Security Alarms

CAMP DAVID, Maryland (Reuters) – World leaders backed keeping Greece in the euro zone on Saturday and vowed to take all steps necessary to combat financial turmoil while revitalizing a global economy increasingly threatened by Europe’s debt crisis.

A summit of the G8 leading industrialized nations came down solidly in favor of a push to balance European austerity – an approach long driven by German Chancellor Angela Merkel – with a dose of U.S.-style stimulus seen as vital to healing ailing euro-zone economies.

“We commit to take all necessary steps to strengthen and reinvigorate our economies and combat financial stresses, recognizing that the right measures are not the same for each of us,” leaders said in a bold statement issued at their meeting at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland.

The message sent by the summit hosted by President Barack Obama reflected his own concerns that the euro-zone contagion, which threatens the future of Europe’s 17-country single currency bloc, could hurt the fragile U.S. recovery and his own re-election chances in November.

In their final economic communique, the Group of Eight leaders welcomed discussions in Europe to broaden the focus to more pro-growth remedies and said: “We reaffirm our interest in Greece remaining in the euro zone while respecting its commitments.”

It was unusual for the often-bland G8 communique to single out a relatively small nation. But fears that a political stalemate in Greece would lead to its departure from Europe’s monetary union at unknown costs to the financial system and global economic stability have spooked markets.

Spain too has roiled markets by revealing huge bad loans in its banking system as it struggles to rein in its budget while facing recession.

“It is significant that a group as weighty as the G8 backs Greece and reinforces the idea that Europe needs a strong union. It strengthens its hand,” said Marc Chandler, currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman.

In another move to shore up shaky global growth, the G8 leaders said they would monitor oil markets closely and stand ready to seek an increase in supplies if needed. While crude oil prices have declined by 10 percent over the past month, the threat of sanctions on Iran loom next month.

The G8 said the global economic recovery shows promising signs but “significant headwinds persist.”

CASUAL SETTING, TENSE ISSUES

The mountain cabins at Camp David where a shirt-sleeved Obama hosted the G8 leaders contrasted with recent tense meetings in European capitals about a sovereign debt crisis that just keeps getting worse.

The economic communique endorsed a recent political shift away from the budget-cutting austerity that has been championed by Merkel and British Prime Minister David Cameron as the route to prosperity.

Instead it recognized a common need to combine budgetary discipline with a growth strategy. This strengthens the hand of newly elected socialist French President Francois Hollande before a crucial European Union dinner on Wednesday to discuss growth.

The euro zone crisis took another lurch downward late last week when Spain revealed huge losses in its banking system and partially nationalized Bankia.

Cameron, after an early morning gym workout with Obama, said he detected a “growing sense of urgency that action needs to be taken” on the euro zone crisis. London relies heavily on international finance and banking instability would strike a fresh blow to an economy already in recession.

“Contingency plans need to be put in place and the strengthening of banks, governance, firewalls – all of those things need to take place very fast,” he told reporters.

European leaders seemed keen to stress that they would stand firm in protecting their banks, after news of escalating bad loans raised the specter that rescuing Spain’s banks would crash the euro zone’s fourth largest economy.

“We will do whatever is needed to guarantee the financial stability of the euro zone,” European Union President Herman Van Rompuy said, using language that ended up in the statement.

Hollande suggested using European funds to inject capital into Spain’s banks, which would mark a significant acceleration of EU rescue efforts. But there was no direct mention of Spain in the communique or any indication of action leaders would take to combat the financial stresses.

GERMANY SOFTENING ON AUSTERITY

There already were signs of a softening in Germany’s austerity stance as the meeting on the global economy began.

Germany’s largest industrial union, IG Metall, struck its biggest pay deal in 20 years early on Saturday. The 4.3 percent pay increase, more than double Germany’s inflation rate, will boost worker buying power in the euro zone’s richest nation and lift consumption. That is something the United States has urged as a means to bolster overall growth throughout the world’s second largest economic region.

In the G8 group photo outside the presidential log cabin, Obama also sought balance. He stood with the leaders of Europe’s two largest powers – France and Germany – to his right and his left respectively.

G8 leaders also raised pressure on Iran over its nuclear program, which they suspect has military objectives, by committing to a common approach. They pledged to implement sanctions fully against Tehran and indicated they would act together to lower oil prices if needed.

“Our hope is that we can resolve this issue in a peaceful fashion that respects Iran’s sovereignty and its rights in the international community, but also recognizes its responsibilities,” Obama told reporters.

The Camp David summit kicked off four days of intensive diplomacy that will test world leaders’ ability to quell unease over the threat of another financial meltdown as well as plans to wind down the unpopular war in Afghanistan.

