If you have not followed the current scandal in Chicago carefully, I have a question for you. What party does Governor Rod Blagoyevich belong to?
While this is going on, there is a similar scandal going on in Boston. Numerous state legislators are being busted right now. It’s so bad, the FBI has video of a female state legislator literally stuffing her bribe money in her bra!
And you know what is the same with the coverage of this story?
In both cases, you would have to go some official site to discover that these folks are all democrats.
Compare this to any recent story about Ted Stevens, for example. You will see that he is always referred to as “Republican Senator…”.
Another interesting aspect of this story is the press’ immediate effort to distance Blagoyevich from President elect Obama. Desperately. And frankly, it’s just ridiculous. Even if there is no issue with Obama’s behaviour (more on that in a bit) the Senator’s of a state and it’s governor are always in close contact.
David Axelrod, Obama’s campaign chief said in an interview in November that Obama and the governor had many conversations about his replacement. Of course, today, he has said that he was “mistaken”. Sound familiar?
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
The Mumbai Doctrine, part 2
Ignored, (as usual) by much of the press, and certainly by the PC police, has been the reaction of Muslim minority in India.
Why has it been overlooked? Because it would embarass those that profess that the Muslim communities around the world are doing all they can to end Islamic terrorism.
What did the Indian Muslim community do? First, there was loud and clear condemnation of the terrorists (and they were terrorists, or murderers, despite the press' refusal to label them so - using the new terms, militants, or gunmen).
But, that is the least that can ever be expected.
More importantly, there was an enormous demonstration against violence by the Muslim community in Mumbai two days ago.
Finally, the Muslim leaders in India have not allowed the murderers to be buried in Islamic cemeteries. They declared them not to be true Muslims, as Islam is against violence.
Where is the American Islamic community? Or any other one.
I, as a Jew, joined several HUNDRED THOUSAND Jews marching on Washington to protest the situation in Darfur.
Why couldn't the Muslim community (there was not one mosque represented, but thousands of synagogues), considering that this is an Islamic issue, have done the same?
When will the world's Muslims truly be held to task?
Why has it been overlooked? Because it would embarass those that profess that the Muslim communities around the world are doing all they can to end Islamic terrorism.
What did the Indian Muslim community do? First, there was loud and clear condemnation of the terrorists (and they were terrorists, or murderers, despite the press' refusal to label them so - using the new terms, militants, or gunmen).
But, that is the least that can ever be expected.
More importantly, there was an enormous demonstration against violence by the Muslim community in Mumbai two days ago.
Finally, the Muslim leaders in India have not allowed the murderers to be buried in Islamic cemeteries. They declared them not to be true Muslims, as Islam is against violence.
Where is the American Islamic community? Or any other one.
I, as a Jew, joined several HUNDRED THOUSAND Jews marching on Washington to protest the situation in Darfur.
Why couldn't the Muslim community (there was not one mosque represented, but thousands of synagogues), considering that this is an Islamic issue, have done the same?
When will the world's Muslims truly be held to task?
Sunday, November 30, 2008
The Mumbai Doctrine
Those of you who were lucky enough to study philosophy, law, or logic will know of what I speak, for those that didn't, here's a 2 second primer.
Formal logic is what is used in law in presenting evidence.
Used in philosophy to prove a dialectic.
The best example? "If the glove don't fit, you must acquit".
Formal logic is if/then statements.
We use what is known as deductive syllogisms to arrive at a point.
If x then y.
If y then z.
Therefore, if x then z.
However, if y then x is false.
Logic uses what is known as the contrapositive. It is properly: If NOT y, then NOT x.
Additionally, "most" has a specific meaning in formal logic, and the law. Most = 50% +1. i.e. the requirement for guilt in a civil case. Most, or a "preponderance" of the evidence.
I bring this up, because for a long time, when I have discussed Islamic jihadism, I have been accused of being racist.
But when I say "most" terrorists are Islamic, it in NO Way means that most Moslems are terrorists.
Formal logic.
Which of course doesn't exist when Islamic terrorists rampage hotels in Mumbai. And of course, what got little attention in the American media, a Chabad center. (Chabad is the outreach of the Lubavitch movement, commonly mistaken for Chasidic Jews, they are in fact, just the opposite. They believe not in segregating themselves, but reaching out to the community. Actively engaging others in Judaism and it's good works.)
You see, they went looking for Jews. And they found them, and killed them.
And, as of the last count, almost 150 others.
Now, you haven't seen Sikh terrorists rampaging the world, or Hindus rioting the capitals of Europe when Ghandi is used in cartoons. And certainly you haven't heard of either of these groups crossing the border into Pakistan and attacking Muslims.
When will we face the truth of what is facing us?
Formal logic is what is used in law in presenting evidence.
Used in philosophy to prove a dialectic.
The best example? "If the glove don't fit, you must acquit".
Formal logic is if/then statements.
We use what is known as deductive syllogisms to arrive at a point.
If x then y.
If y then z.
Therefore, if x then z.
However, if y then x is false.
Logic uses what is known as the contrapositive. It is properly: If NOT y, then NOT x.
Additionally, "most" has a specific meaning in formal logic, and the law. Most = 50% +1. i.e. the requirement for guilt in a civil case. Most, or a "preponderance" of the evidence.
I bring this up, because for a long time, when I have discussed Islamic jihadism, I have been accused of being racist.
But when I say "most" terrorists are Islamic, it in NO Way means that most Moslems are terrorists.
Formal logic.
Which of course doesn't exist when Islamic terrorists rampage hotels in Mumbai. And of course, what got little attention in the American media, a Chabad center. (Chabad is the outreach of the Lubavitch movement, commonly mistaken for Chasidic Jews, they are in fact, just the opposite. They believe not in segregating themselves, but reaching out to the community. Actively engaging others in Judaism and it's good works.)
You see, they went looking for Jews. And they found them, and killed them.
And, as of the last count, almost 150 others.
Now, you haven't seen Sikh terrorists rampaging the world, or Hindus rioting the capitals of Europe when Ghandi is used in cartoons. And certainly you haven't heard of either of these groups crossing the border into Pakistan and attacking Muslims.
When will we face the truth of what is facing us?
Monday, November 17, 2008
Still think it's about land?
About a year or so ago, I wrote optimistically about the appointment of former IMF official Salaam Fayed as the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority.
Fayad was the official appointed by the international authorities to put an end to Arafat's corruption. He largely uncovered many of his, and other's, secret accounts, and tightened up much of the bookeeping.
However, just this week, he demonstrated once again, that there is no Palestinian intention to live side by side.
At a UN sponsored interfaith meeting, Fayad told an eager audience just how important Jerusalem was to TWO of the world's religions, intentionally leaving out the Jews.
This is right in line with the PR campaign the so called Palestinians have been using for years declaring that there was never a temple in Jerusalem.
Of course, they never bother to explain what temple Jesus was going to, but that is a detail that they seem to be unconcerned with.
Once again, they have proven the real goal, as it continues to state in their charter, is simply to wipe the Jews from the map.
Fayad was the official appointed by the international authorities to put an end to Arafat's corruption. He largely uncovered many of his, and other's, secret accounts, and tightened up much of the bookeeping.
However, just this week, he demonstrated once again, that there is no Palestinian intention to live side by side.
At a UN sponsored interfaith meeting, Fayad told an eager audience just how important Jerusalem was to TWO of the world's religions, intentionally leaving out the Jews.
This is right in line with the PR campaign the so called Palestinians have been using for years declaring that there was never a temple in Jerusalem.
Of course, they never bother to explain what temple Jesus was going to, but that is a detail that they seem to be unconcerned with.
Once again, they have proven the real goal, as it continues to state in their charter, is simply to wipe the Jews from the map.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Who was wrong?
During the campaign, I tried to discuss rationally with the Obamites, two things that worried me deeply about the candidate, and now President elect.
The bigger picture was the fact that all of his associations represented a school of geopolitical thought that has been disastrous for the United States. It really started in the post Lyndon Johnson era, with the candidacy of Hubert Humphrey, but it's seeds were sewn with the incredible foreign policy failures of JFK.
But another, equally troublesome aspect of Obama, was that each time one of his questionable associates was brought into the light of day, the response was the same. He/She is not officially part of the campaign, he/she is not really a friend/adviser/associate, etc.
That person would be quietly jettisoned.
You all know the big names. But less well known was a gentleman named Robert Malley.
Malley has a particularly troublesome history. His father was a high ranking official of the Egyptian Communist Party, and Malley himself, has expressed violently anti Israeli views (despite his mother being a NY'er and Jewish) and anti American views (the same "America is the bad guy line of thought).
Worse, when Dennis Ross and Bill Clinton discussed the peace talks between Ehud Barack and Yasser Arafat, Malley, like another Obama adviser, Anthony Lake, claimed that Clinton and Ross were lying, and that the fault of the failure of the talks was Barack's.
This despite President Clinton affirming Barack's statement that the Israeli's had offered Arafat essentially EVERYTHING he asked for, including East Jerusalem.
So, this gentleman accused not only the President, but his boss, of lying.
During the campaign, it was revealed the Malley had been engaged in secret negotiations with Hamas.
The campaign went into spin mode immediately. Despite Malley having been presented as a "mainstream" foreign policy adviser, suddenly he was "not an official member of Obama's advisers". Had no official role, etc.
They also tried to spin it by saying that Malley had been talking to Hamas for years. Gee, great!
So, when I discussed this, I was pilloried.
Well, as Gomer Pyle used to say...."Soorprise, sooorprise, sooorprise"
Guess who received the first foreign policy assignment of the President elect?
Guess who is currently in negotiations with Syria, and their client, Hamas?
Malley was sent to Syria by Obama to discuss the beginning of the "change" in US mideast policy.
Oh, yeah, he is also being told to tell Egypt that they will be playing a more important role. Very smart considering the coming Islamic Revolution that will occur there upon Mubarak's death.
Below, is an article from Front Page Magazine describing in more detail both what Obama is doing, and what Malley's background is.
But that is not all.
Perhaps you remember the moment in the campaign when Hillary discovered that Obama's campaign had been secretly telling the Canadian government that Obama was lying on the campaign trail, that he wasn't ACTUALLY against NAFTA, but that he was just saying it to get elected?
You remember: that is what the actual Canadian officials who had been told that, reported to the US press.
Well, the gentleman that was engaged in THOSE back channel was a gentleman named Austan Goolsbee. And guess who's being considered for the chairmanship of the Council of Economic Advisers, or the Treasury Secretary Post? You got it!\
Yeah, I was wrong. I never would have guessed it would have happened this fast.
Obama's Road to Damascus
By John Perazzo
FrontPageMagazine.com
History will record that Barack Obama's first act of diplomacy as America's president-elect took place two days after his election victory, when he dispatched his senior foreign-policy adviser, Robert Malley, to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad—to outline for them the forthcoming administration's Mideast policy vis-à-vis those nations. An aide to Malley reports, "The tenor of the messages was that the Obama administration would take into greater account Egyptian and Syrian interests" than has President Bush. The Bush administration, it should be noted, has rightly recognized Syria to be not only a chief supporter of the al Qaeda insurgency in Iraq, but also the headquarters of the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the longtime sponsor of Hamas—the terrorist army whose founding charter is irrevocably committed to the annihilation of Israel. Yet unlike President Bush, Obama and Malley have called for Israel to engage in peace negotiations with Syria.
A Harvard-trained lawyer and Rhodes Scholar, Robert Malley is no newcomer to the Obama team. In 2007, Obama selected him as a foreign policy adviser to his campaign. At the time, Malley was (and still is today) the Middle East and North Africa Program Director for the International Crisis Group (ICG), which receives funding from the Open Society Institute of George Soros (who, incidentally, serves on the ICG Executive Committee).
In his capacity with ICG, Malley directs a number of analysts who focus their attention most heavily on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the political and military developments in Iraq, and Islamist movements across the Middle East. Prior to joining ICG, Malley served as President Bill Clinton's Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs (1998-2001), and as National Security Adviser Sandy Berger's Executive Assistant (1996-1998 ).
Robert Malley was raised in France. His lineage is noteworthy. His father, Simon Malley (1923-2006), was a key figure in the Egyptian Communist Party. A passionate hater of Israel, the elder Malley was a close friend and confidante of the late PLO terrorist Yasser Arafat; an inveterate critic of "Western imperialism"(my emphasis - remember my warnings that during an Obama administration you would hear constant reference to American imperialism and hegemony - two historic fictions); a supporter of various revolutionary "liberation movements," particularly the Palestinian cause; a beneficiary of Soviet funding; and a supporter of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
According to American Thinker news editor Ed Lasky, Simon Malley "participated in the wave of anti-imperialist and nationalist ideology that was sweeping the Third World [and] … wrote thousands of words in support of struggle against Western nations."
In a July 2001 op-ed which Malley penned for the New York Times, he alleged that Israeli—not Palestinian—inflexibility had caused the previous year's Camp David peace talks (brokered by Bill Clinton) to fall apart. This was one of several controversial articles Malley has written—some he co-authored with Hussein Agha, a former adviser to Arafat—blaming Israel and exonerating Arafat (the most prolific Jew-killer since Adolph Hitler) for the failure of the peace process.
Malley's identification of Israel as the cause of the Camp David impasse has been widely embraced by Palestinian and Arab activists around the world, by Holocaust deniers like Norman Finkelstein, and by anti-Israel publications such as Counterpunch. It should be noted that Malley's account of the Camp David negotiations is entirely inconsistent with the recollections of the key figures who participated in those talks—specifically, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, and then-U.S. Ambassador Dennis Ross (Clinton's Middle East envoy).
