SIR – Lexington stated that Mr Obama faces "a mother-in-law of a recession".
This is not a wholly accurate description. Unlike mother-in-laws, recessions
rarely arrive unexpectedly on one's doorstep. Nor do they exhibit
behavioural patterns that defy normal rational explanation. And although
both share a capacity to inflict misery and despair on the innocent, the
scars from a recession will eventually heal.
Finbar O'Keeffe
Studio City, California
Shocking news out of Illinois today. Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested
on corruption charges, including the allegation that he was selling Barack
Obama's vacant senate seat. Now, I personally am surprised Obama even needed
a seat. I thought he just levitated." --Stephen Colbert
"Rod Blagojevich is facing jail time, which will be a switch. In federal
prison, he'll be going to the highest bidder. See, it's totally different
now." --Jay Leno
"Well, President-elect Barack Obama and his family are gonna spend the
holidays in his home state of Hawaii. And you know who couldn't be more
thrilled with this? The press, the reporters who follow the president. Well,
think about it. After eight years of spending every holiday cutting brush in
Crawford, Texas, they get to go to Hawaii!" --Jay Leno
"And earlier today, President-elect Obama and Vice President-elect Biden met
with Al Gore in Chicago to discuss energy and climate change issues. Obama,
Gore and Biden. So, you have the greatest speaker of our lifetime, the most
boring speaker of our lifetime and the guy who speaks non-stop for our
entire lifetime. All together in one room." --Jay Leno
"Voters in Louisiana on Saturday kicked out of office Democratic Senator
William Jefferson. You remember this guy? Remember the guy who was indicted
last year for having $90,000 in bribe money, in cash, in his freezer? Well,
the voters kicked him out of office. How ironic is that? The only politician
in Washington who actually saved some money. Make him treasury secretary.
Put all our money in the freezer!" --Jay Leno
"But, you know, when the Big Three CEOs went to Washington, they said,
'We've got to have $25 billion.' Congress said, 'You know what? Wait right
here. Let me go to the back and talk to the manager.'" --David Letterman
"You can tell President Bush has been living in public housing a little too
long. Like, when a reporter asked him if he was looking forward to escrow he
said, 'You know, I don't like snails.'" --Jay Leno
"Oh, and Barack Obama, you know, he smokes cigarettes. But he's promising
not to smoke cigarettes in the White House, which I think is good. I think
that's really good, because we all know what happened to the last president
who used tobacco products in the oval office." --Jay Leno
Today, Congress sent the White House a $15 billion bailout of the big three
automakers. They're calling the loan an emergency bridge. I assume so the
CEOs have something to jump off." --Stephen Colbert
And, according to the New York Times, former president Bill Clinton says he
is open to the possibility of a role in the Barack Obama administration.
Well, actually, what he said was, he was looking for a desk job. I don't
know what that means." --Jay Leno
"President Bush and his lovely wife Laura have purchased a new home in
Dallas, Texas, worth $2 million.How does that work when the president
applies for a home loan? Like, when they do a credit check, do they include
the trillion-dollar deficit?" --Jay Leno
"Rod Blagojevich was arrested for trying to sell a seat in the Senate to the
highest bidder. Isn't that crazy? Yeah. And folks, if convicted, he could
wind up in prison, where his seat will be sold to the highest bidder."
--Conan O'Brien
"President-elect Barack Obama, today, called for Illinois Governor Rod
Blagojevich to resign. Blagojevich said, 'I'll do that if the price is
right.'" --Conan O'Brien
"Speaking of Governor Blagojevich. Today -- coincidence -- today is his
birthday. So for the second day in a row, Federal agents jumped out and
yelled, 'Surprise!'" --Conan O'Brien
"This week, the White House sent out a memo listing President Bush's
successes and accomplishments. Actually, it's not so much a memo as it is a
Post-it note." --Conan O'Brien
"A plan to bail out the Big Three automakers stalled in Congress today.
