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POPSCharles Krauthammer: The Three Envelopes 
I suppose, explain away his own, well, yearlong drift on Afghanistan. This compulsion to attack his predecessor is as stale as it is unseemly. Obama was elected a year ago. He became commander in chief two months later. He then solemnly announced his own "comprehensive new strategy" for Afghanistan seven months ago. Obama is obviously unhappy with the path he himself chose in March. Fine. He has every right -- indeed duty -- to reconsider. But what Obama is reacting to is the failure of his own strategy. There is nothing new here. The history of both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars is a considered readjustment of policies that have failed. In each war, quick initial low-casualty campaigns toppled enemy governments. In the subsequent occupation stage, two policy choices presented themselves: the light or heavy "footprint." In both Iraq and Afghanistan, we initially chose the light footprint. This was the considered judgment of our commanders at the time,
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POPSMark Steyn: So Far, It's Been Obamateur Hour "We need a home, our own kitchen, our own bathroom." He took her name – Henrietta Hughes – and ordered his staff to meet with her. The audience loved it. "Yes!" they yelped, and "Amen!," and even "Gracious God, thank you so much!" In the words of Bob Hope, "Leave your name with the girl, and we may get to you for some crowd scenes." Ah, but eventually the hosannahs fade, and the Community-Organizer-in-Chief has to return to Washington to attend to the drearier chores of being president. Someday soon this inaugural Obamateur Hour (as one of my correspondents, John Gross, calls it) will end, and the "events" phase will begin. Back last spring, some gloomy reflections of mine on multiculturalism prompted a reader to advise me to lighten up: "We're rich enough that we can afford to be stupid." A mere nine months later, the first part of that equation no longer seems quite so obvious. The market value of the U.S. banking sector is worth barely a quarter of what it was two years ago –
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POPSJoe the Plumber: Lien on Home and Medical Bills Owed Why oh why do people run away from their best interests? Warren Buffet, who has more money than Joe might ever have said that our current tax system is unfair. But oh no Joe, you side with those who really don't give a damn about your aspirations. These days Robin Hood is George Bush who taketh away from the country to give to himself and his social class.
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POPSBush's Financial WMD Speech, Fear to Force Consent Did Bush's speech sound eerily familiar? It should. It's patterned after a more successful one that produced fear and coerced Congress to act. This Clipmark juxtaposes Bush's financial "mushroom cloud" speech --a Warning of Mass Destruction , which he employed last night to manipulate the people to push Congress despite their better judgment-- against his earlier fear-mongering Iraq WMD speech of 2002 urging Americans that "we must act now" and not delay or we could face a "mushroom cloud". The purpose and the pattern of these two speeches are remarkably similar, to use FEAR to cement national consent for bad and unjust policy. And we know the earlier one was entirely bogus. Fortunately, Congress, particularly the fiscal conservative minority among the GOP (who fear losing their base who are calling them socialists) resisted and did not close unjust bailout deal.
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POPSGOP Senator Chafee: New Book is tough on Pro-War Democrats, Bush, and Republicans More: The most startling revelation: Chafee must be the only senator in U.S. political history who says his defeat was the result of voters acting logically. “The system works best when power remains in the hands of the voters,” writes Chafee. “I was a casualty of the system working in 2006, and while defeat is never easy, I give the voters credit: They made the connection between electing even popular Republicans at the cost of leaving the Senate in the hands of a leadership they had learned to mistrust.” “I find it surprising now, in 2008, how many Democrats are running for president after shirking their constitutional duty to check and balance this president,” writes Chafee. “They argue that the president duped them into war, but getting duped does not exactly recommend their leadership. Helping a rogue president start an unnecessary war should be a career-ending lapse of judgment.”
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POPSCredit Scores Should have Nothing to Do w/ Car Insurance Rates Ron Williams is correct in his editorial today: it should be illegal for insurance companies to tie their rates to credit scores. It sounds like another way of finding a pretext to gouge people struggling financially for the sake of sheer profit. It has the added benefit of drawing upon the puritanical judgment that "unsuccessful" people deserve punishment.
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