It’s Friday, May 11th, 2012….and here’s The Gouge!

Leading off the last Gouge of the week, in this forward courtesy of George Lawlor and National Review Online, Victor Davis Hanson details what two Liberal luminaries have in common:

Presidential Narcissism

Obama and Clinton — brothers beneath the skin.

 

Former president Bill Clinton just appeared in a reelection television commercial for President Barack Obama. At one point, Clinton weighs in on the potential consequences of Obama’s decision to go ahead with the planned assassination of Osama bin Laden. He smiles and then pontificates, “Suppose the Navy SEALs had gone in there . . . suppose they had been captured or killed. The downside would have been horrible for him [Obama].”

There is a lot that is disturbing about Clinton’s commentary — and about the fact that such an embarrassment was not deleted by the Obama campaign. Clinton offers unintended self-incrimination as to why in the 1990s he did not order the capture of bin Laden when it might well have been in his power to do so — was it fear of something “horrible” that might have happened to his fortunes rather than to our troops? And, of course, such crass politicization of national security and the war on terror is exactly what Barack Obama accused the two Clintons of in the 2008 Democratic primaries. We also remember that Obama on several occasions chastised George W. Bush for supposedly making reference to the war on terror for political advantage, though he never did so in as creepy a fashion as Clinton. And aside from the fact that Barack Obama promised never to “spike the football” by using the SEAL mission to score campaign points, only a narcissistic Bill Clinton could have envisioned the death or capture of Navy SEALs not in terms of those men’s own horrible fates, but only as political “downside” for an equally narcissistic Barack Obama.

In Clinton’s defense, he spoke not just from his own selfish instinct to see presidential survival as more important than the fates of those who actually took the physical risk. Rather, a year ago Obama himself had already hijacked the mission with a flurry of self-referential pronouns: “Tonight, I can report . . . And so, shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta . . . I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden . . . I met repeatedly with my national security team . . . I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action. . . . Today, at my direction . . . I’ve made clear . . . Over the years, I’ve repeatedly made clear . . . Tonight, I called President Zardari . . . and my team has also spoken . . .These efforts weigh on me every time I, as commander-in-chief . . . Finally, let me say to the families . . . I know that it has, at times, frayed . . .”

As for the civilian responsibility for approving such hazardous missions for our intelligence and military communities, Obama has never confessed, then or now, that most of the anti-terrorism protocols that led to critical intelligence about the probable whereabouts of bin Laden had been strongly opposed by Obama himself. Indeed, almost every Bush-Cheney policy that President Obama eventually embraced — renditions, tribunals, Guantanamo, the Patriot Act — was opposed by Obama as a state legislator, a U.S. senator, and a presidential candidate. Apparently, there is no loudly announced “reset” when it comes to the war on terror.

The logic of the narcissistic mind in matters of the war on terror works out something like this:

The president will take credit for all the successes on his watch, without ever acknowledging reliance on the policies put in place during the eight years before he took office, much less admitting that he once did his best to undermine all of those inheritances that he eventually found so useful. And in matters concerning his predecessor, Obama will damn Bush for the bad economy that he left to his successor and yet ignore Bush for the successful anti-terrorism protocols that he passed on.

Unfortunately, the latest triumphalism is a continuance of a long line of self-adulation that we have grown accustomed to in Barack Obama since he came to the public’s attention — the professor’s two memoirs without a single commensurate scholarly publication; the Latinate motto; the faux-Greek columns; the biblical quelling of the rising seas and cooling of the planet; the fallback retreat to the Victory Column when questions were raised about the appropriateness of the Brandenburg Gate as a venue for his speech; and so on. The common characteristics in Obama’s I/me/my career have been such rhetorical, visual, and symbolic efforts to mask an absence of accomplishment (e.g., why not even one Harvard Law Review article, or perhaps a single publication as a University of Chicago lecturer, or a successful program as a Chicago community organizer, or a signature piece of legislation as an Illinois legislator, or an acknowledged legislative record as a U.S. senator?).

In the world of a narcissistic Barack Obama, rhetoric need not translate into reality. The more emphatic and emotive the pledges to shut down Guantanamo, the more readily all such serial assurances could be ignored. The more idealistic support is expressed for public campaign financing and scorn for bundling, fundraisers, super PACs, Wall Street mega-donors, the revolving door, and lobbyists, all the easier it is to shun the former and embrace the latter.

