Democrats may not hit health-care deadline
1. Congressional Democrats on Tuesday cast doubt on their chances of meeting the White House’s March 18 deadline for voting on a stalled healthcare overhaul, but said they are moving as fast as they can.
New Obama rules could prohibit fishing
2. The Obama administration will accept no more public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.
Massa investigated for groping male staffers
3. Not long after Eric Massa joined Congress in January 2009, several male staff members began to feel uncomfortable with the sexually loaded language their boss routinely used, according to accounts relayed to the House ethics committee.
As the months passed, rumors began to circulate in Congress that the married New York Democrat had sexually propositioned young male staffers and interns in his office, allegations, according to two sources with knowledge of the inquiry, that included Massa groping at least two aides. In the second week of February, Massa’s deputy chief of staff contacted the office of Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer for help in dealing with the accusations.
From mighty industrial might to farmland for Detroit
4. Detroit, the very symbol of American industrial might for most of the 20th century, is drawing up a radical renewal plan that calls for turning large swaths of this now-blighted, rusted-out city back into the fields and farmland that existed before the automobile.
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Poll: American less respected under Obama
1. A majority of Americans say the United States is less respected in the world than it was two years ago and think President Obama and other Democrats fall short of Republicans on the issue of national security, a new poll finds.
The Democracy Corps-Third Way survey released Monday finds that by a 10-point margin — 51 percent to 41 percent — Americans think the standing of the U.S. dropped during the first 13 months of Mr. Obama’s presidency.
“This is surprising, given the global acclaim and Nobel peace prize that flowed to the new president after he took office,” said pollsters for the liberal-leaning organizations.
On the national security front, a massive gap has emerged, with 50 percent of likely voters saying Republicans would likely do a better job than Democrats, a 14-point swing since May. Thirty-three percent favored Democrats.
“The erosion since May is especially strong among women, and among independents, who now favor Republicans on this question by a 56 to 20 percent margin,” the pollsters said in their findings.
Wisconsin AG charges ACORN with voter fraud
2. Five Wisconsin residents have been charged with criminal counts of voter fraud in the November 2008 general election, state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen announced today.
Two of those charged, Maria Miles and Kevin Clancy, are workers for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the embattled community group.
“The complaint alleges that Miles and Clancy submitted multiple voter registration applications for the same individuals, and also were part of a scheme in which they and other (special registration deputies) registered each other to vote multiple times in order to meet voter registration quotas imposed by ACORN,” Van Hollen states in the release. Dan Rather: Articulate Obama couldn’t sell watermelons
3. Dan Rather: Part of the undertow in the coming election is going to be President Obama’s leadership. And the Republicans will make a case and a lot of independents will buy this argument. “Listen he just hasn’t been, look at the health care bill. It was his number one priority. It took him forever to get it through and he had to compromise it to death.” And a version of, “Listen he’s a nice person, he’s very articulate” this is what’s been used against him, “but he couldn’t sell watermelons if it, you gave him the state troopers to flag down the traffic.”
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Last year Obama said that private and government health-care can coexist. To support his argument, he pointed to the US Post Office and FedEx. Let’s discuss this.
The Post Office announced that it was running a huge deficit and was exploring ways to keep it afloat. Some of the ideas being floated are to cut services to 5 days a week, reducing benefits to its employees, and increases rates. Is this what we can expect to happen with government run health-care; cutting services or in the case of health-care, not covering those things that are now covered by health-care; increasing premiums; and slashing the payments that doctors, nurses, and physicians receive for their work? I’m just asking. After all, Obama himself, used the comparison to support his case for government-run health-care.
Already, Obama has gone back on his word; the very word he gave in his address to Congress when Joe Wilson called him a liar. Obama stated that health-care would be paid for by those who paid their premiums. In the Senate bill being negotiated, there are a series of taxes that are being included. These taxes include an increase in the payroll tax. This is on top of the soon to expire Bush tax cuts that will see the average middle income tax increase by 7%. As a reminder, these were the Bush tax cuts:
In Obama’s budget, the President allowed for the expiring of these cuts while claiming that he “wasn’t increasing taxes on the middle class. In fact, Obama often touts his tax “cuts” he “gave” to the middle class that averaged around $400 per year. Again, the president has been a little loose with the truth. Those filing their 2009 taxes learned that this $400 was nothing more than a tax credit and would be deducted from their their 2009 return. In essence, you would have gotten the $400 back anyways.
