{"id":6125,"date":"2012-04-25T23:21:52","date_gmt":"2012-04-26T03:21:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=6125"},"modified":"2012-04-25T23:22:02","modified_gmt":"2012-04-26T03:22:02","slug":"the-daily-gouge-thursday-april-26th-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thedailygouge.com\/?p=6125","title":{"rendered":"The Daily Gouge, Thursday, April 26th, 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

It’s Thursday, April 26th, 2012….and here’s The Gouge!<\/strong><\/p>\n

First up, it’s the “Councils Of War Never Fight….and Neither Do Committees” segment, courtesy of the WSJ<\/em> and Team Tick-Tock’s determination to revive….<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Spirit of Kellogg-Briand<\/span><\/h1>\n

Obama’s committee to abolish human evil.<\/span><\/h2>\n

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The occasion was solemn, Holocaust Remembrance Day. Elie Wiesel showed President Obama around the Washington museum that memorializes Jewish victims of the Nazis. In his speech on Monday, the President repeatedly invoked the phrase “never again.” Then he touted the Administration’s newest weapon against genocide: the Atrocities Prevention Board.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

This is not an item from the Onion.<\/strong><\/span> A new permanent “interagency” committee that gathered for the first time Monday is now America’s first line of response to brewing trouble. Meetings will be called.<\/span> Treasury, State and the Pentagon will have seats at the table. Hot coffee will no doubt be served.<\/span><\/strong><\/span> White House aide Samantha Power, who wrote a book on America’s failure to respond to genocide, is the board’s first chairman.<\/span> Let’s hope this committee to stop human evil works better than the Kellogg-Briand pact to end all war in 1928<\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The panel’s unveiling at the Holocaust Memorial Museum was the anticlimax of an otherwise strong speech. Mentioning every important killing field between Buchenwald and Darfur, Mr. Obama declared that, “National sovereignty is never a license to slaughter your people,” adding the obvious caveat that this “does not mean that we intervene militarily every time there’s an injustice in the world<\/em><\/span>.”<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Yet the idea of an atrocities board is revealing. The Obama Administration’s approach to human rights and foreign policy puts process, consensus, committees and U.N. approval above American leadership and possibly contentious action<\/em>, which requires political will and the courage of conviction<\/em><\/span>.<\/strong><\/span> The choice rests with Commanders in Chief, not a committee<\/span><\/em>.<\/span> President Clinton acted in Kosovo; he didn’t in Rwanda, to his later regret<\/span><\/em>. (Yeah….right up until he found his next target to hit on.)<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mr. Obama’s own Rwanda test is Syria, which (to use his words) reveals “man’s endless capacity for cruelty” with 10,000 dead and counting. Bashar Assad’s regime is Iran’s best friend and an enemy of the West, but the U.S. has largely sat on the sidelines, using Russian and Chinese opposition at the United Nations as an excuse to do very little.<\/p>\n

Maybe the Atrocities Prevention Board can chew over the Administration’s Syrian abdication at its next session.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Which is yet another way for The Obamao to vote “present” without leaving any fingerprints.\u00a0 The only place the buck stops with this guy….<\/strong><\/p>\n

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….is on someone else’s desk.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Next up, Jonah Goldberg updates us on a “former” Tick-Tock confidante who’s been flying under the radar of late:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Obama’s Tainted Bundler<\/span><\/h1>\n

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Jon Corzine left Goldman Sachs with a net worth far exceeding even that of Mitt Romney today. Many accounts of his tenure at Goldman suggest he “failed up” the corporate ladder.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Pushed out of Goldman in a power struggle (sparked in part by his support for a government bailout of Long-Term Capital Management), he nonetheless pocketed somewhere between $350 million and $500 million when the company went public. He used the cash to buy himself a Senate seat, spending $62 million out of his own pocket.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

After the Senate, he spent nearly $40 million of his own money to win the New Jersey governorship.<\/strong><\/span> While he was running for senator, the married-but-separated Corzine struck up a romantic relationship with Carla Katz, also married and head of Local 1034 of the Communications Workers of America.<\/strong><\/span> They broke up in 2004, but the flirting apparently never ended.<\/strong><\/span> In 2007, Katz and Corzine were both involved in negotiations over a state workers contract<\/em>.<\/strong><\/span> In one email during that time obtained by the Newark Star-Ledger, Katz informs the governor, “BTW, I had an over the top erotic dream about you last night. Bad boy<\/span><\/em>!!”<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This alone should have disqualified Corzine from any position requiring judgment!<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Bad boy indeed<\/em><\/span>. When the couple broke up, and after her union had endorsed Corzine and worked for his re-election, the governor’s lawyers negotiated a settlement whereby he reportedly paid Katz more than $6 million and forgave a half-million-dollar loan he made to her when they were still an item.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

When Corzine ran for re-election as governor, both President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden stumped for him. Biden explained that from the moment he and the president sat down to figure out their economic strategy, “Literally, the first guy I called was Jon Corzine. It’s not a joke.<\/span> It’s not a joke<\/em><\/span>. (Trust us, Joe; with $1.6B of other people’s money still missing, no one’s laughing.)<\/span> First of all, he’s the smartest guy I know in terms of the economy and on finance, and I really mean that.” (Biden needs to widen his circle of economic contacts.)<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n