Aug 26, 2010, Thursday: Obama in the news - Human Rights Panel

The Washington Times: EDITORIAL: Obama administration indicts America

Move over Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Syria. The State Department has made it official: The United States violates human rights. In an unprecedented move, the Obama administration submitted a report to the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights detailing the progress and problems in dealing with human rights issues in this country. The document is a strange combination of left-wing history and White House talking points.

It describes how the United States discriminates against the disabled, homosexuals, women, Native Americans, blacks, Hispanics and those who don't speak English. There is the expected pandering to Muslims, noting that the government is committed to "challenge misperceptions and discriminatory stereotypes, to prevent acts of vandalism and to combat hate crimes," offenses that the American people evidently keep committing. And the current economic woes are blamed on the housing crisis, which itself was the result of "discriminatory lending practices." The implication is that if Americans had only been less racist, they would be enjoying prosperity today.

The report notes that until recently, the U.S. engaged in torture, unlawfully detained terrorist suspects and illegally spied on Americans communicating with terrorists - but the report assures readers that Mr. Obama has been putting a stop to all that.

The main impact of the document will be to confirm critiques of the United States as a haven for hatred and rights abuses. It turns the Obama administration's domestic political agenda into an international scorecard by which other countries can judge American "progress." And it makes it that much more difficult for those abroad who have held up the United States as a model for the kind of liberal, capitalistic democracy they would like to see in their own countries.

"Progress is our goal," the report proclaims, "and our expectation thereof is justified by the proven ability of our system of government to deliver the progress our people demand and deserve." This reflects the general tone of a report that sees the state, not the people, as the source of American progress. All the problems discussed have a corresponding federal solution, whether health care, nutrition, housing or any other issue. To read the report, one could conclude that, to the Obama administration, big government is not just everything - it is the only thing.

The authors claim that the United States does not, by filing the report, "acknowledge commonality with states that systematically abuse human rights," but of course it does. Dictatorships, authoritarian regimes and theocracies competing for legitimacy on the world stage have been handed a potent new weapon, the kind of assessment they would never offer about their own governments. The report also cautions that it should not be read to reflect "doubt in the ability of the American political system to deliver progress for its citizens." The authors of the report should understand that the doubts in the Obama administration to deliver progress are already well-established. And they come from the American people, who don't need the United Nations telling them to shape up.

Aug 26, 2010, Thursday, Obama news in NOLA

NOLA: President Barack Obama's planning for expansion of offshore oil drilling questioned

The co-chairmen of the national commission investigating the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico were surprised and dismayed Wednesday to learn that President Barack Obama didn't consult with top federal environmental officials before announcing plans to expand offshore oil drilling in March.

Nancy Sutley, chairwoman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, testifies before the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Spill and Offshore Drilling at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington on Wednesday.
"If you're developing a policy to expand offshore oil and gas exploration to the extent that the president announced, consultation with the agency with responsibility for oceans management and regulation and your overall umbrella agency, your Council for Environmental Quality, would be two of the people on the consultation list," said former Florida governor and senator Bob Graham, a co-chairman of the National Commission on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.

Graham's comment followed testimony from Nancy Sutley, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and Jane Lubchenko, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, who were among a series of witnesses at the second hearing of the commission named by Obama to make recommendations on how to prevent and mitigate the impact of any future spills resulting from offshore drilling.

In March, a month before the blowout at the BP well, the Obama administration announced it wanted to open vast new expanses of the Outer Continental Shelf, including in the Gulf of Mexico, for drilling.

In response to questions from members of the commission about whether they were consulted by Obama or Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in advance of that decision, Sutley and Lubchenko circled around the question before delivering answers that indicated they weren't.

Said Sutley: "Well, I'd just say, again, from CEQ's perspective, we viewed those decisions and then announcements as being within the purview of the secretary of Interior and his responsibilities under OCSLA (the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act). So we weren't asked and wouldn't expect to be asked ahead of time whether they should or what level of environmental analysis is appropriate for the kinds of planning and decisions that result from that March announcement."


View full sizePablo Martinez Monsivais, The Associated PressThe chairmen of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Spill and Offshore Drilling, William K. Reilly, left, and former Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, right, listen to Nancy Sutley, testify on Wednesday.
"I'm disappointed that CEQ particularly, which is in the heart of the executive office of the president, was not involved, which seem to go directly to the heart of its responsibility," said commission co-chairman William Reilly, who was a senior staffer at CEQ in the Nixon administration.

Likewise, Terry Garcia, executive vice president of the National Geographic Society, a member of the commission who pressed the question, said: "NOAA is responsible for the marine environment and marine resources, and we're talking about the Outer Continental Shelf, so if you don't go to NOAA (to get an environmental assessment) I'm not sure who you would go to."

Members of the commission said they were worried that the voices of environmental science were not well enough heard or heeded in the decision-making about drilling and that, perhaps in the case of NOAA, it lacked the resources to do the depth of research that would be demanded.