Malley also has written numerous op-eds urging the U.S. to disengage from Israel to some degree, and recommending that America reach out to negotiate with its traditional Arab enemies such as Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah (a creature of Iran dedicated to the extermination of the Jews and death to America), and Muqtada al-Sadr (the Shiite terrorist leader in Iraq).
In addition, Malley has advised nations around the world to establish relationships with, and to send financial aid to, the Hamas-led Palestinian government in Gaza. In Malley's calculus, the electoral victory that swept Hamas into power in January 2006 was a manifestation of legitimate Palestinian "anger at years of humiliation and loss of self-respect because of Israeli settlement expansion, Arafat's imprisonment, Israel's incursions, [and] Western lecturing …"
Moreover, Malley contends that it is both unreasonable and unrealistic for Israel or Western nations to demand that Syria sever its ties with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or Iran. Rather, he suggests that if Israel were to return the Golan Heights (which it captured in the 1967 Six Day War, and again in the 1973 Yom Kippur War—two conflicts sparked by Arab aggression which sought so permanently wipe the Jewish state off the face of the earth) to Syrian control, Damascus would be inclined to pursue peace with Israel.
Malley has criticized the U.S. for allegedly remaining "on the sidelines" and being a "no-show" in the overall effort to bring peace to the nations of the Middle East. Exhorting the Bush administration to change its policy of refusing to engage diplomatically with terrorists and their sponsoring states, Malley wrote in July 2006: "Today the U.S. does not talk to Iran,
Syria, Hamas, the elected Palestinian government or Hezbollah…. The result has been a policy with all the appeal of a moral principle and all the effectiveness of a tired harangue."
This inclination to negotiate with any and all enemies of the U.S. and Israel—an impulse which Malley has outlined clearly and consistently—has had a powerful influence on Barack Obama.
It is notable that six months ago the Obama campaign and Malley hastily severed ties with one another after the Times of London reported that Malley had been meeting privately with Hamas leaders on a regular basis—something Obama had publicly pledged never to do. At the time, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt minimized the significance of this monumentally embarrassing revelation, saying: "Rob Malley has, like hundreds of other
experts, provided informal advice to the campaign in the past. He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future."
But indeed, within hours after Obama's election victory, Malley was back as a key player in the president-elect's team of advisors—on his way to Syria.
Mr. Obama, meanwhile, received a most friendly communication from Hamas, congratulating him on his "historic victory."
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Who is Robert Malley?
• Middle East and North Africa Program Director for the International Crisis Group
• Formerly served as President Bill Clinton's Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs
• Son of Simon Malley, a key figure in the Egyptian Communist Party
• Blamed Israel for the failed Camp David peace negotiations with Yasser Arafat in 2000
• Has co-written a number of op-ed pieces with Hussein Agha, a former adviser to Arafat
• Consistently condemns Israel, exonerates Palestinians, urges
U.S. disengagement from Israel, and recommends that America reach out to negotiate with its traditional Arab enemies
• Became foreign policy advisor to presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2007
A Harvard-trained lawyer and Rhodes Scholar, Robert Malley is the Middle East and North Africa Program Director for the International Crisis Group (ICG), which receives funding from the Open Society Institute (whose founder, George Soros, serves on the ICG Board and Executive Committee).
In his capacity with ICG, Malley directs a number of analysts based in Amman, Cairo, Beirut, Tel Aviv, and Baghdad. These analysts report periodically on the political, social and economic factors which they believe have the potential to spark conflict in those regions, and they make policy recommendations in an effort to defuse such threats. Covering events from from Iran to Morocco, Malley's team focuses most heavily on the
Arab-Israeli conflict, the political and military developments in Iraq, and Islamist movements across the Middle East.
Prior to joining ICG, Malley served as President Bill Clinton's Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs (1998-2001); National Security Advisor Sandy Berger's Executive Assistant (1996-1998 ); and the National Security Council's Director for Democracy, Human Rights, and Humanitarian Affairs (1994-1996).
In 2007, Malley -- one of the most frequently quoted commentators on U.S. Middle East policy and Arab-Israeli strife -- became a foreign policy advisor to Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Malley was raised in France by his mother -- a native New Yorker named Barbara Silverstein -- and his father, Simon Malley, a key figure in the Egyptian Communist Party. Rabidly anti-Israel, Simon Malley was a confidante of the late PLO leader Yasser Arafat; an inveterate critic of "Western imperialism"; a supporter of various leftist revolutionary "liberation movements," particularly the Palestinian cause; a beneficiary of Soviet funding; and a supporter of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
In a July 2001 op-ed (titled "Fictions About the Failure at Camp David") which was published in the New York Times, Robert Malley (whose family, as noted above, had close ties to Yasser Arafat) alleged that Israeli -- not Palestinian -- inflexibility had caused the previous year's Camp David peace talks (brokered by Bill Clinton) to fail. This was one of several controversial articles Malley has written -- some he co-wrote with Hussein Agha, a former adviser to Arafat -- blaming Israel and exonerating Arafat for that failure.
In their August 9, 2001 piece, "Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors," Malley and Agha again dismissed claims that the Camp David talks had failed when "Ehud Barak's unprecedented offer" was met with "Yasser Arafat's uncompromising no." They wrote that Barak had taken an unnecessarily hard-line approach in negotiating with Arafat. According to Malley and Agha, Arafat believed that Barak was intent on "either forcing him to swallow an unconscionable deal or mobilizing the world to isolate and weaken the Palestinians if they refused to yield."
Malley's identification of Israel as the cause of the Camp David failure has been widely embraced by Palestinian and Arab activists around the world, by Holocaust deniers like Norman Finkelstein, and by anti-Israel publications such as Counterpunch. According to American Thinker news editor
Ed Lasky, Malley "was also believed to be the chief source for an article [dated July 26, 2001] by Deborah Sontag that whitewashed Arafat's role in the collapse of the peace process, an article that has been widely criticized as riddled with errors and bias."
Malley's account of the Camp David negotiations is entirely inconsistent with the recollections of the key figures who participated in those talks, most notably then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, U.S. President Bill Clinton, and U.S. Ambassador Dennis Ross (Clinton's Middle East envoy).
According to Ross, the peace efforts failed for one reason only: because Arafat wanted them to fail. "[F]undamentally," said Ross, "I do not believe he [Arafat] can end the conflict. We had one critical clause in this agreement, and that clause was, this is the end of the conflict. Arafat's whole life has been governed by struggle and a cause ... [F]or him to end the conflict is to end himself…. Barak was able to reposition Israel internationally. Israel was seen as having demonstrated unmistakably it wanted peace, and the reason it [peace] wasn't … achievable was because
Arafat wouldn't accept."
Over the years, Malley has penned numerous op-eds condemning Israel, exonerating Palestinians, urging the U.S. to disengage from Israel to some degree, and recommending that America reach out to negotiate with its traditional Arab enemies such as Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Muqtada al-Sadr. Ed Lasky enumerates and summarizes some of these Malley writings as follows:
• "Playing Into Sharon's Hands": In this January 2002 piece, says Lasky, Malley "absolves Arafat of the responsibility to restrain terrorists and blames Israel for terrorism. He defends Arafat and hails him as '… the first Palestinian leader to recognize Israel, relinquish the objective of regaining all of historic Palestine and negotiate for a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 boundaries.'"
• "Rebuilding a Damaged Palestine": This May 2002 article accuses Israel's security operations of deliberately weakening Palestinian security forces (which themselves are replete with terrorists and thus make little or no effort to prevent terrorism), and calls for international forces to keep Israel in check.
• "Making the Best of Hamas's Victory": In this March 2006 piece, Malley recommends that nations worldwide establish relationships with, and send financial aid to, the Palestinians' newly elected, Hamas-led government.
Malley also alleges that Hamas' policies and Israeli policies are
essentially mirror images of one another. Writes Malley: "The Islamists (Hamas) ran on a campaign of effective government and promised to improve Palestinians' lives; they cannot do that if the international community turns its back." In Malley's calculus, the Hamas victory was a manifestation of Palestinian "anger at years of humiliation and loss of self-respect because of Israeli settlement expansion, Arafat's imprisonment, Israel's
incursions, Western lecturing and, most recently and tellingly, the threat of an aid cut off in the event of an Islamist success." In addition, Malley counsels the U.S. not to "discourage third-party unofficial contacts with [Hamas] in an attempt to moderate it."
• "Avoiding Failure with Hamas": This April 2006 article not only advocates international aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian government, but also suggests that a failure to extend such aid could trigger an environmental or public health crisis for Palestinians.
• "How to Curb the Tension in Gaza" (July 2006): Here, Malley and co-writer Gareth Evans condemn Israel for its military's efforts (in 2006) to recover Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who had been kidnapped and held hostage by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. The authors classify Israel's retaliatory actions as "collective punishment" that stands in "violation of international law."
• "Forget Pelosi: What About Syria?": In this April 2007 piece, Malley advocates U.S. and Israeli outreach to Syria, notwithstanding the latter's close affiliations with Hezbollah, Hamas, and al Qaeda in Iraq. He further contends that it is both unreasonable and unrealistic for Israel or Western nations to demand that Syria sever its ties with the aforementioned organizations or with Iran. He suggests, moreover, that if Israel were toreturn the Golan Heights (which it captured in the 1967 Six Day War, and again in the 1973 Yom Kippur War -- two conflicts sparked by Arab aggression) to Syrian control, Damascus would, as Lasky puts it, "somehow miraculously" pursue peace -- "after they get all they want."
• "Containing a Shiite Symbol of Hope": This October 2006 article advocates U.S. engagement with the fiercely anti-American Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite leader of the Mahdi Army in Iraq.
• "Middle East Triangle": Co-written with Hussein Agha, this January 2008 piece calls for Hamas and Fatah to end their bitter disputes and to join forces in an effort to derail what the authors view as Israel's attempt to "perpetuate Palestinian geographic and political division." Malley and Agha predict that such a strategy would prompt Hamas to: (a) abandon its longstanding quest to destroy Israel; and (b) encourage Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (a leading member of Fatah) to negotiate for a lasting peace with Israel.
• "The U.S. Must Look to its Own Mideast Interests": Co-written with Aaron David Miller, this September 2006 article urges the U.S. to engage with Syria and Hamas, rather than to "follow Israel's lead." Malley and Miller add: "A national unity government between Fatah and Hamas appears within reach, and the Europeans seem prepared to resume assistance to such a government once it takes shape. Should this happen, America shouldn't stand
in the way -- regardless of whether Hamas recognizes Israel or formally renounces violence. Instead, the United States should see this as an opportunity to achieve what is achievable: a Palestinian cease-fire involving all armed organizations, a halt to all Israeli offensive military actions, and the resumption of normal economic life for the Palestinian government and people."
• "A New Middle East": In this September 2006 article, Malley contends that Hezbollah's infamous attacks and kidnappings targeting Israelis (two months earlier) were motivated partly by that organization's desire to liberate Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails, and partly by pressure from Hezbollah's close allies, Syria and Iran.
In July 2006 Malley criticized the U.S. for allegedly remaining "on the sidelines" and being a "no-show" in the overall effort to bring peace to the nations of the Middle East. Exhorting the Bush administration to change its policy of refusing to engage diplomatically with terrorists and their sponsoring states, Malley stated: "Today the U.S. does not talk to Iran, Syria, Hamas, the elected Palestinian government or Hizballah…. The result has been a policy with all the appeal of a moral principle and all the effectiveness of a tired harangue."
In February 2004 Malley testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and recommended that the Arab-Israeli "Road Map for Peace" be abandoned because neither side had confidence that the other was bargaining in good faith. As Ed Lasky writes, "[Malley] advocated that a comprehensive settlement plan be imposed on the parties with the backing of the international community, including Arab and Moslem states. He anticipated that Israel would object with 'cries of unfair treatment' but counseled the plan be put in place regardless of such objections; he also suggested that waiting for a 'reliable Palestinian partner' was unnecessary."
According to Lasky, Malley's overarching political objectives include "a radical reshaping of decades of American foreign policy and a shredding of the role of morality in the formulation of American policy." "These policies," says Lasky, "would strengthen our enemies, empower dictatorships, and harm our allies."
One U.S. security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, states that Robert Malley "has expressed sympathy to Hamas and Hezbollah and [has] offered accounts of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that don't jibe with the facts."
In 2008, the Barack Obama presidential campaign severed its ties with Malley after the latter told the Times of London that he had been in regular contact with Hamas as part of his work for ICG.
The bigger picture was the fact that all of his associations represented a school of geopolitical thought that has been disastrous for the United States. It really started in the post Lyndon Johnson era, with the candidacy of Hubert Humphrey, but it's seeds were sewn with the incredible foreign policy failures of JFK.
But another, equally troublesome aspect of Obama, was that each time one of his questionable associates was brought into the light of day, the response was the same. He/She is not officially part of the campaign, he/she is not really a friend/adviser/associate, etc.
That person would be quietly jettisoned.
You all know the big names. But less well known was a gentleman named Robert Malley.
Malley has a particularly troublesome history. His father was a high ranking official of the Egyptian Communist Party, and Malley himself, has expressed violently anti Israeli views (despite his mother being a NY'er and Jewish) and anti American views (the same "America is the bad guy line of thought).
Worse, when Dennis Ross and Bill Clinton discussed the peace talks between Ehud Barack and Yasser Arafat, Malley, like another Obama adviser, Anthony Lake, claimed that Clinton and Ross were lying, and that the fault of the failure of the talks was Barack's.
This despite President Clinton affirming Barack's statement that the Israeli's had offered Arafat essentially EVERYTHING he asked for, including East Jerusalem.
