Most telling quote about Iranian nuclear arms deal: Do you really want a treaty that depends on "goodwill" from both parties to work?

Here is a quote from the very end of an article in the WSJ:

. . . observers warned that given the complexity of the agreement, which contains one main text and five detailed annexes and totals about 100 pages, the risks of disputes over implementation of terms could cause delays or even derail the deal. 

“The technical obstacles can be surpassed with goodwill and diligence, but political hurdles can turn into poison pills,” said Ali Vaez, senior Iran analyst at Crisis International, an international conflict resolution group. 

“Neither Iran nor the U.S. has ever implemented such a complex quid pro quo. . . .

How good is a deal that depends on the "goodwill" for the two parties involved to make sure that the treaty works? 

Robert Gates: Obama asked troops to fight in Afghanistan (including my son) even though he didn't believe in the war

Sending 18, 19, 20 year old kids to fight and die in a war that you aren't really interested in fighting nor that you care about is pretty bad.  The book is described as unusual for a former cabinet member to write a book with such a bitter tone about a president and how it is so particularly unusual for Gates given that people view him as someone who it is very difficult to get angry.  From the Washington Post:

In a new memoir, former defense secretary Robert Gates unleashes harsh judgments about President Obama’s leadership and his commitment to the Afghanistan war, writing that by early 2010 he had concluded the president “doesn’t believe in his own strategy, and doesn’t consider the war to be his. For him, it’s all about getting out.” . . . 

As a candidate, Obama had made plain his opposition to the 2003 Iraq invasion while embracing the Afghanistan war as a necessary response to the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, requiring even more military resources to succeed. In Gates’s highly emotional account, Obama remains uncomfortable with the inherited wars and distrustful of the military that is providing him options. Their different worldviews produced a rift that, at least for Gates, became personally wounding and impossible to repair. . . . 

In “Duty,” Gates describes his outwardly calm demeanor as a facade. Underneath, he writes, he was frequently “seething” and “running out of patience on multiple fronts.”

CNN: Former White House Official says "[Obama] is really good at campaigning, maybe not governing"

Obama says that there is nothing wrong with his management style, any problems with Obamacare are unique to it

The notion that Obama has been doing a great job of overseeing how the government is running is pretty funny given that he is consistently not taking responsibility for everything from IRSgate, APgate, Benghazi, EPAgate, NSAgate, and Sebelius shaking down the companies that she regulates for donations.  On so many of these issues he says that he only discovers problems from reading about them in the press.  Yet, in an interview with Chris Matthews on Thursday, Obama argues that the problems with lack of oversight in managing Obamacare are unique and aren't symptomatic of his administration generally.  Of course, for years, Obama tends to blame everyone but himself for things that have gone wrong.

Here is a video of Matthews' interview and the relevant part of the transcript.

Chris Matthews (at 22:07): . . . there should have been a CEO assigned by you, personally with unique personal responsibility to oversee the rollout of healthcare and there wasn't.  When Secretary Sebelius appeared in that hearing and she was asked by Marsha Blackburn, who's in charge, it took awhile for her to answer. And she finally got to the Chief Operating Officer of CMS, the Center for Medicaid and Medicare, and it didn't seem like there was a strong top-down authority system from you. Did you have, do you have that? Let's look forward here. Do you have a relationship with your cabinet?  Do you have a system of cracking the whip? They follow through and they execute as you envision they should or do you work through a COO, like Mr. McDonough? What is your system for management? 

Obama: Well, first of all I think it's important to distinguish between this particular project, this healthcare project, where it is obvious that we needed additional controls in place, because it didn't deliver on time the way we wanted. And how we've managed incredibly complex problems for the last five years. Everything from wars to pandemics to, you know, natural disasters to, you know, expanding student loans for young peoples. 

Generally speaking, my theory has been, number one, that yes, I've got a strong Chief of Staff but I'm holding every cabinet member accountable and I want to have strong interactions with them, directly. Number two, is I have an open door policy where I want people bringing me bad news on time so we can fix things. And, that you know, the challenge, I think, that we have going forward is not so much my personal management style or particular issues around White House organization. It actually has to do with what I referred to earlier which is we had these big agencies, some of which are outdated. Some of which are not designed properly. 

