Last week with susan rice telling a washington, d. C. Audience that quote, as a nation, were stronger than we have been in a very long time. The president S National Security adviser accused Administration Critics of lacking perspective and claimed america no longer faced existential threats. While the dangers we place may be more numerous and varied theyre not of the existential nature we confronted during world war ii or during the cold war. We cannot afford to be buffetted by alarmism and a nearly instantaneous news cycle. In an interview with vox. Com, president obama agreed that the media has overhyped the threat from terrorism while down playing the risk of climate change. A charge White House Press secretary josh earnest doubled down on a day later. The point that the president is making is that there are many more people on an annual basis who have to confront the impact the direct impact on their lives of climate change, or on the spread of a disease than on terrorism. Joining the panel this week, wall street journal columnist and Deputy Editor dan henninger. Foreign affairs columnist, Bret Stephens and Editorial Board member dorothy rabinowitz. So dan, not too long ago, eric holder said that the threat of terrorism kept him up at night and chuck hagel the defense secretary soon to depart said that the world is exploding all over. Now, we get the president and susan rice telling us, well, calm down. Really, were pretty safe. Dont worry about it. Whose message are we supposed to believe here . Well, we have to come up with an answer, dont we, paul, because if you because we ask the question. Anybody whos been watching this, what is this all about . So well come up with what i think is an explanation. Barack obama is in the last two years of a presidency. He does have an agenda. By and large a domestic agenda. A little history, go back to the presidency of lyndon johnson. There was a famous phrase during the johnson presidency, he was guns versus butter. Spending on the vietnam war versus spending on the great society. It was a dilemma because it was hard to do. Im convinced that barack obama has concluded hes not going to allow the last two years of his presidency to be dragged into what he calls a long term overseas expensive military commitment. He simply wont go there. He wants to take that money and spend it on his domestic policy. The way i understand thiS National Security strategy its the third term of the Jimmy Carter Administration that were in. Carter came into the White House House gave a speech in i think 1977 and said we have to get over our inordinate fear of communism. That was the mantra until the soviets invaded afghanistan. That was the mantra of his term. Now, what the president is essentially telling us along with susan rice, we have to get over our inordinate fear of terrorism and fear of vladimir putin, and our inordinate fear of iran acquiring nuclear building. And just as dan mentioned with the guns versus butter dilemma, he wants the money for butter. So as a result he has to convince americans that everything that theyre seeing on their tv careenscreens is illusion, overhyped, dont worry about it. So susan rice and the president are telling us what the real Administration Policy is. Well, heres the thing that i wonder at. Its very dangerous for a member of this administration to invoke world war ii because ultimately, it reminds us of a time when the president of the United States understood that if our allies abroad were faltering, we would be living at the point of a gun and he said this to an isolationist congress. This is a time when one vote separated us from the draft when we desperately needed an army and general marshall called begging. It is an amazing error for them to bring us back to a time when there was leadership of the United States. But okay, dorothy, fine. But theyre saying basically look, this isnt the hitler threat. This isnt even the soviet union threat. This is a rag tag im putting words in their mouth here, but its bunch of largely disorganized terrorists, they can here and there, but that doesnt threaten the essence, the existence of the u. S. This is precisely what people said at the time of world war ii. They had signs saying let us fight hitler from here not go to war, not put boots on the ground. These were also very distant threats. We just interviewed a senior nato commander who is saying an american commander who is saying we expect that russia will be in a war in five to six years. That putin believes that he will be. Right. Preparing as such. So for the first time in 25 years the security of europe is seriously in jeopardy. We are looking at an iran thats coming so close to Nuclear Capability that as Henry Kissinger recently reminded us it will cause a chain of proliferation in the worlds most volatile region. We just learned that isis has as many as 20,000 foreign fighters of whom perhaps some 5,000 have western pass ports with visa with visa waivers in order to get into the United States. So it really makes you wonder what kind of lotus land susan rice is living in. Also the threat is existential if these jihadists ever get a nuclear weapon. And even if you accept their premise, paul, the next question is are they doing enough to meet the threat as it exists . I mean, just late this week we had yemen overrun by the army. And yemen is a collapsing before our eyes, we cannot stand by and watch. But it looks like we are. We have. And the amnesia. What does it take for a National Security head to say we have no existential threat when we have witnessed not long ago the destruction of the world trade center, with 3,000 americans who were killed. Nothing like this ever happened in the 1940s. Briefly, the deal with the the ceasefire with ukraine this week, victory for putin . Of course. This is a tremendous victory for putin because he alternates between the brute force and fake diplomacy. Hes in the fake diplomacy stage. See if this ceasefire lasts at all, but it wont. It will entice further aggression. Thank you all. When we come back president obamas war irresolution. Hes asking congress to pass his ambivalent isis strategy, so should they comply . You drop 40 grand on a new set of wheels, then. Wham a minivan tbones you. Guess what your Insurance Company will only give you 37thousand to replace it. Depreciation they claim. How can my car depreciate before its first oil change . You ask. 