So, this gentleman accused not only the President, but his boss, of lying.
During the campaign, it was revealed the Malley had been engaged in secret negotiations with Hamas.
The campaign went into spin mode immediately. Despite Malley having been presented as a "mainstream" foreign policy adviser, suddenly he was "not an official member of Obama's advisers". Had no official role, etc.
They also tried to spin it by saying that Malley had been talking to Hamas for years. Gee, great!
So, when I discussed this, I was pilloried.
Well, as Gomer Pyle used to say...."Soorprise, sooorprise, sooorprise"
Guess who received the first foreign policy assignment of the President elect?
Guess who is currently in negotiations with Syria, and their client, Hamas?
Malley was sent to Syria by Obama to discuss the beginning of the "change" in US mideast policy.
Oh, yeah, he is also being told to tell Egypt that they will be playing a more important role. Very smart considering the coming Islamic Revolution that will occur there upon Mubarak's death.
Below, is an article from Front Page Magazine describing in more detail both what Obama is doing, and what Malley's background is.
But that is not all.
Perhaps you remember the moment in the campaign when Hillary discovered that Obama's campaign had been secretly telling the Canadian government that Obama was lying on the campaign trail, that he wasn't ACTUALLY against NAFTA, but that he was just saying it to get elected?
You remember: that is what the actual Canadian officials who had been told that, reported to the US press.
Well, the gentleman that was engaged in THOSE back channel was a gentleman named Austan Goolsbee. And guess who's being considered for the chairmanship of the Council of Economic Advisers, or the Treasury Secretary Post? You got it!\
Yeah, I was wrong. I never would have guessed it would have happened this fast.
Obama's Road to Damascus
By John Perazzo
FrontPageMagazine.com
History will record that Barack Obama's first act of diplomacy as America's president-elect took place two days after his election victory, when he dispatched his senior foreign-policy adviser, Robert Malley, to meet with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad—to outline for them the forthcoming administration's Mideast policy vis-à-vis those nations. An aide to Malley reports, "The tenor of the messages was that the Obama administration would take into greater account Egyptian and Syrian interests" than has President Bush. The Bush administration, it should be noted, has rightly recognized Syria to be not only a chief supporter of the al Qaeda insurgency in Iraq, but also the headquarters of the terrorist organization Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the longtime sponsor of Hamas—the terrorist army whose founding charter is irrevocably committed to the annihilation of Israel. Yet unlike President Bush, Obama and Malley have called for Israel to engage in peace negotiations with Syria.
A Harvard-trained lawyer and Rhodes Scholar, Robert Malley is no newcomer to the Obama team. In 2007, Obama selected him as a foreign policy adviser to his campaign. At the time, Malley was (and still is today) the Middle East and North Africa Program Director for the International Crisis Group (ICG), which receives funding from the Open Society Institute of George Soros (who, incidentally, serves on the ICG Executive Committee).
In his capacity with ICG, Malley directs a number of analysts who focus their attention most heavily on the Arab-Israeli conflict, the political and military developments in Iraq, and Islamist movements across the Middle East. Prior to joining ICG, Malley served as President Bill Clinton's Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs (1998-2001), and as National Security Adviser Sandy Berger's Executive Assistant (1996-1998 ).
Robert Malley was raised in France. His lineage is noteworthy. His father, Simon Malley (1923-2006), was a key figure in the Egyptian Communist Party. A passionate hater of Israel, the elder Malley was a close friend and confidante of the late PLO terrorist Yasser Arafat; an inveterate critic of "Western imperialism"(my emphasis - remember my warnings that during an Obama administration you would hear constant reference to American imperialism and hegemony - two historic fictions); a supporter of various revolutionary "liberation movements," particularly the Palestinian cause; a beneficiary of Soviet funding; and a supporter of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
According to American Thinker news editor Ed Lasky, Simon Malley "participated in the wave of anti-imperialist and nationalist ideology that was sweeping the Third World [and] … wrote thousands of words in support of struggle against Western nations."
In a July 2001 op-ed which Malley penned for the New York Times, he alleged that Israeli—not Palestinian—inflexibility had caused the previous year's Camp David peace talks (brokered by Bill Clinton) to fall apart. This was one of several controversial articles Malley has written—some he co-authored with Hussein Agha, a former adviser to Arafat—blaming Israel and exonerating Arafat (the most prolific Jew-killer since Adolph Hitler) for the failure of the peace process.
Malley's identification of Israel as the cause of the Camp David impasse has been widely embraced by Palestinian and Arab activists around the world, by Holocaust deniers like Norman Finkelstein, and by anti-Israel publications such as Counterpunch. It should be noted that Malley's account of the Camp David negotiations is entirely inconsistent with the recollections of the key figures who participated in those talks—specifically, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, and then-U.S. Ambassador Dennis Ross (Clinton's Middle East envoy).
Malley also has written numerous op-eds urging the U.S. to disengage from Israel to some degree, and recommending that America reach out to negotiate with its traditional Arab enemies such as Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah (a creature of Iran dedicated to the extermination of the Jews and death to America), and Muqtada al-Sadr (the Shiite terrorist leader in Iraq).
In addition, Malley has advised nations around the world to establish relationships with, and to send financial aid to, the Hamas-led Palestinian government in Gaza. In Malley's calculus, the electoral victory that swept Hamas into power in January 2006 was a manifestation of legitimate Palestinian "anger at years of humiliation and loss of self-respect because of Israeli settlement expansion, Arafat's imprisonment, Israel's incursions, [and] Western lecturing …"
Moreover, Malley contends that it is both unreasonable and unrealistic for Israel or Western nations to demand that Syria sever its ties with Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or Iran. Rather, he suggests that if Israel were to return the Golan Heights (which it captured in the 1967 Six Day War, and again in the 1973 Yom Kippur War—two conflicts sparked by Arab aggression which sought so permanently wipe the Jewish state off the face of the earth) to Syrian control, Damascus would be inclined to pursue peace with Israel.
Malley has criticized the U.S. for allegedly remaining "on the sidelines" and being a "no-show" in the overall effort to bring peace to the nations of the Middle East. Exhorting the Bush administration to change its policy of refusing to engage diplomatically with terrorists and their sponsoring states, Malley wrote in July 2006: "Today the U.S. does not talk to Iran,
Syria, Hamas, the elected Palestinian government or Hezbollah…. The result has been a policy with all the appeal of a moral principle and all the effectiveness of a tired harangue."
This inclination to negotiate with any and all enemies of the U.S. and Israel—an impulse which Malley has outlined clearly and consistently—has had a powerful influence on Barack Obama.
It is notable that six months ago the Obama campaign and Malley hastily severed ties with one another after the Times of London reported that Malley had been meeting privately with Hamas leaders on a regular basis—something Obama had publicly pledged never to do. At the time, Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt minimized the significance of this monumentally embarrassing revelation, saying: "Rob Malley has, like hundreds of other
experts, provided informal advice to the campaign in the past. He has no formal role in the campaign and he will not play any role in the future."
But indeed, within hours after Obama's election victory, Malley was back as a key player in the president-elect's team of advisors—on his way to Syria.
Mr. Obama, meanwhile, received a most friendly communication from Hamas, congratulating him on his "historic victory."
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Who is Robert Malley?
• Middle East and North Africa Program Director for the International Crisis Group
• Formerly served as President Bill Clinton's Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs
• Son of Simon Malley, a key figure in the Egyptian Communist Party
• Blamed Israel for the failed Camp David peace negotiations with Yasser Arafat in 2000
• Has co-written a number of op-ed pieces with Hussein Agha, a former adviser to Arafat
• Consistently condemns Israel, exonerates Palestinians, urges
U.S. disengagement from Israel, and recommends that America reach out to negotiate with its traditional Arab enemies
• Became foreign policy advisor to presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2007
A Harvard-trained lawyer and Rhodes Scholar, Robert Malley is the Middle East and North Africa Program Director for the International Crisis Group (ICG), which receives funding from the Open Society Institute (whose founder, George Soros, serves on the ICG Board and Executive Committee).
In his capacity with ICG, Malley directs a number of analysts based in Amman, Cairo, Beirut, Tel Aviv, and Baghdad. These analysts report periodically on the political, social and economic factors which they believe have the potential to spark conflict in those regions, and they make policy recommendations in an effort to defuse such threats. Covering events from from Iran to Morocco, Malley's team focuses most heavily on the
Arab-Israeli conflict, the political and military developments in Iraq, and Islamist movements across the Middle East.
Prior to joining ICG, Malley served as President Bill Clinton's Special Assistant for Arab-Israeli Affairs (1998-2001); National Security Advisor Sandy Berger's Executive Assistant (1996-1998 ); and the National Security Council's Director for Democracy, Human Rights, and Humanitarian Affairs (1994-1996).
In 2007, Malley -- one of the most frequently quoted commentators on U.S. Middle East policy and Arab-Israeli strife -- became a foreign policy advisor to Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama.
Malley was raised in France by his mother -- a native New Yorker named Barbara Silverstein -- and his father, Simon Malley, a key figure in the Egyptian Communist Party. Rabidly anti-Israel, Simon Malley was a confidante of the late PLO leader Yasser Arafat; an inveterate critic of "Western imperialism"; a supporter of various leftist revolutionary "liberation movements," particularly the Palestinian cause; a beneficiary of Soviet funding; and a supporter of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
In a July 2001 op-ed (titled "Fictions About the Failure at Camp David") which was published in the New York Times, Robert Malley (whose family, as noted above, had close ties to Yasser Arafat) alleged that Israeli -- not Palestinian -- inflexibility had caused the previous year's Camp David peace talks (brokered by Bill Clinton) to fail. This was one of several controversial articles Malley has written -- some he co-wrote with Hussein Agha, a former adviser to Arafat -- blaming Israel and exonerating Arafat for that failure.
In their August 9, 2001 piece, "Camp David: The Tragedy of Errors," Malley and Agha again dismissed claims that the Camp David talks had failed when "Ehud Barak's unprecedented offer" was met with "Yasser Arafat's uncompromising no." They wrote that Barak had taken an unnecessarily hard-line approach in negotiating with Arafat. According to Malley and Agha, Arafat believed that Barak was intent on "either forcing him to swallow an unconscionable deal or mobilizing the world to isolate and weaken the Palestinians if they refused to yield."
Malley's identification of Israel as the cause of the Camp David failure has been widely embraced by Palestinian and Arab activists around the world, by Holocaust deniers like Norman Finkelstein, and by anti-Israel publications such as Counterpunch. According to American Thinker news editor
Ed Lasky, Malley "was also believed to be the chief source for an article [dated July 26, 2001] by Deborah Sontag that whitewashed Arafat's role in the collapse of the peace process, an article that has been widely criticized as riddled with errors and bias."
Malley's account of the Camp David negotiations is entirely inconsistent with the recollections of the key figures who participated in those talks, most notably then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, U.S. President Bill Clinton, and U.S. Ambassador Dennis Ross (Clinton's Middle East envoy).
According to Ross, the peace efforts failed for one reason only: because Arafat wanted them to fail. "[F]undamentally," said Ross, "I do not believe he [Arafat] can end the conflict. We had one critical clause in this agreement, and that clause was, this is the end of the conflict. Arafat's whole life has been governed by struggle and a cause ... [F]or him to end the conflict is to end himself…. Barak was able to reposition Israel internationally. Israel was seen as having demonstrated unmistakably it wanted peace, and the reason it [peace] wasn't … achievable was because
Arafat wouldn't accept."
Over the years, Malley has penned numerous op-eds condemning Israel, exonerating Palestinians, urging the U.S. to disengage from Israel to some degree, and recommending that America reach out to negotiate with its traditional Arab enemies such as Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and Muqtada al-Sadr. Ed Lasky enumerates and summarizes some of these Malley writings as follows:
• "Playing Into Sharon's Hands": In this January 2002 piece, says Lasky, Malley "absolves Arafat of the responsibility to restrain terrorists and blames Israel for terrorism. He defends Arafat and hails him as '… the first Palestinian leader to recognize Israel, relinquish the objective of regaining all of historic Palestine and negotiate for a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 boundaries.'"
• "Rebuilding a Damaged Palestine": This May 2002 article accuses Israel's security operations of deliberately weakening Palestinian security forces (which themselves are replete with terrorists and thus make little or no effort to prevent terrorism), and calls for international forces to keep Israel in check.
• "Making the Best of Hamas's Victory": In this March 2006 piece, Malley recommends that nations worldwide establish relationships with, and send financial aid to, the Palestinians' newly elected, Hamas-led government.
Malley also alleges that Hamas' policies and Israeli policies are
essentially mirror images of one another. Writes Malley: "The Islamists (Hamas) ran on a campaign of effective government and promised to improve Palestinians' lives; they cannot do that if the international community turns its back." In Malley's calculus, the Hamas victory was a manifestation of Palestinian "anger at years of humiliation and loss of self-respect because of Israeli settlement expansion, Arafat's imprisonment, Israel's
incursions, Western lecturing and, most recently and tellingly, the threat of an aid cut off in the event of an Islamist success." In addition, Malley counsels the U.S. not to "discourage third-party unofficial contacts with [Hamas] in an attempt to moderate it."
• "Avoiding Failure with Hamas": This April 2006 article not only advocates international aid to the Hamas-led Palestinian government, but also suggests that a failure to extend such aid could trigger an environmental or public health crisis for Palestinians.
• "How to Curb the Tension in Gaza" (July 2006): Here, Malley and co-writer Gareth Evans condemn Israel for its military's efforts (in 2006) to recover Gilad Shalit, the Israeli soldier who had been kidnapped and held hostage by Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip. The authors classify Israel's retaliatory actions as "collective punishment" that stands in "violation of international law."