Yeah. As a result, Congress plans to buy a better-built Japanese bailout
plan." --Conan O'Brien
"How many people in our studio audience got your seats tonight because you
paid off Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich?" --Jay Leno
"Illinois Governor Rod Bla-son-of-a-bitch, is that how you say his name? Is
it Bla-son-of-a-bitch? I think I'm saying that right. He was arrested for
conspiring to sell the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama. ... Let me tell
you something. You know, you don't buy a Senate seat in this country. You
take up donations. You go out. You lie to the American people. You make
promises you are never going to keep. That's how you get to be a United
States Senator." --Jay Leno
"And I love this story. Congress wants to appoint a government car czar to
oversee the auto companies. Today, President Bush said, 'Car czar? Isn't he
the president of Afghanistan?'" --Jay Leno
"Anyway, Congress wants to appoint someone to oversee the auto industry
because they lack confidence that the car companies can solve the problem
themselves. You know, the same way the Senate Budget Committee kept us
within a budget, remember? And the way the banking committee kept the banks
from failing. And the way the Senate Energy Committee made us energy
independent. We need these kinds of oversights." --Jay Leno
"Don't you love watching congressmen lecture auto executives on how to run
their business? I mean, you got people that put us a trillion dollars in
debt lecturing people who put us a billion dollars in debt." --Jay Leno
"Barack Obama said that he will not smoke cigarettes while he's in the Oval
Office. He's kind of a closet smoker. So, he said he wouldn't smoke. And
President Bush actually defended him today. President Bush said he smokes a
cigar on rare occasions. He says it helps him think. Apparently it's a very
rare occasion." --Jay Leno
"And President Bush talked about his religious believes on ABC's 'Nightline'
the other night. When the host asked Bush if he was a literalist when it
came to the bible, Bush said, no, no, he's actually a Methodist." --Jay Leno
We're not kidding about this economy, which is so bad that Illinois Governor
Rod Blagojevich had to mark down the price of a Senate seat 40%." --David
Letterman
Actually, it's getting pretty serious. President-elect Barack
Obama<http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/Barack%20Obama>has
called for Blagojevich to resign, but he refused. He refused a
directive
from the next President of the United States, to which Hillary
Clinton<http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/hillaryclinton/tp/hillary-clinton-...>said,
'So?'" --Jay Leno
And I love this idea. Congress wants to promote a car czar to oversee the
auto industry. A car czar. What democracy has a czar?" --Jay Leno
"By the way, you know who is on the program tonight? Senator John McCain.
Now he shows up. By the way, he thinks the campaign is still going on."
--David Letterman
Hey, what are you folks getting for Christmas? Well, I tell you what,
Illinois is getting a new governor." --David Letterman
Yesterday President-elect Barack Obama called on Illinois Governor
Blagojevich to resign. And after hearing this, Blagojevich said, 'If he
wants to call and talk to me, it's $4.99 a minute.'" --Conan O'Brien
"According to an article about President Bush's fitness routine that just
came out, during his Presidency, Bush has spent 2,500 hours walking on a
treadmill. Yeah. Bush said he only wanted to be on the treadmill for 45
minutes but he couldn't figure out how to turn it off." --Conan O'Brien
But not everyone's revved up about the proposed ]auto industry bailout
deal). Louisiana Senator David Vitter argued that the bailout should only
come after the auto makers present a turnaround plan [on screen: Vitter
saying the current bailout plan is like 'putting the cart before the horse,'
or just 'ass backwards']. That's Louisiana Senator David Vitter, best known
for not resigning from the Senate after admitting involvement in a
prostitution scandal. So for him, the phrase ass backwards [is] not so much
common usage, as a work order." --Jon Stewart
Prosecutors said Tuesday there is no evidence that Barack Obama was involved
in the Blagojevich scandal. Or, as Fox News reported it, 'Is Barack Obama
involved in the Blagojevich scandal?'" --Amy Poehler
"Barack Obama this week named Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steve Chu as his
energy secretary, unless he was just sneezing." --Amy Poehler
"A Senate Republican said today they want Bill
Clinton<http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/funnypictures/ig/Funny-Clinton-Pic...>to