We've got, for example, 16 different agencies that have some responsibility to help businesses, large and small, in all kinds of ways. Whether it's helping to finance them, helping them to export. And so if you're a small business person getting started, you may think you need to go to the Small Business Administration on one thing, you've got to go Commerce on another. So, we've proposed let's consolidate a bunch of that stuff. 

The challenge we've got is that that requires a law to pass. And frankly, there are a lot of members of Congress who are chairman of a particular committee and they don't want necessarily consolidations where they would lose jurisdiction over certain aspects of certain policies. But this is going to be a major focus and has been over the last five years, but going forward over the next three years, how do we have a 21st century federal government? And this is part of the reason why people are skeptical. There are just some things people have an interaction with the federal government where we could be doing a much better job.

David Plouffe on why Obama should veto the 2011 debt agreement between Democratic and Republican Congressional leaders: “We will not get credit for doing anything."

Bob Woodward on Obama's haphazard way of dealing with the debt limit talks and his concern to get credit for any budget agreement.  Congress was upset that Obama had defaulted on a deal at the last moment, and now Obama was upset that he would be left out of the deal.

. . . Boehner said he believed that he and the others — Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi — had a plan. He told Obama: We think we can work this out. Give us a little more time. We’ll come back to you. We are not going to negotiate this with you.
Obama objected, saying that he couldn’t be left out of the process. . . .
Reid, the most powerful Democrat on Capitol Hill, spoke up. The congressional leaders want to speak privately, he said. Give us some time. . . .

. . . Reid arrived in the Oval Office with his chief of staff, David Krone. . . .
It was highly unusual for someone to pass the ball so completely to a staffer. The 44-year-old Krone outlined the plan, including a secret Republican pledge to count $1 trillion in savings from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan toward deficit reduction. That was surprising. Earlier, Boehner had not been willing to accept this accounting gimmick.“I don’t trust these guys,” the president said dismissively. Krone either would not or could not conceal his anger. . . .
“Mr. President, I am sorry — with all due respect — that we are in this situation that we’re in, but we got handed this football on Friday night. And I didn’t create this situation. The first thing that baffles me is, from my private-sector experience, the first rule that I’ve always been taught is to have a Plan B. And it is really disheartening that you, that this White House did not have a Plan B.” Several jaws dropped as the Hill staffer blasted the president to his face. . . .
“You can’t veto,” Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told the group. “You cannot be responsible for default.” Anything had to be done to prevent it. Anything to preserve the global economy.“If he caves,” said David Plouffe, Obama’s senior political adviser, “it will have long-lasting political repercussions that we may never get out of. If we draw a line in the sand on something this important and cross it, we may never be able to come back.”Accepting a two-step deal would not work, Plouffe said. “We will not get credit for doing anything. We’ll look like we got bullied by a bunch of very unpopular and irresponsible people.”Geithner had to deal with the possibility that the House bill could reach Obama’s desk. “My recommendation to the president would be, we’ve got to sign this. If that’s what they offer us, we sign it.” . . .

Did the US Government handle the Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng case well?

A political activist under house arrest by the Chinese government makes a daring escape to the US Embassy.  Publicly the Obama administration praises his bravery.  Privately did they really pressure him to leave the US Embassy?  CNN has this transcript of their interview with Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng:

Q: What prompted your change of heart [about leaving the US Embassy]?
A: The embassy kept lobbying me to leave and promised to have people stay with me in the hospital. But this afternoon as soon as I checked into the hospital room, I noticed they were all gone.
Q: Has the U.S. disappointed you?
A: I'm very disappointed at the U.S. government.
Q: Why?
A: I don't think (U.S. officials) protected human rights in this case.
Q: What would you say to U.S. President Obama?
A: I would like to say to (President Obama): Please do everything you can to get our whole family out.
Q: Is this your most urgent wish?
A: That's right.
Q: What has your wife told you after you escaped?
A: (My wife) was tied to a chair by police for two days. Then they carried sticks to our home, threatening to beat her to death. Now they have moved into the house -- eating at our table and using our stuff. Our home is teeming with security -- on the roof and in the yard. They have installed seven surveillance cameras inside the house and built electric fences around the yard.
Q: What did officials tell her if you didn't leave the embassy?
A: They said they would send her back (to Shandong) and people there would beat her. . . .