• "Forget Pelosi: What About Syria?": In this April 2007 piece, Malley advocates U.S. and Israeli outreach to Syria, notwithstanding the latter's close affiliations with Hezbollah, Hamas, and al Qaeda in Iraq. He further contends that it is both unreasonable and unrealistic for Israel or Western nations to demand that Syria sever its ties with the aforementioned organizations or with Iran. He suggests, moreover, that if Israel were toreturn the Golan Heights (which it captured in the 1967 Six Day War, and again in the 1973 Yom Kippur War -- two conflicts sparked by Arab aggression) to Syrian control, Damascus would, as Lasky puts it, "somehow miraculously" pursue peace -- "after they get all they want."
• "Containing a Shiite Symbol of Hope": This October 2006 article advocates U.S. engagement with the fiercely anti-American Muqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite leader of the Mahdi Army in Iraq.
• "Middle East Triangle": Co-written with Hussein Agha, this January 2008 piece calls for Hamas and Fatah to end their bitter disputes and to join forces in an effort to derail what the authors view as Israel's attempt to "perpetuate Palestinian geographic and political division." Malley and Agha predict that such a strategy would prompt Hamas to: (a) abandon its longstanding quest to destroy Israel; and (b) encourage Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas (a leading member of Fatah) to negotiate for a lasting peace with Israel.
• "The U.S. Must Look to its Own Mideast Interests": Co-written with Aaron David Miller, this September 2006 article urges the U.S. to engage with Syria and Hamas, rather than to "follow Israel's lead." Malley and Miller add: "A national unity government between Fatah and Hamas appears within reach, and the Europeans seem prepared to resume assistance to such a government once it takes shape. Should this happen, America shouldn't stand
in the way -- regardless of whether Hamas recognizes Israel or formally renounces violence. Instead, the United States should see this as an opportunity to achieve what is achievable: a Palestinian cease-fire involving all armed organizations, a halt to all Israeli offensive military actions, and the resumption of normal economic life for the Palestinian government and people."
• "A New Middle East": In this September 2006 article, Malley contends that Hezbollah's infamous attacks and kidnappings targeting Israelis (two months earlier) were motivated partly by that organization's desire to liberate Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails, and partly by pressure from Hezbollah's close allies, Syria and Iran.
In July 2006 Malley criticized the U.S. for allegedly remaining "on the sidelines" and being a "no-show" in the overall effort to bring peace to the nations of the Middle East. Exhorting the Bush administration to change its policy of refusing to engage diplomatically with terrorists and their sponsoring states, Malley stated: "Today the U.S. does not talk to Iran, Syria, Hamas, the elected Palestinian government or Hizballah…. The result has been a policy with all the appeal of a moral principle and all the effectiveness of a tired harangue."
In February 2004 Malley testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and recommended that the Arab-Israeli "Road Map for Peace" be abandoned because neither side had confidence that the other was bargaining in good faith. As Ed Lasky writes, "[Malley] advocated that a comprehensive settlement plan be imposed on the parties with the backing of the international community, including Arab and Moslem states. He anticipated that Israel would object with 'cries of unfair treatment' but counseled the plan be put in place regardless of such objections; he also suggested that waiting for a 'reliable Palestinian partner' was unnecessary."
According to Lasky, Malley's overarching political objectives include "a radical reshaping of decades of American foreign policy and a shredding of the role of morality in the formulation of American policy." "These policies," says Lasky, "would strengthen our enemies, empower dictatorships, and harm our allies."
One U.S. security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, states that Robert Malley "has expressed sympathy to Hamas and Hezbollah and [has] offered accounts of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations that don't jibe with the facts."
In 2008, the Barack Obama presidential campaign severed its ties with Malley after the latter told the Times of London that he had been in regular contact with Hamas as part of his work for ICG.
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Iran in Trouble? Health care; and more musings...
1) One of the truly positive aspects of the plummeting oil prices is the effect on the Iranians.
Research indicates that Iran needs oil above $100/barrel in order to balance their budget. With prices now in the 60's and heading downward, the current government, already struggling with their economy for the last several years, may be in greater trouble.
On of the biggest failings of the Bush administration was the failure to continue the work of promoting the nascent democracy movement in Iran.
As is true in much of the middle east and Persian Gulf, many of the most radical governments have the most moderate populations, and vice versa.
There is still a segment of Iran, that while hating the Shah, enjoyed a Western style economy and daily life.
The only question is, will this economic pressure cause further radicalization, or force Iran back into the world community.
I hope the President elect uses these forces to pressure the Iranians to behave.
2) One of the very big positives, maybe the only one, of the spike in oil and gas prices this past year, was that we in the United States have cut our usage of gas by 10%.
Here in NY, we pay more at the pump than just about anywhere. My car takes Premium gas and I topped out in the $4.50 range.
Today, filling up, I paid $2.80. It was the first time in almost a year that I got change from a $50 after filling my tank.
What I fear, though, is that this positive conservationist impulse, brought on by prices, will diminish.
Let's hope not.
In addition, the high prices were what was causing the drive toward alternative fuels. Let us hope that the pressure on the new President and the new Congress is not lessened at all to actively and aggressively seek real, effective alternatives.
3) One of the truly important ideas floated by John McCain in his campaign, was the idea of severing health care from employment.
I fundamentally do not support single payer systems. As a Docs kid, and with many friends and contacts in the medical fields around the world, it is my distinct sense that individual care suffers under these systems.
They do even out coverage, but rather than bringing every one up, they tend to find a below median universality.
Worse, the government is incapable of running simple national programs. The waste, incompetence and cost of the government being the insurer of 50 million plus Americans is something I don't even want to consider!
The profit motive continues to drive innovation, both in equipment, research, and medications here in the States.
But, we have two insurance systems in NY that could be models for national systems to address two huge problems with the current system.
First: We have a universal child health insurance plan. They are not the best docs, but it guarantees all children coverage at very reasonable rates. I certainly think this can be recreated nationally.
With the obesity epidemic among children running rampant, I think this is crucial.
In addition, we here in NY have an auto insurance program which uses a private company (currently Allstate, I believe) to cover "high risk" drivers. i.e. those whose prior insurance companies have dropped them due to tickets or accidents. I also think this can be replicated nationally for health insurance..
Finally, getting back to McCain's idea. We currently operate with a program called "COBRA" which allows you to carry your previous employers insurance for 18 months after leaving their employment.
I think that an easy fix to a lot of the lack of coverage issues would be legislation mandating that COBRA be extended indefinitely.
There is no reason for coverage to be tied to current employers. If you are part of a group (which as you know, significantly reduces cost) at one time, you should always be able to be part of that group.
4) Many do not know this, but it has been discussed in some circles recently. The President elect, and his transition team do not have any official position. As such, they do not have security clearance.
In this election, this was somewhat mitigated by the fact that both candidates had Senatorial clearances.
However, for example, John Podesta, one of the chief architects of Obama's transition, would not have had security clearance in years past. Same with Valerie Jarrett and other important figures.
In 2004, President Bush signed an executive order establishing that the President elect and his designated transition team, be rapidly cleared and thus fully briefed on all matters of national security and other issues. Thus allowing the new President to "hit the ground running" so to speak. Kudos to him for this important innovation.
5) Finally, in 40 years of watching Presidential politics, I have never seen an election victor hold a Press conference standing at a podium with "Office of the President Elect" as an official sign.
Research indicates that Iran needs oil above $100/barrel in order to balance their budget. With prices now in the 60's and heading downward, the current government, already struggling with their economy for the last several years, may be in greater trouble.
On of the biggest failings of the Bush administration was the failure to continue the work of promoting the nascent democracy movement in Iran.
As is true in much of the middle east and Persian Gulf, many of the most radical governments have the most moderate populations, and vice versa.
There is still a segment of Iran, that while hating the Shah, enjoyed a Western style economy and daily life.
The only question is, will this economic pressure cause further radicalization, or force Iran back into the world community.
I hope the President elect uses these forces to pressure the Iranians to behave.
2) One of the very big positives, maybe the only one, of the spike in oil and gas prices this past year, was that we in the United States have cut our usage of gas by 10%.
Here in NY, we pay more at the pump than just about anywhere. My car takes Premium gas and I topped out in the $4.50 range.
Today, filling up, I paid $2.80. It was the first time in almost a year that I got change from a $50 after filling my tank.
What I fear, though, is that this positive conservationist impulse, brought on by prices, will diminish.
Let's hope not.
In addition, the high prices were what was causing the drive toward alternative fuels. Let us hope that the pressure on the new President and the new Congress is not lessened at all to actively and aggressively seek real, effective alternatives.
3) One of the truly important ideas floated by John McCain in his campaign, was the idea of severing health care from employment.
I fundamentally do not support single payer systems. As a Docs kid, and with many friends and contacts in the medical fields around the world, it is my distinct sense that individual care suffers under these systems.
They do even out coverage, but rather than bringing every one up, they tend to find a below median universality.
Worse, the government is incapable of running simple national programs. The waste, incompetence and cost of the government being the insurer of 50 million plus Americans is something I don't even want to consider!
The profit motive continues to drive innovation, both in equipment, research, and medications here in the States.
But, we have two insurance systems in NY that could be models for national systems to address two huge problems with the current system.
First: We have a universal child health insurance plan. They are not the best docs, but it guarantees all children coverage at very reasonable rates. I certainly think this can be recreated nationally.
With the obesity epidemic among children running rampant, I think this is crucial.
In addition, we here in NY have an auto insurance program which uses a private company (currently Allstate, I believe) to cover "high risk" drivers. i.e. those whose prior insurance companies have dropped them due to tickets or accidents. I also think this can be replicated nationally for health insurance..
Finally, getting back to McCain's idea. We currently operate with a program called "COBRA" which allows you to carry your previous employers insurance for 18 months after leaving their employment.
I think that an easy fix to a lot of the lack of coverage issues would be legislation mandating that COBRA be extended indefinitely.
There is no reason for coverage to be tied to current employers. If you are part of a group (which as you know, significantly reduces cost) at one time, you should always be able to be part of that group.
4) Many do not know this, but it has been discussed in some circles recently. The President elect, and his transition team do not have any official position. As such, they do not have security clearance.
In this election, this was somewhat mitigated by the fact that both candidates had Senatorial clearances.
However, for example, John Podesta, one of the chief architects of Obama's transition, would not have had security clearance in years past. Same with Valerie Jarrett and other important figures.
In 2004, President Bush signed an executive order establishing that the President elect and his designated transition team, be rapidly cleared and thus fully briefed on all matters of national security and other issues. Thus allowing the new President to "hit the ground running" so to speak. Kudos to him for this important innovation.
5) Finally, in 40 years of watching Presidential politics, I have never seen an election victor hold a Press conference standing at a podium with "Office of the President Elect" as an official sign.
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Random musings...
Let me make something clear upfront. I am fully aware of, and appreciate the historic nature of this election. Those of you who have been reading my blog for a while may remember that more than a year ago I talked about the fact that the democrats were presenting, for the first time in our history, two candidates, either of whom, would make history. I also started to discuss my preference for Hillary Clinton over Barack Obama.
Nothing would make me happier than an 8 year Obama Presidency, hallmarked by social justice, Promotion of democracy and freedom around the world, and economic prosperity for all.
I desperately want not just a figure with historical significance, but an historic Presidency.
As a social liberal at heart, and an intellectual, it does my heart good to see someone who does not fumble the English language representing us at the international tables (one of my favorite things about Bill Clinton. He was just smarter than everyone).
But here is where I am different. Perhaps it is growing up in the most multicultural city in the world, perhaps it is my athletic background, or my own dating and friendship history.
But just as when Geraldine Ferraro was nominated by the Democrats as the first major party VP candidate, and I immediately criticized the choice, I never looked at Barack Obama as an African American. Rather I view him as simply someone that represents, on virtually all issues, (other than choice: my other 2 big social issues, I am anti death penalty and anti gun and Obama supports both of those – not to mention my overwhelming support for gay marriage which he opposes), different views than mine.
My last post was from eminent African American professor Shelby Steele. I could not be in more agreement with his thesis that the very idea of this as a “post racial” election, was a fiction. That in fact, race was pre eminent at all times. The supreme effort at NOT talking about it, made it just as much a factor as talking about it.
I wish that Obama could have celebrated his "blackness" at all times, but still reflected respect and admiration for all that America is. THEN, and only then, would it not be an issue.
As a Jew, I am very aware of the idea of feelings collective guilt, and the tendency good people have to feel it. That is one of the things that separates moral people from immoral.
Thus, my views on the election were always based on fundamentals. In fact, for much of my life, simply because I don’t see race, ethnicity or color, it can sometimes appear that I am insensitive to it. Just the opposite. I am just past it.
The relationships that went unexamined of Obama’s were not of concern to me b/c of the silly and pointless drivel that the Republicans tried to connect. Rather, it is that all of these people, from his past, to his present, represent EXACLTY the views that Obama currently represents, both economically, and with regard to foreign policy.
Fundamentally it is that America is a colonial, hegemonic power. The natural successor to the oppressive pre World War II powers of France and Britain. It is their view that we are, essentially, a force of bad in the world. That our involvement outside our borders is harmful to others, and the creation of the fiction that we are disliked.
The other view, the one I prescribe to, is that we are a force for good. That we have not only a moral and ethical responsibility to use the incredible good fortune we have here in the United States, but a moral DUTY to do so.
