Meanwhile In Minnesota….

November 28, 2008 by Robert Nedelkoff | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Congress, Democratic Party, Election 2008, Obama administration, Republican Party | Leave a Comment 

….the recount in the contest between incumbent Republican Norm Coleman and Democrat Al Franken for the former’s Senate seat continues.  As of 8 pm last night, with a shade over 86% of the ballots counted, Coleman led the former Saturday Night Live cast member by little more than 4000 votes.  Some days ago Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com, who caused a sensation on Election Day when it turned out that his arcane figuring had produced a forecast of Obama’s electoral victory with state-by-state precision, offered his prediction about the results of the recount; he forecasts that Franken will prevail in it by all of twenty-seven votes, a margin that would make Lyndon Johnson’s 87-vote spread against Coke Stevenson in the 1948 Democratic primary for the Senate seat from Texas look like a downright landslide.  (Silver buttresses his argument with calculations that only your neighborhood graduate-school math professor could decipher.)

As spectacularly narrow as that margin would be, it already has been beat a few times during this election season, albeit in local races.  For instance, in a borough council election in New Jersey, Republican Jerry Stevenson defeated his Democratic opponent Dan Dunham by eight votes, out of about 6700 cast.  A recount was requested.  This time, Stevenson won again – by a single vote, thus going a long way – as will the results in Minnesota - to support the old saw that “every vote counts.” 

And should Franken prevail in the land of a thousand lakes, then even if Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss wins the recount in Georgia, Obama could still obtain a filibuster-proof majority of 60 in the upper chamber by naming either of Maine’s two GOP senators, Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins, to the Cabinet, thus enabling the state’s Democratic governor to name a replacement.  It will be an eventful five weeks before the new Congress convenes on January 3.

In Memoriam: Gavriel and Rivka Holtzberg

November 28, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Faith, Yorba Linda | Leave a Comment 

The Holtzbergs

News comes this morning of the deaths in a house of God of Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, and three other innocents at the hands of the Mumbai terrorists. Gavriel and Rivka ran Mumbai’s Chabad House, part of the worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch movement. Their two-year-old son Moshe and his nanny had escaped earlier in the siege.

TNN’s deepest condolences to our Yorba Linda neighbors the North County Chabad Center.

The Economic Crisis Unfolding in China

November 28, 2008 by Drew Thompson | Filed Under China | Leave a Comment 

The economic crisis is having an increasingly visible impact in China. Reports of factory closings, particularly in export-oriented regions such as southern Guangzhou province is raising concerns about unrest as hundreds of thousands of migrants are laid off and head back to their home towns. It looks like it will get worse before it gets better for Chinese workers.

“This crisis is spreading all over the world and its impact on China’s economy is deepening,” Zhang Ping, chairman of the Cabinet’s National Development and Reform Commission, said at a news conference. He said economic indicators for November were showing an “even faster decline,” though he gave no details.

The World Bank this week announced a growth forecast for China of 7.5% in 2009. This would be the lowest GDP increase in 20 years and it symbolically significant because Chinese leaders believe that annual increases of 8% or more are needed to absorb new graduates and workers laid off from state owned enterprises into the work force. Keeping inflation at bay is the next major priority for economic planners. The leadership is well aware of the role that rapid inflation plays in stoking unrest. Historians recognize that inflation was a contributing factor in the fall of the Kuomingtang in 1949 and the mass demonstrations in 1989. Thankfully, the Chinese leadership is taking some concrete actions in addition to vague announcements about spending plans. Recent interest rate cuts, strengthened price controls and the announced export VAT-rebate taking affect on Monday will help contain some of the fall out from the crisis.

Featured Articles — November 28, 2008

November 28, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes from Home and Abroad:

India’s Antiterror Blunders By Sadanand Dhume
Years of appeasing militants has made the problem worse.

Turbulence Ahead By Peggy Noonan
Some things to be thankful for in depressing times.