Elizabeth Birnbaum, who was director of the Minerals Management Service from July 2009 until just after the April 20 blowout of the BP well, said her agency backed the decision to expand drilling, but noted that what Obama was doing was scaling way back on a plan the Bush administration had presented on its last day in office.

MMS was much maligned in the wake of the Gulf oil disaster for being in the pocket of the industry it was supposed to regulate and has since been reorganized by Salazar. At Wednesday's hearing, which was held at the Ronald Reagan Building, Birnbaum and two predecessor -- Randall Luthi and Thomas Kitsos -- defended the honor and record of MMS and its employees.

Birnbaum said it was difficult to avoid the close connections between those who work in the oil and gas industry and those that regulate it.

"Historically, people with experience working for the industry have been those with the knowledge necessary to inspect a rig or platform," she said. "The only way to eliminate this connection would be to provide extensive on-the-job training for offshore inspectors. But even with that, there would still be no silver bullet to eliminate the close connection between offshore inspectors and the employees of the industry they regulate. They will still live in the same communities," along the Louisiana and Texas coast.

Aug 26, 2010, Thursday: President Obama in the News

Los Angeles Times: Obama on vacation, but mostly out of sight
A week into the president's trip to Martha's Vineyard, he hasn't mingled much with the locals. He has spent his time reading and playing board games with his family.

By Peter Nicholas, Tribune Washington Bureau

Reporting from Oak Bluffs, Mass. —

Get a glimpse of President Obama? No?

One week into his Martha's Vineyard vacation, the president has largely stayed out of sight, spending most of his time reading and playing board games with family and friends on the secluded 28.5-acre estate he is renting through the weekend.

Obama has gone out three times for meals and once to a bookstore, played golf and shot hoops, but has stayed with a close circle of family, friends and trusted aides.

In some ways he is the un-Clinton. Where former President Clinton treated his summer trips to the Vineyard as a prolonged, movable party — save for 1998, when he was reeling from the Monica Lewinsky scandal — Obama seems intent on shedding his public persona in favor of private relaxation.

White House spokesman Bill Burton told reporters that the first family was "watching some movies, reading some books and getting some good downtime — spending time with each other."

But if Obama needs a break from the public, the islanders aren't so eager to give him one. Restaurants are trying to lure him in with special concoctions called the "Obamarita" and the "Barack-O-Guaco."

A sign at an information kiosk reads: "Island Dogs Welcome Bo!" Clothing stores are selling Obama T-shirts, ice cream shops special Obama sundaes.

People lined up to see the first family Wednesday when they arrived at Nancy's in Oak Bluffs for lunch. Crowds swelled on street corners near the waterfront restaurant, which was blocked off with yellow tape. Obama, wearing a White Sox hat, tan pants and a white polo shirt, ordered his lunch at an outdoor stand and then greeted some onlookers who shouted, "Mr. President!"

"Good to see you guys," he said, shaking hands. "You doing all right?"

He wasn't quite as pleased to see reporters, who asked about Iraq. Obama is set to give a prime-time speech about the Iraq war from the Oval Office on Tuesday, two days after he returns home. "We're buying shrimp, guys," the president said. "C'mon."

Michelle Obama and the girls have gone out a few more times. Daughters Sasha and Malia have twice visited a video arcade on a retail strip in Oak Bluffs. Joined by their mother, the two girls, ages 9 and 12, also stopped at Mad Martha's for some ice cream.

Trying to capitalize on the shifting public mood, some merchants are catering to both the left and right.

The Locker Room on Circuit Avenue is selling Obama T-shirts, but also a shirt featuring George W. Bush above a caption reading "Miss Me Yet?"

Co-owner Alex McCluskey said the Bush shirts, which have been featured on national TV news shows, are outselling the Obama shirts 2 to 1.

The publicity has put McCluskey in a bit of an awkward position. He describes himself as an independent who voted for Obama in 2008. But he is getting calls from people ordering the shirts and telling him, "You're the savior of the Republican Party up on the Vineyard," he said in an interview.

Joining Obama on the trip are Chicago friend Eric Whitaker, senior White House advisor Valerie Jarrett and others.

They've played poker and spades, along with the games Scrabble and Taboo.

Burton said, "This will probably get me fired, but I know that Valerie did not do so well in Scrabble against the president."

Tame stuff by Clinton standards.

During one three-week visit to Martha's Vineyard in 1997, Clinton went to about a dozen private parties.

One time, the Clintons closed down a local golf club at 1 a.m., after the president led fellow partyers in a chorus of "In the Midnight Hour." The late writer William Styron, asked how many times he had dined with the Clintons on that trip, said, "I've lost count."

Some residents wish Obama was as extroverted.

Derek Hull, owner of a T-shirt shop in Oak Bluffs and a native islander, said that Clinton "connected with the people of the island, which gave everyone a sense of comfort. Obama is the opposite. It's hard to catch a glimpse of the guy."