Morning Must Reads

The president has found a home for some of the other  Gitmo boys at Palau, but the hundreds of real terrorists still in Cuba will be harder to place as writers Peter Finn and Sandhya Somashekhar explain:

“[State Department special envoy Daniel Fried] also negotiated with Germany, which has a Uighur population in Munich. But Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble balked at any transfer and pointedly asked U.S. officials why they were not accepting the Uighurs themselves if, as they insisted, they were not dangerous, according to German reports.
According to Sarah Mendelson, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who authored a report on closing Guantanamo, “Once it becomes clear no detainees will be settled in the U.S., potentially you could hear doors slamming all over Europe.”
 
AP– Chinese Muslims trigger public backlash in Palau
 
Palau last figured into American history when Marines were invading it, but for $200 million the folks there have agreed to accept 13 Uighur Muslims captured by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

As expensive and distant as the Palau move is, the anger there is a foreshadowing of what might happen should the administration try to bring any of the real baddies here.

Writer Ray Lilly explains –

“Palau President Johnson Toribiong explained his decision to grant the Uighurs entry as traditional hospitality, but public opinion has appeared overwhelmingly negative. Some complained Friday that the government failed to consult the people.

“I totally disagree” with allowing the Uighurs onto Palau, Natalia Baulis, a 30-year-old mother of two, told The Associated Press by telephone.

“It’s good to be humanitarian and all, but still these people … to me are scary,” she said.”
 
New York Times — Blaming the Guy Who Came Before Doesn’t Work Long

 
Writer Peter Baker has some cold water for the Obama administration’s most recurring theme – the bitter inheritance from George W. Bush. Seven months after his election, President Obama and his team are still beating up on the former president:

“Mr. Obama got a taste of that in recent days as he and his White House were put on the defensive trying to explain why the unemployment rate had risen to 9.4 percent when his staff had predicted it would peak at 8 percent as long as Congress passed his stimulus plan , which lawmakers dutifully did. Mr. Obama obviously did not create the recession passed to him, but it was his administration that set the expectation that his policy would keep it from deepening as far as it has.

Challenges stacking up overseas may increasingly be seen as Mr. Obama’s soon enough too, say advisers, critics and some outside experts. By sending an extra 21,000 American troops to Afghanistan and replacing the commander there, Mr. Obama has now made that war his, as many analysts in Washington see it. The forceful position toward Israel that Mr. Obama has adopted in recent weeks over settlement expansion may also make the Palestinian conflict more and more his own problem.”
 
Wall Street Journal — White House Sends Signals on Deficit
 
Having sold his stimulus and omnibus budget on the grounds of unavoidable, short-term fiscal irresponsibility. He will not be able to sell global warming fees and national health care the same way.

Writer Gerald Seib explains:

“But the big elephant in this room is health care. In the eyes of most Obama aides, the most important deficit-fighting measure of the next few months is the effort to pass a health-care overhaul that expands coverage without costing more federal dollars, and that makes systemic changes that hold down overall health costs.

The federal government, as the nation’s single biggest buyer of health care, has more at stake in cost containment than anybody else. “We are addressing health care…because if you don’t address that, you’re on an unsustainable path on deficits,” says Peter Orszag, the head of the president’s Office of Management and Budget.

Mr. Obama was even more succinct in a Wisconsin appearance Thursday. Talking about inflation in health costs, he said simply: “If we don’t get a handle on it, we’re not going to be OK.””
 
Washington Post — The Obama Diet

Some of the most fawning coverage of President Barack Obama has come from the Washington Post, so the fact that the paper’s editorial page scolded him so tartly today is worth noting.

But the president’s argument that he is for fiscal probity after quadrupling the deficit and engaging in the wildest spending spree in American history has given even his staunchest supporters pause.

 “Imagine going on a diet in which you figure out how many calories a day you eat and pledge to make up for any amount beyond that with vigorous exercise. Except that your regular consumption includes four gooey slices of chocolate cake daily — which you have no intention of giving up. You might not put on weight as quickly, but you’re not likely to slim down, either.

This is about what President Obama proposed this week with new legislation to codify congressional pay-as-you-go rules. “The ‘pay-as-you-go rule’ is very simple,” the president said. “Congress can only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere.”

Well, not exactly. First, as under existing House and Senate rules, what is known as the PAYGO law would not apply to discretionary spending programs, which account for about 40 percent of the federal budget; these programs, which Congress reviews and funds yearly, could continue to grow without corresponding cuts or new revenue. Only extra spending for mandatory programs (Medicare, Social Security and the like) and tax provisions would be covered.

Second, Mr. Obama would write into the law four whopping exceptions to the pay-as-you-go rule: extending most of the Bush tax cuts, keeping the estate tax at its current level, preventing the alternative minimum tax from hitting more taxpayers and increasing Medicare payments to doctors. This adds up to a $2.8 trillion loophole over 10 years.”