testify at Hillary
Clinton's<http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/hillaryclinton/tp/hillary-clinton-...>secretary
of state confirmation hearings. And if he does testify, this could
be the first time he could truthfully say under oath, 'I did not have sex
with that woman.'" --Jay Leno
"Governor Arnold
Schwarzenegger<http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blpic-arnoldgovernator...>says
the budget crisis in California is only getting worse. He said it is
so
bad, we may have to start selling Senate seats here." --Jay Leno
"*Time* magazine reports that Governor
Blagojevich<http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/democrats/a/blago-jokes.htm>has
an approval rating 4%. That's with a margin of error of 5%. That means
he could actually disapprove of himself." --Jay Leno
"President Bush's term is winding down, and all these articles are coming
out, very strange articles about him. According to an article that just came
out in a fitness magazine ... the president often rides a stationary bike
on-board Air Force One. That's true. Advisors say he pedals really hard
because he thinks he's powering the plane." --Conan O'Brien
As you know, yesterday in Iraq, President Bush was attacked by a
'shoe-icide' bomber. President Bush was speaking at a news conference in
Iraq when a journalist threw two shoes at
him<http://politicalhumor.about.com/b/2008/12/15/bush-attacked-by-shoes.htm>[on
screen: the video of Bush having shoes thrown at him]. You see what
President Bush did? You see what he did to keep from being hit? Something
he's never done before. Lean to the left. He's never done that." --Jay Leno
"You got to admit, whatever you think of the guy, he's got good reflexes.
Even Bill Clinton<http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/funnypictures/ig/Funny-Clinton-Pic...>was
impressed. You know, Clinton's an expert at ducking shoes, ashtrays,
lamps. Everything." --Jay Leno
Right now, they're trying to find out, they arrested the guy, trying to find
out if he's a Shoe-ni or a Shoe-ite.
I don't think Bush really has dodged anything like that, well, since the
Vietnam War." --David Letterman
You know, the shoe-throwing incident has made Sarah Palin want to be
president even more. 'Free shoes? You betcha!'" --Craig Ferguson
"Anyway, the conspiracy theories have begun. Oliver Stone is already making
a movie about the shoe-throwing incident. He thinks there was a second
shoe-thrower, because that journalist threw two shoes in four seconds.
That's impossible." --Craig Ferguson
As you know, President
Bush<http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/georgewbush/tp/george-bush-jokes.htm>took
a surprise trip to Baghdad over the weekend and had a press conference
with the Iraqi premier. A reporter threw his shoes at
him<http://politicalhumor.about.com/b/2008/12/15/bush-attacked-by-shoes.htm>,
almost hit him. And the guy who threw the shoes, this guy was so angry, he
was so anti-Bush, at first people just assumed he was an American
journalist, but no." --Jay Leno
"And it's not just President Bush, today somebody threw a pair of
shoes at Sarah
Palin<http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/sarahpalin/tp/sarah-palin-jokes.htm>.
And she was very upset. She said, 'Do you have these in black?' and threw
them back." --Jay Leno
"And this is the big news in New York. Well, all over the world, really.
It's just an amazing story. A Wall Street tycoon named Bernard Madoff has
been arrested for running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme. $50 billion. You know
what a Ponzi scheme is? That's where they use the money of new investors to
pay off the older investors. Or as we call it, Social Security." --Jay Leno
"But you know something? Shouldn't the first clue have been the guy's name?
Madoff, you know, as in 'made off with the money,' you know?
And in New Jersey, the state Senate is working on a bill to legalize medical
marijuana. They say it's the one thing that could actually ease the pain of
having to live in New Jersey, so that's good." --Jay Leno
"And a big surprise on the Sunday morning news shows. Senator John
McCain<http://politicalhumor.about.com/od/johnmccain/tp/john-mccain-jokes.htm>said
he may not support Sarah Palin if she's around in 2012. Of course, the
bigger question, will McCain be around in 2012? That's probably the bigger
question, but hey." --Jay Leno
"I've been in the Bible every day since I've been the president." --George
W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Nov. 12, 2008
"He was a great father before politics, a great father during politics and a
great father after politics." --George W. Bush, on his father, George H.W.
