From Randall Hoven at American Thinker

Graph of the Day December 24,2009

From the Wall Street Journal Political Diary-

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White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel has led a charmed political life. Prior to his current gig, Mr. Emanuel was a senior political aide to President Clinton, a Congressman from Chicago and chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in 2006, when Democrats took 30 seats from Republicans and regained control of the House.

Mr. Emanuel has also done better than most at leveraging his public service for personal gain. After quitting the White House in 1998, Mr. Emanuel went to work for famed Wall Street dealmaker Bruce Wasserstein, a big Clinton backer and major Democratic Party donor. And despite no prior experience in banking, Mr. Emanuel became a very wealthy man in a very short period of time.

“Mr. Emanuel earned $16.2 million in a two-year stint working in Chicago for investment-banking firm Wasserstein Perella & Co.,” reported the Wall Street Journal last year. He then ran for Congress and took seats on committees that oversee Wall Street and quickly became a top recipient of campaign donations from the financial industry. In his last House race in 2008, the Journal reported, “Mr. Emanuel collected more money than any other House member from hedge funds, private equity firms and the broader securities and investment industry, even though he faced no serious opposition.”

Mr. Wasserstein, who died unexpectedly last week, went out with a reputation as more than just a big-dollar banker — he was a serious liberal who cared about politics and policy. He also never stopped being a patron to Mr. Emanuel, whom he praised earlier this year as having a “keen understanding of the interplay of regulatory aspects and corporate activity in financial advisory work.”

If by “keen understanding” he also meant Mr. Emanuel had figured out how to make the “interplay” work for him personally, who could argue with that?

HKO comment- Crony Capitalism at its worse!

Why the Stimulus Flopped

By Mark Steyn in National Review Online

Excerpt:

That’s why the “stimulus” flopped. It didn’t just fail to stimulate, it actively deterred stimulation, because it was the first explicit signal to America and the world that the Democrats’ political priorities overrode everything else. If you’re a business owner, why take on extra employees when cap’n’trade is promising increased regulatory costs and health “reform” wants to stick you with an 8 percent tax for not having a company insurance plan? Obama’s leviathan sends a consistent message to business and consumers alike: When he’s spending this crazy, maybe the smart thing for you to do is hunker down until the dust’s settled and you get a better sense of just how broke he’s going to make you. For this level of “community organization,” there aren’t enough of “the rich” to pay for it. That leaves you.

Elliott Abrams writes in the Wall Street Journal “Why Israel is Nevous”

Read the entire article here.

Excerpt:

But the Obama administration has managed to win the mistrust of most Israelis, not just conservative politicians. Despite his great popularity in many parts of the world, in Israel Obama is now seen as no ally. A June poll found that just 6% of Israelis called him “pro-Israel,” when 88% had seen President George W. Bush that way. So the troubles between the U.S. and Israel are not fundamentally found in the personal relations among policy makers.

The question that belies the new administration’s infinite number of programs is whether each additional initiative adds followers or deletes them.

Will the gain of union support for the attempt at the card check legislation be more than offset by the loss of business owners, managers, and entrepreneurs? Will the quasi nationalization of the major auto companies gain or lose support? Will his stand on the Middle East gain or lose followers? Will his huge deficits attract or detract supporters?

Obama won with 52.9 % of the vote, and that was running against a very unpopular party tied to a very unpopular war with a disastrous economic collapse just months before the election. Many supported the new president, hoping he would govern more to the center than he ran.

There are liberals who are disappointed that he has not been as aggressive in winding down the war as they hoped, that he has not fully endorsed gay marriage as much as they wished. And there are independents whose support dwindles with each new program.

The danger of so many and such ambitious programs is that each one will erode a little support and the total will turn his support upside down.

Yet even this erosion may be moot if the Republicans cannot articulate a clear alternative and present a leader that can effectively deliver the message. Recycling Newt and Sarah will not work.

While the Republicans still seem lost in the wilderness, every new program Obama announces may be costing him support. With such an ambitious agenda he may sow the seeds of his demise- one cut at a time.