The Obama way is to offer the boilerplate “I/me/mine/my team” speech, and then simply let events follow their own course — as if the fact that Obama weighed in rhetorically on a topic was ipso facto enough. “Make no mistake about it,” “I” have dealt with the jobs, deficit, debt, and sluggish-growth problems. Ergo, they no longer exist.

So “reset” is grandly proclaimed for Russia — with no acknowledgment that relations have so soured with Putin’s thugocracy that Moscow now threatens to take out proposed anti-missile sites in Eastern Europe. Libya is such a strong blueprint of Obama’s competent and moral “lead from behind” strategy in the Middle East that who cares that such a model will never be applied to an equally disintegrating Syria? That Obama gave the Iranians five deadlines to desist from nuclear acquisition should have been enough for them to desist: So it’s their problem, not ours. North Korea has been addressed, as if the rhetorical and the concrete definitions of that word were synonymous.

So what is the problem with a charismatic, narcissistic president? After all, most presidents by definition must be somewhat self-absorbed. Yet the rub is that the world has tuned Obama out. All his prime-time rhetoric from Afghanistan, the cool multicultural accentuation of Pakîstan and the Talîban, the photo-op reminders that it was Obama who ordered the mission that took out bin Laden — all this meant nothing to the Taliban, who will now patiently wait us out, unleash a North Vietnamese–like offensive very soon, and remind us that just because we don’t believe there are still things like victory and defeat in our messy wars, that does not mean there are not.

In other words, I worry that Vladimir Putin, the Iranian theocrats, the North Korean apparat, the Chinese central committee, the Muslim Brotherhood, and all the others who detest the United States have sized up Barack Obama. For 40 months they have acknowledged that his postracial image and his youthful charisma, as David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs rightly insisted, threw them for a loop — for a while. And that “for a while” is now ending, replaced with a new belief abroad that the more Obama talks about himself and his team, and the more emphatic he becomes with his “Make no mistake about it” and “Let me be perfectly clear” vacuities, the more he can at first safely be ignored, and then, quite soon, safely be taken advantage of.

The problem with a narcissistic president is not just that he sees the world as all about himself, but that the world soon sees that it is not about him at all.

Make no mistake about it: THIS….

….when they pay him any mind at all.  And given the magnitude of the damage he’s continuing to inflict upon America’s military preparedness and national defense, our enemies’ disregard for The Dear Misleader can only heightened.

In a related item, the AEI‘s Mackenzie Eaglen reports….

Sequestration is more likely than you think

 

Gays in foxholes….women on submarines….military budget cutbacks even Leon “I’m flying home for the weekend” Panetta deems dangerous; and these myrmidons behind me have gone along with the program every step of the way!

Sequestration: it’s a term only Washington could love. Behind the bland euphemism lie dramatic cuts to the U.S. military, shipbuilding and aerospace manufacturing jobs, and in communities across America.

Washington politicians insist a half trillion in defense cuts — and the attendant degradation to our national security — is a reasoned belt tightening. In reality, sequestration is nothing more than seat of the pants management, a lurch from crisis to crisis. No reasoned, thoughtful process brought this on; it was simply the last minute debt ceiling deal. Now that the cuts are baked into the cake, President Obama has threatened to veto any efforts to unwind sequestration that do not include tax increases.

The president’s veto threat pushes any effort to seriously address these budget cuts to the lame duck session of Congress after the election in November. That does not mean everything will get fixed after the election. Removed from immediate electoral concerns, the thinking goes, Congress will be freed to act decisively, and the winning side in November will emerge with a clear mandate to avoid sequestration through their preferred method — the Democrats, by raising taxes and the Republicans, by cutting entitlements. But no side is likely to emerge with a clear mandate or large majority. All of the same fights and dug-in positions will still be the same after the election as they are today. Worse still, sequestration is already having an impact.

Military’s Budget Is Hostage To a Much Larger Political Fight

The road to the erosion of our military capabilities and the jobs that support them (public and private sector) begins with political gridlock in Washington. House leadership is moving legislation to “fix” sequestration this month. But any House solutions are dead on arrival in the Senate. There, the Democratic majority believes that the threat of sequestration will force Republicans to accede to tax hikes, and Majority Leader Harry Reid has no intention of sacrificing that leverage to stave off additional defense cuts. As Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin stated:

“The dam has got to be broken on revenues and what will break it, I believe, is sequestration…And it can’t be divided and splintered up.  It’s got to be kept intact. And that’s what I believe will move the rigid ideologues to deal finally with revenues.”  

Reid concurred and backed up the White House veto threat:

“In the absence of a balanced plan that would reduce the deficit by at least [the $2 trillion in deficit reduction agreed to in August], I will oppose any efforts to change or roll back the sequester.”