The Washington Stock Market By Charles Krauthammer
In the old days — from the Venetian Republic to, oh, the Bear Stearns rescue — if you wanted to get rich, you did it the Warren Buffett way: You learned to read balance sheets. Today you learn to read political tea leaves. You don’t anticipate Intel’s third-quarter earnings; instead, you guess what side of the bed Henry Paulson will wake up on tomorrow.

Behind Mumbai by Robert D. Kaplan
Robert D. Kaplan offers insight into the Hindu-Muslim tensions festering within India.

Hillary of State, How much will this cost the Obama administration? By Kimberley Strassel
One rule of employee relations? Never hire someone you can’t afford to fire. Barack Obama’s offer to let Hillary Clinton be secretary of state has already been marked down as a brilliant co-option of his former rival. But nothing comes for free, and the question is just how big a price Mr. Obama will pay in the end.

From TR to BHO by Martin Peretz
Obama, The New Republic, and the presidents we’ve loved.

Putin’s Intentions Debated After Shift on 4-Year Term By Philip P. Pan
Not so long ago, a relatively young, newly elected president of Russia was presented with a proposal to amend the nation’s constitution and extend the four-year term of the presidency.

DC’s Rotten Schools, The Real National Scandal By Jonah Goldberg
HYPOCRISY is an over blown sin. Better to be a hypocrite who occasion ally violates his principles than a villain who never does.

Frank Langella: “I Liked Richard Nixon”

November 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Frost/Nixon | 7 Comments 

The Wall Street Journal interviews Frank Langella, whom Roger Elbert favors as winner of the Academy Award for best actor for “Frost/Nixon”:

I liked Richard Nixon and I liked playing him. I don’t think he’ll ever be gone from me, because something about the man is just very powerful. His pain, and the obviousness of his pain, stays with you. It’s not a sentiment that’s new to any of us — you could see it on him at all times, his discomfort in public — but I discovered he could be equally funny and charming. He just wasn’t a relaxed man, and was forever churning away, trying to achieve greatness.

In July 2006, while preparing for the Broadway run of Peter Morgan’s play, the actor visited the Nixon Library, talking to those had know the President and spending a over an hour studying the materials he had used to prepare for the Frost interviews in 1977. (That’s me, showing him the binders.) He cheerfully owned the fashionably anti-Nixon, anti-Vietnam views he’d held in the 1970s. But unlike Sir Anthony Hopkins, who made a half-hearted PR visit to Yorba Linda before appearing in Oliver Stone’s bizarre fantasy “Nixon,” Langella said he was aiming for a fleshed-out, empathetic performance.

Director Ron Howard chose the Library’s White House East Room to film Langella’s performance as RN saying goodbye to his colleagues on August 9, 1974. It was a painful moment for the country as well as the President and his family. My colleagues Kathy O’Connor, Sandy Quinn, and I watched Howard and him film three takes. His performance was dignified and powerful. Afterwards, he left the set and walked toward us, still in character, and gave us a hug. We gulped and called him “Mr. President.”

The Magical Scowcroft Effect

November 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Barack Obama, International Affairs, National Security, Nixon Administration figures | Leave a Comment 

Under the tutelage of an acolyte of Henry Kissinger, the foreign policy realists and idealists are switching parties. E. J. Dionne, Jr.:

What’s most striking about Obama’s approach to foreign policy is that he is less an idealist than a realist who would advance American interests by diplomacy, by working to improve the country’s image abroad, and by using military force prudently and cautiously.

This sounds a lot like the foreign policy of George H.W. Bush, and it makes perfect sense that Obama has had conversations with the senior Bush’s closest foreign policy adviser, Brent Scowcroft. Obama has drawn counsel from many in Scowcroft’s circle, and [Defense chief Robert] Gates himself was deputy national security adviser under Scowcroft.

