Hewitt Blog

That's what the president declared this morning.

Of course it is a game, one designed by the president, and of course the president can deny this reality again and again, but it won't matter.  We know.  He knows we know.  But he also knows his abysmal performance in office combined with no evidence of his capacity to change towards policies that encourage private sector economic growth box him into appeals to his base, its Alinskyite true believer branch and its cynical-we-need-to-stay-in-power branch.

The best response is dismissive laughter.  The president is acting like a petulant teenager being told "no," for the very first time.  His tantrums are becoming more frequent and his rhetoric more and more amusing.  It is very much a game --to him, and he is losing.  To the tens of millions who are watching their hope of getting new or better jobs, it isn't a game, but neither will they be fooled by the presidents faux concern.

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My Townhall.com column asks whether Mitt Romney or Rick Perry is better positioned to get to the magic number of 270 electoral college votes.

The news among the insiders is that Romney gained the support of fundraising baron Paul Singer. 

But much more important for the country, and for the foreign policy elite of the GOP, is the make-up of Romney's advisory team when it comes to plans to reclaim America's preeminent position in global affairs. From Mike Allen's Playbook:

FIRST LOOK: Ahead of Mitt Romney's foreign-policy speech tomorrow at 10:45 a.m. at The Citadel in Charleston, S.C., he today will announce his Foreign Policy and National Security Advisory Team, saying: "Their remarkable experience, wisdom, and depth of knowledge will be critical to ensuring that the 21st century is another American Century."

--SPECIAL ADVISERS: Cofer Black ... Christopher Burnham ... Michael Chertoff ... Eliot Cohen ... Norm Coleman ... John Danilovich ... Paula Dobriansky ... Eric Edelman ... Michael Hayden ... Kerry Healey ... Kim Holmes ... Robert Joseph ... Robert Kagan ... John Lehman ... Walid Phares ... Pierre Prosper ... Mitchell Reiss ... Daniel Senor ... Jim Talent ... Vin Weber ... Richard Williamson ... Dov Zakheim.

--WORKING GROUPS:

--Afghanistan & Pakistan: James Shinn, Co-Chair ... Ashley Tellis, Co-Chair

--Africa: Tibor Nagy, Chair

--Asia-Pacific: Evan Feigenbaum, Co-Chair ... Aaron Friedberg, Co-Chair ... Kent Lucken, Co-Chair

--Counter-Proliferation: Eric Edelman, Co-Chair ... Robert Joseph, Co-Chair ... Stephen Rademaker, Co-Chair

--Counterterrorism/Intelligence: Michael Chertoff, Co-Chair ... Michael Hayden, Co-Chair

--Defense: John Lehman, Co-Chair ... Roger Zakheim, Co-Chair

--Europe: Nile Gardiner, Co-Chair ... Kristen Silverberg, Co-Chair

--Human Rights: Pierre Prosper, Chair

--International Assistance: Grant Aldonas, Co-Chair ... Daniel Runde, Co-Chair

--International Organizations: Christopher Burnham, Co-Chair ... Paula Dobriansky, Co-Chair ... Robert O'Brien, Co-Chair

--Latin America: Clifford Sobel, Co-Chair ... Ray Walser, Co-Chair

--Middle East & North Africa: Mary Beth Long, Co-Chair ... Meghan O'Sullivan, Co-Chair ... Walid Phares, Co-Chair

--Russia: Leon Aron, Co-Chair ... William Martel, Co-Chair

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Herman Cain opened the show today.  The transcript will be posted below.  His key message:  "The president should say to them 'Go home and get a job or go to school.'"

Cain's new book:

This is Herman Cain! My Journey to the White House



The transcript:

HH: We begin with a magnificent guest, Herman Cain, the Hermanator. He’s running for president, and he has a brand new book out. Herman Cain, welcome back to the Hugh Hewitt Show. 

HC: Hey, Hugh, it’s my pleasure. Thank you so much.

HH: Have you given up your vain pursuit of the Atlanta Falcons yet?

HC: (laughing) No, I have not given up my support of the Atlanta Falcons. 2-2 is not a bad position to be in, because we still have a lot of football left.

HH: Just keep in mind that the Browns have their first round draft choice, and every time they win, they hurt your chances in Ohio. I just want you to know that.

HC: Hey, it’s not over until the game is played, Hugh.

HH: All right, now Mr. Cain, I would like you to begin by addressing directly the Occupy Wall Street crowd. What do you want to say to them? If we play them a tape of Herman Cain over a loudspeaker down on Wall Street, what do you want this crowd to hear?

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As the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza notes, the president's standing with the public is plummeting even as Politico all but anoints Mitt Romney as the GOP nominee (expect fireworks from Rick Perry at next week's debate as a result, and expect the $17 million Perry raised in his first quarter of campaigning to produce a wave of media in Iowa and New Hampshire almost immediately.)

Team Romney would be wise to arrange for their candidate to continue to visit the sites of Obama-decreed unemployment, including Ashgrove Cement in Durkee, Oregon.  Oregon Congressman Greg Walden was on my show yesterday to detail how EPA is about to cause the closing of a cement plant in his district with an attendant loss of up to 650 jobs, part of the 20,000 cement job purge underway at EPA which pales in comparison to the boiler job purge.  The transcript of the that interview is here.

"20,000 American jobs on the line," Walden noted about the pending EPA rule. "The President could fix this tomorrow. He could tell his agency back off, go redo these, take another five years, whatever."