The election is unlikely to change these dynamics. Worse yet, another less anticipated shock could disrupt the system. When the Standard and Poor’s downgraded America’s credit rating in 2011, the loss of the AAA rating was not the end of the game-it was the beginning. As S&P noted at the time:

“The outlook on the long-term rating is negative. We could lower the long-term rating to ‘AA’ within the next two years if we see that less reduction in spending than agreed to, higher interest rates, or new fiscal pressures during the period result in a higher general government debt trajectory than we currently assume in our base case.”

What this means, as BB&T Capital Markets analyst Jeremy W. Devaney notes, is that “delays or single year budget patches may be frowned upon by the ratings agencies under the premise that short-term fixes are displays of governance failures, poor policy, or weak fiscal discipline — all items of risk called out by the S&P.”

Since the only sequestration fixes currently under discussion are short-term, the ratings agencies are watching to see if they should consider another credit downgrade. That could cause a major financial upheaval, raise interest rates, and significantly disrupt the economy at the very time that Congress is trying to reverse defense cuts.

Sequestration and a potential credit downgrade are not the only matters of significance facing the lame duck Congress. A short list of items on the lame duck legislative agenda include:

• Expiration of the Bush tax cuts,
• Increasing the debt ceiling,
• Expiration of the temporary payroll tax relief holiday,
• Expiration of the annual “tax extenders” break,
• Transportation and farm bill reauthorizations,
• Medicare “Doc Fix,”
• Fiscal 2013 appropriations bills, and
• Sequestration.

Each of these items is a mini-war in and of itself; having to address them all at once means sequestration is unlikely to get much attention. In addition, the automatic military budget cuts have become a pawn in a larger negotiation about taxes and America’s overwhelming debt.

Even House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan is skeptical of a grand bargain, saying he has a “hard time” believing that a mood of compromise will overtake Congress after the elections. Part of the challenge is that the ratings agencies’ calculation of the net present value of the future years’ debt reductions would require larger savings to be generated in the out years in order to meet the $1.2 trillion target in last year’s debt ceiling deal. Even if Congress were to agree on change, members would be forced to generate additional savings beyond the roughly $100 billion sequestered in fiscal 2013. This sets the bar even higher for compromise to repeal and replace the currently planned cuts.

Soft Sequestration Has Already Begun

Further complicating a workable solution and alternative to current law is a murky understanding of the mechanics of sequestration. The administration has argued that sequestration must be implemented at the “program, project, and activity” level, cutting all programs equally by about 10 percent. Potentially, this means that the funding for each and every line item in the military’s budget would be automatically reduced by 10 percent overnight. In some cases, the impact is manageable — the Air Force could buy nine drones instead of 10, for instance.

But with larger programs or military construction, sequestration means that some projects cannot even start. The Pentagon cannot buy nine-tenths of a ship or build half of a school. A plane can’t be built with half an assembly line. As a result, work is already being slowed for fear programs will never be finished.

Some argue that an amendment to the 1990 Defense Appropriations Act might allow the administration to reprogram funding between accounts before sequester — leading to “strategically” allocated cuts. In other words, the Pentagon could have the authority, without congressional authorization, to avoid the problem of buying nine-tenths of an airplane, for instance and instead target cuts according to the Pentagon’s priorities. Another potential option is interpreting the sequester as applying broadly to categories such as “Aircraft Procurement-Air Force” and targeting the cuts within these categories, leading to increased flexibility.

Perversely, however, the more flexibility that Pentagon leaders have to choose where they would cut, the more likely Congress is to assume that the cuts will not be catastrophic, and the more likely that sequestration in some form will stand.

Sequestration in All But Name Only

Even if Congress, against all odds, manages to strike a deal, the results will still greatly damage the military. The most likely scenario is that sequestration takes effect in all but name only, at a slightly lower amount and with some flexibility for the Pentagon to target cuts. At its full amount, sequestration would cut $99 billion from the fiscal 2013 defense budget, up from Budget Control Act cuts of roughly $50 billion reflected in the President’s budget request. This means that the probable final scenario is roughly $60 to $85 billion in defense cuts in 2013, leading to roughly $600 to $850 billion in cuts over the next nine years (as opposed to the full $1 trillion).

