The absence of intelligence!

Monday – June 21, 2010

The absence of intelligence!

I can remember when the left was complaining that George Bush had an absence of intelligence, when he went to war. To the left it’s all about intelligence. Well, it’s been their turn at bat and they have struck out. The administration has had its chance at bat and they have not hit anything.

The three topics in the news this week will be: Iran, the Gulf and the immigration law in Arizona, which all are now affecting the President’s approval rating.
Strike one: The President is acting tough with the sanctions that are now in place against Iran, plus new ones. The U.S. will set penalties for third - country banks and companies that traded with blacklisted Iranian banks or subsidiaries of the Countries Revolutionary Guard. The U.S. has targeted 16 Iranian banks for alleged links to terrorism or weapons of mass destruction, in addition to construction subsidiaries of the Revolutionary Guard, which western officials said controlled up to a third of the Iranian economy. Since the U.S. has already forbid its own companies and citizens from dealing with Iranian state-owned groups, the penalties were largely intended to deter other countries and companies.
These sanctions should have been in place two years ago. The Iranians have anticipated these moves and have taken advantage of the time it has taken to write the sanctions and have now made deals with China and Russia to counteract the sanctions. In other words, the economic part of the sanctions will not affect anything. Iran is moving towards its goals of becoming a nuclear player and essentially has disregarded the Obama administration, because of their weakness and their inability to garner the support of Russia and China.
In the end, Israel will protect itself, if it feels threatened. It would take a few military strikes to set the Iranian program back a few years. This will be the only solution to a complex solution that the U.S. and this administration can’t seem to fix. Iran knows this president will not use the military option.
Strike two: The Gulf Oil spill will take on a new dimension this week, because some local communities are now taking matters into their own hands along the Gulf Coast. Last week, the Coast Guard shut down oil pumping barges for 24 hours, due to safety jacket requirements not being followed. These types of bureaucratic red tape shut downs are part and parcel to the problems in the Gulf with this spill.
New patterns of oil will be found to have penetrated other areas of Florida’s coast line. There is no real date for any relief of the gushing oil, except that some time in August a new well will have been drilled to relieve the pressure of the current site.
BP will question some of the payment terms to those that have been harmed. They will also question - what does restoration mean do we restore the shoreline to pre spill conditions or to new ecological levels? This event will become an integral part in the economic recovery as more details come in we will see the effect.
Strike three: The administration will move forward in its effort to bring a legal challenge to Arizona’s immigration law. 71% of the people in Arizona favor the law, while clear cut majorities of Americans nationwide are in favor of the law, as well. It is being protested by minorities and those who favor amnesty. 26% of voters believe the Justice department should challenge the law, while 58% of voters, in fact, favor passage of a law like Arizona’s in their own state. When asked specifically about the chief provision of the Arizona law, support is even higher. 69% of voters believe a police officer should be required to check the immigration status of anyone stopped for a traffic violation or violation of some other law if he suspects the person to be an illegal.
It will be interesting to see the Arizona’s Governor Jan Brewer take center stage and possibly defeat the efforts of the President in the coming weeks.
The Rasmussen Reports of the Presidential tracking Poll for Sunday June 20, 2010 show that 28% of the nation’s voters strongly approve of the way the President is performing his role. 44% strongly disapprove, giving him a Presidential index rating of negative 16, last week it was negative 15.
A new trend that is starting to take hold in the numbers is 47% of voters still blame today’s economic problems on the recession that began during the Bush years. However, new polling shows that 45% of voters now say they’re due to the policies of President Obama. This is a shift in opinion that cannot be discounted due to partisan politics.
Gregory C. Dildilian
Founder and Executive Director
Pinecone Conservatives

A footnote: There are 134 days until the midterms. The intelligence is now coming in, it cannot be denied there is now an absence of intelligence and it’s not on the people’s part!