NATIONAL SECURITY
Obama Passes Pirate Test

On Sunday evening, U.S. Navy SEAL snipers ended a five-day hostage crisis on the high seas, simultaneously shooting and killing three pirates and freeing their prisoner, Richard Phillips, the captain of the cargo ship Maersk Alabama. A fourth pirate had surrendered earlier, seeking medical attention for injuries sustained during a struggle with the Alabama's crew. Commenting yesterday on the successful resolution of the situation, President Barack Obama expressed relief at the rescue of Phillips, noting that his safety had been "our principal concern" throughout the crisis. Obama also said that his administration was "resolved to halt the rise of piracy" in the waters off of Somalia, where pirates have attacked 67 vessels since the beginning of 2009, and 200 since 2008. Journalist David Axe notes that "captured vessels netted some $20 million in ransom last year. Today, some dozen vessels and 200 seafarers are still being held in rowdy pirate towns in lawless northern Somalia." Three more ships have been hijacked by pirates in the Gulf of Aden just since the rescue of Phillips, and pirates have threatened future attacks against American vessels and crews in revenge for the killing of the three hostage-takers.

THE TIMELINE: After shadowing the Maersk Alabama through the Indian Ocean for several hours, the four teen-aged pirates crept aboard the ship on Wednesday, but the 20-man American crew fought back. Captain Phillips offered himself up as a hostage in order to ensure the safety of his crew, and the pirates took him along as they fled in the ship's motorized lifeboat. Soon after, the Navy destroyer USS Bainbridge arrived on the scene, with FBI hostage negotiators on board. "According to Somali elders...in the coastal fishing village of Harardhere,the pirates were demanding $6 million in ransom and safe passage to shore in exchange for Phillips's release." The local elders said the negotiations collapsed Friday over whether the pirates would be arrested. On Friday, Obama received several briefings on the situation, and the White House said the president gave "the Department of Defense policy guidance and certain authorities to allow U.S. forces to engage in potential emergency actions." On Saturday evening, "dozens of Navy SEALs parachuted from C-17 transport aircraft into the sea, making their way with inflatable Zodiacs to the Bainbridge." The pirates were induced to accept a tow when their lifeboat ran out of fuel far from the Somali coast. On Sunday, monitoring the lifeboat through rifle scopes, Navy SEAL snipers watched as two pirates raised their heads out of a lifeboat hatch, with "the third pirate moved toward the captain, pointing his AK-47 at his back. Thinking Phillips was about to be killed, the on-scene commander gave the snipers the order to fire."

TEST PASSED: The President's conservative critics had clearly been preparing to exploit the crisis as proof of Obama's weakness in the face of provocation. Upon the news of the hijacking, the National Review's Andrew McCarthy tauntingly asked "what our new commander-in-chief proposes to do about it.” Writing in the Weekly Standard, Seth Cropsey advocated "taking the fight to the pirates," i.e. an overly militaristic response, and wondered whether the president had the guts to follow through. The Wall Street Journal, drawing a tenuous parallel between piracy and legal threats against Bush administration officials for war crimes, editorialized that "if the U.S. government won't protect American citizens from the legal anarchy of postmodern Europe, how can we expect it to protect American sailors from the premodern anarchy of Somalia?" As it was, Obama -- while clearly mindful of the larger implications of piracy for U.S. interests -- made the life of the American captain, and not the maintenance of perceptions of American strength, the immediate objective of the operation. Having explored and exhausted non-violent solutions to the situation, and with the captain's life in apparent jeopardy, deadly force was authorized and used effectively, and the situation brought to a satisfactory conclusion with a welcome lack of bluster that would have been unlikely under the previous administration. After having cued up their outrage for Obama's expected failure, conservatives have generally been silent in the face of his actual success.