EPA is so out of control it is assuming Kafkaesque dimensions, especially when on Monday the president was lecturing his Cabinet on the need to take immediate administrative steps to stop job losses. 

Read the Walden interview, and email the link to MSM reporters.  It is astonishing that the president prattles on about his absurd Stimulus 2.0 without being dogged by questions about the real actions by his ideologues across the government that are wiping out the livelihoods of thousands and thousands of Americans.

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Senator Rand Paul was my guest today.  The transcript will be posted below later.

I remain mystified how so many key figures in Washington with some portion of authority over the war have not read The Looming Tower and the much more recent The Triple Agent (this has only been in bookstores for a few weeks, so not having read it is more understandable, though given the debate over the drone program, it should be on every nightstand in D.C.).  This unwillingness to do the basic work of familiarity with the best writing and analysis on the war is a bipartisan problem, and it extends across all three branches.   My Washington Examiner column from earlier this week makes this same point, and hopefully the various staffs/clerks/handlers start putting the key books into the key hands.

The transcript:

HH: I begin with a very special welcome to Senator Rand Paul of the great state of Kentucky, first time on the program. Senator Paul, it’s great to have you.  

RP: Good to be with you, Hugh.

HH: Let me start by asking you a question that’s prompted by Chris Christie dropping out today of the presidential speculation, Senator Paul. If your father were to drop out, would you consider getting in?

RP: (laughing) I tell people, and I’ve told them from the beginning, you know, one Paul in the race at a time. So no, I don’t think there’s any danger of him dropping out. I did say in the beginning, when he hadn’t made his decision, that I was interested in it, because I think we really need some leadership in our country. But no, I think my dad’s doing a great job, and I think this is his year.

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The weekly column from Clark Judge:

How Christie Could Change Everything
By Clark S. Judge: managing director, White House Writers Group, Inc.; chairman, Pacific Research Institute
 
Odds are that New Jersey governor Chris Christie will jump into the presidential race today (Tuesday) or tomorrow – which says a lot about how the 2012 GOP presidential primary contest has shaped up, and where it will go.  Christie’s entry could change everything.
 
The 2012 dynamics are totally different from those of 2008.  And it’s a good thing, too.
 
Last time around, the GOP voters broke into three issue-oriented groups – those who gave priority to economics, to social issues, and to national security.

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The GOP had a collision with immigration policy and law in 2006, and though it has been more than five years since that meltdown, the party regulars ought to remember the consensus that emerged from it:

1.  Border security first, and that means a fence of at least 700 miles and perhaps as many as 1000 miles of the 1969 mile U.S. Mexican border.  The public --rightly-- believes that double fencing with access roads allowing for rapid travel the length of the border create the conditions for much more effective control of the border.

The fence is the "outward expression of an inner conviction" to control immigration.  It is hugely important, and the failure to get it built year after year undermines confidence in both parties as both parties promise border security.

2.  Robust legal immigration, especially among the highly educated with skills sets that will help grow the country.

3.  Regularization of the illegal aliens in the United States to a legal status short of citizenship.  The specifics of how long and the various steps are not really of great concern unless the path leads to citizenship, in which case the debate is heated because of a fundamental divide on the issue of whether someone who entered the country illegally ought ever to be allowed to vote.  Subsidiary questions on who must leave because of bad behavior are actually not complicated.

4.  The treatment of illegal aliens while they are still not regularized:  This is Rick Perry's big problem because "in-state tuition" for illegals living in Texas prefers those individuals over kids from Louisiana, Oklahoma and New Mexico who want to attend college in Texas but have to pay more than kids brought to Texas illegally by their parents.  The governor's response says it is a state issue, and it is, but the national issue is what is he educating them for when their work in the U.S. would be illegal under the laws of the U.S.  This is the giant wink in the middle of the Texas approach, a signal that Texas doesn't intend to enforce the law, a position less rhetorically inflammatory than the "sanctuary cities" policies across the U.S. but not much different in impact.

Politico wants you to believe that this is a huge issue for Mitt Romney and of course it isn't.  The positions above are 90% plus positions in the GOP.  They can easily be made to n=be majority positions within the community of Latino voters as well if the specifics of regularization are well constructed, a task for the long months of the general election campaign.

Rick Perry's "problem" would easily be solved by a quick embrace of the fence, announcing that he has heard voters loud and clear and understands, and a couple of statements that the education being offered foreign students in Texas is designed to assure they have the skill sets that will make them successful in their home countries, and to treat in-state tuition as any other foreign student program, just one where preference depended on the number of years in the state prior to application.

The country, after all, is teeming with foreign students.  Even as there is no reason to prefer illegal aliens over U.S. citizens, there is no reason to prefer foreign students traveling her for the first day of college over those who went to high school here.

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Imagine every special effects professional in the world lining up....

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Chai Ling was the student-appointed "Supreme Commander" of the Tianamen Square movement of 1989.  When the People's Liberation Army massacred thousands on June 4, she went into hiding and eventually fled the PRC to come to the states, where she completed her education at Princeton and Harvard Business School before launching a successful business career.

Now Chai Ling has founded AllGirlsAllowed.org to combat the gendercide underway in the PRC, and has written a new memoir that is part dissident literature, part Christian testimonial and very much an appeal to the world's pro-life and pro-women movements to understand and act on what is happening in China to this day.

She will be my guest in hour three of today's program.  Her book is titled A Heart for Freedom.



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My Washington Examiner column reviews how little most Americans know about the war against al Qaeda, and how little they will do to change that.

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