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It supports the comprehensive strategy we have been pursuing with our allies and partners. That was president obama wednesday, calling on congress to authorize the use of military force against the Islamic State. And support what he says is the administrations comprehensive strategy for defeating the terror group. So dorothy a couple of things. Limitations hes asking congress to impose. One, no authorization for enduring Ground Combat operations, quote unquote. And then also a threeyear time limit. You have followed these things for a long time and looked at president s in war. Can you recall a president asking congress to put limits on his ability to fight that war . This is like many other aspects only a more important one, unique in our history. Most of our history is consisted of calling for maximum strength. Winston churchill said you ask what is our policy, our policy is to wage war, to wage relentless war against the monstrous tyranny unequalled in history. Our aim is victory. He didnt go to parliament and say, please, lets put a time limit on this. This is the way this poll this president operates. Remember in late 2009 he went to west point, he gave a speech announcing a surge in afghanistan. A war he said we must we must win. Except that the surge was going to have fewer troops than the generals were asking for. And there was going to be a sunset clause. There was going to be a time provision. So that is precisely the way he has acted. And what we are doing is we are telling our enemies wait us out and eventually we will go. Three year time limit is also if i were one of the president ial candidates Hillary Clinton or republican, the last thing i would want is a war resolution that runs out in my first year and basically you have to go back to congress to reauthorize it and maybe try to renegotiate the terms that have already been set implicitty on the war. That really makes it tougher to them. Yeah, it ties the president s hands and they have to go back and reargue this situation again and you know, when you have a resolution that has words like enduring in it which is very hard to define, or limited, it allows, you know, the lawyers to come in. Thats actually a very big point. An idea like this sends confusion i think to the pentagon. What limits are being imposed on them . The president cites this comprehensive coalition. Hes got over there, on the ground, that coalition is is the iraqi army and peshmerga. And i mean they could have ground operations that are defensive, but how do you define offensive . Does that mean you cant take ground, what does it mean . Dan is absolutely right but the other issue, if we were conducting right now a shock and awe campaign against isis, then there would be more justification for saying look well do this for were going to say well do this for two years and then congress may reauthorize, but the fact is we are conducting the least offensive air campaign in american history. This is we are conducting a fraction of the sorties we did over kosovo. So youre talking about a president whose military strategy is not exactly this hardhitting attempt to quickly defeat isis, scatter them to the four corners. Two years would be hardly enough to retake two more towns in syria. Military strategy. Okay. But thats what the president would say hes attempting here. You have republicans who want him to have the unrestricted war authorization and democrats want more restrictions. Dont fight outside of iraq and maybe or syria. Do you want to have an even tougher limitation on Ground Troops . Hes saying, look im dealing with the political reality as it is. Heres the thing. They have an old saying in the 60s we should look back on, which is the whole world is watching. The whole world is watching. This essentially ludicrous and obviously ludicrous attempt to wage a nonwar and sound the leaders of the war. Wait a minute, the administration said theyre making progress against isis. That kobani is liberated in syria from Islamic State and they have a lot of fighters killed. Well, they have reached a bit of a standoff with isis, though isis is far from defeated and its not going away. I mean, there were just reports that 20,000 foreign fighters are coming to reinforce the isis army that is already there. We described earlier that yemen has essentially collapsed in the past week. In libya, the libyans do not control their own capital. So the idea that we have brought them to a stand still is really quite an overstated claim by the part of the administration. So if you were a republican leader on capitol hill, would you endorse the president s authorization as written . No i would not. I would authorize greater spending for the state department and give them the resources to fight isis. Look, the president has the authorities he needs already under the 2001 and 2002 terror and iraq resolutions so he has that. He has what he needs. A clean resolution without restrictions is fine by me, but otherwise, dont make the war harder to win. Critics are calling him scott walker on steroids. Hmm. Only a month into the job, Governor Bruce Rauner is waste nothing time taking on the unions. This program is brought to you by price line. Com. Get up to 60 off. I know this guy. Konohito. And this guy. Who knows a guy. Hey guy. I know a guy in new york, vegas, dallas. Ive known some guys for decades and some, nice to meet ya, lets deal. My competitors may know a guy, but i know over 60,000 guys. And gals. Exclusive hotel deals up to 60 off. Priceline. 