AN INTERNATIONAL PROBLEM: University of Kentucky assistant professor Robert Farley, while noting that the actual financial and economic impact of piracy is extremely small, writes that "the industrial nations of Europe, Asia and North America are the primary beneficiaries of free ocean transit. ... The navies of these states have a responsibility to keep the seas free, and this means concerted, multilateral action against Somali pirates." Axe also writes that "a wholesale revamping of American strategy for defeating pirates" is needed. "The U.S. must push for improved cooperation by all the nations with a stake in the conflict. The Alabama incident should generate the political capital to make such change possible." In Somalia, as in Afghanistan, security threats are generated by a lack of governance, a larger and more complex problem that cannot simply be solved by resolute shows of force. Somalia has had no effective government since 1991. With no coast guard or military to defend its territorial waters, Somalis, many of whose livelihoods depended on fishing, "could only watch as foreign trawlers emptied the seas of fish. To survive, many took up piracy instead." Somali government spokesman Abdi Haji Gobdoon told the Christian Science Monitor, "At the moment, we have no ability to protect the waters or defend against the pirates." The current government controls only a small portion of the capital, and little of its 1,879 miles of coastline. "No one wants to help us with this. I don't know why, because it is a problem for everyone now," Gobdoon said, noting that concerned nations "send ships, but we need stability on land."

Under the Radar

JUSTICE -- SIX BUSH OFFICIALS TO BE INDICTED BY SPANISH PROSECUTORS: Human Rights lawyer and Daily Beast contributor Scott Horton reports that Spanish prosecutors will announce today that they are moving forward with the indictment of six top Bush officials who are charged with providing legal cover for torture. The investigation deals specifically with the case of five Spanish citizens who were detained at Guantanamo Bay and allegedly tortured there. The Bush 6, as Horton calls them, are former attorney general Alberto Gonzales, former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, former Cheney chief of staff David Addington, Justice Department officials John Yoo and Jay S. Bybee, and Pentagon lawyer William Haynes. The State Department has been in constant contact with the Spanish government since the case was initially filed on March 17. During a meeting at the American embassy in Madrid, "Spanish prosecutors advised the Americans that they would suspend their investigation if at any point the United States were to undertake an investigation of its own into these matters." Horton reports, however, that when "pressed to know whether any such investigation was pending," they received no answer. Still, Obama  faces the ongoing issue of Republicans "promising to 'go nuclear' and filibuster" his legal appointments if he authorizes the Justice Department to release the torture memos written by the Bush 6.

ECONOMY -- BUSINESS LOBBY GOES INTO HIGH GEAR TO PRESERVE OFFSHORE TAX DEFERRAL: Yesterday, both CQ and National Journal reported on the "tax battle" evidently looming between big business and President Obama, over his administration's proposal to begin taxing the profits that companies earn overseas. The business lobby is casting the proposal as a business-killing apocalypse. "Just imagine a world 10 years from now where there are no U.S. multinationals because they've all been bought up by foreign competitors," said tax lobbyist Kenneth Kies. "Everything else pales in comparison," said National Foreign Trade Council President William Reinsch, whose group is partnering with the Business Roundtable, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers to preserve the deferral rule. The business lobby's rhetoric has been similar to that used by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), who warned that "companies are going to leave" because of Obama's "stupid, dumb-ass" tax proposals. But their fearmongering ignores the fact that U.S. corporate tax revenue as a share of the economy is below the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) average. The U.S. raises less revenue from corporations than do countries like the United Kingdom and Ireland, even with a technically higher rate. As the Wonk Room has noted, loopholes and shelters contribute to a skewed idea of what the U.S. corporate tax system really looks like, but suffice to say, it's not the crippling system that businesses make it out to be.

IMMIGRATION -- McCAIN HOLDS FUNDRAISER FOR IMMIGRATION REFORM AFTTER REFERRING TO LATINOS  AS 'YOU PEOPLE': On Thursday, the New York Times reported that the Obama administration would begin working on comprehensive immigration reform this year, perhaps as early as May. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who championed immigration reform in 2007, is trying to reap a financial windfall out of the news. The Houston Chronicle reported this weekend that McCain's Senate re-election finance chairman, Jason LaVecke, is planning a fundraiser for McCain after hearing about Obama's interest in the topic. "My first mission is to raise enough money early to keep challengers out of [McCain's] race," LeVecke said. "By Thursday afternoon hundreds of Houston business leaders received e-mails urging them to join the effort -- by bringing their checkbooks to a May 4 fundraiser here for Sen. John McCain," the Chronicle reported. But when McCain thought Obama wasn't taking the lead on immigration, he lashed out at the Hispanic community for voting for Obama. National Journal reported earlier this month that McCain derogatorily referred to a group of Latinos he was meeting with as "you people." "You people made your choice. You made your choice during the election," McCain reportedly said. "My hands were shaking," one source at the event recalled. Changing his tune on immigration is nothing new for McCain. During the Republican primary last year, McCain said he wouldn't vote for his own immigration bill and he repeatedly touted "securing the borders" before comprehensive reform. He then walked the fine line of criticizing undocumented immigration while supporting reform during the general election.