There are three likely scenarios when it comes to the final amount of defense cuts over the next decade. The new floor is the President’s budget request, which cuts $487 billion. Full sequestration would cut $1 trillion. The “split the baby” option outlined above would cut somewhere between $600 and $850 billion. Secretary Panetta has already outlined many of the possible program cutbacks, delays, and terminations that could take place under full sequestration. Just a few of these include the F-35, the next-generation bomber, the Littoral Combat Ship, delaying the SSBN (X) and permanently cutting the inventory of boats to 10, European Missile Defense, and eliminating the ICBM leg of the nuclear triad.

But how would the “Goldilocks” scenario of $600 to $850 billion in spending reductions impact the military? Because only a few systems comprise an overwhelming percentage of the Pentagon’s modernization budget, virtually all the same programs would still be harmed, delayed and possibly broken permanently as during full sequestration. The F-35, Littoral Combat ship, V-22 Osprey, the Maritime Prepositioning Force, Ballistic Missile Defense, the next-generation bomber, the SSBN (X) and one or two Carrier Strike Groups could all be canceled or delayed indefinitely. These cuts would [limit] the capacity of the military to meet all of its global obligations quickly, harm the services’ anemic modernization plans, lead to layoffs at depots, bases, and factories, and would effectively halt any strategic pivot to Asia.

Sequestration Has Begun

Although the lame duck scenario presupposes that sequestration can wait until January, sequestration starts now. In fact, the worst of sequestration will hit in the October to December timeframe, not in January, as the Pentagon and contractors start anticipating the major cuts. BB&T’s Devaney writes that DoD will change what it is buying in anticipation of sequestration resulting in lost revenue, lost jobs, and a depleted defense industrial base. In fact, the Pentagon will begin a “soft shutdown” in preparation for a “hard stop” of programs on January 2. This means that even if Congress passes a lame duck deal, it may already be too late for some furloughed people and programs.

In 2011, due to Congress’ refusal (Uh….you mean the Democratic-controlled Senate!) to pass a budget, all of the federal government, including the Department of Defense, operated under a series of continuing resolutions (CRs) that essentially locked in past spending levels one increment at a time until Congress finally passed a budget. In FY 2011, this process went on for six months and wrought havoc on the Pentagon’s budgeting process. Under the CR, many of the services couldn’t hire new employees, the Pentagon couldn’t initiate new construction projects, and the services couldn’t expand their purchases of existing programs.

This autumn will feature a sort of “soft sequestration” that will closely mirror the CR crisis of 2011 — only it will be much worse. DoD will not receive funds until the second half of this fiscal year, and once it has cash in hand, will not receive a full year’s dollars but rather periodic inflows of cash. As a result, major contract actions will be held in abeyance. Furthermore, many DoD program managers will delay soliciting bids for programs until they have cash on hand or the cloud of sequestration is lifted.

Both of these factors will create a massive bow wave in spending at the end of the year that the system may not be able to fully absorb, resulting in schedule slips and cost increases. These will, in turn, hurt the ramp for Pentagon programs, making them un-executable in the next fiscal year. The cost of the program will subsequently rise and increase the likelihood of further reductions or outright cancellation.

On top of all this is the reality that government and industry officials will make certain assumptions in the absence of action by Congress regarding what will ultimately be appropriated. The expected lower amount will drive decision-making as defense officials obligate the dollars they ultimately receive. For instance, many construction projects may be canceled outright when they might have simply been delayed in previous budgetary cycles. Finally, operating at reduced funding for a fraction of the fiscal year means personnel and O&M accounts will be short of dollars. The Pentagon will move money from other urgent priorities to cover the gaps in these “must pay” shortfalls, shortchanging other priorities like modernization.

Nor will the effects of soft sequestration be limited to the Pentagon. Just as DoD cannot wait until lame duck to begin layoffs in anticipation of sequestration, industry will begin looking at layoffs, as well. According to the WARN Act, industry is required to notify its employees of furlough 60 days prior to the action. As Lockheed Martin CEO Robert Stevens said,

“The very prospect of sequestration is already having a chilling effect on the industry. We’re not gonna hire, we’re not gonna make speculative investments, we’re not gonna invest in incremental training because the uncertainty associated with $53 billion of reductions in the first fiscal quarter of next year is a huge disruption to our business.”

Maybe the Mayans Were Right

December 2012 is shaping up to be a cataclysmic month. Outside of the halls of Congress, the world is facing a witch’s brew of challenges, including the European debt crisis, the continued development of the Iranian nuclear weapons program, and tensions involving North Korea that take us to “within an inch of war” daily according to Secretary Panetta. All of these factors combine with the American presidential elections, a possible debt downgrade, the specter of an economic shock from three tax cuts expiring simultaneously and an ongoing strategic pivot to Asia where a rising great power competitor regularly tries to undermine American power.