It doesn't seem as if the Obama administration followed the expectations of others for this case.  From the UK Guardian:

Jean-Pierre Cabestan of Hong Kong University said if Chen was at the embassy, the two governments would probably try to downplay the issue, at least until the end of this week's talks.
"Then the Obama administration will try to find a solution that may not be asylum, but an assurance from Beijing that they will stop harrassing Chen; but if that does not work, asylum will eventually be granted," he said.
Nicholas Bequelin, of Human Rights Watch, said it was unlikely that the Chinese government would accept Chen's demands for an investigation into his case. In the interim, Washington should offer to take Chen and his family to the US for "medical reasons". "If Beijing is not ready for that either, they should be ready to shelter Chen for a longer time, until a solution is negotiated," Bequelin said. . . .

Apparently, Chen was willing "to spend may years" in the US Embassy.  Did the Obama administration put a lot of pressure on Chen to get him to change his mind?


Boy, if the story below is correct, there is more evidence that turning away defectors is part of US policy.

The office of Vice President Joe Biden overruled State and Justice Department officials in denying the political asylum request of a senior Chinese communist official last February over fears the high-level defection would upset the U.S. visit of China’s vice president, according to U.S. officials.
The defector, Wang Lijun, was turned away after 30 hours inside the U.S. Consulate Chengdu and given over to China’s Ministry of State Security, the political police and intelligence service.
Wang has not been seen since Feb. 7 and remains under investigation. His attempt to flee China set off a major power struggle within the ruling Communist Party and led to the ouster of leftist Politburo member Bo Xilai and the arrest of his wife on murder charges. . . .

Here is a discussion from the WSJ that indicates that the US felt pressure to make a deal quickly.  At least the US got a deal over cleaner burning cook stoves.

It would be "historic" for Obama to win after saying Americans are worse off now than when he became president

So much for Obamacare reigning in health insurance costs

Debra Saunders has this useful summary:

Ryan cited the unintended consequences that employer-paid health care plans have delivered: "The system that shields us from the cost of services has actually left us paying much, much more."

On the same day, the Kaiser Family Foundation released a report that bolstered Ryan's argument. Over the past year, average annual cost for employer-sponsored health care plans rose 9 percent. Premiums have more than doubled since 2001. The average annual premium is now $15,073 per family -- and that doesn't include out-of-pocket payments.

With premiums rising higher than inflation, those numbers are biting into workers' paychecks. And there's little employers can do other than raise employee contributions from an average of $1,787 per family 10 years ago to $4,129 today.

The Affordable Care Act, signed by President Barack Obama, was supposed to rein in runaway health care costs. How's that going? Not as advertised. Even before the ACA takes full effect in 2014, today's mandates -- such as a requirement that employers offer coverage for adult children up to the age of 26 and that some plans provide free preventive care -- must be a factor in the cost spurt. The Kaiser report estimates that 2.3 million adult children were added to their parents' employer-sponsored plans because of the law.

Democrats complain about employers choosing to sit on their money and not hire. But their health care mandates serve as a tax on hiring workers.

It can only get worse. As providers consolidate, consumers' options decrease. Ryan told reporters after his talk that he sees a future in which, as with utilities, there are a mere "handful" of providers. That can't be good for consumers. . . .

Obama compares himself to Carter

Suskind's new book has been widely denounced by the Obama administration. Politico has this:

No White House would want such an image of the boss to take hold as a reelection campaign began. But some of the book’s most intriguing quotes come from Obama himself.

