24 November Links Round-Up

David Colley writes in the NYT (h/t Scott L.) that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower missed an opportunity to end WWII early.

What he doesn't point out is that if Allied armies had pushed further, faster, into Germany and other Nazi occupied parts, they might have changed the course of the Cold War too.

Meanwhile in this week's Global View, Bret Stephens makes some scary comparisons between President Obama and Jimmy Carter. We should be so fortunate to have a one & done from Obama.

The WSJ's Review & Outlook editorial examines the revealing emails written by climate scientist-hacks in England and other parts and draws the obvious conclusions--that scientists are not a-political and they have an agenda.

And finally, William McGurn writes about my favorite Democrat, Joe Lieberman. Senator Lieberman stood tall on Iraq, and won re-election in 2006 against a Democrat & a Republican as an Independent. And now he's standing tall against Obamacare--specifically the public option.

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IWHDI: How Many Jobs Have You Saved Or Created Today?

Add this to the "if W had done it" file.

In fact, I'm going to start my own "if Bush had done it file." Sure, after 5+ months in office, there have already been a lot of incidences I could have put in this file. Never fear, the audacity and hubris of the Obama administration will surely give me plenty of opportunity to invoke if W had done it.

William McGurn calls attention (because liberals & the media--but I repeat myself--ignore the ridiculousness of the claim) to Obama's ludicrous claim that he has "created or saved" tens of thousands of jobs.

Now, something's wrong when the president invokes a formula that makes it impossible for him to be wrong and it goes largely unchallenged. It's true that almost any government spending will create some jobs and save others. But as Milton Friedman once pointed out, that doesn't tell you much: The government, after all, can create jobs by hiring people to dig holes and fill them in.

If the "saved or created" formula looks brilliant, it's only because Mr. Obama and his team are not being called on their claims. And don't expect much to change. So long as the news continues to repeat the administration's line that the stimulus has already "saved or created" 150,000 jobs over a time period when the U.S. economy suffered an overall job loss 10 times that number, the White House would be insane to give up a formula that allows them to spin job losses into jobs saved.

These sorts of claims are of a piece with the re-branding of "global warming" as "climate change." What's that you say? Facts don't fit your narrative? No matter. Just change the narrative such that whatever happens, you can claim explanatory foreknowledge.

"Saved or created" & "climate change." Wow. And they say conservatives are gullible and dumb.

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Abstinence vs. 'Safe Sex'

I'm only just now beginning to get caught up on all the reading you all have been sending me.

Conventional wisdom holds that parents who teach and encourage abstinence rather than proper condom use are fools and idiots who put their children at risk for STDs and teen pregnancy.

There are even scientists out there manipulating samples and outright misinterpreting the data to arrive at these conclusions.

A very liberal press--a press completely unfriendly to the religious (unless they're Muslim)--parrots these "findings" and spins them even further than the spin given them by some of the researchers.

Folks, beware statistics.

William McGurn of the WSJ recently analyzed the latest such story:

The real difference is their more conservative and religious home and social environment. As she notes, when you compare both groups in this study with teens at large, the behavioral differences are striking. Here are just a few:

- These teens generally have less risky sex, i.e., fewer sexual partners.

- These teens are less likely to have a teenage pregnancy, or to have friends who use drugs.

- These teens have less premarital vaginal sex.

- When these teens lose their virginity they tend to do so at age 21 -- compared to 17 for the typical American teen.

- And very much overlooked, one out of four of these teens do in fact keep the pledge to remain chaste -- amid much cheap ridicule and just about zero support outside their homes or churches.

Let's put this another way. The real headline from this study is this: "Religious Teens Differ Little in Sexual Behavior Whether or Not They Take a Pledge."

Did you catch how far this data was spun by the press/"researchers?" It should have read, as McGurn points out above, "Conservative/religious teens, regardless of taking an abstinence pledge, are far more conservative about sex than their peers." Instead, the media, taking their cue from the researchers, somehow parsed the data to show that chastity pledges don't matter.

This, of course, is not the significant variable. And if they'd been honest about their data, they would have pointed that out. The significant variable--the point of McGurn's article--is the conservative/religious home & family life.

Religious, conservative teens from religious, conservative families are far more conservative about sex than their, ah, less conservative & religious peers. Seriously, does this surprise anyone?

(thanks to Branden B.)


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Stephen Hadley, Awesome American

In the week-long run-up to VI-Day (Victory in Iraq Day), I'll be posting good articles related to the success of our troops, The Surge, and those who supported The Surge against the Democrat and public opinion tide.

One of the people to include in the pantheon was Stephen Hadley.

[...] one fact trumps everything else: Without this good man's courage and persistence, there would have been no surge.

I don't think I am talking out of school to mention facts that have been recorded in newspaper articles and books as different as Bing West's "The Strongest Tribe" and Bob Woodward's "The War Within." The surge story begins back in 2006, when al Qaeda finally succeeded in setting the Shia and Sunni at each others' throats. That October, with Baghdad consumed by sectarian fires, Mr. Hadley tasked William Luti to come up with a new way forward.

Mr. Luti was then serving in the National Security Council (NSC) as special assistant for defense policy and strategy. A retired Navy captain who had commanded an amphibious ready group that included thousands of Marines, he was familiar with war planning. The briefing that he came up with was called "Changing the Dynamics: Surge and Fight, Create Breathing Space and Then Accelerate the Transition." You know it as "the surge."

The difficulty for these two men was that outside their colleagues in the NSC and West Wing, few wanted to hear about sending more American troops to Iraq. The Democrats wanted out and were declaring the war lost. Some Republicans were joining in. The Iraq Study Group offered a face-saving out, and many in the Defense and State departments wanted to take it. The American public was weary.

By having Mr. Luti draw up the concept for a surge, Mr. Hadley ensured that when options were presented to the president, one of them would be to fight. In Mr. Luti's strategic conception, securing the population became the top priority. In public, advocates like retired Army Gen. Jack Keane and military strategist Fred Kagan did yeoman's work to press the case for a surge. But within the White House decision-making process, it was almost this simple: No Steve Hadley, no surge -- and no success.

What can this possibly mean for Mr. Obama? The answer is plenty. Many things have changed since he first came out against this war. For one thing, he is now the president-elect instead of an opposition voice in the Senate -- which means he now bears the responsibility for how the war turns out. For another, back when he first called for U.S. troops to be withdrawn, President Bush's victory talk was treated as a joke. It is no longer a joke.

As Gens. David Petraeus and Raymond Odierno are keen to remind us, the gains in Iraq are fragile and reversible. But they are nevertheless real. And that means that if Mr. Obama is not careful, he could be the president who loses Iraq.

It need not turn out that way. At bottom, Mr. Obama's war stance boils down to reducing our presence in Iraq and increasing our presence in Afghanistan. The success of the surge permits him [Obama] to carry out this strategy from a position of strength. In fact, the security pact just approved by Iraq's cabinet suggests that Mr. Obama is now in a position to achieve most of his Iraq aims without jeopardizing the hard-won gains our troops have made -- provided he keeps his word to listen to our commanders on the ground.

(per usual, emphasis added)

What a difference 2 years makes.


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