A Domestic Tragedy

November 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under International Affairs, Terrorism | Leave a Comment 

Fareed Zakaria says the Mumbai terrorists were probably targeting Indians, not westerners. He doubts an al-Qaeda connection.

Probably Not The Right Evening To Post This

November 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Culture | Leave a Comment 

During a visit to Florida, “Spectator” columnist Hugo Rifkind, who also writes for the London Times, observes, Tocquevillelike, that we are a large and expansive people:

I can see many from the window of my hotel room, down there on the shore watching the startlingly noisy, don’t-book-a-room-next-door, annual Key West World Championship Power Boat race. Arse fat, neck fat, hip fat, thigh fat. There’s also the proper, terrifying Star Wars villain fat: arms unable to descend below an obtuse isosceles triangle sort of thing, but that’s actually fairly rare. I can only see two of them, rippling slightly as the boats roar past. Most common is what you’d have to call skinny fat: slender arms, slender legs, but with a bulge in the front of their polo-shirt, like they’ve been out shoplifting soft furnishings. My doctor tells me I’m a touch overweight, but I could be a whole different species.

The Deaths Of Journalism

November 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Book Review, News media, Presidents, Russia | Leave a Comment 

Mary Cassatt’s Children Playing on the Beach, or a painting much like it, stars in Daniel Silva’s riveting thriller Moscow Rules, about a Russian oligarch whose promiscuous weapons sales put him in bed with al-Qaeda. The deal with the devil is uncover by a brave editor in Moscow.

A former UPI foreign correspondent who’s married to NBC’s Jamie Gangel, Silva, in extensive author’s notes, reminds us that while journalism appears to be dying in the U.S., elsewhere it’s the journalists:

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 47 reporters, editors, cameramen, and photographers have been killed in Russia since 1992, making it the third-deadliest country in the world in which to practice the craft of journalism, after Iraq and Algeria. Fourteen of those deaths occurred during the rule of Russian president [now PM] Vladimir Putin, who undertook a systematic crack-down on press freedom and political dissent after coming to power in 1999. Virtually all the murders were contract killings, and few have been solved or prosecuted.

Silva also thanks Jean Becker, “amazing” chief of staff to former President and Barbara Bush. Hear hear! Jean has also extended many kindnesses to the Nixon family and Foundation over the years.

***

I should have noted that my colleague David Stokes beat me to Silva’s yarn by fourh months. Read his excellent comments here.

“An Uncomfortable Thanksgiving”

November 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Domestic issues, Nixon Center | 1 Comment 

Foreign policy blogger Steve Clemons, the first executive director of The Nixon Center, bridges the personal and geopolitical.

Perfect Songs: “Blowin’ In The Wind” (1963)

November 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Music, Perfect Songs | Leave a Comment 

Bob Dylan and Joan Baez

An exquisite audio-only recording of a different performance by the two is available here.

Giving Thanks

November 27, 2008 by Jack Pitney | Filed Under Afghanistan, Military, Richard Nixon | 3 Comments 

On November 10, 1969 RN issued a message to the armed forces: “This Thanksgiving Day provides an ideal occasion for all Americans to acknowledge and give thanks for the courage, devotion to duty, and the loyalty you have demonstrated in service to our nation.”

We should indeed be thankful for the men and women of the United States armed forces — and intelligence services. Every day, while we go about our business and fret about our petty concerns, they are risking their lives to keep us safe and free. Over the years, I have had the privilege of teaching a number of students who went on to join their ranks. One of them, Moti Sorkin, is an Army Ranger and was a platoon leader in Afghanistan, where he kept a blog. Here is what he wrote on the anniversary of 9/11:

[U]ltimately, protecting America involves more than just killing bad guys. That means I’ve often got different missions than the ones I envisioned in my sleep-deprived days of Ranger school, where I dreamed of mowing down the Islamist horde with an endless belt of 7.62. Despite what Brian DePalma and his ilk might think, I don’t go around dictating law with the muzzle of my rifle, and neither do my men…Every mission we have is dedicated to helping Afghanistan, and to making this country a better place. For the only way Afghanistan will no longer be a threat to America is if it gets better…

I am thankful that I have gotten to know such people, and I am thankful that our country continues to produce them.