Suskind quoted Obama as saying in the interview, on Feb. 14: “The area in my presidency where I think my management and understanding of the presidency evolved most, and where I think we made the most mistakes, was less on the policy front and more on the communications front.

“I think one of the criticisms that is absolutely legitimate about my first two years was that I was very comfortable with a technocratic approach to government … a series of problems to be solved. …

“Carter, Clinton and I all have sort of the disease of being policy wonks. … I think that if you get too consumed with that you lose sight of the larger issue. … The reorganization that’s taken place here is one that is much more geared to those [leadership] functions.”

Jon Meacham, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning biographer of presidents, told POLITICO that for Obama to compare himself to Carter could be a “a history-sized mistake.”

“For 30 years, fairly or no,” Meacham emailed, “‘Carter’ has been political and cultural shorthand for an ineffectual and uninspiring president who is captive to, rather than captain of, events. To compare oneself to President Carter is kind of like Nixon evoking Harding.” . . .

Mistake in Obamacare accidentally extended Medicaid to up to 3 million

Does anyone still believe the original cost estimates of Obamacare? 3 million times $10,000 is $30 billion per year, say well over $300 billion over 10 years (actually much, much more because these costs will rise over time) ($13,770 for family coverage in 2010). The Associated Press has the story here:

President Barack Obama's health care law would let several million middle-class people get nearly free insurance meant for the poor, a twist government number crunchers say they discovered only after the complex bill was signed.
The change would affect early retirees: A married couple could have an annual income of about $64,000 and still get Medicaid, said officials who make long-range cost estimates for the Health and Human Services department.
After initially downplaying any concern, the Obama administration said late Tuesday it would look for a fix.
Up to 3 million more people could qualify for Medicaid in 2014 as a result of the anomaly. That's because, in a major change from today, most of their Social Security benefits would no longer be counted as income for determining eligibility. It might be compared to allowing middle-class people to qualify for food stamps. . . . .

Obama explains how automation through ATMs has cause unemployment

Of course, there are the false claims about this being the worst recession since the Depression and that 2 million jobs have been created over 15 months, but the more amazing claim is why we have had such bad unemployment. The notion that more ATMs or automation generally have held down job growth.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

"W.H. won't say Weiner must go"

So much for the Obama administration getting its message straight. From Politico at 1:46 PM today:

CARNEY ON WEINER: The White House addressed the the Anthony Weiner scandal for the first time Monday morning, as press secretary Jay Carney was asked about it on Air Force One. Here's the Q&A with reporters:

Is his service in Congress in the nation's best interest?

"The president feels, we feel at the White House, this is a distraction, as Congressman Weiner has said himself, his behavior was inappropriate, dishonesty was inappropriate. But the president is focused on his job which is getting this economy continuing to grow, creating jobs and ensuring the safety and security of the American people."

Were top aides involved in the calls for resignation?

"Not that I'm aware of."

Should he resign?

"I answered that question. We think it's a distraction from the important business that this president needs to conduct and Congress need to conduct. Beyond that, I don't have any more comment."

After a few hours I think that the Obama administration realized that for a problem that had gone on for weeks the above statement was simply not enough. So later today we have this:

President Barack Obama has joined the ever-growing chorus of Democrats seeking the resignation of New York Rep. Anthony Weiner, putting even more pressure on the embattled lawmaker to quit the House in the midst of a sex scandal that seems to produce a new, embarrassing chapter with each passing day.

“I can tell you that if it was me, I would resign,’’ Obama said during an interview scheduled to air Tuesday morning on NBC’s “Today” show. . . .

What is in the Budget Deal

WIth the budget shutdown averted, the question is what was the result of all the bargaining. DC's school voucher program is being revived and reauthorized for at least the next five years. I have seen claims of $38 and $39 billion in cuts. Here is a rather telling take from a liberal at the Washington Post:

So how’d he do it?

As I’ve reported, Negotiation 101 tells us that a good negotiator gets the other side to “buy” something your own side doesn’t care all that much about. You keep two issues open and trade them off at the end.

