The Commentariat -- November 20

President Obama's closing remarks at the NATO summit:

President Obama makes opening remarks at his press conference in Lisbon:

     ... Highly recommended: this C-SPAN video, which includes the Q&A session. (Supersize it if you don't want to watch on a teeny-tiny screen.)

More News from the NATO Summit

Washington Post: "Nations on the front lines of the old Cold War divide made clear [in Lisbon] Saturday that they want the Senate to ratify the new U.S.-Russia nuclear treaty, and said that Republican concerns about their well-being were misplaced. In an unannounced group appearance at the end of an administration background briefing on Afghanistan, six European foreign ministers took the stage with a message for Congress. 'Don't stop START before it's started,' Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nickolay Mladenov said."

Politico: "Speaking to reporters in Lisbon, [President] Obama stressed that the plan to begin the 'transition' of [Afghan] security forces in July 2011 and end in 2014 was endorsed by NATO partners and was proposed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai himself."

AP: "Russia was receptive but stopped short of accepting a historic NATO invitation Saturday to join a missile shield protecting Europe against Iranian attack, the alliance's chief announced. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev agreed to involve technicians in development plans, but did not make a commitment for his nation to be linked to it if it becomes operational, NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen announced." ...

... Washington Post: "Russia agreed Saturday to cooperate with NATO on erecting a U.S.-planned anti-missile network in Europe as part of what was described as a new era in security relations between the former Cold War enemies. The accord, announced at a NATO summit in Lisbon, symbolized a conclusion by the United States and its main European allies that Russia is not a threat to be protected from but a potential ally in girding the continent against possible ballistic missile attacks from Iran or elsewhere."

New York Times: "NATO leaders began talks on Saturday over an exit strategy from Afghanistan, pledging to remain in the country to assist with training, logistics and advising even as troops are withdrawn, said NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen." ...

     ... Washington Post Update: "The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan formally adopted a transition plan Saturday designed to turn over control of the war to Afghan security forces by 2014 but continue heavy financial and military support for the indefinite future." ...

     ... BUT, according to the AP: "NATO nations formally agreed Saturday to start turning over Afghanistan's security to its military next year and give local forces full control by 2014. The U.S. and its allies appeared to disagree on when NATO combat operations would end. NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he did not expect NATO troops to stay in the fight against the Taliban after 2014. Later, a senior Obama administration official said the U.S. had not committed to ending its combat mission in Afghanistan at the end of 2014."

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Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times: "... the Congressional Oversight Panel [published] a thoughtful and thorough report last week on the mortgage documentation mess. It argued that ... paperwork problems may have significant implications for banks, investors and the stability of the financial system.... It also questions the view, held by some overseeing the Treasury Department’s loan modification effort, that mortgage documentation errors have no impact on the program."

Dana Milbank of the Washington Post: "Republicans seem to have entered a post-post-9/11 era, in which national security is no longer a higher priority than their interest in undermining President Obama." Milbank backs the New START treaty AND the new TSA security patdowns. CW: at least he's half-right. ...

... Mary Beth Sheridan of the Washington Post: "An unusual split has opened between conservative Republicans and the American military leadership over the U.S.-Russia nuclear treaty, with current and former generals urging swift passage but politicians expressing far more skepticism.... Seven of eight former commanders of U.S. nuclear forces have urged the Senate to approve the treaty." CW: Sheridan accepts Republican anti-treaty talking points as if their "objections" were serious concerns. They aren't. This is strictly a political ploy to damage the Obama Administration. That disapproval of the treaty will also compromise national security is of no concerns to these callous, traitorous partisans.

Michael Shear of the New York Times: the American Values Network, "a group backing the ratification of a new arms treaty with Russia, has created a version of [President Lyndon] Johnson’s famous 'Daisy' ad.... The commercial ... is scheduled to run on cable television in states whose senators will be key to passage of the new treaty":

Here's the original ad, which aired only once:

The main reason so many in Congress oppose letting the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire is that they are the wealthy. The President's proposal of allowing tax cuts for those earning $250,000 or more per year would raise the taxes of most members of Congress. Half of them are millionaires, and with a base salary of $174,000, a majority likely have reportable incomes of at least $250,000 a year. -- Constant Weader ...

... Forty "Patriotic Millionaires" ask the Congress to let the tax cuts for millionaires expire. Link via Joe Conason.

Another Setback for Average Americans. Louis Uchitelle of the New York Times: "Organized labor appears to be losing an important battle in the Great Recession. Even at manufacturing companies that are profitable, union workers are reluctantly agreeing to tiered contracts that create two levels of pay.... Managers of some marquee companies are aiming to make this concession permanent. If they are successful, their contracts could become blueprints for other companies in other cities, extending a wage system that would be a startling retreat for labor."

Carl Hulse of the New York Times: "Empowered by their election gains, Congressional Republicans are giving little ground to President Obama and weakened Democrats in the final weeks of the 111th Congress, imperiling Democratic efforts to pass major tax and spending legislation, unemployment aid and a nuclear nonproliferation treaty among other issues."