The question should be asked, if Obama’s health-care bill will save money and increase services then why is he having to deceive and lie about its cost? Is his health-care program really going to cost us less? Let’s think about this. If Obama is promising me that his health-care plan will cost me less than my employer’s United Health-Care plan (I pay $138 a month), but he’s increasing my taxes by $302 per month how is this making sense? This health-care plan is not about reducing cost, if it was then we would have Tort Reform tied to any plan before the Congress, this is about the socialization of this country and that is why a majority of Americans are opposed to this legislation.
Let’s go back to the drawing board and develop a plan that covers pre-existing conditions, includes Tort Reform, rewards those who live a healthy life through diet and exercise, penalizes people like Obama who smoke, cuts fraud, waste, and abuse in Medicare, and is run by the private sector.
Does Harry Reid and his liberal cohorts in Congress get it? 36,000 lost jobs isn’t bad, but wait… 248,000 created in a month by Bush was terrible. I’m mean honestly, do these people have any integrity? I’m so looking forward to the day when we have 3 lost jobs- Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama. Maybe then we can actually create real jobs.
And then we have this in the news:
From the AP:
A new congressional report released Friday says the United States’ long-term fiscal woes are even worse than predicted byPresident Barack Obama’s grim budget submission last month. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts that Obama’s budget plans would generate deficits over the upcoming decade that would total $9.8 trillion. That’s $1.2 trillion more than predicted by the administration.
A new congressional report released Friday says the United States’ long-term fiscal woes are even worse than predicted byPresident Barack Obama’s grim budget submission last month.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts that Obama’s budget plans would generate deficits over the upcoming decade that would total $9.8 trillion. That’s $1.2 trillion more than predicted by the administration.
So Obama’s budget creates more debt than all previous Presidents since the founding of our country. Yes, this is the guy who promised to reduce the deficit, go “line by line” to eliminate waste, to veto any bill that had earmarks… I guess what he really meant by change was changing his mind.
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The mainstream media and Democrats are up in arms over the above slide that was used in a recent PowerPoint presentation by the Republican National Committee. I’m a bit confused as why they would be upset about it. Do the mainstream media and Democrats have such memories as to forget the mockery of President Bush and other Republicans? Did they forget this, and this, and this, and this?
From the Guardian:
The Republican party’s national organising committee was furiously backpedalling after an embarrassing document lampooning Barack Obama and other Democratic leaders as ‘evil’ was found in a hotel room. The PowerPoint document, reported by the Washington news website Politico, was delivered by the Republican National Committee’s head of fundraising to a closed meeting of select party officials and major donors held in Boca Grande, Florida, last month. In discussing how to motivate donors to give, a section of the presentation is headlined “The Evil Empire” and carries a picture of Barack Obama made up to look like Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker in the Batman movie The Dark Knight. Democratic party congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are also caricatured as Cruella DeVille and Scooby Doo. Politico said that the 72-page document was sent to it by a Democrat, who found the original in the hotel where the meeting was held. on 18 February. Sources at the event said a presentation involving the document was given by the RNC’s finance director Rob Bickhart and finance chairman Peter Terpeluk, who was ambassador to Luxembourg under the Bush administration.
The Republican party’s national organising committee was furiously backpedalling after an embarrassing document lampooning Barack Obama and other Democratic leaders as ‘evil’ was found in a hotel room.
The PowerPoint document, reported by the Washington news website Politico, was delivered by the Republican National Committee’s head of fundraising to a closed meeting of select party officials and major donors held in Boca Grande, Florida, last month.
In discussing how to motivate donors to give, a section of the presentation is headlined “The Evil Empire” and carries a picture of Barack Obama made up to look like Heath Ledger’s portrayal of the Joker in the Batman movie The Dark Knight. Democratic party congressional leaders Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are also caricatured as Cruella DeVille and Scooby Doo.
Politico said that the 72-page document was sent to it by a Democrat, who found the original in the hotel where the meeting was held. on 18 February. Sources at the event said a presentation involving the document was given by the RNC’s finance director Rob Bickhart and finance chairman Peter Terpeluk, who was ambassador to Luxembourg under the Bush administration.