After the Camp David talks wrap up late on Saturday, Obama will fly to his home town of Chicago where he will host a two-day NATO meeting at which the Afghanistan war will be the central topic.

(Additional reporting by Alister Bull, Jeff Mason, Caren Bohan, Stella Dawson, Elizabeth Pineau, Gleb Bryanski, and John Irish; Writing by Stella Dawson; Editing by Mary Milliken and Christopher Wilson)

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/obama-presses-ailing-europe-focus-growth-010948909--business.html

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — The billionaire said to be weighing a proposal to resurrect incendiary comments by President Barack Obama‘s former pastor shelved the idea Thursday after Obama and Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney denounced the tactic.

An aide to Joe Ricketts, founder of TD Ameritrade, said the proposal to draw the Rev. Jeremiah Wright into the presidential campaign — and the issue of race, by extension — went too far.

The New York Times reported Thursday that Ricketts‘ Ending Spending Action Fund, a conservative super PAC, was considering a proposal for a $10 million TV ad campaign highlighting Wright’s sermons.

The blueprint, titled “The Defeat of Barack Hussein Obama: the Ricketts Plan to End His Spending For Good,” was devised by a group of Republican strategists, one of whom confirmed its contents for The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to discuss private working sessions.

Brian Baker, president of the super PAC, said Ricketts was not the author of the 54-page plan. Baker blamed consultants.

“Not only was this plan merely a proposal — one of several submitted to the Ending Spending Action Fund by third-party vendors — but it reflects an approach to politics that Mr. Ricketts rejects and it was never a plan to be accepted but only a suggestion for a direction to take,” Baker said in a written statement.

Romney had urged the independent group, which favors his candidacy, to abandon the Wright strategy and to focus instead on his bedrock issue, the economy.

“I repudiate the effort by that PAC to promote an ad strategy of the nature they’ve described,” Romney told the conservative website Townhall.com. “I would like to see this campaign focus on the economy, on getting people back to work, on seeing rising incomes and growing prosperity — particularly for those in the middle class of America.”

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina criticized the plan as a “campaign of character assassination” and accused Romney “reacting tepidly in a moment that required moral leadership in standing up to the very extreme wing of his own party.”

Messina noted that Republican Sen. John McCain, Obama‘s opponent in the 2008 presidential race, had rejected using Wright and Wright’s sermons against Obama.

Messina commented before Romney’s interview with Townhall.com, and issued no comment after Romney urged Ricketts‘ group to abandon the effort.

McCain made clear four years ago that he wanted to challenge Obama on his record, not on the words or deeds of those around him, and forbade adviser Fred Davis from incorporating Wright into their advertising plans.

But Davis, a colorful Hollywood consultant, clearly wanted another chance to go use the strategy against Obama.

“Our plan is to do exactly what John McCain would not let us do: Show the world how Barack Obama‘s opinions of America and the world were formed,” Davis’ proposal said. “And why the influence of that misguided mentor and our president’s formative years among left-wing intellectuals has brought our country to its knees.”

Davis’ firm said in a statement Thursday that the document — which called for “hitting Barack right between the eyes” — was only a proposal and did not win Ricketts’ approval.

Wright became a problem for Obama during the 2008 presidential campaign when videos of the pastor’s sermons surfaced. In a 2003 sermon, Wright said black people should condemn the United States.

“The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people,” Wright said at the time. “God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”

Wright, who preached at the Chicago church Obama once attended, became such a distraction for Obama that he ended up delivering a major speech on race relations to try to quell the controversy. He also severed his ties to Wright.

For his part, Arizona Sen. McCain said he had no regrets over his handling of the Wright issue.

“I remain proud of our campaign and proud of what we were able to accomplish, and I would do it over again,” McCain told reporters Thursday at the Capitol. He said the matter seemed dead after Romney repudiated the proposal.

He shrugged when asked whether independent groups should take up matters such as Wright’s remarks.

“It’s a way for political operatives to continue to make money,” McCain said.

Another top Republican, House Speaker John Boehner, of Ohio, declined to be drawn into the debate.

“This election is going to be about the economy,” he said when reporters asked him to react to the proposed ad campaign. “I don’t know what these other people do or why they do it.”

Ricketts is the founder of Nebraska-based TD Ameritrade Securities and owner of the Chicago Cubs baseball team. He has been active in conservative politics for years, most recently in Republican Deb Fischer’s upset win this week in the Republican Senate primary in Nebraska.

___

Fouhy reported from New York. Associated Press writer Charles Babington in Washington contributed to this report.

