The Baehr Essentials

By Richard Baehr

The Democrats now have to deal with what appears to be a serial liar: Richard Blumenthal, their candidate for Senator in Connecticut. The current count is five public statements in which he lied about serving in Viet Nam. He also lied about being captain of the Harvard swim team. What is next- that he gave all of his salary to the Make A Wish Foundation?

In addition to his mendacity (a word I always liked after seeing "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"), Blumenthal was a thug as an Attorney General, as the story below describes. His idea of job creation was to create wealth for trial lawyers.

From the New York Times (not Fox News)

Blumenthal's "service" as Attorney General.

****

And then there is Joe Sestak, the Democrat who took down the hapless Arlen Specter. As pathetic a figure as Specter was his last few years, he was always a solid supporter of the US Israel relationship. Joe Sestak cannot make that claim. He is the House member who spoke to CAIR events, criticized Israel over its actions in Gaza, and loyally signed on to the J-Street agenda. The contrast with Pat Toomey, his Republican opponent on Israel policy , could not be sharper. Will Jews in Pennsylvania care?

Sestak and Israel

The White House, with another example of its exquisite light touches, tried to bribe Sestak and get him out of the race against Specter a few months back, by dangling in front of him the Secretary of the Navy job. Sestak can't seem to give a straight answer now on the subject, though he made the bribery charge earlier, and of course Robert Gibbs is not interested in the subject either. Sestak now seems as tongue tied on this embarrassing event as Rand Paul is on the subject of civil rights law.

****

The utter depravity, and failure of the Obama foreign policy is a sight to behold. In the past few days, we have the following:

The Administration's Deputy National Security Advisor, John Brennan, who may soon get the top job, calls Jerusalem Al Quds, and indicates he wants to work with the moderate elements in Hezbollah.

The Administration expresses its embarrassment to that human rights champion China over the new Arizona immigration law, and allows Mexico's President, whose country enforces a far tougher law on illegals than the US or Arizona, and facilitates the movement of illegals into the U.S., to lecture us on the subject.

The Administration is unjustifiably proud of its agreement with China and Russia on very weak new Iran sanctions at the U.N. One problem, though is a giant loophole that allows Russia to ship missiles to Iran that would of course be used to fire at Israeli attack planes or missiles.

Marty Peretz thinks the new sanctions, the product of 16 months of diplomacy and negotiations, are feeble.

Marty is on a roll, commenting on Brennan, whom he charitably labels a nitwit.

Charles Krauthammer on how countries behave when they sense weakness. Turkey and Brazil, unsurprisingly, align with Iran. As Dennis Ross assured an audience at the University of of Chicago last year, the Obama foreign policy would be transformational. It has been- he has driven away allies (Britain, the Israel, India) kissed up to the worst nation in the world, and pushed the neutrals off the fence to the other side.

An interview with Elliot Abrams on the failure of the Administration's Middle East peace processing.

****

Greece was told that if it wanted a bailout, it would need to consider privatizing its health care system, to bring down the cost. The new British government says it has to take on and greatly reduce the cost of public union entitlements. Even the New York Times, says the municipal unions are bankrupting the state of New York. And while this is going on , Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress are rapidly expanding entitlement spending, and trying to move the US closer to the decaying, unsustainable and slow growth welfare state model in Europe. Is this the change 52.9% of American voters thought they were getting in 2008?

The New York pension mess.

Mort Zuckerman on the bankrupting of America.

Nicholas Sarkozy announcesd a three year public spending freeze.

Real spending cuts coming in Great Britain.

White House advisor Paul Volcker says the deficit and entitlement spending must be cut.

****

In the last two days, two unions pledged to spend over $100 million in the 2010 campaigns in order to re-elect a Democratic controlled Congress, which of course will insure that all of the publicly funded goodies awarded to them continue to pile up (and destroy the country's financial future).

****

Woody Allen, the man who took up with his girlfriend's teen age stepdaughter, thinks that we should let bygones be bygones, and leave Roman Polanski alone. Allen also embarrassed himself this week by calling for Barack Obama to gain dictatorial powers so he can get things done without opposition. For the uninformed, here is the story of Polanksi's "bygones", the rape of a 13 year old.