Obama the Successful Politician Many progressives continue to understandably grouse about some of Obama’s policies. People have expressed disappointment, dismay, if not disgust- from his address on race to his stimulus program to his penchant for inconsistent transparency. Indeed, as predicted, he does not take uniformly progressive positions and despite the ludicrous conservative accusations, he certainly isn’t a socialist.

He is a politician, one who is trying to turn the country from its 30 year conservative run, trying to rectify policies of varying destructiveness. To be a successful president, he must operate within what is acceptable in Washington, which includes building working coalitions. Each individual decision has to be seen in the context of his building for a future action / policy. So while we can flail about his holding back on torture pictures, showing the love to Tim Geithner and the Wall Street establishment, being too modest with his initial stimulus program, one must remember: Since his appearance on the political scene, the man has had remarkable judgment. Look how he’s handled his multi-year campaign and his initial weeks. He won the presidency and has 65% popularity, he’s isolated the GOP as the far-right bastion that it is, and he’s directed us to a much better funded education system, a refining of the health care system and doing so with the goal of making additional changes in the coming months/years. No, he’s not a progressive president. If he was, he’d undoubtedly be a failed one-termer. He’s a left of center politician who is doing a brilliant job negotiating a murderously difficult situation. And, as a bonus, he’s brought back decency, intelligence, science, and a fetching family scene. Not bad; no, positively thrilling.

Arms Talk Progress U.S. Breaks Logjam

A single word from Barack Obama has put new life into the stale old disarmament talks in Geneva, where diplomats are hailing a "remarkable shift" by the Americans in favor of a treaty clamping down on production of the stuff of nuclear bombs.

The U.S. president's word — "verifiable" — has set the 65-nation Conference on Disarmament on a possible course toward negotiating a treaty after years of deadlock, most recently because the Bush administration argued that a pact couldn't be verified by inspections and monitoring.

In his speech April 5 in the Czech Republic, Obama detailed a packed agenda of goals in nuclear arms control, including slashing U.S. and Russian doomsday arsenals, adopting the treaty banning all nuclear tests, and negotiating a "new treaty that verifiably ends the production of fissile materials intended for use in state nuclear weapons."

That call in Prague's Castle Square echoed here in the marble-clad halls of the Palais des Nations, where such a Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) has been on the to-do list of the paralyzed disarmament conference since the 1990s, as one tool to stop the spread of atomic arms. Today's fear of nuclear terrorism only heightens such concerns.

"The U.S. readiness to negotiate an internationally verifiable FMCT can be considered a turning point," pronounced Foreign Minister Franco Frattini of Italy, whose Geneva diplomats coordinate the talks on a fissile-material treaty.

At the moment, only India and Pakistan — and possibly Israel and North Korea — are producing plutonium or highly enriched uranium for atomic weapons. Four "traditional" nuclear powers recognized under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty — the United States, Russia, Britain and France — have declared moratoriums on production. The fifth, China, indicates unofficially it has stopped, too. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i4X9rRzxKfB3wSR1dJfFFn_qQCkwD987FLB80

CIA and Pelosi, Cheney and Iraq So, what’s the bigger story? Pelosi’s missteps have interested the media in this latest “news.” This is trouble for Pelosi herself, but in the intermediate/long run, it’s more trouble for the GOP and the Bush-Cheney legacy. The call for ‘investigations’ to get at the truth only will bring more clarity to what is already clear to those who’ve followed the last weeks’ developments. Each revelation re-confirms that “intelligence” was sought to build the phony al-Qaeda-Saddam connection, including the use of torture to extract “confessions”. As for the CIA, the riotous notion that the CIA wouldn’t lie to Congress… that’s their modus operandi. Even John Boehner is captured on two-year old tape claiming that the CIA lies to him.

Rumsfeld: Crusading, indoctrinating Bush A long GQ article that captures manipulative, destructive Rummy, playing Bush for the malleable idiot that he was. The biblical quotations remind that “crusade” was very much in the minds of the Administration

on the morning of Thursday, April 10, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld’s Pentagon prepared a top-secret briefing for George W. Bush. This document, known as the Worldwide Intelligence Update, was a daily digest of critical military intelligence so classified that it circulated among only a handful of Pentagon leaders and the president; Rumsfeld himself often delivered it, by hand, to the White House. The briefing’s cover sheet generally featured triumphant, color images from the previous days’ war efforts: On this particular morning, it showed the statue of Saddam Hussein being pulled down in Firdos Square, a grateful Iraqi child kissing an American soldier, and jubilant crowds thronging the streets of newly liberated Baghdad. And above these images, and just below the headline secretary of defense, was a quote that may have raised some eyebrows. It came from the Bible, from the book of Psalms: “Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him…To deliver their soul from death.”

This mixing of Crusades-like messaging with war imagery, which until now has not been revealed, had become routine. On March 31, a U.S. tank roared through the desert beneath a quote from Ephesians: “Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.” On April 7, Saddam Hussein struck a dictatorial pose, under this passage from the First Epistle of Peter: “It is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men.”

These cover sheets were the brainchild of Major General Glen Shaffer, a director for intelligence serving both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the secretary of defense. In the days before the Iraq war, Shaffer's staff had created humorous covers in an attempt to alleviate the stress of preparing for battle. Then, as the body counting began, Shaffer, a Christian, deemed the biblical passages more suitable. Several others in the Pentagon disagreed. At least one Muslim analyst in the building had been greatly offended; others privately worried that if these covers were leaked during a war conducted in an Islamic nation, the fallout -- as one Pentagon staffer would later say -- "would be as bad as Abu Ghraib." (...)

