Political items

• Charles Krauthammer, "Obama's Unnecessary Apology" (Real Clear Politics, January 30, 2009):

  WASHINGTON -- Every new president flatters himself that he, kinder and gentler, is beginning the world anew. Yet, when Barack Obama in his inaugural address reached out to Muslims with "to the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect," his formulation was needlessly defensive and apologetic.
  
  Is it "new" to acknowledge Muslim interests and show respect to the Muslim world? Obama doesn't just think so, he said so again to millions in his al-Arabiya interview, insisting on the need to "restore" the "same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago."
  
  Astonishing. In these most recent 20 years -- the alleged winter of our disrespect of the Islamic world -- America did not just respect Muslims, it bled for them. It engaged in five military campaigns, every one of which involved -- and resulted in -- the liberation of a Muslim people: Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq.

• George Neumayr, "Nancy Pelosi's Modest Proposal" (American Spectator, January 27, 2009):

  "It will reduces costs," Nancy Pelosi said on This Week, in reference to the "stimulus" rationale for sending millions of dollars to the states for "family planning."
  
  What would once have been considered an astonishingly chilly and incomprehensible stretch is now blandly stated liberal policy.
  
  The full title of Jonathan Swift's work, A Modest Proposal, was, For Preventing the Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being a Burden to their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Public.
  
  Change a few of the words and it could be a Democratic Party policy paper. Swift suggested that 18th-century Ireland stimulate its economy by turning children into food for the wealthy. Pelosi proposes stimulating the U.S. economy by eliminating them.
  
  ... Population is the poverty, not the riches, of a country, according to the left. Never mind that the only developing countries are the ones with growing populations. No matter: While nature can grow unfettered, human nature is to be controlled at all costs. We must preserve everything purely except ourselves. We must send money to the UN to save rain forests and destroy humans.
  
  Pelosi's idea would have appealed to Swift at some level. Mocking the fashionable utilitarian theories of the day, he attributes his Modest Proposal to a "very knowing American of my acquaintance in London." He also had his own satirical notion of stimulus: have the poor be run "through a joint-stock company." Who knows what he would have done with TARP?

[Hat tip to Prof. E.E.]