Dan Eggen & T.W. Farnam of the Washington Post: Democratic strategists are deciding to "fight fire with fire by encouraging the formation of counterweights to the GOP-leaning independent groups that dominated the airwaves this fall."

Ryan Grim of the Huffington Post: "Leaders of the effort to reform the filibuster in the Senate are pushing forward despite the election outcome, working to gather support within the Democratic caucus while reaching out to Republicans."

Tobin Harshaw, who writes "The Thread" for the New York Times, has a very good compilation of posts & articles about the TSA's new security procedures, instituted just in time for the busiest travel day of the year....

... CW: despite the fact that many observers see this issue on the conservative-liberal continuum largely because of the privacy issue, people of every political persuasion who have actually undergone the searches cite reasons to find them unwarranted. I am persuaded by this observation by conservative lawyer Ann Althouse:

Someone, at some level of the Obama administration, decided that the only way to channel people into the see-you-naked machines was to make the alternative more offensive to nearly everyone. Personally, I’d take the grope over being seen naked, but I did a poll yesterday, and I see that the scanner is significantly more popular than the grope.... I suspect that if too many people choose the grope over nakedness, the plan is to intensify the grope until they get the scanner acceptance rate they need. -- Ann Althouse

      ... That was in fact, exactly the experience that another conservative, The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg, had at Baltimore-Washington International, where TSA employees taunted him for choosing the groping over the X-ray machines. ...

... Goldberg was hardly alone. Susan Stellin of the New York Times reports, "In the three weeks since the Transportation Security Administration began more aggressive pat-downs of passengers at airport security checkpoints, traveler complaints have poured in. Some offer graphic accounts of genital contact, others tell of agents gawking or making inappropriate comments, and many express a general sense of powerlessness and humiliation.... On Tuesday, two pilots filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration, claiming that the new screening procedures violate Fourth Amendment rights against unreasonable search and seizure." At least one other party has filed a similar suit. ...

... The New York Times Editorial Board: "... there is no excuse for the bumbling, arrogant way the Transportation Security Administration has handled questions and complaints.... Nothing in the Constitution permits power-happy or just downright creepy people from abusing their uniforms and the real need for security." ...

... CW: my friend Karen Garcia writes in a New York Times comment (#4),

Leonardo's "Vitruvian Man."Whenever I see those nude body scans of passengers, I am reminded of the famous DaVinci drawing of the 'Vitruvian Man' - multiple limbs spread-eagled in perfect geometric formation. I can envision the $10-an-hour TSA workers making a fortune marketing those things. Even though they are so not saved! We should know by now that nothing computer-generated ever truly disappears. Those plastic gloves the Gestapo-lites use to pat us down will never disappear either. They'll be sitting in a landfill, unchanged, a thousand years from now, forever sanitized for our protection.

But, having read Karen's comment, along with reports that a huge percentage of Americans approve of the new TSA policy (though as Nate Silver points out, few in this huge percentage have actually been subjected to it), the image I'm seeing looks more like this, minus the fig leaf, of course:

The Seventeenth Commandment: "Thou shalt not recall U.S. Senators." Eugune Volokh recounts a recent New Jersey Supreme Court decision re: a planned recall of New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez, & explains why a recalling Senators is unconstitutional. 

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial. -- U.S. Constitution, Sixth Amendment...

... Brian Palmer, in Slate, on the definition of "speedy."

"Celebrating Girls and Women." Federal Judge Kimba Wood is well-known for other things, but I like her for this recent "ruling." The attorney in question, Bennett Epstein, is a misogynistic jerk. 

You sit there, just looking stupid.... It is a juvenile spectacle, and I resent being called upon to give it dignity. -- Justice Antonin Scalia, on the State of the Union address

... CW: the State of the Union address, as Scalia well knows, is a Constitutional requirement. Attendance by the Justices, however, is not. David Ingram of BLT has more on Justice Scalia's observations, delivered at the annual dinner of the ultra-conservative Federalist Society’s national convention.

Louis Sahagun of the Los Angeles Times: "California's Latino and Asian voters are significantly more concerned about core environmental issues, including global warming, air pollution and contamination of soil and water, than white voters, according to the latest Los Angeles Times/USC poll. For example, 50% of Latinos and 46% of Asians who responded to the poll said they personally worry a great deal about global warming, compared with 27% of whites. Two-thirds of Latinos and 51% of Asians polled said they worry a great deal about air pollution, compared with 31% of whites."

CW: the slug for Alex Pareene's review of Sarah Palin's new book was pretty funny: "The reality show star is outraged that everyone in the press is contributing to her publisher's marketing campaign." The review, which is short, is even funnier. But the LOL bit comes from Palin herself in the form, naturally, of a tweet, which  perfectly captures her signature self-absorbed petulant ignorance: *

     * Update: actually, Gawker, she's right, if you post whole pages of the book. Numbskulls.