Mr. Conservative And Mr. Democrat?

November 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Obama administration, The National Interest | Leave a Comment 

Jacob Heilbrunn:

Maybe not, but what Obama’s [Cabinet and personnel] choices indicate is that his temperament is fundamentally a conservative one—and it’s the reason, after all, that he got elected in the first place. Obama’s statements and choices suggest sobriety rather than risk-taking. Obama, in other words, is the anti-Bush not only in tone, but also in substance. Where Bush was a radical, Obama could be the most conservative president America has had in decades. This, in brief, could be the real change that Obama represents.

Which Puppy? Which Pew? Decisions, Decisions

November 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Barack Obama, Episconixonian, Episcopal Church | Leave a Comment 

The Washington Post’s Sally Quinn says the church-shopping Obamas should go Episcopal. Yeah!

Jihading To Conclusions

November 27, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under International Affairs, Terrorism | Leave a Comment 

In India, the magnitude of the attacks, taking of hostages, and targeting of westerners have led to speculation about an al-Qeada link. The “Economist” says not so fast:

Indian officials have so far resisted suggestions that Indian Muslims are being radicalised and joining a global jihad. Many refer approvingly to the observation of George Bush that Muslims from India have not in general turned up to fight the infidels on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. But security analysts have meanwhile despaired at the unpreparedness of India’s security agencies to counter a domestic Islamist threat. Whether or not al-Qaeda was behind the latest attack, that happy complacency must now have ended.

Please Pass the Brisket

November 27, 2008 by David R. Stokes | Filed Under Culture, Faith, History, Religion, U.S. History | 1 Comment 

Ever hear of Gershom Mendes Seixas? Well, he might just be the forgotten hero of Thanksgiving.

Our national Thanksgiving narrative is rich with stories about proclamations, gatherings, meals, traditions, football, and of course, the obligatory pardoning of a turkey by the president of these United States. School children rehearse that day long ago when the Plymouth pilgrims broke bread. We note things Lincoln said (he’s all the rage these days). And doubtless you have heard about what our first president, George Washington, declared while proclaiming the first “official” national day of Thanksgiving in 1789:

I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the signal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpositions of His providence in the course and conclusion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have since enjoyed; for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to establish constitutions of government for our safety and happiness, and particularly the national one now lately instituted for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffusing useful knowledge; and, in general, for all the great and various favors which He has been pleased to confer upon us.

We hear much these days about our “Judeo-Christian” heritage and its early and enduring influence on our culture. A look back at the founding era of our nation reminds us, however, that only about 2,500 Jews actually lived in the colonies in 1776. Usually those of us who speak of that early dual influence are referring to the Christian Bible with its Jewish roots.

But pointing this out is not to say that Jews were not active and represented during the colonial and founding periods, quite the contrary – there are some fascinating and often overlooked stories.

Gershom Mendes Seixas is a case in point. He was “American Judaism’s first public figure.” In 1768, he was appointed hazzan of Congregation Shearith Israel in New York – the only synagogue serving the city’s approximately 300 residents. He was only 23 years old at the time and largely self-taught in the Talmud with much help from his devout father, though never actually an “official” rabbi. In fact, it would be several decades before a rabbi was ordained in America.

Seixas was the first Jewish preacher to use the English language in his homilies. He was a gifted teacher and tireless worker. And when it came to the American Revolution, he was a patriot – as demonstrated by his actions while the colonies were struggling to actually realize the independence that had been recently proclaimed.

His synagogue, like the much of the greater public, was somewhat divided on the issue of independence. But Seixas used all of his persuasive skills to convince his congregation that they should cease operations in advance of the approaching British occupation of the city, during the early days of the conflict.