Like ALL nations, and governments, we make mistakes. It is a fact of life that the bigger the effort, the bigger the mistakes and failures will be. But the motivation that drives America has always been to let the rest of the world see the light that we all enjoy every day.
The language that someone like Obama uses will not be easy for most to follow. But you will hear over the next 4 years discussions of not imposing our view, not foisting our policies, etc.
The less subtle of his supporters will directly use the words hegemony and imperialist.
And it has started already.
I was watching an interview on CSPan today with a professor of American studies discussing classroom teachings in this country. The moderator (an author of a book on textbooks in elementary schools) was expounding on the fact that the texts used in schools do exactly this. Blame America and highlite, almost to the exclusion of all else, the mistakes of our pasts.
The professor said that they did not go far enough. That he wished they would more openly discuss the “American Empire”.
As a student of history, and politics, I cringed. Not only was this an immediate vocalization of my fears, but it is an absolute and total fiction.
On a more direct level, what this belief system translates to is that our support of Israel is the cause of our difficulties in the world. More directly, that resolving the Israeli- so called Palestinian issue, will end our conflict with the Muslim world.
Jimmy Carter certainly proved this a myth. But even the most basic knowledge of AL Qaeda and Bin Laden should demonstrate that Bin Laden’s argument with the US was that we “infidels” had our feet on the ground in Mecca and Medina, Islam’s holy land, during the first Gulf War. It had nothing to do with Israel. Like most, however, and because the Saudis supported our efforts against Sadaam, he adopted the languge, later of supporting his “Palestinian” brothers.
The next issue has to do with my concern over this election and what it means for the parties.
I have heard musing from Obama supporters that this election has brought the country together.
This is never surprising to hear from the winners.
Here is my view. I come from a long line of NY political thought. Socially liberal, and fiscally and foreign policy conservative (2 terms I despise). Let me rephrase. Socially progressive, and anti Keynesian (Obama and his team are Keynesian). I believe in an active, interventionist foreign policy. I am MUCH more socially liberal than Barack, and more interventionist than the Bushites.
This has a long tradition in this area. Jacob Javits, Nelson Rockefeller, Ed Koch, Robert Kennedy, George Pataki, current NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the new Hillary Clinton, Maria Cuomo, etc.
This “school” of politics was started by Teddy Roosevelt, my original political hero. Roosevelt, while recognizing the need not to punish business, also began the process of breaking the trusts (although it was his successors who actually did it). He was the ultimate conservationist, while being a hunter. And of course, he is famed for building the Panama Canal, but as Secretary of the Navy and beyond, he believed in extending American power around the world to promote peace.
This school of political thought is now dead in our major parties. My real hope for this election was that Bloomberg might run and use his billions to build a viable third party, a centrist party.
But what happened in the election is that ALL the moderate, centrist Republicans lost. It was not the bible thumping right wingers that got defeated; it was people like my neighbor in Connecticut, Christopher Shays, a true centrist, that lost. This continued the trend from the last election, where extremely talented centrists like Jim Talent from Missouri lost. If Al Franken ends up defeating Norm Coleman in Minnesota, that will effectively mean the ONLY centrists left will be John McCain and Joe Lieberman.
Yes, McCain was, and is, a centrist. Both Lieberman and McCain were protégés of Henry “Scoop” Jackson, perhaps the model for this school of political ideology in the post war period.
Jackson was a so called conservative Democrat from Washington and my other great political hero.
But by painting McCain as another Bush, something so patently offensive and such a lie, that the democrats are now saying literally “we need John McCain’s help because he is the one true bipartisan left”!!!!, they have now made us MORE, not less, polarized.
The Republican party most likely will take this as a message that, like when Gerald Ford lost to Jimmy Carter, giving birth to Ronald Reagan (before Obama the President I most disagreed with, but whom I did not think was dangerous) they need to move, once again, far right. That is why you are now hearing the talk of Sarah Palin being the flag waver for the party.
My dream election would have been between Giuliani and Hillary: Two centrists whose views are so close, that it would have FORCED a close examination of the issues, not the lies of this campaign.
Obama is by far, the most left wing candidate this country has ever elected. And much to my fear, his first appointment, Rahm Emanuel, is a clear signal that the idea of bipartisanship, which he spent so much time discussing early, and then threw out, is now gone. Emanuel was Clinton’s most consistent and harsh, hard driving, left wing ideologue. More on him below.
As a note, you are seeing the Keynesian theories already being put into place. I dread, as I have written about in the past, the move toward socialistic control that the last rescue package contained, but now, we are hearing about “stimulus” packages.
As every example of this type of economics has proven, from the failure of the “New Deal;” to the socialist movements around the world, it NEVER works.
My next set of thoughts. Something that will be truly hard for most of you to appreciate. Focusing on Rahm Emanuel and what he means. I received numerous emails, and calls, from my non Jewish friends and commenters that I should be gratified that Emanuel was offered the chief of staff job. Why? Because he’s a Jew. Imagine saying that to a woman, a black, Puerto Rican, etc.
I would never say this directly, but none of those people even understood the blatant bigotry of this statement.
What this election proved is that racism is largely overblown (don’t get me wrong, I see it every day, in the treatment of my friends, but ultimately big picture, we have trusted the country to an African American), but to me, as I have always felt, anti Semitism continues to be a bigger issue. The idea that because Emanuel is a Jew, it means anything other than that Obama appointed the man who almost singlehandedly brought the Democrats back from oblivion and is the most powerful fundraising force they have in the House, is absurd.
Worse, for me, is that he was one of the chief, if not the Chief, architect of Clinton’s Oslo Accords, which came closer to destroying the state of Israel than any war in its’ 60 year history. By insisting that the Israelis arm Arafat and the newly created Palestinian Authority, without understanding that Arafat planned all along to use those weapons against Israel, he unleashed the horrors of the daily attacks in the 1990’s. It was not until Ariel Sharon was elected and Israeli’s gave up on Oslo that safety returned to Israel.
And we are already hearing the discussions of “pressuring” Israel to make these same concessions. As a result, it is now very likely that the Israeli’s will elect the right wing, Benjamin Netanyahu. My fear for the continuity of the Israel is at an all time high.
Obama and his people believe that Israel must be dissected down it’s middle to provide a contiguous Palestinian state. If anything tells you the views they hold, that should be it. The Israelis can be divided north and south, but not the Palestinians. They also believe the Golan Heights must be returned to Syria. The area that has been used as a staging ground for rocket attacks on Israel in every war. This is why the current indicted Prime Minister of Israel was at 2% popularity. Because he was actually entertaining this idea.
What most don’t understand is the two way nature of the Israeli/American relationship. The technology and training we receive from those on the front lines of the war on terror.
Finally, in what is a bizarre twist, this election means that we now have a government that will be, for the first time since WWII, politically left of the governments in France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and after the next elections, England.
Nothing would make me happier than an 8 year Obama Presidency, hallmarked by social justice, Promotion of democracy and freedom around the world, and economic prosperity for all.
I desperately want not just a figure with historical significance, but an historic Presidency.
As a social liberal at heart, and an intellectual, it does my heart good to see someone who does not fumble the English language representing us at the international tables (one of my favorite things about Bill Clinton. He was just smarter than everyone).
But here is where I am different. Perhaps it is growing up in the most multicultural city in the world, perhaps it is my athletic background, or my own dating and friendship history.
But just as when Geraldine Ferraro was nominated by the Democrats as the first major party VP candidate, and I immediately criticized the choice, I never looked at Barack Obama as an African American. Rather I view him as simply someone that represents, on virtually all issues, (other than choice: my other 2 big social issues, I am anti death penalty and anti gun and Obama supports both of those – not to mention my overwhelming support for gay marriage which he opposes), different views than mine.
My last post was from eminent African American professor Shelby Steele. I could not be in more agreement with his thesis that the very idea of this as a “post racial” election, was a fiction. That in fact, race was pre eminent at all times. The supreme effort at NOT talking about it, made it just as much a factor as talking about it.
I wish that Obama could have celebrated his "blackness" at all times, but still reflected respect and admiration for all that America is. THEN, and only then, would it not be an issue.
As a Jew, I am very aware of the idea of feelings collective guilt, and the tendency good people have to feel it. That is one of the things that separates moral people from immoral.
Thus, my views on the election were always based on fundamentals. In fact, for much of my life, simply because I don’t see race, ethnicity or color, it can sometimes appear that I am insensitive to it. Just the opposite. I am just past it.
The relationships that went unexamined of Obama’s were not of concern to me b/c of the silly and pointless drivel that the Republicans tried to connect. Rather, it is that all of these people, from his past, to his present, represent EXACLTY the views that Obama currently represents, both economically, and with regard to foreign policy.
Fundamentally it is that America is a colonial, hegemonic power. The natural successor to the oppressive pre World War II powers of France and Britain. It is their view that we are, essentially, a force of bad in the world. That our involvement outside our borders is harmful to others, and the creation of the fiction that we are disliked.
The other view, the one I prescribe to, is that we are a force for good. That we have not only a moral and ethical responsibility to use the incredible good fortune we have here in the United States, but a moral DUTY to do so.
Like ALL nations, and governments, we make mistakes. It is a fact of life that the bigger the effort, the bigger the mistakes and failures will be. But the motivation that drives America has always been to let the rest of the world see the light that we all enjoy every day.
The language that someone like Obama uses will not be easy for most to follow. But you will hear over the next 4 years discussions of not imposing our view, not foisting our policies, etc.
The less subtle of his supporters will directly use the words hegemony and imperialist.
And it has started already.
I was watching an interview on CSPan today with a professor of American studies discussing classroom teachings in this country. The moderator (an author of a book on textbooks in elementary schools) was expounding on the fact that the texts used in schools do exactly this. Blame America and highlite, almost to the exclusion of all else, the mistakes of our pasts.
The professor said that they did not go far enough. That he wished they would more openly discuss the “American Empire”.
As a student of history, and politics, I cringed. Not only was this an immediate vocalization of my fears, but it is an absolute and total fiction.
On a more direct level, what this belief system translates to is that our support of Israel is the cause of our difficulties in the world. More directly, that resolving the Israeli- so called Palestinian issue, will end our conflict with the Muslim world.
Jimmy Carter certainly proved this a myth. But even the most basic knowledge of AL Qaeda and Bin Laden should demonstrate that Bin Laden’s argument with the US was that we “infidels” had our feet on the ground in Mecca and Medina, Islam’s holy land, during the first Gulf War. It had nothing to do with Israel. Like most, however, and because the Saudis supported our efforts against Sadaam, he adopted the languge, later of supporting his “Palestinian” brothers.
The next issue has to do with my concern over this election and what it means for the parties.
I have heard musing from Obama supporters that this election has brought the country together.
This is never surprising to hear from the winners.
Here is my view. I come from a long line of NY political thought. Socially liberal, and fiscally and foreign policy conservative (2 terms I despise). Let me rephrase. Socially progressive, and anti Keynesian (Obama and his team are Keynesian). I believe in an active, interventionist foreign policy. I am MUCH more socially liberal than Barack, and more interventionist than the Bushites.
This has a long tradition in this area. Jacob Javits, Nelson Rockefeller, Ed Koch, Robert Kennedy, George Pataki, current NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the new Hillary Clinton, Maria Cuomo, etc.
This “school” of politics was started by Teddy Roosevelt, my original political hero. Roosevelt, while recognizing the need not to punish business, also began the process of breaking the trusts (although it was his successors who actually did it). He was the ultimate conservationist, while being a hunter. And of course, he is famed for building the Panama Canal, but as Secretary of the Navy and beyond, he believed in extending American power around the world to promote peace.
This school of political thought is now dead in our major parties. My real hope for this election was that Bloomberg might run and use his billions to build a viable third party, a centrist party.
But what happened in the election is that ALL the moderate, centrist Republicans lost. It was not the bible thumping right wingers that got defeated; it was people like my neighbor in Connecticut, Christopher Shays, a true centrist, that lost. This continued the trend from the last election, where extremely talented centrists like Jim Talent from Missouri lost. If Al Franken ends up defeating Norm Coleman in Minnesota, that will effectively mean the ONLY centrists left will be John McCain and Joe Lieberman.
Yes, McCain was, and is, a centrist. Both Lieberman and McCain were protégés of Henry “Scoop” Jackson, perhaps the model for this school of political ideology in the post war period.
Jackson was a so called conservative Democrat from Washington and my other great political hero.
But by painting McCain as another Bush, something so patently offensive and such a lie, that the democrats are now saying literally “we need John McCain’s help because he is the one true bipartisan left”!!!!, they have now made us MORE, not less, polarized.
The Republican party most likely will take this as a message that, like when Gerald Ford lost to Jimmy Carter, giving birth to Ronald Reagan (before Obama the President I most disagreed with, but whom I did not think was dangerous) they need to move, once again, far right. That is why you are now hearing the talk of Sarah Palin being the flag waver for the party.
My dream election would have been between Giuliani and Hillary: Two centrists whose views are so close, that it would have FORCED a close examination of the issues, not the lies of this campaign.
Obama is by far, the most left wing candidate this country has ever elected. And much to my fear, his first appointment, Rahm Emanuel, is a clear signal that the idea of bipartisanship, which he spent so much time discussing early, and then threw out, is now gone. Emanuel was Clinton’s most consistent and harsh, hard driving, left wing ideologue. More on him below.
As a note, you are seeing the Keynesian theories already being put into place. I dread, as I have written about in the past, the move toward socialistic control that the last rescue package contained, but now, we are hearing about “stimulus” packages.
As every example of this type of economics has proven, from the failure of the “New Deal;” to the socialist movements around the world, it NEVER works.
