equal protection, which applies to the state and federal governments equally, then how could any state law barring recognition of same-sex marriages survive constitutional scrutiny?

Now, legal types can be more nuanced about this, but you can be sure the folks swooning over Obama’s announcement of his personal opinion are not.  And given that Obama’s opinion is that states should decide, I again wonder how the folks who think recognizing same sex marriage (and gay rights generally) to be the preeminent civil rights issue of the day embrace Obama’s embrace of states’ rights.  After all, they would never accept that position regarding interracial marriage would they?  If Obama took that position… maybe.

–Karl

There is a puff piece in today’s L.A. Times titled: President Obama’s influence on gay marriage will be tested. His change, we are told, is historic and valuable:

David Mixner, a longtime Democratic and gay rights activist, noted wryly that Obama’s endorsement was “no more symbolic than President Johnson endorsing the Voting Rights bills…. It’s going to give momentum. It’s going to give real legitimacy. It’s going to impact those who are sitting on the fence. Anytime the president takes a major stance on any civil rights issues, whether it’s Harry Truman or John Kennedy or Lyndon Johnson, it lends the power of the presidency to that issue.”

. . . .

Obama’s most valuable contribution may have been the way he described his evolution on the issue. In the ABC interview, he related dinner-table discussions about his daughters’ friends whose parents are same-sex couples.

“That’s the same kind of conversation that’s taking place at kitchen tables around America,” said Evan Wolfson, president of Freedom to Marry, a pro-gay-marriage group. He said Obama’s explanation about “how he had opened his heart and changed his mind” was the most important part of the president’s statement.

Obama also placed his personal opinion in the context of his values as a “practicing Christian,” in line with efforts by gay marriage proponents to sway conservative voters. Obama said that, contrary to those who believe same-sex marriage is at odds with Christian teachings, it “is not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf — but it’s also the golden rule, you know? Treat others the way you’d want to be treated.”

If we’re going to talk about Obama’s “evolution” on this issue, let’s talk about Obama’s evolution on this issue.

In 1996, when Obama was running for the state senate in Illinois, he signed a questionnaire in which he supported the right of gays to marry:

Then, when he was running for federal office, his position changed. He has allowed a spokeshole to claim that the above questionnaire was filled out by someone else — a claim later retracted by another spokeshole when nobody bought it.

And he cited religion as the reason for opposing same sex marriage.

Now, having flip-flopped, he has flop-flipped back. And he is trying to make it sound principled.

And the L.A. Times is letting him. Because somehow, none of this makes it into today’s misty-eyed description of Obama’s “evolution.” The “devolution” preceding the “evolution” never comes up.

Odd, that.

[Posted by Karl]

The WaPo’s lengthy hit piece on Mitt Romney, leading with a 1965 incident in which Romney and high school pals gave John Lauber (a fellow student) a forced haircut, was definitely distraction du jour.  But a couple of problems have cropped up with the story.

First, the WaPo story originally reported that Stu White had “long been bothered” by the incident, but White told ABC News he was not aware of it until this year when he was contacted by the Washington Post.  The WaPo has now airbrushed this section of the story to read:

“I always enjoyed his pranks,” said Stu White, a popular friend of Romney’s who went on to a career as a public school teacher and said he has been “disturbed” by the Lauber incident since hearing about it several weeks ago, before being contacted by The Washington Post.

As I write this, the WaPo has failed to append a note about the alteration of the story, in an apparent violation of the the WaPo’s corrections policy.  Moreover, the new WaPo version remains at odds with White telling ABC he had not heard of it until he was contacted by the WaPo.

Second, it appears that the Lauber family is not happy with the WaPo hit piece.  Christine Lauber — who appears to be quoted in the WaPo story — told ABC News she and her sisters will likely put out a statement later via a family attorney.

“If he were still alive today, he would be furious [about the story],” she said with tears in her eyes.

The NYT’s Ashley Parker has been tweeting bits of what that statement may contain.  Although the Lauber family did not refute the haircut story, they say the portrayal of John is “factually incorrect.”  The family adds: “We are aggrieved that John would be used to further a political agenda.”

It will be tough for the media to use the victimization of John Lauber as a cudgel against Mitt Romney if Lauber’s family thinks the media are the ones doing the victimization.

–Karl