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/billionaire-wont-air-obama-wright-campaign-ads-165806842.html

Take a step back from the “Mitt Romney, Teen Bully” dust-up, and ask yourself why The Washington Post spent 5,500 words delving into the details of Romney’s prep-school days, or why Barack Obama’s youthful romances garnered so much attention when excerpts from David Maraniss’ biography appeared in Vanity Fair.

Apart from voyeuristic curiosity, these excursions into the past are justified because they are supposed to provide insight into the character of a president and his rival. That’s been a special focus of the political press ever since Duke political scientist James David Barber first published his ground-breaking work “The Presidential Character” 40 years ago, arguing that an understanding of a candidate’s psychological makeup was a guide to predicting presidential behavior.

Coming as it did in 1972, just as the obsessions of Richard Nixon planted the seeds of his destruction and after the tormented presidency of Lyndon Johnson, Barber’s advice helped redirect the energies of two generations of political journalists. Put aside the position papers, went the post-Barber wisdom, and tell the voters what makes these men and women tick.

Fair enough, I guess. Maybe we can see the seeds of Obama’s detachment in the musings of a long-ago love. Maybe Mitt Romney’s failure to grasp the malicious nature of his teenage “hijinks” opens a door to a greater cluelessness.

But I wonder: Are we really confident that we–or for that matter anyone–can divine the likely performance of a president by gathering such evidence?

Think about one of the most powerful influences on a young child’s life–the absence of a father figure. Look back on recent presidents, and you’ll find an absent, or weak, or failed father in the lives of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama. Is there really much that these five presidents have in common? (And no, the desire for public affection doesn’t count, because that’s a desire that comes with the job).

Did Lyndon Johnson’s rage at the humiliation he felt when his father’s failures drove his family into poverty ignite the venality that led him to amass a fortune while on the public payroll? Or did it ignite a passion for improving the lot of the poor? Both?

Did Richard Nixon’s youth shape the calculating mind that opened the door to diplomatic relations with China? Or the paranoid distrust that led to Watergate? Both?

To add to the sense of uncertainty, take a look back at two other presidents–both named Roosevelt–and you’ll find yourself even more puzzled at what conclusions can be drawn from a public figure’s younger days. Theodore Roosevelt was a wunderkind. By the time he left Harvard, he’d published impressive studies or ornithology and botany, and his book on the Naval War of 1812, published shortly after his graduation, was acclaimed as an instant classic in the field. And Franklin? His family was so unimpressed by his devotion to the niceties of social life that his initials, they said, stood for “Feather Duster Roosevelt.”

Both became transforming presidents. With the first Roosevelt, his youth might be said to presage his later triumphs. With the second? Hardly.

Or consider the endlessly debated issue about what the “private life”–by which we almost always mean the sexual adventures or misadventures–tells us about a president’s public performance.

By every measure, John Kennedy’s sex life was compulsive and reckless. At one level, it had clear public consequences. Knowledge of Kennedy’s behavior gave FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover absolute job security, as well as the potential power to derail Kennedy’s re-election had he survived assassination.

But did JFK’s behavior offer insight into how he conducted himself when–quite literally–the future of the world was at stake? During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy again and again resisted the reckless entreaties of his military advisors, and many of his top civilian aides, to launch air strikes at the Soviet missiles in Cuba. Again and again, he looked for alternatives to military action, kept trying to put himself in Soviet leader Khrushchev’s shoes, tried not to box himself or the Soviets into a position where force was inevitable. It is more than likely that because of his prudence, hundreds of millions of lives were saved.

Or take a more recent example: By every account, the shaping influence on John McCain’s life was the time he spent in captivity as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. For five and a half years–many of them spent in solitary confinement, with frequent beatings and threats of execution–McCain endured conditions unlike any experienced by a major American political figure. Perhaps that life-changing experience gave McCain the freedom from political constraints to buck his party on issues ranging from tax policy to campaign finance reform. Perhaps it also freed him from the constraints that would have led most presidential nominees to conduct a lengthy, intense vetting process for a running mate.

There’s no question that voters are entitled to know as much as possible about the men and women who might hold the power of life and death over them. And in a nation of 300 million, it’s both likely–and reasonable–that different people might take different lessons from the same accounts of a candidate’s youth. (“Is Mitt somewhat of a bully? Better a bully than a doormat!”)

But when we seek to examine the early life of a potential president, we should remember that one of the most dangerous traits a leader can possess is hubris. We’d do well to leave ours at the door.

Article source: http://news.yahoo.com/romney%E2%80%99s-bullying--obama%E2%80%99s-girlfriends--and-the-character-test--what-can-we-know-about-a-president.html