The world is becoming increasingly scary at the very time that the military will be facing 20% reductions. With each passing day, the world closes in; with each passing day, our ability to manage that world degrades.

And The Dear Misleader’s reaction?

Meanwhile, as this item from Bloomberg.com, courtesy of George Lawlor reports:

Cnooc Deploys Oil Rig as Weapon to Assert China Sea Claims

 

China’s first deep-water drilling rig began operations near islands in the South China Sea in a move to assert Beijing’s territorial claims as travel agencies suspended tours to the Philippines amid safety concerns.

Cnooc Ltd. (883), China’s largest offshore oil producer, said its semi-submersible CNOOC 981 began drilling yesterday 320 kilometers (199 miles) southeast of Hong Kong at a depth of 1,500 meters, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The area is north of the Paracel islands claimed by China, Vietnam and Taiwan.

“Large deep-water drilling rigs are our mobile national territory and strategic weapon for promoting the development of the country’s offshore oil industry,” said Wang Yilin, Cnooc’s chairman, according to Xinhua. The rig would help China secure energy resources in the waters, it cited him as saying.

“Mobile national territory”….”strategic weapon for promoting the development of the country’s offshore oil industry”; which makes this next item from Lanterloon.com, dated September 2011, all the more relevant:

China’s New Aircraft Carrier—the Long View 

 

“This isn’t a shift in the strategic balance of power or a new force projection by the Chinese, and military analysts will say the Chinese operating a viable carrier fleet at sea, contesting the U.S. Navy, is well off into the future.

But the Chinese don’t use the same calendar as we. They aren’t concerned about next year or five years from now in their military buildup. They know it’s the first step in a thousand-mile journey.“

http://lanterloon.com/chinas-new-aircraft-carrier-the-long-view/

Are we the only one struck by the paradox of China developing both it’s military and domestic sources of fossil fuel at an ever-increasing rate breakneck pace while The Obamao does his darndest to dismantle and decimate ours?!?

Not to mention the Chinese, who already own a significant portion of America’s national debt, are saving tens, if not hundreds of billions of R&D dollars by utilizing stolen plans and schematics in the development of their 5th generation stealth aircraft.

And in the Environmental Moment, in light of the import of this next item, the L.A. City Council might want to reconsider their ban on plastic grocery bags:

Norovirus Outbreak Traced to Reusable Grocery Bag

Infection spread after one girl became sick during soccer team travels.

And “Hello” to gastroenteritis!

A case study showing how a grocery bag and its contents caused an outbreak of the stomach bugnorovirus highlights the role that inanimate objects can play in such outbreaks, researchers say. The study appears online May 9 in The Journal of Infectious Diseases.

Noroviruses are highly contagious and the leading cause of gastroenteritis (commonly called stomach flu) worldwide. They also are the most common cause of food-borne outbreaks in the United States, according to a journal news release.

On the Lighter Side….

And in the “Gee….Ya THINK?!?” segment, consider this headline and the accompanying photo:

All passengers feared dead after Russian plane on demo flight crashes in Indonesia

 

Will all due respect to those who died in this tragic accident….Gee….ya THINK?!?

Finally, in News of the Bizarre….

Zoo chimp makes elaborate plots to attack humans

 

“Santino,” a male chimpanzee at Furuvik Zoo in Sweden, is devising increasingly complex attacks against zoo visitors.

At first Santino was famous for throwing rocks and other projectiles at visitors who annoyed him. Now he has improved his technique, which requires spontaneous innovation for future deception. Researcher Mathias Osvath, lead author of a paper about Santino in PLoS ONE, explained what the clever chimp did:

“After a visitor group had left the compound area, Santino went inside the enclosure and brought a good-sized heap of hay that he placed near the visitor’s section, and immediately after that he put stones under it,” Osvath said.

“He also appeared to have placed projectiles behind, just before he went in after the hay. After this, he sat down beside the hay and waited. When the visitors came back, he waited until they were close by and, without any preceding display, he threw stones at the crowd.”

Osvath, who is the scientific director of the Lund University Primate Research Station Furuvik, and colleague Elin Karvonen noticed the behavior while studying the elderly chimp, who is the dominant male in his exhibit at the Swedish zoo.

The calculated surprise attacks on visitors demonstrate very advanced thinking usually only associated with humans.

Reports the President has personally requested Santino join his re-election campaign to help him with his “enemies list” remain unconfirmed.

Enjoy the weekend.  Look for a special weekend edition on Saturday; so little time, so much to report!

Magoo