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From the Wall Street Journal:
A string of electoral defeats and the great unpopularity of ObamaCare can’t stop Democrats from their self-appointed rendezvous with liberal destiny—ramming a bill through Congress on a narrow partisan vote. What we are about to witness is an extraordinary abuse of traditional Senate rules to pass a bill merely because they think it’s good for the rest of us, and because they fear their chance to build a European welfare state may never come again. *** The vehicle is “reconciliation,” a parliamentary process that fast-tracks budget measures and was created in 1974 as a deficit-reduction tool. Limited to 20 hours of debate, reconciliation bills need a mere 50 votes in the Senate, with the Vice President as tie-breaker, thus circumventing the filibuster. Both Democrats and Republicans have frequently used reconciliation on budget bills, so Democrats are now claiming that using it to pass ObamaCare is no big deal. Yet this shortcut has never been used for anything approaching the enormity of a national health-care entitlement. Democrats are only resorting to it now because their plan is in so much political trouble—within their own party, and even more among the general public—and because they’ve failed to make their case through persuasion. “They know that this will take courage,” Nancy Pelosi said in an interview over the weekend, speaking of the Members she’ll try to strong-arm. “It took courage to pass Social Security. It took courage to pass Medicare,” the Speaker continued. “But the American people need it, why are we here? We’re not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress.” Leave aside the irony of invoking “the American people” on behalf of a bill that consistently has been 10 to 15 points underwater in every poll since the fall, and is getting more unpopular by the day, particularly among independents. As Maine Republican Olympia Snowe pointed out in a speech last December, Social Security passed when Democrats controlled both Congress and the White House, yet 64% of Senate Republicans and 79% of the House GOP voted for it. More than half of the Senate Republican caucus voted for Medicare in 1965. Historically, major social legislation has always been bipartisan, because it reflects a durable political consensus. Reconciliation is the last mathematical gasp for ObamaCare because Democrats can’t sell their policy to Senator Snowe, any other Republican, or even dozens of Democrats. This raw exercise of political power is of a piece with the copious corruption and bribery—such as the Cornhusker kickbacks and special tax benefits for union members—that liberals had to use to get even this far. Democrats often point to welfare reform in 1996 as a reconciliation precedent, yet that bill passed the Senate with 78 votes, including Joe Biden and half of the Democratic caucus. The children’s health insurance program in 1997 was steered through Congress with reconciliation, but it, too, was built on strong (if misguided) bipartisan support. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 that created Schip passed 85-15, including 43 Republicans. Even President Bush’s 2001 tax cuts, another case in reconciliation point, were endorsed by 12 Senate Democrats. The only precedent within historical shouting distance is Ronald Reagan’s 1981 budget, which was controversial because it reshaped dozens of programs. But the Senate wasn’t the problem—it ultimately passed the budget 80 to 14. The real dogfight was in the Democratically controlled House, where majority rules have always obtained, yet Reagan convinced 29 Democrats to buck Speaker Tip O’Neill. Reconciliation, in other words, wasn’t used to subvert the 60-vote Senate threshold, but rather to grease the way for deficit reduction. The process was designed for items that cut spending or affect tax revenue, to meet targets in the annual budget resolution. Democrats want to convert it into a jerry-rigged amendment process: That is, reconciliation wouldn’t actually be used to pass ObamaCare per se. Instead, it would be used only to muscle through substantive changes to the bill that passed the Senate on Christmas Eve, without which 216 House Democrats won’t vote for it. So Democrats would be writing amendments to current law that isn’t in fact law at all—and can’t become law without those amendments. President Clinton preferred to use reconciliation to pass HillaryCare in the 1990s, but he was dissuaded by West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who argued that it would be an abuse of the process. Mr. Byrd, author of a four-volume history of Senate rules and procedures, told the Washington Post last March that “The misuse of the arcane process of reconciliation—a process intended for deficit reduction—to enact substantive policy changes is an undemocratic disservice to our people and to the Senate’s institutional role,” specifically citing health reform and cap and trade. *** Regrets, they’ve got a few. Yet these Democratic Sinatras will still do it their way. President Obama is expected to endorse reconciliation in remarks this morning. The goal is to permanently expand the American entitlement state with a vast apparatus of subsidies and regulations while the political window is still (barely) open, regardless of the consequences or the overwhelming popular condemnation. As Mr. Obama fatalistically said after his health summit, if voters don’t like it, “then that’s what elections are for.” In other words, he’s volunteering Democrats in Congress to march into the fixed bayonets so he can claim an LBJ-level legacy like the Great Society that will be nearly impossible to repeal. This would be an unprecedented act of partisan arrogance that would further mark Democrats as the party of liberal extremism. If they think political passions are bitter now, wait until they pass ObamaCare.