My next set of thoughts. Something that will be truly hard for most of you to appreciate. Focusing on Rahm Emanuel and what he means. I received numerous emails, and calls, from my non Jewish friends and commenters that I should be gratified that Emanuel was offered the chief of staff job. Why? Because he’s a Jew. Imagine saying that to a woman, a black, Puerto Rican, etc.
I would never say this directly, but none of those people even understood the blatant bigotry of this statement.
What this election proved is that racism is largely overblown (don’t get me wrong, I see it every day, in the treatment of my friends, but ultimately big picture, we have trusted the country to an African American), but to me, as I have always felt, anti Semitism continues to be a bigger issue. The idea that because Emanuel is a Jew, it means anything other than that Obama appointed the man who almost singlehandedly brought the Democrats back from oblivion and is the most powerful fundraising force they have in the House, is absurd.
Worse, for me, is that he was one of the chief, if not the Chief, architect of Clinton’s Oslo Accords, which came closer to destroying the state of Israel than any war in its’ 60 year history. By insisting that the Israelis arm Arafat and the newly created Palestinian Authority, without understanding that Arafat planned all along to use those weapons against Israel, he unleashed the horrors of the daily attacks in the 1990’s. It was not until Ariel Sharon was elected and Israeli’s gave up on Oslo that safety returned to Israel.
And we are already hearing the discussions of “pressuring” Israel to make these same concessions. As a result, it is now very likely that the Israeli’s will elect the right wing, Benjamin Netanyahu. My fear for the continuity of the Israel is at an all time high.
Obama and his people believe that Israel must be dissected down it’s middle to provide a contiguous Palestinian state. If anything tells you the views they hold, that should be it. The Israelis can be divided north and south, but not the Palestinians. They also believe the Golan Heights must be returned to Syria. The area that has been used as a staging ground for rocket attacks on Israel in every war. This is why the current indicted Prime Minister of Israel was at 2% popularity. Because he was actually entertaining this idea.
What most don’t understand is the two way nature of the Israeli/American relationship. The technology and training we receive from those on the front lines of the war on terror.
Finally, in what is a bizarre twist, this election means that we now have a government that will be, for the first time since WWII, politically left of the governments in France, Germany, Italy, Canada, and after the next elections, England.
Friday, November 7, 2008
Obama's post-racial promise By Shelby Steele
Obama's post-racial promise
Barack Obama seduced whites with a vision of their racial innocence precisely to coerce them into acting out of a racial motivation.
By Shelby Steele
November 5, 2008
For the first time in human history, a largely white nation has elected a black man to be its paramount leader. And the cultural meaning of this unprecedented convergence of dark skin and ultimate power will likely become -- at least for a time -- a national obsession. In fact, the Obama presidency will always be read as an allegory. Already we are as curious about the cultural significance of his victory as we are about its political significance.
Does his victory mean that America is now officially beyond racism? Does it finally complete the work of the civil rights movement so that racism is at last dismissible as an explanation of black difficulty? Can the good Revs. Jackson and Sharpton now safely retire to the seashore? Will the Obama victory dispel the twin stigmas that have tormented black and white Americans for so long -- that blacks are inherently inferior and whites inherently racist? Doesn't a black in the Oval Office put the lie to both black inferiority and white racism? Doesn't it imply a "post-racial" America? And shouldn't those of us -- white and black -- who did not vote for Mr. Obama take pride in what his victory says about our culture even aswe mourn our political loss?
Answering no to such questions is like saying no to any idealism; it seems callow. How could a decent person not hope for all these possibilities, or not give America credit for electing its first black president? And yet an element of Barack Obama's success was always his use of the idealism implied in these questions as political muscle. His talent was to project an idealized vision of a post-racial America -- and then to have that vision define political decency. Thus, a failure to support Obama politically implied a failure of decency.
Obama's special charisma -- since his famous 2004 convention speech -- always came much more from the racial idealism he embodied than from his political ideas. In fact, this was his only true political originality. On the level of public policy, he was quite unremarkable. His economics were the redistributive axioms of old-fashioned Keynesianism; his social thought was recycled Great Society. But all this policy boilerplate was freshened up -- given an air of "change" -- by the dreamy post-racial and post-ideological kitsch he dressed it in.
This worked politically for Obama because it tapped into a deep longing in American life -- the longing on the part of whites to escape the stigma of racism. In running for the presidency -- and presenting himself to a majority white nation -- Obama knew intuitively that he was dealing with a stigmatized people. He knew whites were stigmatized as being prejudiced, and that they hated this situation and literally longed for ways to disprove the stigma.
Obama is what I have called a "bargainer" -- a black who says to whites, "I will never presume that you are racist if you will not hold my race against me." Whites become enthralled with bargainers out of gratitude for the presumption of innocence they offer. Bargainers relieve their anxiety about being white and, for this gift of trust, bargainers are often rewarded with a kind of halo.
Obama's post-racial idealism told whites the one thing they most wanted to hear: America had essentially contained the evil of racism to the point at which it was no longer a serious barrier to black advancement. Thus, whites became enchanted enough with Obama to become his political base. It was Iowa -- 95% white -- that made him a contender. Blacks came his way only after he won enough white voters to be a plausible candidate.
Of course, it is true that white America has made great progress in curbing racism over the last 40 years. I believe, for example, that Colin Powell might well have been elected president in 1996 had he run against a then rather weak Bill Clinton. It is exactly because America has made such dramatic racial progress that whites today chafe so under the racist stigma. So I don't think whites really want change from Obama as much as they want documentation of change that has already occurred. They want him in the White House first of all as evidence, certification and recognition.
But there is an inherent contradiction in all this. When whites -- especially today's younger generation -- proudly support Obama for his post-racialism, they unwittingly embrace race as their primary motivation. They think and act racially, not post-racially. The point is that a post-racial society is a bargainer's ploy: It seduces whites with a vision of their racial innocence precisely to coerce them into acting out of a racial motivation. A real post-racialist could not be bargained with and would not care about displaying or documenting his racial innocence. Such a person would evaluate Obama politically rather than culturally.
Certainly things other than bargaining account for Obama's victory. He was a talented campaigner. He was reassuringly articulate on many issues -- a quality that Americans now long for in a president. And, in these last weeks, he was clearly pushed over the top by the economic terrors that beset the nation. But it was the peculiar cultural manipulation of racial bargaining that brought him to the political dance. It inflated him as a candidate, and it may well inflate him as a president.
There is nothing to suggest that Obama will lead America into true post-racialism. His campaign style revealed a tweaker of the status quo, not a revolutionary. Culturally and racially, he is likely to leave America pretty much where he found her.
But what about black Americans? Won't an Obama presidency at last lead us across a centuries-old gulf of alienation into the recognition that America really is our country? Might this milestone not infuse black America with a new American nationalism? And wouldn't this be revolutionary in itself? Like most Americans, I would love to see an Obama presidency nudge things in this direction. But the larger reality is the profound disparity between black and white Americans that will persist even under the glow of an Obama presidency. The black illegitimacy rate remains at 70%. Blacks did worse on the SAT in 2000 than in 1990. Fifty-five percent of all federal prisoners are black, though we are only 13% of the population. The academic achievement gap between blacks and whites persists even for the black middle class. All this disparity will continue to accuse blacks of inferiority and whites of racism -- thus refueling our racial politics -- despite the level of melanin in the president's skin.
The torture of racial conflict in America periodically spits up a new faith that idealism can help us "overcome" -- America's favorite racial word. If we can just have the right inspiration, a heroic role model, a symbolism of hope, a new sense of possibility. It is an American cultural habit to endure our racial tensions by periodically alighting on little islands of fresh hope and idealism. But true reform, like the civil rights victories of the '60s, never happens until people become exhausted with their suffering. Then they don't care who the president is.
Presidents follow the culture; they don't lead it. I hope for a competent president.
Shelby Steele is an author, columnist and senior fellow at Stanford
University's Hoover Institution.
Barack Obama seduced whites with a vision of their racial innocence precisely to coerce them into acting out of a racial motivation.
By Shelby Steele
November 5, 2008
For the first time in human history, a largely white nation has elected a black man to be its paramount leader. And the cultural meaning of this unprecedented convergence of dark skin and ultimate power will likely become -- at least for a time -- a national obsession. In fact, the Obama presidency will always be read as an allegory. Already we are as curious about the cultural significance of his victory as we are about its political significance.
Does his victory mean that America is now officially beyond racism? Does it finally complete the work of the civil rights movement so that racism is at last dismissible as an explanation of black difficulty? Can the good Revs. Jackson and Sharpton now safely retire to the seashore? Will the Obama victory dispel the twin stigmas that have tormented black and white Americans for so long -- that blacks are inherently inferior and whites inherently racist? Doesn't a black in the Oval Office put the lie to both black inferiority and white racism? Doesn't it imply a "post-racial" America? And shouldn't those of us -- white and black -- who did not vote for Mr. Obama take pride in what his victory says about our culture even aswe mourn our political loss?
Answering no to such questions is like saying no to any idealism; it seems callow. How could a decent person not hope for all these possibilities, or not give America credit for electing its first black president? And yet an element of Barack Obama's success was always his use of the idealism implied in these questions as political muscle. His talent was to project an idealized vision of a post-racial America -- and then to have that vision define political decency. Thus, a failure to support Obama politically implied a failure of decency.
Obama's special charisma -- since his famous 2004 convention speech -- always came much more from the racial idealism he embodied than from his political ideas. In fact, this was his only true political originality. On the level of public policy, he was quite unremarkable. His economics were the redistributive axioms of old-fashioned Keynesianism; his social thought was recycled Great Society. But all this policy boilerplate was freshened up -- given an air of "change" -- by the dreamy post-racial and post-ideological kitsch he dressed it in.
This worked politically for Obama because it tapped into a deep longing in American life -- the longing on the part of whites to escape the stigma of racism. In running for the presidency -- and presenting himself to a majority white nation -- Obama knew intuitively that he was dealing with a stigmatized people. He knew whites were stigmatized as being prejudiced, and that they hated this situation and literally longed for ways to disprove the stigma.
Obama is what I have called a "bargainer" -- a black who says to whites, "I will never presume that you are racist if you will not hold my race against me." Whites become enthralled with bargainers out of gratitude for the presumption of innocence they offer. Bargainers relieve their anxiety about being white and, for this gift of trust, bargainers are often rewarded with a kind of halo.
Obama's post-racial idealism told whites the one thing they most wanted to hear: America had essentially contained the evil of racism to the point at which it was no longer a serious barrier to black advancement. Thus, whites became enchanted enough with Obama to become his political base. It was Iowa -- 95% white -- that made him a contender. Blacks came his way only after he won enough white voters to be a plausible candidate.
Of course, it is true that white America has made great progress in curbing racism over the last 40 years. I believe, for example, that Colin Powell might well have been elected president in 1996 had he run against a then rather weak Bill Clinton. It is exactly because America has made such dramatic racial progress that whites today chafe so under the racist stigma. So I don't think whites really want change from Obama as much as they want documentation of change that has already occurred. They want him in the White House first of all as evidence, certification and recognition.
But there is an inherent contradiction in all this. When whites -- especially today's younger generation -- proudly support Obama for his post-racialism, they unwittingly embrace race as their primary motivation. They think and act racially, not post-racially. The point is that a post-racial society is a bargainer's ploy: It seduces whites with a vision of their racial innocence precisely to coerce them into acting out of a racial motivation. A real post-racialist could not be bargained with and would not care about displaying or documenting his racial innocence. Such a person would evaluate Obama politically rather than culturally.
Certainly things other than bargaining account for Obama's victory. He was a talented campaigner. He was reassuringly articulate on many issues -- a quality that Americans now long for in a president. And, in these last weeks, he was clearly pushed over the top by the economic terrors that beset the nation. But it was the peculiar cultural manipulation of racial bargaining that brought him to the political dance. It inflated him as a candidate, and it may well inflate him as a president.
There is nothing to suggest that Obama will lead America into true post-racialism. His campaign style revealed a tweaker of the status quo, not a revolutionary. Culturally and racially, he is likely to leave America pretty much where he found her.
But what about black Americans? Won't an Obama presidency at last lead us across a centuries-old gulf of alienation into the recognition that America really is our country? Might this milestone not infuse black America with a new American nationalism? And wouldn't this be revolutionary in itself? Like most Americans, I would love to see an Obama presidency nudge things in this direction. But the larger reality is the profound disparity between black and white Americans that will persist even under the glow of an Obama presidency. The black illegitimacy rate remains at 70%. Blacks did worse on the SAT in 2000 than in 1990. Fifty-five percent of all federal prisoners are black, though we are only 13% of the population. The academic achievement gap between blacks and whites persists even for the black middle class. All this disparity will continue to accuse blacks of inferiority and whites of racism -- thus refueling our racial politics -- despite the level of melanin in the president's skin.
The torture of racial conflict in America periodically spits up a new faith that idealism can help us "overcome" -- America's favorite racial word. If we can just have the right inspiration, a heroic role model, a symbolism of hope, a new sense of possibility. It is an American cultural habit to endure our racial tensions by periodically alighting on little islands of fresh hope and idealism. But true reform, like the civil rights victories of the '60s, never happens until people become exhausted with their suffering. Then they don't care who the president is.
Presidents follow the culture; they don't lead it. I hope for a competent president.
Shelby Steele is an author, columnist and senior fellow at Stanford
University's Hoover Institution.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
The Horror begins...
As I have written to several friends and on some blogs here, the election of Barack Obama signals a number of things.
I will discuss those in some length shortly.
However, what it means "on the ground" around the world, is two immediate things.