Boehner did have something going for him: a completely incompetent White House. The errors include never having an alternative short-term continuing resolution on the table (letting the GOP’s short-term CR be the only “stop the shutdown” document out there for two days); not stepping in to signal that the troops would be paid in some fashion; issuing an incomprehensible veto threat with no alternative; overestimating Boehner’s need to get the Planned Parenthood rider; and underestimating Boehner’s ability to make this about the most popular issue (cutting the deficit). These major White House errors compounded the error of never getting a 2011 budget done when there were large Democratic majorities in the House and the Senate. . . .

I imagine the Democratic base will be enraged, and liberals should be. They control the Senate and the White House and gave away the store. It doesn’t augur well for them in 2012 budget negotiations, does it? . . .

If this isn’t a rout I don’t know what is.

Senate Dems not very thrilled with Obama White House

From Politico:

At meeting after meeting, Senate Democrats have berated Obama’s lack of personal intervention in the budget negotiations, senators say . . .

Why is Obama appointing Heather Higginbottom to OMB?

Obama's appointee for the number 2 position at OMB has absolutely no accounting or managerial experience.

"Ms. Higginbottom's experience level is stunningly lacking," Sessions said Thursday. "She's never served on the Budget Committee, never studied business. Never run a business. Never been a mayor of a town."
"The most important thing is she does not have the kind of experience in business or accounting or budget or responsibility or management that you would look for in the second-in-command of the Congressional Budget Office, the most central unit in our entire governmental structure, committed to containing wasteful spending," he said. "We need somebody who will go after waste, fraud and abuse." . . .
"It is going to be very hard for the president to publicly defend this nomination," Sessions spokesman Stephen Miller told FoxNews.com. "As Sen. Sessions has said, it's like appointing a general in the middle of a war who has no military experience." . . .

"Americans will be picking up a great deal of the tab" of war

Some notes on the Libyan war. From ABC News:

America may be handing off some of the responsibility of Operation Odyssey Dawn in Libya to other nations, but it is clear America's service men and women still will be bearing a heavy load, and Americans will be picking up a great deal of the tab.

Today, British fighter jets flew high above the Libyan desert searching for targets, taking out six tanks with precision guided missiles. Yet, despite a plan to get the rest of the world more involved, more than half of the nearly 100 strike missions in Libya in the past 24 hours were done by Americans. . . .

The U.S. Navy now has 12 ships in the Mediterranean, in less than a week, firing 184 Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The USS Kearsarge is the largest of these ships. The crew has actually been underway for 210 days, with only 4 days in port. In September it was Pakistani flood relief. In January, many of its Marines sent to Afghanistan. In February, it stood by for possible evacuations from Egypt, and now, it's targeting Libya.

Adding to that, American fighter pilots routinely are flying five- to six-hour missions along with 24/7 coverage from communications planes and those aerial refuelers.

But with other nations now taking the lead on enforcing the no-fly zone, the number of American fighter jets at least should be reduced, even though so many of the other aspects of this operation will continue to fall to the U.S. . . .

Libyan rebel commander admits his fighters have al-Qaeda links

One also has to wonder whether Obama's foreign policy is causing this to happen: "Pakistan Switches Sides, Expanding Arms Allegiance With China and Leaving U.S. Behind . . ."

"Clinton says no to second term," feed up with Obama's indecisiveness

On CNN, Hillary Clinton announced three times that she was not interested in serving in a second term in the Obama administration.

Q- If the president is reelected, do you want to serve a second term as secretary of state?
No
Q- Would you like to serve as secretary of defense?
No
Q- Would you like to be vice president of the United States?
No

Clinton is feed up with Obama's indecisiveness on foreign policy.

Fed up with a president “who can’t make his mind up” as Libyan rebels are on the brink of defeat, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is looking to the exits.

At the tail end of her mission to bolster the Libyan opposition, which has suffered days of losses to Col. Moammar Gadhafi’s forces, Clinton announced that she’s done with Obama after
2012 — even if he wins again.

