The poor, poor Left. Imagine their surprise that candidate Obama has not turned out to be the same as President Obama. Although as a candidate and senator Barack Obama promised to rethink the Bush administration’s policies on the “global war on terror,” which he described as “dangerously flawed” and as “undermin[ing] the very values we are fighting to defend,” the fact is, with some major and important exceptions (such as the decision to close Guantanamo and try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a federal court), Obama, the president, has kept much of the what the Bush team had already put in place.
For example, the Obama administration has not abandoned the option of indefinite detention for captured members of the Taliban or al Qaeda; it has modified but not eliminated the use of military commissions to try some of those same detainees; it continues to use—indeed, has expanded—targeted killings against suspected terrorists; it has retained the option of rendition, that is, capturing terrorist suspects in one country and then handing them over to the government of another; it has reaffirmed the principle of “state secrets” in which the government can prevent the disclosure of certain information on the grounds that it would harm national security; it has argued against expanding habeas corpus rights to captured Taliban and al Qaeda members under U.S. military control in Afghanistan. And, of course, the president has added—perhaps reluctantly, but added nevertheless—tens of thousands of ground troops to Afghanistan in an effort to prevent the return of the al Qaeda-friendly Taliban.
Then, we learn yesterday that the White House is threatening to veto this year’s intelligence authorization bill because the bill contains provisos that curtail presidential discretion and prerogatives. According to the Washington Post:
Under the House plan, which is similar to one passed by the Senate, the White House would have to inform all members of both intelligence committees of the “main features” of activities disclosed in detail to the Gang of Eight—the Speaker and minority leader of the House, the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, and the chairmen and ranking minority members of the Senate and House intelligence committees.
In a letter sent to the senior members of the intelligence panels, Office of Management and Budget Director Peter R. Orszag said Gang of Eight notifications are made in only “the most limited of circumstances” affecting “vital interests” of the United States, arguing that the new requirement would “undermine the president’s authority and responsibility to protect sensitive national security information.”
Orszag also opposed a Senate bill provision that required notification of “any change in a covert action,” which he described as setting up “unreasonable burdens” on the agencies, particularly the CIA. The House bill also requires notification of intelligence “significant undertakings,” a term that Orszag described as “vague and uncertain.”
And, finally,
Another such provision would give the Government Accountability Office legal authority to review practices and operations throughout the intelligence community … The provision would also permit any committee of Congress with an arguable claim of jurisdiction over an intelligence activity to request a GAO investigation of that activity.
Heck, the next thing you might read is that the White House is calling Dick Cheney, David Addington, and John Yoo and asking for advice on the powers of the presidency.
Leesons and counting…
Gerard Alexander delivered 
Few have noticed that Senator Chris Dodd does not claim that his bill ends “too big to fail” as most people understand that idea. What he says is that it ends “the possibility that taxpayers will be asked to write a check to bail out financial firms that threaten the economy.” That’s far from ending TBTF. In reality, his proposal makes TBTF national policy. It does this by authorizing the Fed to regulate and supervise the largest financial institutions in the United States, and authorizing a new entity called the Financial Stability Oversight Council to add financial firms to the Fed’s list if—and this is key—they “pose a risk to the financial stability of the United States.”
In early December, I was focused on Climategate and the Copenhagen Climate Summit/fiasco—both gifts that kept on giving. So I somehow missed the fact that on December 5, Pope Benedict issued a stinging 
Mikhail Gorbachev (remember him? He’s the guy who turns up in Louis Vutton magazine ads, having done Pizza Hut ads 15 years ago and having rejected lucrative offers to be a Las Vegas casino greeter—true story!) turned up 
A recent comment by Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, that “almost every Pashtun family has someone involved with the [Taliban] movement,” has caused an outcry in Afghanistan and strained the already tense relationship between Kabul and Washington. President Hamid Karzai had sought reconciliation with the Taliban because he is a Pashtun himself, adding that Washington did not back the negotiations.
Among the “educated class,” there are two competing trends with regard to natural science. The first is materialism or scientism, which tries to reduce everything to the simple predictive methods of physics, to reduce mind, man, and morality to mere matter deterministically in motion.
Apparently some 
Steve, I certainly agree with the bulk of
Yesterday afternoon, the American Enterprise Institute hosted 
Admittedly, my evidence is anecdotal. For the last couple of months, I’ve seen dozens of private emails describing the monumental efforts by private charitable organizations such as Catholic Social Services and Food for the Poor, and by the U.S. military, in delivering emergency humanitarian aid in Haiti. Catholic Social Services and the U.S. military are entirely different institutions, and yet they both seem well-suited to dispense humanitarian aid—though for obviously different reasons.