Political Predictions For 2011

This year I decided to ask our staff and our consultants what their New Year’s predictions are for the political world. I will add mine at the end of this column, but we will start out with their views of 2011.

Richard F. Miller, military correspondent and military historian:

The economy: By the end of 2011, Americans will bless ourselves that we are not Europe or China. Unemployment remains at 9 percent and the economy remains flat, but the indicators are mixed. Both the economy and President Obama are flat.

The year will be a year of foreign policy disasters or opportunity. How President Obama deals with foreign policy will determine his electability. Obama could make miscalculations, or he could be on target. One of three things will happen, and they will be around the “axis of evil” or Russia. There will be trouble around the 38th parallel with North Korea, Hezbollah or al-Qaida becomes more aggressive pushing Obama into action or Putin decides to invade a former Soviet satellite state.

People will be quick to draw comparisons between Lincoln and Obama on the 150th anniversary of the Civil War.

Bob Ney, former Republican representative from Ohio and Talk Radio News’ political analyst:

Bob predicts that the neo-cons want an attack on Iran. He says that, although Vice President Dick Cheney was successful in his invasion of Iraq, he never got what he really wanted, an attack on Iran. Now that they’re in control of the new majority, neo-cons (the Cheney crowd) will try to get “investigations going” that will lead toward ginning up more anger with Iran and build a case for “attack.”

Jay Goodman Tamboli, Supreme Court and legal correspondent:

I think a lot of the incoming tea-party candidates are going to have trouble adjusting to the realities of Washington. I predict that at least a couple of them are going to run into serious ethics charges. What’s coming out with Christine O’Donnell shows that the tea-party candidates don’t understand how the Federal Elections Commission and ethics laws work. I think the tea partiers are coming to Washington with an idealized view of how the government should work, and I think they’re going to have a lot of trouble adjusting to the realities of financial disclosures and lobbying rules. Someone’s going to slip up and take a fall.

Jack Rice, legal and international correspondent:

The liberal wing of the Democratic Party will be progressively alienated by Afghanistan. Some troops will start to leave in 2011, but the numbers will be too small. However, they have no alternative, so they will fall in line behind President Obama into 2012.

Justin Duckham, Pentagon and Capitol Hill correspondent:

As the White House undergoes a cabinet shake-up, one Republican senator will put an anonymous hold on key administration officials’ nominations, including the defense secretary or Treasury secretary.

Tea-party Sen. Jim DeMint will rise in prominence this year following his attention-grabbing stunts around the START Treaty and the earmark ban. It will be followed by serious 2012 talk.

Biden will buck the rumor mill and stay on as vice president.

The summer 2011 drawdown in Afghanistan will be much smaller than progressives would like and cause serious unrest in some Democratic quarters.

With Republicans becoming more lockstep in their ideology, either Scott Brown, Lisa Murkowski or Olympia Snowe will pull an Arlen Specter and caucus with the Democrats.

Geoff Holtzman, congressional correspondent and news director:

Mike Bloomberg and Mitt Romney will emerge as the top two challengers to Obama in 2012.

Tala Towlatshahi, U.N. bureau chief:

The Turkish government will manage to persuade Iran to get back to the nuclear negotiation table.

Ellen Ratner, Bureau Chief

On the presidential race, I predict we will see Gov. Haley Barbour and Gov. Sarah Palin in the debates in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

The health-care bill will get a ton of hearings in the House of Representatives but will get nowhere. The House will attempt to cut off money for implementation of the bill but will not make much progress because the Obama administration will move money around.

The House and Senate will agree, even though there will be huge partisanship, on a jobs bill. The newly elected Republican members will vote for an increase in the debt ceiling while holding their noses and complaining about spending.

President Obama looks presidential as he negotiates with Speaker Boehner. Minority Whip Steny Hoyer increases in influence with his party.

The repeal of “Don’t ask, don’t tell” is implemented. Aside from a few stories in the mainstream press, it is a yawn, and no one cares by the year 2012.

Democratic members of Congress, who have lost their seats in 2010, will plan a strategic fight to take back their seats, mounting line-by-line objections to legislation that the winners are filing.

(source:talkradionews.com)

Mystery still surrounds cause of Polish air tragedy

POLISH INVESTIGATORS say they have uncovered no evidence that Polish president Lech Kaczynski demanded that his pilot make a fatal crash landing in fog last Saturday.

Russian authorities confirmed yesterday that they had identified the body of Polish first lady Maria Kaczynska, who died along with her husband and 94 others in the air crash near the western Russian town of Smolensk.

Her remains will be flown home today, a day after those of Mr Kaczynski. The deceased president will lie in state from today at the presidential palace in Warsaw ahead of a state funeral on Saturday.

Mystery persists about why the aircraft clipped trees and crashed in flames after Russian tests yesterday revealed no mechanical defects.

Polish authorities say the aircraft had been fitted recently with new electronic equipment and the engine had been overhauled. But diplomats familiar with the aircraft have questioned why Warsaw still used a Soviet-built Tupolev 154 “badly in need of replacement”.

“It’s hard to understand how we are involved in costly missions in Afghanistan and Iraq but are unable for years to equip our [leaders] with proper planes,” said Prof Roman Kuzniar, an international affairs analyst at Warsaw University.

That has all turned the spotlight back on Mr Kaczynski. Asked whether the pilot was pressurised to land by the president, Poland’s chief prosecutor, Andrzej Seremet, said yesterday: “At the current level of the investigation we have no such information.”

After flight recorders revealed nothing unusual, Russian investigators said yesterday they had moved on to the voice recorders.

Mindful of the continuing week of mourning, Polish media have not dared even raise the possibility that Mr Kaczynski had a role in the crash. But the Russian media have recalled how, in 2008, Mr Kaczynski demanded that a pilot land his aircraft in Tblisi in the middle of the Georgian war; the pilot refused and diverted.

A Russian flight expert suggested in the Komsomolskaya Pravda daily that the crash was caused by “VIP passenger syndrome”. But this was dismissed by a colleague of Arkadiusz Protasiuk, the crash pilot.

“He was a tough man who wouldn’t let emotions prevail over common sense,” said Tomasz Pietrzak, another government pilot, on Polish radio. “He would certainly not risk passengers’ lives.”

The crash has also prompted reflection in political circles about whether the incident might have been the indirect consequence of years of competition between the president and Polish prime minister Donal Tusk.

Last Wednesday, Mr Tusk flew to Katyn for a memorial service with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. Feeling snubbed at not being invited, Mr Kaczynski, from a competing party, organised a competing event on Saturday to remember the 22,000 Polish soldiers massacred at Katyn in 1940.

“As a consequence of the crash, this unfortunate situation may finally be at an end,” said Andrzej Maciejewski, political analyst of the Sobieski Institute think tank.

Mr Kaczynski’s office published his final, undelivered speech yesterday, in which he paid tribute to the Katyn soldiers and the families who kept their memory alive, and condemned the Soviet cover-up as “the founding lie of the [communist] People’s Republic of Poland”. But the president, known for his anti-Russian tirades, saved his final words to thank Moscow for its assistance ahead of the 70th anniversary of the Katyn massacre.

The undelivered words carry additional poignancy now: “Let’s allow the Katyn wound to finally heal,” he planned to say. “We are already on the path; we should follow it to bring our nations closer and not stop or retreat.”

Mr Maciejewski of the Sobieski Institute said: “In future we will be able to distinguish between pre-April 10th Polish-Russian relations and post-April 10th.”


Source:Poland Twitter