DAVID BARON, CALL YOUR OFFICE: Ken Anderson blogs a mountain lion kill in the Eastern Sierra.

THIS MUST BE MORE OF THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WE’VE BEEN HEARING ABOUT:

This weekend, as America celebrated Independence Day, a statue of President Ronald Reagan was unveiled in London. Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and others were on hand for the dedication. The bronze statue sits in the same park as a statue dedicated to the memory of Former President Dwight D. Eisenhower, which was dedicated in 1989 by the Iron Lady herself, Margaret Thatcher. The Reagan statue is part of the world-wide celebrations celebrating the centennial of Reagan’s birth.

That night, a dinner was held in honor of Reagan. It capped a day of events that celebrated the life and extraordinary achievements of the 40th President of the United States. Yet, missing from the dinner – clearly the biggest event of the day – was United States Ambassador Louis Susman. While he did host a VIP breakfast that morning, Susman was absent from the grandest event, where speeches were given and the memory of Reagan was put forth – reminding everyone of his impact, and his legacy.

Once again, Obama and his cronies can’t think their way out of a ripped-open paper bag. First, the appointment of Susman as Ambassador to England shows the level of disregard Obama has for these positions and engagements. While promising during the election to fill ambassadorships with top level people, Susman got the job (in very large part) to the fact that he was a long-time Democratic fundraiser, spending a decade on the DNC and working on both the Kerry campaign in 2004 and Obama’s run in 2008. . . .

Second, what could the Ambassador to England have on his schedule that is more important than attending a celebration and commemoration of a US president? Isn’t this, in part, part of the job? When a foreign country goes out of its way to honor your country, doesn’t that give you a unique leverage that should be capitalized on? Doesn’t it follow that the only way to capitalize on it is to actually be there?

From all reports, Susman was not sick, stricken with illness or involved in a really intense game of Farmville. He simply didn’t show up, as the representative of the United States, to an event honoring one of the greatest presidents in US history.

A political hack, he acted in accordance with his nature — politically. He couldn’t imagine that this could matter to anyone serious. In that he showed the narrow worldview and lack of imagination that characterizes the Obama Administration’s diplomacy.

HOW’S THAT BAILOUT GOIN’ FOR YA’? Uh oh: GM backlog looking a lot like 2008. “The bailed-out automaker now has a growing inventory in its truck lines of 122 days worth of sales, nearly twice that of its non-bailout domestic competitor Ford Motors for similar lines. With sales flattening in the auto market, GM has now returned to the high inventory of its pre-bailout condition. . . . The federal bailout of GM only made sense if the automaker’s difficulties entirely sprang from the financial collapse (caused mainly by government intervention in housing and financial markets through Fannie and Freddie junk bonds), and had been both competitive and profitable without it. That was obviously not the case.”

JOHN PODHORETZ ON Jews And Obama.

WHY HOTEL TVS are so bad.

IF WE’RE LIVING IN A COMPUTER SIMULATION, some questions.

ATF GUNRUNNING SCANDAL UPDATE: U.S. Officials Behind ‘Fast and Furious’ Gun Sales Should Be Tried in Mexico, Lawmaker Says. “While the investigation continues into the U.S. operation that helped send thousands of guns south of the border, Mexican lawmakers say they’ll press for extradition and prosecution in Mexico of American officials who authorized and ran the operation.”

They told me if I voted for John McCain we’d see demands for the extradition of Administration war criminals. And they were right! They just didn’t tell me it was the war on guns. . . .

UNVEILING THE WORLD’S FIRST serial hybrid aircraft. “Based on Diamond Aircraft’s HK36 Super Dimona, the E-Star’s propeller is powered by Siemen’s 70 kW electric motor. A small Wankel engine, supplied by Austro Engine, acts as a generator, supplying juice to the electric motor. Siemens says that fuel consumption is exceptional due to the combustion engine spinning at reduced RPM. An on-board battery pack, provided by EADS, gives the lightweight aircraft a boost in power during takeoffs and climbs. That battery pack is then recharged while cruising. During initial test flights, the DA36 E-Star was airborne for two hours.”

DAN MITCHELL: If Truth-in-Labeling Is Important, the Housing Crisis Should Be Stamped: “Made in Washington.”

STUDY: The more people know about science, the less they believe in global warming. “The conventional explanation for controversy over climate change emphasizes impediments to public understanding: Limited popular knowledge of science, the inability of ordinary citizens to assess technical information, and the resulting widespread use of unreliable cognitive heuristics to assess risk. A large survey of U.S. adults (N = 1540) found little support for this account. On the whole, the most scientifically literate and numerate subjects were slightly less likely, not more, to see climate change as a serious threat than the least scientifically literate and numerate ones.”