Think Fast

"President Barack Obama is expected to tap Fannie Mae Chief Executive Herb Allison to head the government's $700 billion financial-rescue program," the Wall Street Journal reports. Allison, who was a national finance co-chairman for Sen. John McCain's 2000 presidential campaign, would replace Neel Kashkari, a holdover from the Bush administration. Allison has only been running Fannie Mae since September.

Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele has launched a direct attack on President Obama "in a new mass mailing, accusing the president of being part of the 'blame America first' crowd."

President Obama yesterday announced a series of steps aimed at easing travel, gift and business restrictions between the U.S. and Cuba. The White House said the U.S. will "lift travel and spending restrictions on Americans with family on the island" and would allow U.S. telecommunications companies "to set up shop in Cuba," a move that "will flood Cuba with information while providing new opportunities for businesses."

The Obama administration is preparing to drop "a longstanding American insistence that Tehran rapidly shut down nuclear facilities during the early phases of negotiations over its atomic program." The shift in strategy, which is being discussed with European allies, would be "a sharp break" from the Bush administration approach that demanded that Iran halt its enrichment activities in order to initiate negotiations.

Leaders of the nation's two major labor federations -- AFL-CIO president John Sweeney and Joe Hansen, a leader of the rival Change to Win federation -- said yesterday that they “have agreed for the first time to join forces to support an overhaul of the immigration system." The move “could give President Obama significant support among unions as he revisits the stormy issue in the midst of the recession."

Former Bush press secretary Dana Perino is joining Mark Penn's public relations firm, Burson-Marsteller, as "chief issues counselor." Penn called Perino “an extremely skilled practitioner" who had weathered "some incredibly difficult experiences." Perino joins former Bush aide Karen Hughes, who also works at Penn's firm.

Amazon.com said yesterday that “an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error" had “caused thousands of books on its site to lose their sales rankings and become harder to find in searches." Mark Probst -- one of the first to notice that sales rankings for gay literature had disappeared -- appeared satisfied with Amazon.com's explanation.

The SEC "is reviewing whether Bank of America broke the law by not telling shareholders about Merrill Lynch's plan to pay out $3.6bn in bonuses before they voted for a government-backed merger of the two banks." Federal securities law prohibits institutions from “omitting material facts" regarding the purchase or sale of securities.

And finally: "At Les Stanford Chevrolet Cadillac in Dearborn, they're fed up with criticism of Detroit automakers and the UAW by Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby," reports the Detroit Free Press. The dealership is now "running TV and radio ads that feature clips of Shelby making anti-Detroit Three comments. 'We're wasting our time trying to keep them alive,' he is shown saying in one ad. Co-owner Paul Stanford strikes back, asking: 'I wonder if the good senator would tell us how much Japanese car companies who make cars in his state gave to his campaign?'" Stanford said that he has "received an enthusiastic response for the ads."

Good News

The White House announced yesterday that the Obama administration will ease travel, gift, and business restrictions between the U.S. and Cuba.

State Watch

ILLINOIS: Investigators take a closer look at Rep. Jesse Jackson (D) in the corruption case of former governor Rod Blagojevich.

FLORIDA: Florida State University officials slash programs due to reductions in state revenue.

ECONOMY: Several states have created stimulus "czar" positions to oversee the spending of billions of recovery dollars.

Blog Watch

THINK PROGRESS: Bill Kristol uses pirate crisis to argue for more defense spending.

WONK ROOM: CNBC mocks Elizabeth Warren, tells her to stop "breathing down the necks of the banks."

YGLESIAS: Conservative anti-European rhetoric reflects distinctive Southern attitudes.

NEWSHOUNDS: Fox News's Neil Cavuto: Fox covered the Million Man March in 1995, even though the network didn't launch until 1996.

Daily Grill

"We do not pick and choose these rallies and protests. We were there for the Million Man March."
-- Fox News's Neil Cavuto, 4/11/09, defending the network's "Tea Party" coverage.

VERSUS

"The Million Man March occurred October 16, 1995 whereas FOX News was not operating until October 7, 1996, nearly a year later."
-- Newshounds, 4/12/09

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