First, I told people, there will be a new Iran-Israel War fought, as it was last time, in Lebanon, by Iran's surrogate, Hezbollah.
The second thing that I told people will happen, is the rebirth of the Soviet Union. Vladimir Putin was testing the American candidates with his invasion of Georgia last month.
The Russians will invade Georgia, and re annex it. And they will invade the Ukraine as well. Perhaps even Turkmenistan, and Armenia, and others.
However, even I could not have imagined how fast it would happen.
Today, as a result of Obama's election, Putin's puppet, Medvedev announced that Russia is redeploying missiles on the Polish border in specific celebration of the election!
The Second cold War has begun. Thank you America.
I will discuss those in some length shortly.
However, what it means "on the ground" around the world, is two immediate things.
First, I told people, there will be a new Iran-Israel War fought, as it was last time, in Lebanon, by Iran's surrogate, Hezbollah.
The second thing that I told people will happen, is the rebirth of the Soviet Union. Vladimir Putin was testing the American candidates with his invasion of Georgia last month.
The Russians will invade Georgia, and re annex it. And they will invade the Ukraine as well. Perhaps even Turkmenistan, and Armenia, and others.
However, even I could not have imagined how fast it would happen.
Today, as a result of Obama's election, Putin's puppet, Medvedev announced that Russia is redeploying missiles on the Polish border in specific celebration of the election!
The Second cold War has begun. Thank you America.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Devastating
I was just sent a link from an interview that Michelle and Barack Obama did just before his announcement of his candidacy (of course, he's been running for 20 years...).
When asked about all the rumours that he was about to announce Michelle Obama said, with Barack seated right next to her, quote "It's way too soon. He hasn't done anything yet".
Ah, yes, the truth can hurt.
You can go to that famous site with all the videos and see the clip. Along with every one of his supporters being asked what he has accomplished, simply unable to say anything. And this is from Chris Mathew's Hardball, a show that has dedicated itself to his election.
Try this tag "Why I'm voting for Obama".
When asked about all the rumours that he was about to announce Michelle Obama said, with Barack seated right next to her, quote "It's way too soon. He hasn't done anything yet".
Ah, yes, the truth can hurt.
You can go to that famous site with all the videos and see the clip. Along with every one of his supporters being asked what he has accomplished, simply unable to say anything. And this is from Chris Mathew's Hardball, a show that has dedicated itself to his election.
Try this tag "Why I'm voting for Obama".
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Nikolas Sarkozy weighs in on Obama
Harsh words for Obama from French President Nicolas Sarkozy. An Israeli government source told the newspaper Haaretz that Sarkozy was unhappy with his discussions with Obama in Paris last summer, calling the candidate's position on Iran "utterly immature." Sarkozy has reportedly expressed his fear that Obama will act "arrogantly" by meeting with the Iranians with no preconditions. Haaretz quotes Sarkozy as calling Obama's stance on Iraq predicated on "formulations empty of all content."
A view from across the pond....
The sacrifice of truth to power
Melanie Phillips
The Spectator
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/2550646/the-sacrifice-of-truth-to
-power.thtml
SUNDAY, 26TH OCTOBER 2008
What's happening in this terrifying, Orwellian US presidential race is the flip side of the madness that's been on display since 9/11 itself, when swathes of the UK population decided that 'America had it coming to it' because it supported Israel, and that George W Bush was the most dangerous man on the planet. After the Iraq war started, this irrationality swelled into pathological proportions on both sides of the Atlantic, when the 'Bush lied, people died' narrative fueled a hatred of Bush and 'the neocons' exceeded in its hallucinatory and murderous venom only by the truly deranged way in which the media and intelligentsia systematically either ignored evidence that did not fit this narrative or, even more astoundingly, reported it in such a way that it delivered the opposite of what was actually happening or being said.
In this way not only has history been rewritten, not only have Britain and America been to a greater or lesser extent turned against themselves and demoralised by the propaganda of their mortal enemies recycled as truth by our fifth-column Big Media, but they have been incited to an ugly and dangerous level of irrationality, hatred and hysteria which history tells us presages the twilight of freedom. It is that media class which, in refusing to tell the public what it needs to know about Barack Obama, may now finally install in the White House the man who personifies the repudiation of the American power and western values that the media and left-wing intelligentsia (of which the media is the mouthpiece) have themselves spared no effort to destroy these past seven years.
As ABC columnist Michael Malone protests:
What I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side -- or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for the presidential ticket of Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Joe Biden, D-Del. If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as president of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography....
Why, for example to quote the lawyer for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., haven't we seen an interview with Sen. Obama's grad school drug dealer -- when we know all about Mrs. McCain's addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Sen. Biden's endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media?
The absolute nadir (though I hate to commit to that, as we still have two weeks before the election) came with Joe the Plumber. Middle America, even when they didn't agree with Joe, looked on in horror as the press took apart the private life of an average person who had the temerity to ask a tough question of a presidential candidate. So much for the standing up for the little man. So much for speaking truth to power. So much for comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, and all of those other catchphrases we journalists used to believe we lived by. So much indeed. That's why, as Mark Steyn observes, the media has had a feeding frenzy over Sarah Palin's clothes allowance while all but ignoring the evidence of criminal fundraising for the Obama campaign being facilitated by the Obama campaign :
The gentleman who started the ball rolling made four donations under the names 'John Galt', 'Saddam Hussein', 'Osama bin Laden', and 'William Ayers', all using the same credit card number. He wrote this morning to say that all four donations have been charged to his card and the money has now left his account. Again, it's worth pointing out: in order to enable the most basic
card fraud of all - multiple names using a single credit card number - the Obama campaign had to manually disable all the default security checks provided by their merchant processor.
Now look at this. Back in April, the LA Times ran this story reporting on the going-away party for Rashid Khalidi, Obama's close friend, who justifies Palestinian violence against Israel and who was leaving for a job in New York. Khalidi is a deeply troubling individual, a former PLO operative and close friend of unrepentant former Weatherman terrorist William Ayers. As I have reported before, in 2000 Khalidi and his wife Mona held a fundraiser for Obama's unsuccessful congressional bid. The next year, an Arab group whose board was headed by Mona Khalidi received a $40,000 grant from the Woods Fund of Chicago when Obama was on the fund's board of directors. Obama has said that his many talks with the Khalidis "had been consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases... It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table, but around this entire world."
The LA Times reported:
During the dinner a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, 'then you will never see a day of peace.' One speaker likened 'Zionist settlers on the West Bank' to Osama bin Laden, saying both had been 'blinded by ideology.'
The paper reported that not only had Obama been present at the party but had praised Khalidi – and it actually had obtained a videotape of the whole event. Yet it has refused to make this video public – even though it would be of great interest, to put it mildly, to see who else was there. Indeed, as the now defunct New York Sun reported:
In Chicago, the Khalidis founded the Arab American Action network, and Mona Khalidi served as its president. A big farewell dinner was held in their honor by AAAN with a commemorative book filled with testimonials from their friends and political allies. These included the left wing anti-war group Not In My Name, the Electronic Intifada, and the ex-Weatherman domestic terrorists Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers.
As Gateway Pundit comments:
It's hard to imagine that the LA Times would hold onto a video of Sarah Palin praising an antisemitic radical and former PLO operative...But, that is today's mainstream media. But now look at what happens when the media does begin to do its job properly. As the Orlando Sentinel reported: WFTV-Channel 9's Barbara West conducted a satellite interview with Sen. Joe Biden on Thursday. West wondered about Sen. Barack Obama's comment, to Joe the Plumber, about spreading the wealth. She quoted Karl Marx and asked how Obama isn't being a Marxist with the 'spreading the wealth' comment. 'Are you joking?' said Biden, who is Obama's running mate. 'No,' West said. West later asked Biden about his comments that Obama could be tested early on as president. She wondered if the Delaware senator was saying America's days as
the world's leading power were over. 'I don't know who's writing your questions,' Biden shot back. Biden so disliked West's line of questioning that the Obama campaign canceled a WFTV interview with Jill Biden, the candidate's wife.
In that interview, Biden also flatly denied that the Obama campaign was funding corrupt Acorn to deliver voter registration. But as the Investor's Business Daily has reported, it did – and then tried to hide it:
Obama paid ACORN, which has endorsed him for president, $800,000 to register new voters, payments his campaign failed to accurately report. (They were disguised in his FEC disclosure as payments to a front group called Citizen Services Inc. for 'advance work.' ) At NRO Mark Levin identifies a terrifying historical echo when he shudders that, such is the tide of irrationality running in this campaign, the American public appears to be falling under the cult-like spell of an authoritarian demagogue. He is surely correct. For all Obama's laid-back, attractive appearance this election is being fought in an atmosphere of menace. Menace in the way ACORN is intimidating voters into multiple registrations. Menace in the way criminal donations to the Obama campaign have been institutionalized. Menace in the serial lies being told by Obama, Biden and the campaign rebuttal team. Menace in the way the few remaining
proper journalists such as Stanley Kurtz are finding sources of information shut down and themselves shut out when they attempt to probe Obama's deeply dubious associations. Menace in the smears and hysterical abuse directed at anyone who questions The One. Menace in the threat of violence if Obama doesn't win. Menace in the pre-emptive smear that the only thing that could
bring about an Obama defeat is the inherent racism of the American voters – a smear that potentially identifies all those who vote against him as public enemies.
[B]Over the past seven years, the media has created the Big Lie that America is the biggest rogue state in the world, with Israel its proxy. Now it is ensuring that a man who will act on that very premise to crush America and destroy Israel will be placed in the White House to do so.[/B] It is not just that the west's Big Media can no longer be trusted. It has become the most important weapon in the arsenal of the enemies of the free world.
Melanie Phillips
The Spectator
http://www.spectator.co.uk/melaniephillips/2550646/the-sacrifice-of-truth-to
-power.thtml
SUNDAY, 26TH OCTOBER 2008
What's happening in this terrifying, Orwellian US presidential race is the flip side of the madness that's been on display since 9/11 itself, when swathes of the UK population decided that 'America had it coming to it' because it supported Israel, and that George W Bush was the most dangerous man on the planet. After the Iraq war started, this irrationality swelled into pathological proportions on both sides of the Atlantic, when the 'Bush lied, people died' narrative fueled a hatred of Bush and 'the neocons' exceeded in its hallucinatory and murderous venom only by the truly deranged way in which the media and intelligentsia systematically either ignored evidence that did not fit this narrative or, even more astoundingly, reported it in such a way that it delivered the opposite of what was actually happening or being said.
In this way not only has history been rewritten, not only have Britain and America been to a greater or lesser extent turned against themselves and demoralised by the propaganda of their mortal enemies recycled as truth by our fifth-column Big Media, but they have been incited to an ugly and dangerous level of irrationality, hatred and hysteria which history tells us presages the twilight of freedom. It is that media class which, in refusing to tell the public what it needs to know about Barack Obama, may now finally install in the White House the man who personifies the repudiation of the American power and western values that the media and left-wing intelligentsia (of which the media is the mouthpiece) have themselves spared no effort to destroy these past seven years.
As ABC columnist Michael Malone protests:
What I object to (and I think most other Americans do as well) is the lack of equivalent hardball coverage of the other side -- or worse, actively serving as attack dogs for the presidential ticket of Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Joe Biden, D-Del. If the current polls are correct, we are about to elect as president of the United States a man who is essentially a cipher, who has left almost no paper trail, seems to have few friends (that at least will talk) and has entire years missing out of his biography....
Why, for example to quote the lawyer for Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., haven't we seen an interview with Sen. Obama's grad school drug dealer -- when we know all about Mrs. McCain's addiction? Are Bill Ayers and Tony Rezko that hard to interview? All those phony voter registrations that hard to scrutinize? And why are Sen. Biden's endless gaffes almost always covered up, or rationalized, by the traditional media?
The absolute nadir (though I hate to commit to that, as we still have two weeks before the election) came with Joe the Plumber. Middle America, even when they didn't agree with Joe, looked on in horror as the press took apart the private life of an average person who had the temerity to ask a tough question of a presidential candidate. So much for the standing up for the little man. So much for speaking truth to power. So much for comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable, and all of those other catchphrases we journalists used to believe we lived by. So much indeed. That's why, as Mark Steyn observes, the media has had a feeding frenzy over Sarah Palin's clothes allowance while all but ignoring the evidence of criminal fundraising for the Obama campaign being facilitated by the Obama campaign :
The gentleman who started the ball rolling made four donations under the names 'John Galt', 'Saddam Hussein', 'Osama bin Laden', and 'William Ayers', all using the same credit card number. He wrote this morning to say that all four donations have been charged to his card and the money has now left his account. Again, it's worth pointing out: in order to enable the most basic
card fraud of all - multiple names using a single credit card number - the Obama campaign had to manually disable all the default security checks provided by their merchant processor.
Now look at this. Back in April, the LA Times ran this story reporting on the going-away party for Rashid Khalidi, Obama's close friend, who justifies Palestinian violence against Israel and who was leaving for a job in New York. Khalidi is a deeply troubling individual, a former PLO operative and close friend of unrepentant former Weatherman terrorist William Ayers. As I have reported before, in 2000 Khalidi and his wife Mona held a fundraiser for Obama's unsuccessful congressional bid. The next year, an Arab group whose board was headed by Mona Khalidi received a $40,000 grant from the Woods Fund of Chicago when Obama was on the fund's board of directors. Obama has said that his many talks with the Khalidis "had been consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases... It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation -- a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table, but around this entire world."
The LA Times reported:
During the dinner a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, 'then you will never see a day of peace.' One speaker likened 'Zionist settlers on the West Bank' to Osama bin Laden, saying both had been 'blinded by ideology.'