Bush, Washington, D.C., Nov. 12, 2008
Consider first an op-ed article in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times by Martha Nussbaum, a well-known professor of law and ethics at the University of Chicago. The article was headlined “Terrorism in India has many faces.” But one face that Nussbaum fails to mention specifically is that of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Islamic terror group originating in Pakistan that seems to have been centrally involved in the attack on Mumbai.
This is because Nussbaum’s main concern is not explaining or curbing Islamic terror. Rather, she writes that “if, as now seems likely, last week’s terrible events in Mumbai were the work of Islamic terrorists, that’s more bad news for India’s minority Muslim population.” She deplores past acts of Hindu terror against India’s Muslims. She worries about Muslim youths being rounded up on suspicion of terrorism with little or no evidence. And she notes that this is “an analogue to the current ugly phenomenon of racial profiling in the United States.”
So jihadists kill innocents in Mumbai — and Nussbaum ends up decrying racial profiling here. Is it just that liberal academics are required to include some alleged ugly American phenomenon in everything they write?
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John McCain [Images], who unsuccessfully ran for President, arrived in New Delhi [Images] on Tuesday in an unscheduled visit, to show solidarity in the wake of the Mumbai terror attacks [Images] and discussed the issue with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [Images].
McCain, the Republican Party leader, was on his way to Bangladesh and Bhutan but he made a stopover here in view of the Mumbai strikes, sources said.
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We expect the United States to pressure India not to create a crisis, in order to avoid this outcome. As we have said, the problem is that it is unclear whether politically the Indians can afford restraint. At the very least, New Delhi must demand that the Pakistani government take steps to make the ISI and Pakistan's other internal security apparatus more effective. Even if the Indians concede that there was no ISI involvement in the attack, they will argue that the ISI is incapable of stopping such attacks. They will demand a purge and reform of the ISI as a sign of Pakistani commitment. Barring that, New Delhi will move troops to the Indo-Pakistani frontier to intimidate Pakistan and placate Indian public opinion.
Dilemmas for Islamabad, New Delhi and Washington
At that point, Islamabad will have a serious problem. The Pakistani government is even weaker than the Indian government. Pakistan's civilian regime does not control the Pakistani military, and therefore does not control the ISI. The civilians can't decide to transform Pakistani security, and the military is not inclined to make this transformation. (Pakistan's military has had ample opportunity to do so if it wished.) Pakistan faces the challenge, just one among many, that its civilian and even military leadership lack the ability to reach deep into the ISI and security services to transform them. In some ways, these agencies operate under their own rules.
Add to this the reality that the ISI and security forces -- even if they are acting more assertively, as Islamabad claims -- are demonstrably incapable of controlling radical Islamists in Pakistan. If they were capable, the attack on Mumbai would have been thwarted in Pakistan. The simple reality is that in Pakistan's case, the will to make this transformation does not seem to be present, and even if it were, the ability to suppress terror attacks isn't there.
The United States might well want to limit New Delhi's response. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice [Images] is on her way to India to discuss just this. But the politics of India's situation make it unlikely that the Indians can do anything more than listen. It is more than simply a political issue for New Delhi; the Indians have no reason to believe that the Mumbai operation was one of a kind. Further operations like the Mumbai attack might well be planned. Unless the Pakistanis shift their posture inside Pakistan, India has no way of knowing whether other such attacks can be stymied. The Indians will be sympathetic to Washington's plight in Afghanistan and the need to keep Pakistani troops at the Afghan border. But New Delhi will need something that the Americans -- and in fact the Pakistanis -- can't deliver: a guarantee that there will be no more attacks like this one.
The Indian government cannot chance inaction. It probably would fall if it did. Moreover, in the event of inactivity and another attack, Indian public opinion probably will swing to an uncontrollable extreme. If an attack takes place but India has moved toward crisis posture with Pakistan, at least no one can argue that the Indian government remained passive in the face of threats to national security. Therefore, India is likely to refuse American requests for restraint.