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Anncr bode, bode miller trained a little bit differently. A little too honest sometimes. The media is useless. You were out of control. But not always. The 415, 628 area code overlay begins. Starting february 21, 2015, if you have a 415 or 628 number youll need to dial 1 plus the area code plus the phone number for all calls. Even for calls within the same area code. Youll still need to dial 1 plus the area code plus the phone number. So when in doubt dial it out for more Information Contact your service provider, visit the website at www. Cpuc. Ca. Gov 415areacode well hes the first republican governor in illinois in 12 years and with a record high pension deficit and the lowest Credit Rating in the country, bruce rauner certainly has his work cut out for him. Only a month on the job, hes tackling that states fiscal and economic woes held on by targeting the Public Sector unions. Collin levy joins us from chicago with more. So collin, why the strategy right off the bat of taking on public unions . Why does he think thats so important . Well, taking on the unions, paul, here is the key to reforming the States Economic problem and what he did this week is he signed an executive order that really took it straight to them. He said that the unions may no longer collect fees from people who dont want to be members. This is key to their political power. He then went to Federal District court and filed a lawsuit that said collection of those fees violates the First Amendment because it forces them essentially to associate with the union against their will. So this is a very aggressive stance and its key here to his strategy. Its key because if you can coerce those union dues from tens of thousands of members, then you have the money to buy basically the legislature. And you have yeah. Its basically i call it a corrupt political bargain. The unions dominate the legislature. Yeah, thats right. Its a corrupt feedback loop because you have the unions sitting across the table from the same legislators theyre supporting financially. So its impossible to reform a lot of the major problems in illinois. We have 111 billion in unfunded pension liability. Theres all . 111 billion . I mean, this its mind boggling and the reason that it hasnt been reformed is because the unions are funding all of springfield. Now democrats have a super majority in both houses of the legislature, so in a way this is also instead of taking going directly to legislature and sort of saying, all right, please give me something on reform, i did win, you know how about a few crumbs of policy. Hes going around them and saying, look, im going to take this to the public and to the courts and im going to try to undercut the basically the roots of your power. Thats a little risky though politically isnt it, because dont you if you lose in court, you could be weaker. Well, i mean, look, the only way hell do this is by finding ways to work around the obstructionism. The obstructionism is going to be the main plan for him with their super majority. You know, hes looking at proposals thats going to try to bring right to work to communities, by using, you know, ways for communities to empower themselves. Hes going to have to find ways to do that because otherwise hes going to cornered or theyre going to try to corner him into using the same kind of tax increases that have consistently failed this suit. You have had a situation where they raised taxes back in 2003, 2011, they raised it from income taxes from 3 to 5 . They said it was to pay down the problems but guess what the problems have stayed and taxes went up and businesses hated it. Its got worse. And the real root of the problem is that illinois has been lagging economically. Job growth and Economic Growth and income gains, they have really got a big, big problem. And the root of it is these high taxes and this and the thats required to finance pensions and its sucking up the revenue from that the state gets every year. Yeah, its just eroding the state. I mean, companies will leave illinois if they have opportunities in the surrounding states, especially indiana which has been attracting Companies Creating jobs. Illinois will simply empty out over time. What are the prospects for subject, collin . Do you like them . I like the prospects for success because success is really the only way for the state to survive. If he fails, then its a deeper mess. Thanks, collin. Well take one more break. When we come back, hits and miss misses of the week. Time now for hits and misses of the week. Dan, start us off. Well, ill give a hit to the 50th anniversary of the moynihan report. It was a young Daniel Patrick moynihan issued a report whose central insight was that dependency on welfare was breaking up black families, creating the single mothers on welfare and moynihan wanted to create incentives for the women to work. 50 years later that incentive to work as an alternative to welfare was conventional wisdom. He was vilified at the time. Very much. Dorothy . Yes, this is about a film you may have heard of american sniper which i went to see in a Greenwich Village movie theater. Packed to the gills, liberal progressive. It was an amazing moment to listen to no sound, no popcorn crackling, no nothing. People were crushed leaving, overcome with emotion. There was still no sound. It occurred to me to think of howard dean who said famously that the only people interested in this film were sort of people who were not quite right in the head and also who were tea partiers. So mr. Dean if you can find a tea party in Greenwich Village, we have a movie ticket for you. A hit to the authors of the broken windows theory of policing. Just this week weve learned that the first ten days of february, new york city has not had a single murder. Murder in new york since 1993, its down 80 . Robbery down 82 . All because of a policing theory they came up with, implemented by giuliani and bill bratton. Thanks to my panel and all of you for watching. Im paul gigot. Hope to see you right here next week. A fox news alert. The security as much as in denmark now calling a shooting at a meeting about freedom of speech a likely terror attack. One person confirmed dead three others were hurt. Shots rang out at the cafe in copenhagen. Where the event was being held and police are now on the lookout for the shooters who sped away in a car. The free speech event was put together by the controversial swedish artist lars vilks. Hes fine, but one organizer thinks vilks was the target. Hes faced Death Threats for his cartoons depicting t