A string of electoral defeats and the great unpopularity of ObamaCare can’t stop Democrats from their self-appointed rendezvous with liberal destiny—ramming a bill through Congress on a narrow partisan vote. What we are about to witness is an extraordinary abuse of traditional Senate rules to pass a bill merely because they think it’s good for the rest of us, and because they fear their chance to build a European welfare state may never come again.
*** The vehicle is “reconciliation,” a parliamentary process that fast-tracks budget measures and was created in 1974 as a deficit-reduction tool. Limited to 20 hours of debate, reconciliation bills need a mere 50 votes in the Senate, with the Vice President as tie-breaker, thus circumventing the filibuster. Both Democrats and Republicans have frequently used reconciliation on budget bills, so Democrats are now claiming that using it to pass ObamaCare is no big deal.
Yet this shortcut has never been used for anything approaching the enormity of a national health-care entitlement. Democrats are only resorting to it now because their plan is in so much political trouble—within their own party, and even more among the general public—and because they’ve failed to make their case through persuasion.
“They know that this will take courage,” Nancy Pelosi said in an interview over the weekend, speaking of the Members she’ll try to strong-arm. “It took courage to pass Social Security. It took courage to pass Medicare,” the Speaker continued. “But the American people need it, why are we here? We’re not here just to self-perpetuate our service in Congress.”
Leave aside the irony of invoking “the American people” on behalf of a bill that consistently has been 10 to 15 points underwater in every poll since the fall, and is getting more unpopular by the day, particularly among independents. As Maine Republican Olympia Snowe pointed out in a speech last December, Social Security passed when Democrats controlled both Congress and the White House, yet 64% of Senate Republicans and 79% of the House GOP voted for it. More than half of the Senate Republican caucus voted for Medicare in 1965. Historically, major social legislation has always been bipartisan, because it reflects a durable political consensus.
Reconciliation is the last mathematical gasp for ObamaCare because Democrats can’t sell their policy to Senator Snowe, any other Republican, or even dozens of Democrats. This raw exercise of political power is of a piece with the copious corruption and bribery—such as the Cornhusker kickbacks and special tax benefits for union members—that liberals had to use to get even this far.
Democrats often point to welfare reform in 1996 as a reconciliation precedent, yet that bill passed the Senate with 78 votes, including Joe Biden and half of the Democratic caucus. The children’s health insurance program in 1997 was steered through Congress with reconciliation, but it, too, was built on strong (if misguided) bipartisan support. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 that created Schip passed 85-15, including 43 Republicans. Even President Bush’s 2001 tax cuts, another case in reconciliation point, were endorsed by 12 Senate Democrats.
The only precedent within historical shouting distance is Ronald Reagan’s 1981 budget, which was controversial because it reshaped dozens of programs. But the Senate wasn’t the problem—it ultimately passed the budget 80 to 14. The real dogfight was in the Democratically controlled House, where majority rules have always obtained, yet Reagan convinced 29 Democrats to buck Speaker Tip O’Neill. Reconciliation, in other words, wasn’t used to subvert the 60-vote Senate threshold, but rather to grease the way for deficit reduction.
The process was designed for items that cut spending or affect tax revenue, to meet targets in the annual budget resolution. Democrats want to convert it into a jerry-rigged amendment process: That is, reconciliation wouldn’t actually be used to pass ObamaCare per se. Instead, it would be used only to muscle through substantive changes to the bill that passed the Senate on Christmas Eve, without which 216 House Democrats won’t vote for it. So Democrats would be writing amendments to current law that isn’t in fact law at all—and can’t become law without those amendments.
President Clinton preferred to use reconciliation to pass HillaryCare in the 1990s, but he was dissuaded by West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, who argued that it would be an abuse of the process. Mr. Byrd, author of a four-volume history of Senate rules and procedures, told the Washington Post last March that “The misuse of the arcane process of reconciliation—a process intended for deficit reduction—to enact substantive policy changes is an undemocratic disservice to our people and to the Senate’s institutional role,” specifically citing health reform and cap and trade.
Regrets, they’ve got a few. Yet these Democratic Sinatras will still do it their way. President Obama is expected to endorse reconciliation in remarks this morning.