It is possible that New Delhi will make a radical proposal to Rice, however. Given that the Pakistani government is incapable of exercising control in its own country, and given that Pakistan now represents a threat to both US and Indian national security, the Indians might suggest a joint operation with the Americans against Pakistan.
What that joint operation might entail is uncertain, but regardless, this is something that Rice would reject out of hand and that Obama would reject in January 2009. Pakistan has a huge population and nuclear weapons, and the last thing Bush or Obama wants is to practice nation-building in Pakistan. The Indians, of course, will anticipate this response. The truth is that New Delhi itself does not want to engage deep in Pakistan to strike at militant training camps and other Islamist sites. That would be a nightmare. But if Rice shows up with a request for Indian restraint and no concrete proposal -- or willingness to entertain a proposal -- for solving the Pakistani problem, India will be able to refuse on the grounds that the Americans are asking India to absorb a risk (more Mumbai-style attacks) without the United States' willingness to share in the risk.
Setting the stage for a new Indo-Pakistani confrontation
That will set the stage for another Indo-Pakistani confrontation. India will push forces forward all along the Indo-Pakistani frontier, move its nuclear forces to an alert level, begin shelling Pakistan, and perhaps -- given the seriousness of the situation -- attack short distances into Pakistan and even carry out air strikes deep in Pakistan. India will demand greater transparency for New Delhi in Pakistani intelligence operations. The Indians will not want to occupy Pakistan; they will want to occupy Pakistan's security apparatus.
Naturally, the Pakistanis will refuse that. There is no way they can give India, their main adversary, insight into Pakistani intelligence operations. But without that access, India has no reason to trust Pakistan. This will leave the Indians in an odd position: They will be in a near-war posture, but will have made no demands of Pakistan that Islamabad can reasonably deliver and that would benefit India. In one sense, India will be gesturing. In another sense, India will be trapped by making a gesture on which Pakistan cannot deliver. The situation thus could get out of hand.
In the meantime, the Pakistanis certainly will withdraw forces from western Pakistan and deploy them in eastern Pakistan. That will mean that one leg of the (US commander David) Petraeus and Obama plans would collapse.
Washington's expectation of greater Pakistani cooperation along the Afghan border will disappear along with the troops. This will free the Taliban from whatever limits the Pakistani army had placed on it. The Taliban's ability to fight would increase, while the motivation for any of the Taliban to enter talks -- as Afghan President Hamid Karzai [Images] has suggested -- would decline. US forces, already stretched to the limit, would face an increasingly difficult situation, while pressure on al Qaeda in the tribal areas would decrease.
Now, step back and consider the situation the Mumbai attackers have created. First, the Indian government faces an internal political crisis driving it toward a confrontation it didn't plan on. Second, the minimum Pakistani response to a renewed Indo-Pakistani crisis will be withdrawing forces from western Pakistan, thereby strengthening the Taliban and securing al Qaeda. Third, sufficient pressure on Pakistan's civilian government could cause it to collapse, opening the door to a military-Islamist government -- or it could see Pakistan collapse into chaos, giving Islamists security in various regions and an opportunity to reshape Pakistan. Finally, the United States'
situation in Afghanistan has now become enormously more complex.
By staging an attack the Indian government can't ignore, the Mumbai attackers have set in motion an existential crisis for Pakistan. The reality of Pakistan cannot be transformed, trapped as the country is between the United States and India. Almost every evolution from this point forward benefits Islamists. Strategically, the attack on Mumbai was a precise blow struck to achieve uncertain but favorable political outcomes for the Islamists.
Rice's trip to India now becomes the crucial next step. She wants Indian restraint. She does not want the western Pakistani border to collapse. But she cannot guarantee what India must have: assurance of no further terror attacks on India originating in Pakistan. Without that, India must do something. No Indian government could survive without some kind of action. So it is up to Rice, in one of her last acts as secretary of state, to come up with a miraculous solution to head off a final, catastrophic crisis for the Bush administration -- and a defining first crisis for the new Obama administration. Former US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once said that the enemy gets a vote. The Islamists cast their ballot in Mumbai.
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