WHAT THEY KNEW
British officials now say President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton were kept informed at all stages of discussions concerning the release of the Lockerbie bomber, Abdel Baset al-Megrahi, the London Daily Mail reports.
The newspaper quoted an anonymous “senior Whitehall aide” as calling the reaction of Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton “disingenuous.”
The British officials say the Americans spoke out because they were taken aback by the row over al-Megrahis release, not because they did not know it was about to happen to the only person convicted in the bombing of a Pan Am flight that killed 270, including 189 Americans.
“The U.S. was kept fully in touch about everything that was going on with regard to Britains discussions with Libya in recent years and about Megrahi,” the Whitehall aide said.
“We would never do anything about Lockerbie without discussing it with the U.S. It is disingenuous of them to act as though Megrahis return was out of the blue. They knew about our prisoner transfer agreement with Libya and they knew that the Scots were considering Megrahis case.”
LOOK AT ME
“Looking for a quick and easy boost in the polls, President Obama has decided to go to the one place where merit bears no relationship to adulation: the United Nations. On September 24, the president will take the unprecedented step of presiding over a meeting of the U.N. Security Council,” Anne Bayefsky writes at www.nationalreview.com.
“No American president has ever attempted to acquire the image of King of the Universe by officiating at a meeting of the U.N.s highest body. But Obama apparently believes that being flanked by council-member heads of state like Col. Moammar Gadhafi - who is expected to be seated five seats to Obamas right - will cast a sufficiently blinding spell on the American taxpayer that the perilous state of the nations economy, the health care fiasco, and a summer of ’post-racial’ scapegoating will pale by comparison,” said the writer, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and executive director of Human Rights Voices.
“After all, who among us is not for world peace?
“Unfortunately, however, the move represents one of the most dangerous diplomatic ploys this country has ever seen. The president didnt just decide to chair a rare council summit; he also set the September 24 agenda - as is the prerogative of the state holding the gavel for the month. His choice, in the words of American U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, speaking on September 2 at her first press briefing since the United States assumed the council presidency, is this: ’The session will be focused on nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear disarmament broadly, and not on any specific countries.’ ”
Mr. Obama’s agenda preference, she said, “indicates that he is dead-set against chairing a session on the nonproliferation issues already on the councils plate - those that name Iran and North Korea. This stretches his ’beer summit’ technique to the global scale.”
ELITE LESSON
“Congress returns this week, and here’s hoping that its members, Democrats in particular, learned a little something from this summer’s town hall meetings,” Matthew Continetti writes in the Weekly Standard.
“The lesson to be drawn from these occasionally raucous events is that America is on the verge of - or already knee-deep in - one of those moments that periodically roil the country and rearrange our preconceived notions about public life. And not a moment too soon,” Mr. Continetti said.
“Popular outbursts serve as a check on, and corrective to, our elites’ behavior. The people know things the elites forget or don’t want to remember. The political class is supposed to serve the people, not the other way around. As Gerald Ford said after assuming the presidency on August 9, 1974, ’Here the people rule.’
“For a while now, the message from Washington has been that we know what’s good for the public, whether the public likes it or not. One after another, both parties have attempted to foist a series of grand reforms on a skeptical populace - in areas ranging from Social Security and immigration to energy and health care. Politicians have made decisions affecting millions of lives without accountability and oversight. The upshot has been more government, more debt, and - coming soon to a 1040 form near you - more taxes. No wonder the public is anxious.
“It should hardly come as a surprise that the public views American elites with suspicion and disdain. Ordinary Americans have a point when they assign blame for the current mess to Wall Street CEOs, federal regulators, corrupt politicians, and gullible reporters.
“When Americans look at the economic landscape, they see dismal growth, high unemployment, and large deficits. But when they listen to the president and Congress, they hear that ’stimulus’ - borrowing ever more from tomorrow to spend today - will work like some kind of magic cure. They hear that this perilous moment is the time to build a ’new foundation’ with even more expenditures and taxes through ’cap-and-trade’ and Obamacare.
“It’s as if spending and debt are no problem; as if it’s fine that the federal government - which failed in its fundamental duties to build guardrails for the financial system - owns large chunks of that system; as if the political, financial and think-tank elites have proven themselves worthy of the public’s trust.”
LETTING OFF STEAM
“Ever since 1972 Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern hit the Employee Free Choice Act, or card check, in an ad earlier this year, Big Labor has been fuming,” Paul Bedard writes in the Washington Whispers column at www.usnews.com.
“This [past] week, it let off some steam. In a breakfast media roundtable, the likely new president of the AFL-CIO struck back. Richard Trumka, who’s expected to be elected [this] week to replace outgoing boss John Sweeney, slammed McGovern as a foe of workers.
” ’You know poor George got paid to do an ad. Now he ran as an antiwar candidate, and there have been three or four wars since he left the playing field that he had nothing to say about. And then he comes back on the playing field to make war against the workers. We found that very ironic,’ Trumka said to some gasps in the room of reporters.”
In the ad, Mr. McGovern said, “I’ve always been a champion of labor unions, but I fear that today’s union leaders are turning their backs on democratic workplace elections.”
• Greg Pierce can be reached at 202/636-3285 or gpierce@washingtontimes.com.
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