The goal is to permanently expand the American entitlement state with a vast apparatus of subsidies and regulations while the political window is still (barely) open, regardless of the consequences or the overwhelming popular condemnation. As Mr. Obama fatalistically said after his health summit, if voters don’t like it, “then that’s what elections are for.”
In other words, he’s volunteering Democrats in Congress to march into the fixed bayonets so he can claim an LBJ-level legacy like the Great Society that will be nearly impossible to repeal. This would be an unprecedented act of partisan arrogance that would further mark Democrats as the party of liberal extremism. If they think political passions are bitter now, wait until they pass ObamaCare.
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1. To meet the Obama administration’s targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, some researchers say, Americans may have to experience a sobering reality: gas at $7 a gallon.
To reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the transportation sector 14 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, the cost of driving must simply increase, according to a forthcoming report by researchers at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
The 14 percent target was set in the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget for fiscal 2010.
2. Supermodel Naomi Campbell may be in trouble with the law in New York City again. CBS 2 has learned that the British catwalker is wanted for questioning by the NYPD after allegedly slapping and punching her driver on Manhattan’s east side on Tuesday.
3. Charlie Rangel emerged from a closed-door meeting in Nancy Pelosi’s office Tuesday night to declare that he’s still the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and hasn’t agreed to give up his gavel – even as some media outlets were reporting that he’d done just that.
But asked whether he’d still be the chairman tomorrow and in the coming days, Rangel said: “I can’t make all those promises at my age.”
And when Pelosi was asked whether Rangel was resigning, she said “no comment.” Still running that most ethical Congress ever, Nancy?
4. Ford Motor Co. outsold General Motors Co. in February for the first time in more than a decade. Ford sold 334 more cars than GM in the U.S. It was the first time since August 1998 that Ford outsold GM. Ford’s said Tuesday its sales jumped 43 percent thanks to strong demand for its cars. The automaker grabbed some sales from Toyota, which is struggling with a massive safety recall.
5. A Russian billionaire has lost a £36 million deposit he paid to buy the most expensive house in the world on the French riviera, plus another £1million interest. Mikhail Prokhorov – the world’s 24th richest man – offered £360 million for the sprawling Villa Leopolda in 2008. After making a ten per cent down-payment, he then backed out of the sale after the global credit crunch hit.
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Mass layoffs, consumer confidence at 1983 lows, more bank failures, and underemployment has hit 19.9%. This is change we can believe in. You would have thought that the election of Scott Brown would have sent a message to the Democrats that jobs are the number ONE concern of voters and yet, Democrats are still spending time pushing their flawed health-care bill. Clearly, government control of our lives is of more concern than creating jobs for this group.
- The median of forecasts from analysts polled by Reuters as for a February reading of 55.0. The expectations index fell to 63.8 from 77.3. The present situation index dropped to 19.4 from 25.2 in January, the worst since February 1983.
- The Labor Department said the number of mass layoff actions — defined as job cuts involving at least 50 people from a single employer - increased by 35 to 1,761. Mass layoffs had trended lower since August.
A total of 182,261 workers were affected last month. In January, 486 mass layoff events were reported in manufacturing, resulting in 62,556 workers filing claims for state unemployment benefits. It was the first increase in mass layoffs in manufacturing since August.
- The number of “problem” U.S. banks jumped 27 percent during the fourth quarter of 2009 to 702, the highest level since 1993 and a sign the industry’s recovery is still shaky, regulators reported on Tuesday.
- A new Gallup poll released Tuesday showed that, during the month of January, 19.9% of the U.S. workforce was underemployed.
According to the poll, which surveyed 20,503 adults January 2 – 31, those who were underemployed spent 36% less than those who were employed. Those underemployed spent $48 per day compared to $75 per day spending for those who were employed.
Remember, after 38 months of a Democrat controlled Congress and 13 months of Obama as President, this is change you can believe in. So I ask, are you better off today than you were 3 years ago?
The Obama administration has been tight lipped about this, but CBN News has learned that five Muslim soldiers were arrested shortly before Christmas. The five Muslim men are suspected of trying to poison the food supply at Fort Jackson. Of course this administration kept this quiet. They don’t want to be seen as being weak on terrorism despite O’Biden’s claims that they are doing a better job than the previous administration.