IN THE MAIL: From Naomi Schaefer Riley, The Faculty Lounges: And Other Reasons Why You Won’t Get The College Education You Pay For.

REASON TV: The Killing of Allen Kephart: How the Police Lost the Trust of a Law-and-Order Town. One of the under-noticed stories of the past decade or so is how law enforcement in general has lost the trust of a lot of people who used to be its biggest supporters.

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: The Shame Of The Cities And The Shade of LBJ. “After the Medicare/Medicaid catastrophe the single greatest policy failure of modern America is urban policy.”

TEA PARTY UPDATE: Cincinnati Tea Party founder Mike Wilson emails:

I saw the link you posted on the estate tax. This was a top priority for the Ohio Liberty Council – the statewide network of tea party groups in Ohio. The reason this got done was an initial effort to gather 83,000 signatures towards a citizen initiated statute. Once we neared the threshold of compelling the General Assembly to act, they took it up on their own. It did, however, take considerable grassroots pressure to keep the repeal provision as the budget went through the 23-10 Republican Senate.

Next on the agenda is turning in more than 500k signatures to put a Healthcare Freedom Amendment to the Ohio Constitution on the ballot this November. We are driving the semi-truck to the Secretary of State tomorrow.

Ohio’s tea party groups haven’t been as newsworthy lately, but that’s because we’ve moved beyond rallies and really focused heavily on impacting state politics.

That’s happening in a lot of places.

PERSONALLY, I HAVEN’T MISSED IT AT ALL: Google temporarily disables ‘Realtime’ search.

I feel like a bad geek, though, because I got a first-day Google+ invite — from John Scalzi, for extra geek cred — and just haven’t had time and energy to play with it. Too busy, alas, with a book chapter to write and law-review comments to grade.

ED MORRISSEY: Obama Can’t Dump Biden. “Cuomo just started his first term as governor six months ago. Obama may be in trouble in 2012, but not because he can’t carry New York; if he needs Cuomo to save the Empire State for Democrats, he’s heading for a landslide defeat anyway. Hillary Clinton would be a more likely and effective choice, as would a Midwestern or Rust Belt current or former governor who would help Obama shore up his standing in places that matter, like Indiana with Evan Bayh, or Pennsylvania with Ed Rendell, or even perhaps Phil Bredesen of Tennessee.”

MICHAEL MCCONNELL: The Debt Ceiling Is Certainly Not “Unconstitutional.” Nobody really thinks it is. This is just an effort to spread FUD in support of the negotiations.

LONGEVITY UPDATE: Who wants to live forever? Scientist sees aging cured. This isn’t really news to people who have been following the subject, but it’s a nice introduction if you haven’t been.

NOTRE DAME AGREES WITH DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION THAT DUE PROCESS DOESN’T APPLY IN SEXUAL HARASSMENT CASES.

FROM PROFESSOR JACOBSON, a Strauss-Kahn roundup.

LOADS OF Amazon coupons.

MICHAEL BARONE: OBAMA’S CORPORATE-JET FIXATION:

I note that President Obama took on corporate jets five or six times in his press conference. Evidently he wants voters to think that changes in the depreciation schedule for corporate jet aircraft will go a long ways toward cutting the federal budget deficit. I doubt that voters are so naive. “Corporate jets” may get a negative response in some focus groups—I gather that’s why Obama kept returning to the theme—but I doubt that voters generally care much about them one way or the other.

There are, however, two groups in our society who are familiar with private jet travel but are unable to use it very often, much to their chagrin. They are: (number one—I spell out the number because of Microsoft Word’s irritating insistence on altering paragraph structure when you use numerals) members of Congress and (number two) members of the press.

Playing to insider envy. If I were a GOP member of Congress, I’d introduce a bill capping the number of hours the President can travel on Air Force One. For greenhouse-gas purposes, of course.

SHOULD LAW ENFORCEMENT BE ABLE TO PUT GPS TRACKERS ON YOUR CAR WITHOUT A WARRANT? Sure, so long as you can put trackers on their vehicles. After all, if putting a tracker on your vehicle isn’t enough of an intrusion to require a warrant, then surely they have no cause to complain if you do the same to a vehicle that doesn’t even belong to them, but is paid for by taxpayer dollars. Right?

LAW PROFESSORS OPPOSE Senator Patrick Leahy’s dumb and dishonorable “Protect IP Act.”

TODAY ONLY: An iPod/iPhone speaker system and charging station on sale.

UPDATE: Reader Debbie Eberts writes: “Glenn, hate to be a party-pooper, but I own one of those Phillips’ iPod charging stations Amazon is selling and it’s horrible. I bought it (for a lot more) for my preteen son for Christmas. It’s hard to set, hard to use and the sound is so-so. Stay far, far away IMHO. FYI.”