The Administration

“Just a flesh wound,” exclaims the Black Knight in Monty Python’s Holy Grail to having his left and right arms hacked off by the valiant King Arthur. The Black Knight’s bravado and self-deception continue, as Arthur chops off both his legs and leaves the former a trash-talking, powerless torso with a head.
Such lack of self-awareness characterizes the coalition’s mission in Afghanistan. U.S. officials continue to praise and support the Afghan Army and police, even in the midst of a disturbing trend of Afghan security forces turning their weapons on American and NATO trainers.

As the eyes of the political world turn to Charlotte this week for the Democratic National convention, speculation about the fate of North Carolina’s 15 electoral votes on Nov. 6 continues. Depending on who you ask or which electoral map you’re consulting, the Tar Heel State is a safe bet for Mitt Romney one day and a toss-up the next; one week it’s the moderate “New South” and the next it’s leaning back toward its Deep South neighbors. In 21 of the 22 polls conducted by Public Policy Polling since the 2010 election, President Obama and Romney have been within 3 points of each other, and several other recent polls show a statistical dead heat. One certainty remains: North Carolina’s status as THE battleground state to watch is here to stay.

My grandfather used to say, “Don’t tell me your priorities. Show me your budget, and I’ll tell you your priorities.” So, let’s compare the Obama-Biden record in three critical areas — Medicare, taxes and veterans — with what is in the Romney-Ryan budget.

First Medicare, where there is perhaps no better contrast and choice facing Americans.

President Obama and Vice President Biden want to ensure Medicare is solvent for generations to come.



Three years ago, President Obama stood with automakers, state government leaders, environmental health advocates and others to launch an effort to improve fuel efficiency for and reduce carbon pollution from millions of vehicles on our roadways. It was a bold call for action, aimed at protecting consumers from fluctuations in gas prices and helping them save money at the pump regardless of the vehicle they drive. 



A few weeks ago, former New York Mayor Ed Koch told me that he had been so mad at President Obama earlier this year over his stance on Israel that he engineered the loss of Anthony Weiner's Democratic congressional seat to a Republican. "I had a falling out with President Obama when he announced that Israel has to go back to the ‘67 lines when it starts its negotiations with Palestinians," he said. "I decided that Obama was taking the Jews for granted, as far as their vote...they gave 78 percent of their entire vote and I wanted to send a message."

The strategic signal de jour of tough-minded national security officials and mavens is the “red line” –whether drawn in the sand of the Syrian desert against chemical weapon threats; laid down around South China Sea islands against belligerent assertions of sovereignty; or sent through cyberspace as a centrifuge-disabling virus.

But let the user beware of three pitfalls: overuse, excessive specificity, and absolutism.

Paul Ryan, upon being named to the GOP ticket Saturday, lambasted President Obama for his “record of failure.” Ryan declared the nation under Obama’s leadership is struggling through the “worst economic recovery in 70 years.” It piqued my curiosity.

One need not be an economist to believe numbers tell us something. So I Googled to see where the Dow Jones Industrials closed on January 20, 2009, Obama’s inauguration day. It was 7,947.09. Ryan no doubt was too busy to note where the Dow closed on Friday, the day before his selection. It was 13,207.95, a gain of 66.2 percent since Obama took office. 

Government agencies should review their rules regularly to ensure that those rules impose the lowest reasonable burden consistent with fulfilling the agency’s statutory objectives. As commissioners at the Consumer Product Safety Commission, we are faced with regulatory decisions that affect over 15,000 products worth billions to the American economy each year. As good regulators, it is incumbent upon us to consider the costs and benefits of the rules we adopt. To that end, we challenge our colleagues at the CPSC to embrace the spirit of President Obama’s Executive Order 13579, which asked independent agencies to use cost benefit analysis and to conduct retrospective reviews to identify and fix or repeal rules that are ineffective or too burdensome.

Since he delivered the State of the Union address in January, President Obama has often spoken about “fairness” and how “everyone should play by the same rules.”

Those buzzwords have become a mantra of his policies and his re-election campaign.

But on Friday, President Obama unilaterally changed the rules regarding amnesty for at least 800,000 illegal aliens – though some estimates put the number of those affected in the millions –and he discarded any pretense of acting fairly.

In a few weeks, children as young as 12 will start leaving schools in south Texas to work in the summer harvest, taking on the difficult and sometimes even dangerous work of picking fruits and vegetables. Nationwide, hundreds of thousands of kids this year will cut the roots off onions, hoe cotton, climb tall ladders to pick oranges and apples, and drive tractors. If the past is a guide, some will be injured, some will be maimed, and some will die.

It could have been different in 2012, with a proposed set of safety regulations aimed at minimizing harm to children hired to work in the fields. But in a heartbreaking about-face, the Department of Labor April 26 withdrew new rules that would have updated the decades-old list of tasks considered hazardous and therefore off limits for hired farmworkers under age 16.