CBN News:
CBN News has learned exclusively that five Muslim soldiers at Fort Jackson in South Carolina were arrested just before Christmas. It is unclear whether the men are still in custody. The five were part of the Arabic Translation program at the base. Patrick Jones, the Deputy Public Affairs Officer for Fort Jackson, confirmed for CBN News Thursday afternoon that an investigation was ongoing. Prior to this posting, CBN News learned that these details were also confirmed by a government official with knowledge of the investigation. The men are suspected of trying to poison the food supply at Fort Jackson. A source with intimate knowledge of the investigation, which is ongoing, told CBN News investigators suspect the “Fort Jackson Five” may have been in contact with the group of five Washington, D.C., area Muslims that traveled to Pakistan to wage jihad against U.S. troops in December. That group was arrested by Pakistani authorities, also just before Christmas. Coming as it does on the heels of November’s Fort Hood jihadist massacre, this news could have major implications.
CBN News has learned exclusively that five Muslim soldiers at Fort Jackson in South Carolina were arrested just before Christmas. It is unclear whether the men are still in custody. The five were part of the Arabic Translation program at the base.
Patrick Jones, the Deputy Public Affairs Officer for Fort Jackson, confirmed for CBN News Thursday afternoon that an investigation was ongoing.
Prior to this posting, CBN News learned that these details were also confirmed by a government official with knowledge of the investigation.
The men are suspected of trying to poison the food supply at Fort Jackson.
A source with intimate knowledge of the investigation, which is ongoing, told CBN News investigators suspect the “Fort Jackson Five” may have been in contact with the group of five Washington, D.C., area Muslims that traveled to Pakistan to wage jihad against U.S. troops in December. That group was arrested by Pakistani authorities, also just before Christmas.
Coming as it does on the heels of November’s Fort Hood jihadist massacre, this news could have major implications.
Perhaps someone will tell Attorney General Eric Holder and the President that we are at war especially when are soldiers become targets.
Do you remember candidate Obama, the guy who said he would sit down and negotiate with Iran- pursue a diplomatic approach with the nefarious regime? How, through his leadership, he’d bring together UN Security Council members to impose sanctions that would force Iran to halt their nuclear ambitions? Well, after 13 months of lost time and wasted efforts it appears that the Obama administration is about to adopt the same Bush policies Obama campaigned against.
As the apprentice President continues to discover, you can’t negotiate with terrorist or terrorist regimes. Regardless of how many times you apologize or placate those with a radical ideology, it will not alter their determination to destroy you. Regardless of whether you try terrorist in military court or in civilian courts, you will not earn their respect. Perhaps the apprentice President has finally learned a lesson from a seasoned President, and that lesson is that it’s his duty to protect and defend this country even if he means you won’t be personally loved.
Hillary Clinton’s sudden volley of shots at Iran marks the end of an engagement policy that never really began. She wants to convince the world that the regime in Tehran is opposed to serious talks with the west. That may be true, but we’ll probably never know because in fact, no one has offered such talks. In laying out the American approach to Iran, Clinton showed how little US foreign policy has changed since the last years of the Bush administration. President Bush famously explained that he would not negotiate with unfriendly regimes because he didn’t want to “reward bad behaviour”. He wanted states like Iran to change of their own accord, not as a result of negotiation but as a pre-condition for being allowed to negotiate. Clinton embraces this same idea. She rejects the view that as Iran becomes more threatening and approaches nuclear breakout capacity, diplomatic engagement becomes more urgent. Instead she takes the opposite view. “We don’t want to be engaging while they are building their bomb,” she said this week.
Hillary Clinton’s sudden volley of shots at Iran marks the end of an engagement policy that never really began. She wants to convince the world that the regime in Tehran is opposed to serious talks with the west. That may be true, but we’ll probably never know because in fact, no one has offered such talks.
In laying out the American approach to Iran, Clinton showed how little US foreign policy has changed since the last years of the Bush administration. President Bush famously explained that he would not negotiate with unfriendly regimes because he didn’t want to “reward bad behaviour”. He wanted states like Iran to change of their own accord, not as a result of negotiation but as a pre-condition for being allowed to negotiate.
Clinton embraces this same idea. She rejects the view that as Iran becomes more threatening and approaches nuclear breakout capacity, diplomatic engagement becomes more urgent. Instead she takes the opposite view. “We don’t want to be engaging while they are building their bomb,” she said this week.
