Published for The Wall Street Journal, August 31st, 2010:

The President’s advisers agree: We’re not leaving next July.

If you are among those who think Barack Obama gives too many speeches, you may not be tuning in this evening when the president takes to the airwaves to speak to the American people about the end of the combat mission in Iraq.

If you do tune in, and you are hoping for some encouragement about the ongoing fight in Afghanistan, you may go away more alarmed than reassured. For when it comes to war speeches, President Obama likes to combine his firm statements of purpose with even firmer statements about heading for the exits. In other words, expect the usual quotient of wince-inducing moments.

Here’s the good news: The Obama policy is better than the Obama rhetoric.

Only three months ago, President Obama told us that Afghanistan today is “no less important than it was in those days after 9/11.” As a candidate who became a Democratic contender largely because of his opposition to the war in Iraq, however, Mr. Obama has used his speeches to shore up his left flank. He knows that the left doesn’t want to hear anything about Afghanistan unless it has to do with deadlines and departure dates.

That’s probably one reason he simply doesn’t talk about the war unless he absolutely has to. If you want an eye-opening sign of administration priorities, go to the White House website and search in “speeches and remarks” for “health care.” You’ll find 400 items since he took office. Now plug in “Afghanistan” and you’ll find just 202.

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Published for The Wall Street Journal, August 24th, 2010:

The Rickey-Robinson partnership changed America.

In a day when American business could use some help with its public image, baseball may offer an answer.

Sixty-five years ago this coming Saturday, an innovative businessman named Branch Rickey signed a ballplayer named Jackie Robinson. The partnership that began in a Brooklyn office would radically change both baseball and the nation for the better. In the many retellings of this story, alas, one point is often overlooked: The Rickey-Robinson relationship was at bottom a business partnership.

To describe it this way is not to belittle it. To the contrary, recognizing the business aspect of this enterprise helps explain not only why it succeeded, but why it succeeded as smoothly as it did.

Robinson, of course, bore the brunt of the pain in that partnership. He was the man on the front lines, the one who endured the ugly racial epithets, who bit his tongue when his every instinct was to fight, and who was forced to prove himself to men and ballplayers who were not his equal in either category.

Rickey understood this going in. If the published accounts of that first Brooklyn meeting are accurate, Rickey may have better understood the terrible things that were awaiting Robinson on and off the field. Yet to his dying day Rickey insisted that he was just a businessman.

“My grandfather never accepted any effort to recognize him as a champion of civil rights, because he believed that you don’t accept awards for doing what’s right,” says Branch Rickey III, president of the Pacific Coast League. “His partnership with Jackie was perhaps the most daring in American sports history, but he knew, too, that it was a good business move, and he never ran away from that justification.”

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Published for The Wall Street Journal, August 10th, 2010:

Attacking the motives of those who disagree with elite opinion has become all too common.

When in 1983 Ronald Reagan characterized the Soviet Union as an “evil empire,” the reaction from his betters was swift. Writing in the New York Times, Anthony Lewis called it “primitive”—and wondered (naturally) what the Europeans would think. A headline in Time referred derisively to “The Right Rev. Ronald Reagan.” All agreed on one thing: this kind of black-and-white moralizing had no place in American politics.

Now cut to today, where moralizing about the ugly motives of the American people has become common. Whether it’s a federal judge declaring there exists no rational opposition to same-sex marriage, a mayor railing against those who would like a mosque moved a few blocks from Ground Zero, a Speaker of the House effectively likening the majority of her countrymen who did not want her health-care bill to Nazis, or a State Department official who brings up the Arizona law on immigration in a human-rights discussion with a Chinese delegation, the chorus is the same: You can’t trust ordinary Americans.

In his ruling on California’s Proposition 8, federal district court Judge Vaughn Walker gives us the most dressed-up version. Not only does he find the state initiative upholding traditional marriage unconstitutional, his opinion maintains that those who disagree—the majority of California voters—can be motivated only by bigotry.

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Published for The Wall Street Journal, August 3rd, 2010:

With every passing day, the dispute over the planned Islamic Center near Ground Zero grows more acrimonious. These feelings will probably only get worse today, when the New York City Landmark Preservation Commission is expected to remove another hurdle by ruling against landmark status for the undistinguished old building the center will replace.

So maybe it’s time to look beyond the lawyers and landmark preservation commissions and regulatory agencies. When we do, it will be hard to find a better example than the grace and wisdom Pope John Paul II exhibited during a similar clash involving another hallowed site on whose grounds innocents were also murdered: Auschwitz.

In the 1980s, Carmelite nuns moved into an abandoned building on the edge of the former Nazi death camp to pray for the souls taken there. As with the dispute over the mosque near Ground Zero, the convent’s presence escalated into a clash not only between different faiths but between competing historical narratives. As with today’s clash too, it seemed intractable until the Polish pope stepped in.

For Jews, Auschwitz is a symbol of the Shoah, and the presence of a convent looked like an effort to Christianize a place of Jewish suffering. Suspicions were further aroused by a fundraising brochure from an outside Catholic group, which referred to the convent as a “guarantee of the conversion of strayed brothers.” The protests mounted over the course of several years and various interfaith agreements, and pointed to the real strains that remained between Poles and Jews over a shared history with very different perspectives.

Full article here

Published for the Wall Street Journal, July 27th, 2010:

Donald Trump is not the only one who knows how to get attention with the words, “You’re fired.” Michelle Rhee, chancellor for the District of Columbia schools, has just done a pretty nifty job of it herself.

On Friday, Ms. Rhee fired 241 teachers—roughly 6% of the total—mostly for scoring too low on a teacher evaluation that measures their performance against student achievement. Another 737 teachers and other school-based staff were put on notice that they had been rated “minimally effective.” Unless these people improve, they too face the boot.

The mass dismissals follow a landmark agreement Ms. Rhee negotiated with the Washington Teachers Union (WTU) at the end of June. The quid pro quo was this: Good teachers would get more money (including a 21.6% pay increase through 2012 and opportunities for merit pay). In exchange, bad teachers could be shown the door.

At the time, many gave the teachers union credit for approving this deal. Here’s how another New York-based newspaper described the contract:

“Teachers’ unions around the country are realizing that they can either participate in shaping reforms or have others’ reforms forced upon them. The latest example comes from Washington, where the union has wisely negotiated and ratified a contract that gives the city greater leeway to pay, promote or fire teachers based on performance.”

Full article here

Published for The Wall Street Journal, July 20th, 2010:

The world’s No. 2 golfer wants America to be No.1 in in science.

Back when Phil Mickelson was a child, he came up with a project for science class that hinted at his future: an experiment measuring which compression golf ball was best in terms of distance and accuracy.

Three decades and three Masters’ jackets later, he’s busy with an even more ambitious science project: the Mickelson ExxonMobil Teachers Academy. The academy is sort of a summer camp for science teachers, where third, fourth and fifth grade teachers come to learn how to improve their teaching of math and science. So the morning after finishing the British Open, Mr. Mickelson has flown into town for the start of this week’s academy at the Liberty Science Center in Newark.

“I’ve always used math and science in my career,” Mr. Mickelson explains over coffee, his conversation laced with references to coefficients, vectors and vortices. “It helps me know what I need to focus on. On putting, for example, at three feet the success rate is about 99%. At four feet it drops off to 88%; at five feet to 75%; at six feet to 62%; and so on.

“Because I understand that, I concentrate on making the shots where I have the greatest probability of success, which can save me exponential strokes on my game.”

Mr. Mickelson’s hope is that by helping teachers, the academy will help America’s kids experience similar aha! moments of their own as they realize the applicability of math and science to their daily lives.

Full article here

Published for The Wall Street Journal, July 13th, 2010:

In 2007, then-Sen. Obama helped derail an immigration bill he claimed to support.  He’s no more serious about a bipartisan bill today.

Many of us in the press have had a field day noting Sen. John McCain’s (R., Ariz.) transformation from immigration maverick to the Wyatt Earp of border control. Fair enough.

Back when it counted, however, Mr. McCain was the only Republican presidential candidate to back the last real chance we had for passing a bipartisan immigration compromise. Meanwhile, a man who claims to favor immigration reform but helped derail that 2007 effort gets a free pass. Today this same man is at it again, calling for a new bipartisan effort even as he diminishes the likelihood of any such reform with his continued partisan snipes.

The man is Barack Obama.

Earlier this month President Obama gave us his speech on comprehensive immigration reform. Since then, observers have commented on its similarity to the Oval Office address given by George W. Bush four years earlier. As someone who had a hand in the Bush speech, let me point out two striking differences.

First, President Bush actually wanted an immigration bill, and indeed many of his conservative critics loathed him for it. Second, because he knew that such a bill required bipartisan support, he did not disparage members of the other party.

Wait a minute. Hasn’t Mr. Obama told us how he “reached across the aisle in the Senate to fight for comprehensive immigration reform”? Well, yes, those are his words. The back story, however, suggests another face to our president. For then-Sen. Obama also favored a series of amendments that were plainly recognized as bill-killers—spurning not only Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain but the Democratic architect of that compromise, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D., Mass.).

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Published for The Wall Street Journal, July 6th, 2010:

When it comes to community organizing, maybe the Wal-Mart crowd has a thing or two to teach our president. And in the hometown of the father of community organizing, the late Saul Alinsky.

After an epic struggle, a unanimous city council gave its blessing to only the second Wal-Mart in the city. But the vote just before Independence Day paves the way for as many as 24 stores in the coming years—and as many as 10,000 new jobs. Alderman Anthony Beale, who represents the Ninth Ward where the new Wal-Mart will be located, says the vote “gives my people hope.” “This the beginning of a new era,” he told the Chicago Defender, the city’s black newspaper. “I am filled with joy.”

For a city rich in labor history, the ironies abound. The Pullman Park area where the store will be located takes its name from George Pullman of the Pullman Palace Car Company. More than a century ago, the famous Pullman strike began in this neighborhood in reaction to wage cuts after the depression hit in 1893.

Until very recently, unions, preservationists, people who just don’t like business, etc., would not have had a hard time keeping out a nonunion, big-box retailer. In 2004, at the same time the first Chicago Wal-Mart was approved, a second store for the South Side was rejected—and organized labor responded by pushing for a “living wage” law and going after the seats of those aldermen who had voted yea. So what changed?

Full article here

Published for The Wall Street Journal, June 29th, 2010:

Secure the border and a healthy debate may follow.

The bandits in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” never said this famous line, not at least in the condensed way it’s so often quoted. But the sentiment—disdain for law enforcement and the rule of law—is clear. And it happens to be the same sentiment behind the kneejerk opposition to the Arizona immigration law, which this week may elicit a legal challenge from the Justice Department.

In this, the authors of the law were clever. They knew their law was no solution to the federal government’s failures on immigration. They also knew—perhaps hoped—that the law would be challenged constitutionally, and that this challenge would likely end up in the Supreme Court.

But they knew something else: By writing it the way they did, they would smoke out the “no badges” brigade—those who effectively oppose real enforcement of any immigration law.

That’s because at its core, the Arizona law adds nothing to immigration law. To the contrary, it empowers Arizona police to do their part to uphold that law when they have a “reasonable suspicion” that someone whom they’ve stopped for some other law enforcement reason is in the country illegally. On top of this, legislators added language to prohibit using racial profiling to make such a stop.

The response has been illuminating. In Mexico, President Felipe Calderón declared that the Arizona law opened the door to “intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse in law enforcement.” In the ranks of Congress, members variously invoked—take your pick—”Jim Crow,” “apartheid” and “Nazi Germany.”

Full article here

Published for the Wall Street Journal, June 22nd, 2010:

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac need to get the BP treatment.

The President: Good evening. As we speak, our nation faces a multitude of challenges. At home, our top priority is to recover and rebuild from a recession. Abroad, our brave men and women in uniform are taking the fight to al Qaeda wherever it exists. Tonight, I want to speak with you about a battle we’re waging against an enemy that is assaulting the very homes our citizens live in.

In September 2008, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac imploded when their losses became unsustainable. In part because so many of our financial institutions relied on mortgage-backed securities based on bad loans, a housing crisis exploded into a financial crisis. And Americans continue to suffer from the effects. Unlike a hurricane or oil spill, where the damage is obvious to the eye, the damage wrought by Fannie and Freddie is much more insidious. As president, I have many smart people in my administration. But you do not need a Nobel Prize to know the problem here.

Fannie and Freddie bought mortgages offered by banks, which it then resold as mortgaged-backed securities. Banks liked this, because it meant more money to lend. In the name of enabling ever more Americans to own their homes, and encouraged by Congress, Fannie and Freddie expanded into ever more risky mortgages. In the end, these two companies helped send billions in loans to Americans who lacked the means to pay them back—while spreading risk throughout our financial system.

Full article here