“Obviously, she’s not happy with dealing with a president who can’t decide if today is Tuesday or Wednesday, who can’t make his mind up,” a Clinton insider told The Daily. “She’s exhausted, tired.”
He went on, “If you take a look at what’s on her plate as compared with what’s on the plates of previous Secretary of States — there’s more going on now at this particular moment, and it’s like playing sports with a bunch of amateurs. And she doesn’t have any power. She’s trying to do what she can to keep things from imploding.”
Clinton is said to be especially peeved with the president’s waffling over how to encourage the kinds of Arab uprisings that have recently toppled regimes in Egypt and Tunisia, and in particular his refusal to back a no-fly zone over Libya.

In the past week, former President Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton’s former top adviser Anne-
Marie Slaughter lashed out at Obama for the same reason.

The tension has even spilled over into her dealings with European diplomats, with whom she met early this week. . . .

Obama administration misspells "Libya"

Pundit Press has the story available here.

As per usual, Obama makes it difficult for businesses to operate and then he blames them

Massive new regulations. Moving more than a trillion dollars in spending around in the economy. Massively long and large unemployment insurance benefits. Trying to force them to make products that they wouldn't otherwise have made and make investments that don't really make sense. And the president wants to blame businesses for the lack of new jobs?

President Obama called on U.S. businesses to do more to help grow the economy, saying that while the unemployment rate is getting better and jobs are being added, the U.S. needs “to get there faster.”

“Businesses have a responsibility, too,” said Obama in his weekly address on Saturday. “If we make America the best place to do business, businesses should make their mark in America. They should set up shop here, and hire our workers, and pay decent wages, and invest in the future of this nation. That’s their obligation.”

Obama said he planned to deliver that message to the Chamber of Commerce on Monday, along with his administration’s commitment to work with the powerful business lobby. The White House has negotiated for more than two months about when to hold the meeting with the Chamber, which has come out in opposition to several of Obama’s major policies, such as the healthcare measure and Wall Street reform.

The message is that “government and businesses have mutual responsibilities; and that if we fulfill these obligations together, it benefits us all,” said Obama. “Our workers will succeed. Our nation will prosper. And America will win the future in this century just like we did in the last.” . . .

“If businesses sell these discoveries – if they start making windows and insulation and buildings that save more energy – they will hire more workers. And that’s how Americans will prosper. That’s how we’ll win the future.” . . .

More is available here.

Obama happy that the Philadelphia Eagles have kept Michael Vick as quarterback

This is pretty strange for a couple of reason. It is strange that a president gets into calling up a football team about who their quarterback is. I don't know any other similar case. The other strange thing is that it is the Michael Vick case that Obama got involved in. PETA probably won't be happy, but if Obama really wanted to help out Vick, he should have called over a year ago.

NBC’s Peter King reported the call during “Football Night in America” on Sunday.

“I talked to Jeffrey Lurie, the owner of the Eagles this week, and he said he was surprised to pick up the phone one day and Barack Obama calls him to praise the Philadelphia Eagles for signing Vick and giving him a second chance,” King said from NBC’s Rockefeller Plaza studios. “Lurie told me that the president was passionate about the fact that it’s rarely a level playing field for prisoners once they leave jail. And he said the message was, what the Eagles had done with Vick was important for society,” said King.

A spokesman for the Eagles confirmed to POLITICO that King’s statement was accurate.

King later tweeted, “Yes, Obama called Eagle owner Jeffrey Lurie to praise the Eagles for giving Vick a chance. Said too many prisoners never get fair 2d chance.”

Vick signed on as the Eagles quarterback following an 21-month stint in prison and two months in home confinement after being convicted of running a dog-fighting ring in Virginia.

While some are praising Obama for reaching out and making a statement about the stigma former prisoners often face, others argue that Obama’s call came more than a year too late, since Vick was picked up by the Eagles in August 2009. Now that Vick is playing well and enjoying a resurgence in popularity, the timing of the call could be deemed safe. . . .