The Scripture-adorned cover sheets illustrate one specific complaint I heard again and again: that Rumsfeld's tactics -- such as playing a religious angle with the president -- often ran counter to sound decision-making and could, occasionally, compromise the administration's best interests. In the case of the sheets, publicly flaunting his own religious views was not at all the SecDef's style -- "Rumsfeld was old-fashioned that way," Shaffer acknowledged when I contacted him about the briefings -- but it was decidedly Bush's style, and Rumsfeld likely saw the Scriptures as a way of making a personal connection with a president who frequently quoted the Bible. No matter that, if leaked, the images would reinforce impressions that the administration was embarking on a religious war and could escalate tensions with the Muslim world. The sheets were not Rumsfeld's direct invention -- and he could thus distance himself from them, should that prove necessary." http://men.style.com/gq/features/landing?id=content_9217

Frank Rich comments:

Take the one dated April 3, 2003, two weeks into the invasion, just as Shock and Awe hit its first potholes. Two days earlier, on April 1, a panicky Pentagon had begun spreading its hyped, fictional account of the rescue of Pvt. Jessica Lynch to distract from troubling news of setbacks. On April 2, Gen. Joseph Hoar, the commander in chief of the United States Central Command from 1991-94, had declared on the Times Op-Ed page that Rumsfeld had sent too few troops to Iraq. And so the Worldwide Intelligence Update for April 3 bullied Bush with Joshua 1:9: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” (Including, as it happened, into a quagmire.)

What’s up with that? As Draper writes, Rumsfeld is not known for ostentatious displays of piety. He was cynically playing the religious angle to seduce and manipulate a president who frequently quoted the Bible. But the secretary’s actions were not just oily; he was also taking a risk with national security. If these official daily collages of Crusade-like messaging and war imagery had been leaked, they would have reinforced the Muslim world’s apocalyptic fear that America was waging a religious war. As one alarmed Pentagon hand told Draper, the fallout “would be as bad as Abu Ghraib.” http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/opinion/17rich-5.html?_r=1

Nuclear Pakistan: Rearming?

Members of Congress have been told in confidential briefings that Pakistan is rapidly adding to its nuclear arsenal even while racked by insurgency, raising questions on Capitol Hill about whether billions of dollars in proposed military aid might be diverted to Pakistan’s nuclear program.

Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed the assessment of the expanded arsenal in a one-word answer to a question on Thursday in the midst of lengthy Senate testimony. Sitting beside Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, he was asked whether he had seen evidence of an increase in the size of the Pakistani nuclear arsenal.

“Yes,” he said quickly, adding nothing, clearly cognizant of Pakistan’s sensitivity to any discussion about the country’s nuclear strategy or security. Inside the Obama administration, some officials say, Pakistan’s drive to spend heavily on new nuclear arms has been a source of growing concern, because the country is producing more nuclear material at a time when Washington is increasingly focused on trying to assure the security of an arsenal of 80 to 100 weapons so that they will never fall into the hands of Islamic insurgents.

The administration’s effort is complicated by the fact that Pakistan is producing an unknown amount of new bomb-grade uranium and, once a series of new reactors is completed, bomb-grade plutonium for a new generation of weapons. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/18/world/asia/18nuke.html?hp=&pagewanted=print

Strategic Obama: Grabs Another ‘Moderate’ Republican Governor Huntsman had been seen as a rational Utah Republican

Utah Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. (R) will be introduced today as President Obama's choice as ambassador to China, a source familiar with the decision said last night. [...]

Several Salt Lake City media outlets reported last night that Huntsman had accepted the offer to head the U.S. mission in Beijing, and that Lt. Gov. Gary R. Herbert would replace him as governor. The Salt Lake Tribune reported that Huntsman was in Washington last night, but that calls to his spokeswoman and various staffers were not returned.

Huntsman was elected in November to a second term as Utah's governor, drawing 70 percent of the vote. He served in the George W. Bush administration as deputy U.S. trade representative from 2001 to 2004 and, for President George H.W. Bush, was ambassador to Singapore. He is an expert on China, and he speaks Mandarin Chinese fluently. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/15/AR2009051504022.html

The Big 3: Toyota, Honda and Fiat?

Almost overnight, Fiat Group has transformed itself from a bit player into a global titan in the auto industry, effectively taking over Chrysler and possibly a big chunk of General Motors. And nobody is more surprised than the Italians.

"If you had asked me four years ago whether I could imagine that Fiat would be able to restore itself and become a hunter, instead of the hunted, I would have said you were crazy," said Sergio Chiamparino, the mayor of Turin, the northern Italian city that Fiat has called home for more than a century. "Practically speaking, it was a badly run company."

In 2005, Fiat was struggling to overcome chronic losses and recover from the death of its legendary chairman, Gianni Agnelli, who had ruled for decades with a feudal lord's touch. The company's future was so dim that it couldn't give itself away. General Motors, afraid it might get stuck with an Italian basket case, paid Fiat $2 billion to abandon a partnership.

Today, the tables have turned. Under a chief executive with no prior experience in the car business, Fiat has stabilized its finances and is pursuing an ambition that most Italians would have laughed at only a few months ago: to become the third-largest manufacturer of automobiles in the world, behind only Toyota and Volkswagen and ahead of a fading GM.

Without spending a dime of its own money, Fiat has cut a deal to take over management of Chrysler, the bankrupt U.S. automaker. It is expected to acquire a 20 percent equity stake that could lead to majority ownership in a few years.

Fiat is also negotiating with ailing General Motors to absorb GM's European and Latin American operations. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/16/AR2009051602319_pf.html

-R