The paper reported that not only had Obama been present at the party but had praised Khalidi – and it actually had obtained a videotape of the whole event. Yet it has refused to make this video public – even though it would be of great interest, to put it mildly, to see who else was there. Indeed, as the now defunct New York Sun reported:
In Chicago, the Khalidis founded the Arab American Action network, and Mona Khalidi served as its president. A big farewell dinner was held in their honor by AAAN with a commemorative book filled with testimonials from their friends and political allies. These included the left wing anti-war group Not In My Name, the Electronic Intifada, and the ex-Weatherman domestic terrorists Bernadine Dohrn and Bill Ayers.
As Gateway Pundit comments:
It's hard to imagine that the LA Times would hold onto a video of Sarah Palin praising an antisemitic radical and former PLO operative...But, that is today's mainstream media. But now look at what happens when the media does begin to do its job properly. As the Orlando Sentinel reported: WFTV-Channel 9's Barbara West conducted a satellite interview with Sen. Joe Biden on Thursday. West wondered about Sen. Barack Obama's comment, to Joe the Plumber, about spreading the wealth. She quoted Karl Marx and asked how Obama isn't being a Marxist with the 'spreading the wealth' comment. 'Are you joking?' said Biden, who is Obama's running mate. 'No,' West said. West later asked Biden about his comments that Obama could be tested early on as president. She wondered if the Delaware senator was saying America's days as
the world's leading power were over. 'I don't know who's writing your questions,' Biden shot back. Biden so disliked West's line of questioning that the Obama campaign canceled a WFTV interview with Jill Biden, the candidate's wife.
In that interview, Biden also flatly denied that the Obama campaign was funding corrupt Acorn to deliver voter registration. But as the Investor's Business Daily has reported, it did – and then tried to hide it:
Obama paid ACORN, which has endorsed him for president, $800,000 to register new voters, payments his campaign failed to accurately report. (They were disguised in his FEC disclosure as payments to a front group called Citizen Services Inc. for 'advance work.' ) At NRO Mark Levin identifies a terrifying historical echo when he shudders that, such is the tide of irrationality running in this campaign, the American public appears to be falling under the cult-like spell of an authoritarian demagogue. He is surely correct. For all Obama's laid-back, attractive appearance this election is being fought in an atmosphere of menace. Menace in the way ACORN is intimidating voters into multiple registrations. Menace in the way criminal donations to the Obama campaign have been institutionalized. Menace in the serial lies being told by Obama, Biden and the campaign rebuttal team. Menace in the way the few remaining
proper journalists such as Stanley Kurtz are finding sources of information shut down and themselves shut out when they attempt to probe Obama's deeply dubious associations. Menace in the smears and hysterical abuse directed at anyone who questions The One. Menace in the threat of violence if Obama doesn't win. Menace in the pre-emptive smear that the only thing that could
bring about an Obama defeat is the inherent racism of the American voters – a smear that potentially identifies all those who vote against him as public enemies.
[B]Over the past seven years, the media has created the Big Lie that America is the biggest rogue state in the world, with Israel its proxy. Now it is ensuring that a man who will act on that very premise to crush America and destroy Israel will be placed in the White House to do so.[/B] It is not just that the west's Big Media can no longer be trusted. It has become the most important weapon in the arsenal of the enemies of the free world.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
It's about time....
This story finally received some press. The underlying story was reported in the NY Times. The story of Obama, Khalidi, and Ayers sharing the dais at a send off dinner, sponsored by the Arab Action Network in 2003 for Khalidi as he left the U. of Chicago for Columbia.
Interesting that Khalidi is close friends with Obama (as he has descrobed, they used to baby sit each others kids) and Khalidi is best friends with Ayers, but Barack just doesn't know Ayers.
More importanly, of course, are the goals of the Arab Action Network, and what was being said at this meeting.
As I have been describing for months, the key issue with Obama's friends and advisers, is not whether he is a terrorist. It is that ALL of his associates reflect a basic belief. That America is a force for evil, and that ALL the world's conflicts would be over if only the so called Palestinians were allowed to finish the job Hitler started.
Btw, for those that don't know, Khalidi's life work has been to try and prove the existence of a Palestinian peoplehood out of thin air. (And even he does not claim anything before the 20th century).
Perhaps more importantly, and this story below misses this point, Khalidi was at one time the Press Representative for the PLO, and Said, another of Obama's Columbia friends was a member of the PLO Revolutionary Council.
Anyway, the speeches at this meeting were dutifully violently anti American, and certainly anti Israeli, calling for the destruction of Israel.
But here's the rub. Apparently, the LA Times obtained a video of this event. They reported on it, but refuse to release the video.
Gee, is there media bias here?
I have read at least two dozen reports about this. The best on "The Gateway Pundit" and "Little Green Footballs". The latter is the blog that broke the stories about Reuters doctoring photos that led to several resignations at that news agency.
Here is the story from National Review about the cover up:
The L.A. Times Suppresses Obama's Khalidi Bash Tape
Obama, Ayers, and PLO supporters toast Edward Said's successor, but thep ress doesn't think it's quite as newsworthy as Sarah Palin's wardrobe.
By Andrew C. McCarthy
Let's try a thought experiment. Say John McCain attended a party at which known racists and terror mongers were in attendance. Say testimonials were given, including a glowing one by McCain for the benefit of the guest of honor ... who happened to be a top apologist for terrorists. Say McCain not only gave a speech but stood by, in tacit approval and solidarity, while other racists and terror mongers gave speeches that reeked of hatred for an
American ally and rationalizations of terror attacks.
Now let's say the Los Angeles Times obtained a videotape of the party.
Question: Is there any chance any chance the Times would not release the tape and publish front-page story after story about the gory details, with the usual accompanying chorus of sanctimony from the op-ed commentariat? Is there any chance, if the Times was the least bit reluctant about publishing (remember, we're pretending here), that the rest of the mainstream media
(y'know, the guys who drove Trent Lott out of his leadership position over a birthday-party toast) would not be screaming for the release of the tape?
Do we really have to ask?
So now, let's leave thought experiments and return to reality: Why is the Los Angeles Times sitting on a videotape of the 2003 farewell bash in Chicago at which Barack Obama lavished praise on the guest of honor, Rashid Khalidi, former mouthpiece for master terrorist Yasser Arafat?
At the time Khalidi, a PLO adviser turned University of Chicago professor, was headed east to Columbia. There he would take over the University's Middle East-studies program (which he has since maintained as a bubbling cauldron of anti-Semitism) and assume the professorship endowed in honor of Edward Sayyid, another notorious terror apologist.
The party featured encomiums by many of Khalidi's allies, colleagues, and friends, including Barack Obama, then an Illinois state senator, and Bill Ayers, the terrorist turned education professor. It was sponsored by the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), which had been founded by Khalidi and his wife, Mona, formerly a top English translator for Arafat's press agency.
Is there just a teeny-weenie chance that this was an evening of Israel-bashing Obama would find very difficult to explain? Could it be that the Times, a pillar of the Obamedia, is covering for its guy?
Gateway Pundit reports that the Times has the videotape but is suppressing it.
Back in April, the Times published a gentle story about the fete. Reporter Peter Wallsten avoided, for example, any mention of the inconvenient fact that the revelers included Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, Ayers's wife and fellow Weatherman terrorist. These self-professed revolutionary Leftists are friendly with both Obama and Khalidi indeed, researcher Stanley Kurtz has noted that Ayers and Khalidi were "best friends." (And small world! it
turns out that the Obamas are extremely close to the Khalidis, who have reportedly babysat the Obama children.)
Nor did the Times report the party was thrown by AAAN. Wallsten does tell us that the AAAN received grants from the Leftist Woods Fund when Obama was on its board but, besides understating the amount (it was $75,000, not $40,000), the Times mentions neither that Ayers was also on the Woods board at the time nor that AAAN is rabidly anti-Israel. (Though the organization regards Israel as illegitimate and has sought to justify Palestinian terrorism, Wallsten describes the AAAN as a social service group.)
Perhaps even more inconveniently, the Times also let slip that it had obtained a videotape of the party.
Wallsten's story is worth excerpting at length (italics are mine):
It was a celebration of Palestinian culture a night of music, dancing and a dash of politics. Local Arab Americans were bidding farewell to Rashid Khalidi, an internationally known scholar, critic of Israel and advocate for Palestinian rights, who was leaving town for a job in New York.
A special tribute came from Khalidi's friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking.
His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world."...
[T]he warm embrace Obama gave to Khalidi, and words like those at the professor's going-away party, have left some Palestinian American leaders believing that Obama is more receptive to their viewpoint than he is willing to say.
Their belief is not drawn from Obama's speeches or campaign literature, but from comments that some say Obama made in private and from his association with the Palestinian American community in his hometown of Chicago, including his presence at events where anger at Israeli and U.S. Middle East policy was freely expressed.
At Khalidi's 2003 farewell party, for example, a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, "then you will never see a day of peace."
One speaker likened "Zionist settlers on the West Bank" to Osama bin Laden, saying both had been "blinded by ideology."
Obama adopted a different tone in his comments and called for finding common ground. But his presence at such events, as he worked to build a political base in Chicago, has led some Palestinian leaders to believe that he might deal differently with the Middle East than his opponents for the White House....
At Khalidi's going-away party in 2003, the scholar lavished praise on Obama, telling the mostly Palestinian American crowd that the state senator deserved their help in winning a U.S. Senate seat. "You will not have a better senator under any circumstances," Khalidi said.
The event was videotaped, and a copy of the tape was obtained by The Times.
Though Khalidi has seen little of Sen. Obama in recent years, Michelle Obama attended a party several months ago celebrating the marriage of the Khalidis' daughter.
In interviews with The Times, Khalidi declined to discuss specifics of private talks over the years with Obama. He did not begrudge his friend for being out of touch, or for focusing more these days on his support for Israel a stance that Khalidi calls a requirement to win a national election in the U.S., just as wooing Chicago's large Arab American community was important for winning local elections.
So why is the Times sitting on the videotape of the Khalidi festivities? Given Obama's (preposterous) claims that he didn't know Ayers that well and was unfamiliar with Ayers's views, why didn't the Times report that Ayers and Dohrn were at the bash? Was it not worth mentioning the remarkable coincidence that both Obama and Ayers the "education reform" allies who barely know each other except to the extent they together doled out tens
of millions of dollars to Leftist agitators, attacked the criminal justice system, and raved about each others books just happen to be intimate friends of the same anti-American Israel-basher? (Despite having watched the videotape, Wallsten told Gateway Pundit he 'did not know' whether Ayers was there.)
Why won't the Times tell us what was said in the various Khalidi testimonials? On that score, Ayers and Dohrn have always had characteristically noxious views on the Israeli/Palestinian dispute. And, true to form, they have always been quite open about them. There is no reason to believe those views have ever changed. Here, for example, is what they had to say in Prairie Fire, the Weather Underground's 1974 Communist manifesto (emphasis in original):
Palestinian independence is opposed with reactionary schemes by Jordan, completely opposed with military terror by Israel, and manipulated by the U.S. The U.S.-sponsored notion of stability and status-quo in the Mideast is an attempt to preserve U.S. imperialist control of oil, using zionist power as the cat's paw. The Mideast has become a world focus of struggles over oil resources and control of strategic sea and air routes. Yet the Palestinian struggle is at the heart of other conflicts in the Mideast. Only the Palestinians can determine the solution which reflects the aspirations of the Palestinian people. No "settlements" in the Mideast which exclude the Palestinians will resolve the conflict. Palestinian liberation will not be suppressed.
The U.S. people have been seriously deceived about the Palestinians and Israel. This calls for a campaign to educate and focus attention on the true situation: teach-ins, debates, and open clear support for Palestinian liberation; reading about the Palestinian movement The Disinherited by Fawaz Turki, Enemy of the Sun; opposing U.S. aid to Israel. Our silence or acceptance of pro-zionist policy is a form of complicity with U.S.-backed
aggression and terror, and a betrayal of internationalism.
SELF-DETERMINATION FOR THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE!
U.S. OUT OF THE MIDEAST!
END AID TO ISRAEL!
Barack Obama wouldn't possibly let something like that pass without a spirited defense of the Israel he tells us he so staunchly supports would he? I guess to answer that question, we'd have to know what was on the tape.
But who has time for such trifles? After all, isn't Diana Vreeland about to critique Sarah Palin's sartorial splendor?
National Review's Andrew C. McCarthy chairs the Foundation for the Defenseof Democracies's Center for Law & Counterterrorism and is the author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad (Encounter Books 2008 ).
National Review Online -
Interesting that Khalidi is close friends with Obama (as he has descrobed, they used to baby sit each others kids) and Khalidi is best friends with Ayers, but Barack just doesn't know Ayers.
More importanly, of course, are the goals of the Arab Action Network, and what was being said at this meeting.
As I have been describing for months, the key issue with Obama's friends and advisers, is not whether he is a terrorist. It is that ALL of his associates reflect a basic belief. That America is a force for evil, and that ALL the world's conflicts would be over if only the so called Palestinians were allowed to finish the job Hitler started.
Btw, for those that don't know, Khalidi's life work has been to try and prove the existence of a Palestinian peoplehood out of thin air. (And even he does not claim anything before the 20th century).
Perhaps more importantly, and this story below misses this point, Khalidi was at one time the Press Representative for the PLO, and Said, another of Obama's Columbia friends was a member of the PLO Revolutionary Council.
Anyway, the speeches at this meeting were dutifully violently anti American, and certainly anti Israeli, calling for the destruction of Israel.
But here's the rub. