Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she is “hopeful” about a successful resolution of the hotly disputed August 20th Afghan president election.
** AFGHAN ELECTION RESULTS AGAIN DELAYED, UNTIL TUESDAY. Amidst word that a UN-backed elections commission is declaring as many as one-third of his votes to be fraudulent, Afghan President Hamid Karzai today said that results of the recount will at last be released on Tuesday.
The vote took place nearly two months ago but has been hotly disputed by Karzai’s election opponents, including chief rival Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the former Afghan foreign minister and Northern Alliance spokesman, and United Nations observers. They charge massive fraud on the part of Karzai supporters. After first declaring victory, Karzai may be on the verge of accepting a run-off election and other concessions to opponents.
** REVOLUTIONARY GUARD LEADER CHARGES BRITISH, AMERICAN, AND PAKISTANI INTELLIGENCE INVOLVEMENT IN BOMBINGS, WHILE NEW U.S. POLL SHOWS WIDESPREAD DISTRUST OF IRAN’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM. The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards charged today that British intelligence, in league with US and Pakistani services, instigated yesterday’s deadly terrorist bombings by Iranian insurgents which killed five top IRGC commanders and scores of other cadre.
Meanwhile, a new poll by ABC News and the Washington Post shows solid support for President Barack Obama’s handling of the Iranian nuclear crisis.
Americans overwhelmingly see Iran’s nuclear program as geared toward the development of atomic weaponry, and more than eight in 10 support direct diplomatic talks to try to resolve the situation, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
As negotiators from the United States, France and Russia meet with Iran starting today in Vienna, public opinion in the U.S. is decidedly behind one possible outcome should the talks fail: 78 percent in the new poll support international economic sanctions against Iran to try to prevent it from developing nuclear weapons.
There’s less, though still sizable backing for military engagement, with 42 percent of Americans supporting the bombing of Iran’s nuclear development sites and 33 percent advocating invading the country with U.S. ground forces (54 and 62 percent, respectively, oppose these actions).
Three in 10 support direct financial incentives such as aid money or more trade; two-thirds of Americans oppose these potential inducements.
Public reviews of how President Obama is handling the situation with Iran have changed little since the spring and summer: 52 percent of Americans now approve of how he is doing in this area, 39 percent disapprove.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: “THE COLOR BLUE.”
White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel delivered a strong message yesterday to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, saying there will be no new assistance to Afghanistan unless the hotly disputed August 20th presidential election is resolved appropriately.
MONDAY MORNING QUARTERBACK.
It’s another big week in presidential politics, and perhaps an eventful week in California politics.
President Barack Obama is working with congressional leaders to harmonize the several versions of national health care reform that have passed the five committees dealing with the issue in the Senate and the House.
A seeming impasse was broken last week when, despite heavy opposition from the insurance industry, the Senate Finance Committee at last passed a sweeping bill, picking up one Republican vote, Maine Senator Olympic Snowe, with another Republican vote, fellow Maine Senator Susan Collins, likely on the floor. If the versions are harmonized. This version, unlike those coming from the House, does not include the public option, though various triggers to activate a competing national health service are contemplated.
The Obama Administration is also continuing economic stimulus activities. Though the Dow is over 10,000 for the first time in a year — opposition leaders used to jibe about the “Obama Market,” but obviously no longer — the overall economy is sluggish at best.
As complex as health care and the economy are, there are other more complicated geopolitical matters on the plate of the new Nobel Peace Prize winner. And they all concern how to balance diplomacy with the potential use of force.
The Obama Administration is rolling out a new policy toward Sudan in an effort to stop the Darfur horror. If major progress is made, new aid will be forthcoming. If not, tough sanctions.
Yesterday in Iran, internal insurgents struck in two terrorist bombing attacks against the leadership of the Revolutionary Guards, killing five top commanders and wounding dozens of others. Iran claimed the attacks, believed to have been carried out by dissident ethnic Baluchis, were instigated by “foreign enemies.”
More talks on Iran’s controversial nuclear program are scheduled for today. Promised international inspections have not yet taken place.
In Afghanistan, results of the United Nations-led review of August 20th’s hotly-disputed presidential election — long in the counting and recounting — are coming, perhaps today. I wrote that they would come over the weekend, but they did not, which was just the latest delay in an oft-delayed process.
They will lead to a formal call for a run-off election, which current President Hamid Karzai, who claimed he won an easy majority two months ago, has been resisting. His administration is widely described as incompetent and corrupt and many of his votes are judged to be fraudulent.
Karzai was the pick for the Afghan presidency of the Bush/Cheney Administration, and had a very chummy relationship with former President George W. Bush. Which makes yesterday’s marches by Karzai supporters opposing “foreign interference” all the more amusing, unintentionally.
In Pakistan, heavy fighting is underway in the jihadist stronghold of South Waziristan. 30,000 Pakistani Army troops began a ground offensive on Saturday.
Back in California politics, legislative committees this week will take up major legislation dealing with the state’s chronic water crisis. Most of it has reportedly been agreed to by Governor Arnold Scharzenegger and Democratic and Republican legislative leaders, with state Senate leader Darrell Steinberg playing a leading role.
I spoke with Schwarzenegger chief of staff Susan Kennedy and she sounds optimistic about the progress of the water package. Legislative votes are said by various sources to be likely sometime next week.
In the race to succeed Schwarzenegger, whose time is limited by term limits, former Governor-turned-Attorney General Jerry Brown continues in a commanding position, though he is not a formal candidate.
Brown, a two-time Democratic presidential runner-up, has nearly cleared the Democratic field. His sole remaining party rival, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who represents a third generation of his family that has advanced due to its relationship with the Brown family, was in Philadelphia, New York, and Texas last week trying to raise money to catch up with Brown, who has held no out-of-state fundraisers. San Francisco, where Brown leads Newsom by a wide margin, is in a chronic budget crisis and Newsom is termed out as mayor. Newsom’s ballyhooed LA fundraiser with former President Bill Clinton, actually one in a long string of such events rewarding top Hillary Clinton backers around the country, came and went, attracting a few hundred people, no major stars, and a handful of $5000 contributions.
On the Republican side, ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman, state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner, and former Congressman Tom Campbell continue making low-key appearances around the state, mostly aimed at the California’s decidedly conservative Republican primary electorate.
Russia conducted a large military exercise with five former Soviet states over the weekend in Kazakhstan, whose president says his country will enrich Iranian uranium.
** OBAMA TODAY. President Barack Obama is in Washington today.
Obama has had his daily intelligence and economic briefings in the Oval Office.
He has also met with the National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge winners.
At 12:15 PM Pacific, Obama meets with senior advisors in the Oval Office.
At 1 PM, Obama meets with North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad in the Oval Office. Conrad is now a leading Democratic moderate, though as a state official he was a crusading populist.
For his part, Vice President Joe Biden held a working breakfast this morning at the White House with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Biden then held an economic recovery act event with Energy Secretary Steve Chu, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood.
Biden then hits the road for campaign events.
This afternoon, he does a rally in Edison, New Jersey for Governor Jon Corzine. In the evening, he appears at a fundraiser in Pittsburgh for Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter. And later this evening, Biden delivers the keynote address at the Allegheny County Democratic Committee’s annual Kennedy-Lawrence Dinner.
** FROM THE ARNOLD FILE. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appears in the Central Valley today.
At 10 AM, he holds a press conference in Merced City Hall to sign legislation cracking down on fraudulent mortgage practices taking advantage of the national foreclosure crisis.
The event will be webcast live on www.gov.ca.gov.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: “WEE SMALL HOURS.” … From my October 12th review.
** WHY OBAMA DOESN’T DESERVE THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE, OR THE OLYMPICS RAP. When the Vulcans finally make first contact with the peoples of Spaceship Earth, there’s no doubt who most will choose to represent us. Which is when we may learn that President Barack Obama really is a “Manchurian candidate,” an alien agent, albeit not of the sort featured in even the sweatiest imaginings of the yaposphere.
Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize this morning makes it two surreal Fridays in a row.
Last week, we learned that Chicago would not host the 2016 Olympic Games. Which should have surprised approximately no one, not that you’d know that from the profusions of rage and disappointment — or from the far right, happy rage — that Obama’s trip to Copenhagen came up short. …
** ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER, JERRY BROWN, BILL CLINTON AND THAT CRAZY CALIFORNIA GOVERNORSHIP. Six years ago last night, Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California in a 17-point landslide. It was the dramatic California recall election, and I spoke with Schwarzenegger in his suite at the Century Plaza Hotel in Los Angeles before he went downstairs to deliver his victory speech in the ballroom below.
The sun was setting, in the rather nice view from the presidential suite, into the Pacific and what proved to be more a more than capacity crowd was gathering downstairs. Schwarzenegger, naturally excited even when he’s not all that excited, told me he intended to do big things for California, and end the gridlock that ground state government to a halt less than a year after the re-election of Gray Davis.
Five years earlier, in 1998, I spoke with Gray Davis in his rather less cinematic election night suite at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles. He had just won a 20-point landslide election as governor of California.
Davis, a less excitable fellow than Arnold Schwarzenegger, was nevertheless quite pleased at gaining this goal of a lifetime. He told me that he intended to do big things for California, but wanted to avoid spending commitments that the state’s revenue — then flush from the dot-com boom — couldn’t sustain over time.
Despite all the drama, and landslide election victories for governors of two different political parties — who are nonetheless friends now notwithstanding Schwarzenegger ousting Davis in the recall election six years ago — including another 17-point landslide victory for Schwarzenegger in 2006, the state’s budget is a mess, its political gridlock seemingly intractable.
Now California is heading into another gubernatorial election. And according to the brand new Field Poll, and everything else I know, the likely next governor is someone who’s already won a landslide election as governor, albeit 30 years ago. That’s Jerry Brown, who won his latest landslide in 2006 when he was elected California’s attorney general, the state’s top law enforcement officer. Brown is a former two-term governor, two-term mayor of gritty Oakland, and two-time runner-up for the Democratic presidential nomination. … From my October 8th essay.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: “SOUVENIR.” … From my October 5th review.
** IRANIAN CRISIS: PROGRESS, PROBLEMS. … From my October 2nd column.
** IRANIAN CRISIS: RUN-UP TO NEGOTIATION. … From my September 30th column.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: “SEVEN TWENTY THREE.” … From my September 28th review.
** OBAMA’S SUMMITEERING: HIGH ALTITUDE HEADACHES AND RUMORS OF WAR. … From my September 25th column.
** MAD MEN‘S EMMY TRIUMPH COMES AS “GUY WALKS INTO AN ADVERTISING AGENCY.” … From my September 21st review.
** OBAMA AND AL QAEDA: NEW MOVES SHOW SUCCESS MAY NOT DEPEND ON AFGHANISTAN. … From my September 17th column.
** MAD MEN REVIEW: THE FOG.” … From my September 14th review.
** 9/11 + 8: WHERE WE’VE BEEN, WHERE WE’RE GOING. … From my September 11th column.
** OBAMA: RIDING WITH HISTORY. (NOTE: As Barack Obama was inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States, this column was the featured column on the top of the front page of the Huffington Post.) … From my January 19th Huffington Post column.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM RUSSIA TODAY. Russia has re-emerged as one of the world’s great powers. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer, bringing you English-language, jargon-free, fast-paced coverage of global and Russian news from the Russia Today channel. You probably already know about CNN International, BBC World, and Al Jazeera. Russia Today, which also features culture, entertainment, and sports, is based in Moscow and is owned and operated by the TV Novosti division of Russia’s state news agency, RIA Novosti. While it’s quite foolish to expect to see, say, criticism of Vladimir Putin on Russia Today, the channel is very interesting nonetheless. With U.S. cable news chattering away as it does, this sort of respite can be informative. The NWN live link to RT does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** 24/7 LIVE TV NEWS FEED FROM AL JAZEERA. With the US entangled in two wars in the region, it’s valuable to keep up with news and perspectives from the leading Middle Eastern-based TV news network. Based in the Gulf Arab state of Qatar, Al Jazeera is very influential and more than a bit controversial. Click here for a live TV news feed on your computer. The NWN live link to AJ does not constitute an endorsement of the channel’s views. It’s presented as an otherwise unavailable new media window.
** SCHWARZENEGGER’S CALIFORNIA. Here is my series of five columns on the governorship of Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Los Angeles Times in debate last fall, prior to the global economic meltdown, with Pulitzer Prize-winning former Times reporter/editor Bill Boyarsky, whose columns are also included. Among them is what I’m sure is the first piece examining Schwarzenegger’s legacy as governor of California. Since he will actually be governor of California until 2011. No technology known to be disruptive to the space/time continuum was used in its preparation. You can listen to my recent video webchat with Schwarzenegger here.
** TRACK GLOBAL AND NATIONAL ENERGY PRICES IN NEAR REAL TIME VIA BLOOMBERG ENERGY MARKET WATCH. Having crashed over $147 for yet another record on July 11th, 2008, crude oil is trading around $78 per barrel.
This is up about $44 from the low of $34 per barrel prior to enactment of the Obama economic recovery program, reflecting a low point in global economic activity.
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| Comments (52) |
Kind of like Jack Nicholson at the end of Carnal Knowledge, perhaps?
> marcos leon says:
October 19, 2009 at 6:17 pm (Edit)
I like your “Mad Men” review very much. What color is the spotlight playing over Don Draper?
I think he gets away with it all and still ends up unhappy.
Thanks.
Exactly!
> Clutch J says:
October 19, 2009 at 5:03 pm (Edit)
Yes! As you made clear in one of your best inside baseball columns.
In one sense, she’s got nothing to gripe about, as she occupies a platform from which she can pursue womens’ causes with real power and influence.
But she’s also a caged bird, bound to be loyal to the guy who defeated her. Her portfolio contains his leftovers.
>Hillary is an absolutely brilliant POLITICAL choice for SOS.