... Sam Stein & Lisa Shapiro of the Huffington Post post some brief excerpts of the Palin book & provide a short synopsis.

President Obama at NATO Meeting

President Obama's statement following Friday's NATO meetings:

President Obama & Portugese Prime Minister Socrates make statements to the press following their meeting. President Obama begins speaking about 4:50 min. in:

President Obama speaks to the press at a joint event with Portugese President Cavaco Silva:

The Commentariat -- November 19

Austan Goolsbee, Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, discusses the rebirth of the American auto industry:

Art from Oleg Volk.Jim Fallows has several posts on the TSA body scans. One includes a copy of this letter from James Ehrler, a former airlines pilot, to his Senator, Amy Klobuchar. Here's a snippet of Ehrler's letter, but I recommend your reading the entire letter:

... if I were to tell you that 30,000 people were dying every year in the air you would be appalled and demand something be done.... Now, obviously, this is not happening in the air but it is happening on the roads *every year*. And we *can* stop that bloodshed! How? By limiting vehicles to no more than 10mph. ... Yet we, as a society, are *not* willing to do that because we *are* willing to make cost/benefit tradeoffs.

Scott Wilson of the Washington Post: "... since his midterm shellacking this month, [President Obama] has suffered a series of foreign policy setbacks, in Congress and abroad, that have put his agenda for improving America's standing and strength overseas at risk. From failing to secure a free-trade agreement in South Korea to struggling to win Senate ratification of an arms-control treaty with Russia, Obama has bumped up against the boundaries of his power at a defining moment of his presidency." ...

... Peter Baker of the New York Times: "... President Obama has decided to confront Senate Republicans in a make-or-break battle over arms control that could be an early test of his mettle heading into the final two years of his term. He is pushing for a vote on a signature issue despite long odds, daring Republicans to block an arms-control treaty at the risk of disrupting relations with Russia and the international coalition that opposes Iran’s nuclear program." CW: as President of the Senate, Joe Biden should make the Senate stay in session till they ratify. If it runs into the beginning of the next Congress. the President should declare a national emergency, & hold 'em down. With marshals! ...

... Paul Krugman: "China, Germany and the Republican Party are all trying to bully the Federal Reserve into calling off its efforts to create jobs.... China and Germany want America to stay uncompetitive; Republicans want the economy to stay weak as long as there’s a Democrat in the White House." ...

... Meanwhile, Simon Johnson notes that the Irish debt crisis may "become euro-zone wide," & the EU may call on China to pump money into the IMF to save Ireland. AP backstory: "Irish, European and International Monetary Fund officials mounted tough negotiations Friday over terms of a massive credit line for Ireland's debt-crippled banks — with the fate of Ireland's prized low business taxes in the firing line."

Glenn Thrush of Politico: "Senate Democrats – including typically mild-mannered Bill Nelson of Florida – lit into President Barack Obama during an unusually tense air-clearing caucus session on Thursday.... Several senators and senior aides told POLITICO that Nelson was just one of several senators to express anger at White House missteps.... Added one veteran senator: 'It was the most frank exchange of views I’ve ever seen.'" CW: Thrush wrote a story yesterday on the meeting, which I previously linked (the story has since been modified).

More evidence of Democrats showing some spine:

New York Times Editorial Board deplores Republican leaders' rudeness & disrespect for the office in refusing to meet with the President. ...

... Ergo, Gene Robinson of the Washington Post says President Obama should ignore the Republicans & use his vast powers to set & execute his own agenda. There is a lot he can do without legislative authority.

Who Cares about the Constitution? Steve Clemons notes that a group of "so-called strict constructionist" Senators-Elect, including Rand Paul, have written to Harry Reid urging him to violate the 20th Amendment of the Constitution which sets Congressional terms.

Ezra Klein: Yesterday, "Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Scott Brown (R-Mass.) introduced the 'Empowering States to Innovate Act.' The legislation would allow states to develop their own health-care reform proposals that would preempt the federal government’s effort.... Wyden, with the help of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), was able to build a version of this exemption into the original health-care reform bill, but ... was forced to accept a starting date of 2017.... The Wyden/Brown legislation would allow states to ... start implementing them in 2014, rather than wasting time and money setting up a federal structure that they don’t plan to use." Conservatives love the bill, & some Democrats like it, too.

One Reason We're Glad She Won. Igor Volsky of Think Progress: Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told a local radio station she would vote for repeal of "don't ask, don't tell." ...

... CW: I guess it's Maddow Day. Here's a good segment on DADT repeal:

Not Exactly News -- She's Done It Before. Geoffrey Dunn in the Huffington Post: in her new book Sarah Palin writes racist remarks about Michelle Obama. ...

... The Reliable Source has a few more grizzly droppings here. ...

... But Palin's new presidential bid book might not help her. James Carville likes the "designated old white guy":