He fled to his wife’s family home in Connecticut, carrying various books and scrolls precious to the synagogue for safekeeping. In 1780, he accepted the leadership role at a synagogue in Philadelphia, where he became an outspoken cultural voice regularly calling on God to watch over General Washington and the great cause.

When the war ended, he was invited back to resume his work with Congregation Shearith Israel in New York. He returned with the books and scrolls to serve from 1784 until his death 32 years later.

When George Washington was inaugurated as the first president of the United States on April 30, 1789, Seixas was asked to participate as one of the presiding clergyman. This was certainly an act of gratitude by Washington for the preacher’s stalwart support during the war. It was also, though, an expression of Washington’s thinking about the importance of religious freedom and diversity in the new nation.

Later that year, as the nation set aside Thursday, the 26th of November, the date so designated by the president for Thanksgiving, Seixas preached a sermon to his New York congregation.

His Thanksgiving Day message was based on a text from the Psalms where it talked about how King David had “made a joyful noise unto the Lord.” Seixas told his listeners that they had much to rejoice about – the new nation, its president, and above all, the new constitution.”

Warming to his theme, he reminded them that they were “equal partakers of every benefit that results from this good government,” and therefore should be good citizens in full support of the government. Beyond that, they were encouraged to conduct themselves as “living evidences of his divine power and unity.” He further admonished them “to live as Jews ought to do in brotherhood and amity, to seek peace and pursue it.”

In my opinion, Gershom Mendes Seixas’ sermon is every bit as relevant to all of us 219 years later.

Happy Thankgiving from TNN

November 27, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Holidays | Leave a Comment 

President Nixon participates in the annual pardoning of the Thanksgiving turkey

Featured Articles — November 27, 2008

November 27, 2008 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles | Leave a Comment 

Interesting Takes from Home and Abroad:

‘A Day of Thanksgiving’ By Ira Stoll
The national holiday actually began at a dark hour during our war for independence. Here’s the story.

The Mayhem in Mumbai By Fareed Zakaria
Making sense of India’s terrorist attacks

The Hysterical Style By Victor Davis Hanson
Politicians now predict the implosion of the U.S. auto industry. Headlines warn that the entire banking system is on the verge of utter collapse. The all-day/all-night cable news shows and op-ed columnists talk of another Dark Age on the horizon, as each day another corporation lines up for its me-too bailout.

Only a strategic partnership with China will keep this new dawn bright By Timothy Garton Ash
This hard-nosed power does not share the west’s enthusiasms. Deep engagement is the best way to fend off conflict.

Life After Foggy Bottom By David Ignatius
She is immaculately dressed, as always, wearing a gold necklace and a tailored suit in the fashionable color known as “aubergine.”

Giving Thanks to Heroes By Nicholas D. Kristof
This is a column to give thanks to you, the reader. You don’t know it, but some of you are keeping women like Sajida Bibi alive here in this remote Pakistani village. And that is a far grander reason to celebrate Thanksgiving than even the plumpest turkey.

Free Ride for the Campus Left By George Will
In 1892, a Massachusetts court ruled that a policeman’s speech rights had not been violated by a law forbidding certain political activities by officers. State Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes wrote: “The petitioner may have a constitutional right to talk politics, but he has no constitutional right to be a policeman.”

No Butz About It

November 26, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under Economic issues, Nixon Administration figures, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Here’s something. At the arch-doctrinaire “National Review,” Reihan Salam offers a partial limited rehab of President Nixon’s anti-inflation policies.

Department Of Wishful Thinking

November 26, 2008 by John H. Taylor | Filed Under American Politics, Barack Obama, Richard Nixon | Leave a Comment 

Daniel Frick:

Can Barack Obama succeed in laying Richard Nixon’s ghost to rest? As Obama pledges bipartisanship and reaches across the aisle to John McCain, many of us can’t help but hope that we’ve seen the end of the politics of denigration.

Of course you have!

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