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"The Russians are clearly signaling to the Americans that their presence in the Black Sea will be met by a Russian presence in the Caribbean," said Stratfor analyst George Friedman.

The Russian armada will include the Kirov-class "Peter the Great," a nuclear-powered heavy missile cruiser, one of the largest warships in the world. It is armed with SS-N-19 Shipwreck long-range anti-ship missiles. She will be sailing in an area where nine of every 14 barrels of imported oil, even some Alaskan oil, must transit.

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Iraq's Foreign Minister Moshyar Zebari told the New York Post's Amir Taheri that Obama made delaying the troops' return a key theme of his talks with Iraqi leaders during his campaign stop in Baghdad last July.

"He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the U.S. elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington," Zebari told Teheri, on the record.

Funny, that's not what Obama told voters. He has made an immediate pullout the cornerstone of his campaign. Taheri's report signals the Democratic standard-bearer would manipulate the war's end for political advantage and is willing to deceive voters to do it.

Can Obama be trusted? We ask because he's shown a pattern of secretive double-dealing with voters, not just in his talking about small town voters one way in Scranton and another way in San Francisco, as Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin pointed out, but particularly in foreign affairs.

Sebelius: Say, did you know Republicans are racists? Update: AP or Miami Herald tries cleaning up Sebelius’ comments

Stocks plunged Monday with the news that two established investment banks were collapsing. Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy and Merrill Lynch was purchased by Bank of America.

That this turmoil was managed through normal market processes and without a government bailout is the silver lining in the otherwise bad financial news, Heritage Foundation experts J.D. Foster and David John report.

"In our economic system, failed firms go bankrupt," they explain. "It's unfortunate, but necessary to future prosperity. In our system, firms are bought and sold as conditions warrant or necessitate. This, too, is normal and necessary for prosperity."

The failure of Lehman and Merrill Lynch reflects a turn away from government interventionism in the free enterprise economy, Foster and John continue.

"What is most important about these transactions is that markets are in one important sense returning to a normal order even in the face of uncertainty and turmoil: One firm filed for bankruptcy; another is sold; no direct government financial involvement."

This is the sort of "creative destruction" famously described by economist Joseph Schumpeter as inherent to free enterprise.

Unfortunately, Congress may resume its interventionist ways by bailing out Detroit automakers. Heritage's James Gattuso and Nick Loris report that Congress may give away $25 billion in taxpayer money to the auto industry as part of another "stimulus" package.

This bailout would be a bad idea and set a bad precedent, they argue. "The proposed bailout, however, would do little to solve the very real long-term problems of the U.S. automobile industry, which include not just fuel inefficiency but large retirement, health, and other costs. Meanwhile, American taxpayers would be left to pay the tab for years of bad business decisions by Detroit. And the cost is unlikely to end there. If Detroit receives a federal handout, more industries would come for their own dollop of aid."

Yes, the fit is still hitting the shan.

MarketWatch now reports that AIG has won approval to borrow $20 billion in assets from subsidiaries to try and bail itself out.

Michelle Malkin  •  September 10, 2008 11:21 PM

You know my favorite part of Barack Obama’s response to the lipstick bungle? It’s this obnoxious phrase, which hasn’t been remarked upon much today:

“I don’t care what they say about me but I love this country too much to let them take over another election…”

Yes, yes, because Obama is Truth, Justice, and the American Way! And all who dare mock him or challenge his Absolute Moral Authority suffer from patriotism deficiency.

He loves his country so much he sent his lawyers to stifle the free speech of television stations running ads critical of his terror ties.

He loves his country so much he slimed investigative journalist Stanley Kurtz and pushed his cult followers to shut down Chicago radio station WGN and host Milt Rosenberg, who probed Obama’s ties to terrorist Bill Ayers and his failed educational projects.

And then he goes and complains about “lies and phony outrage and Swift Boat politics.”

Such a selfless champion of our great nation.

I’m reminded of that old quote attributed to William Randolph Hearst: “A politician will do anything to keep his job, even become a patriot.”

“I don’t care what they say about me,” sayeth The One.

Then what’s he doing running to Letterman to carp about what They said?

Did Obama just confirm Taheri?

Glenn Reynolds takes a close look at Barack Obama’s response to Amir Taheri and doesn’t see any daylight between them.  Yesterday, Taheri accused Obama of attempting to derail a status-of-forces agreement between the US and Iraq by telling the Iraqis to wait until after the American elections and stop negotiating with the Bush administration.  Obama responded by essentially confirming Taheri’s account:

In the New York Post, conservative Iranian-born columnist Amir Taheri quoted Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari as saying the Democrat made the demand when he visited Baghdad in July, while publicly demanding an early withdrawal.

“He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington,” Zebari said in an interview, according to Taheri.

“However, as an Iraqi, I prefer to have a security agreement that regulates the activities of foreign troops, rather than keeping the matter open,” Zebari reportedly said. …

Obama’s national security spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said Taheri’s article bore “as much resemblance to the truth as a McCain campaign commercial.”

In fact, Obama had told the Iraqis that they should not rush through a “Strategic Framework Agreement” governing the future of US forces until after President George W. Bush leaves office, she said.

Which is exactly what Taheri wrote.  Barack Obama went to Iraq and interfered with the diplomatic efforts of the elected United States government, in a war zone no less, by telling the Iraqis to stop negotiating with the President.  How exactly does that make Taheri’s column untruthful?

Whose policies led to the credit crisis?

The credit crisis and the lack of oversight over government-subsidized lenders like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac occurred on the watch of George Bush, and many blame his economic team for their lack of oversight in the collapse.  Barack Obama has made this point one of his major campaign themes, arguing that John McCain would provide more of the same failures that Bush did.  However, what many do not recall is that Bush wanted to tighten oversight with a new regulatory board for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and other government recipients for the express purpose of addressing bad loan practices — and Democrats blocked it.

The New York Times reported this five years ago:

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt — is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.

This should have been a no-brainer, right?  With hindsight, we can see that the Bush administration had accurately diagnosed the problem in the lending market and had a plan to address it.  Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac reluctantly supported the plan.  However, Democrats objected (emphases mine):

Among the groups denouncing the proposal today were the National Association of Home Builders and Congressional Democrats who fear that tighter regulation of the companies could sharply reduce their commitment to financing low-income and affordable housing.

”These two entities — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — are not facing any kind of financial crisis,” said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. ”The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

”I don’t see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing,” Mr. Watt said.

The Bush administration isn’t blameless in letting this get out of hand, but clearly the origins of the disaster and the efforts to keep bad policies in place fall on the Democrats in this case.

Update: John Lott points me to a March column he wrote at Fox News explaining the underlying causes of the debacle.  Forcing lenders to make questionable loans and blocking tougher regulation of the government-supported entities was a recipe for collapse, and Lott explained it six months before it happened.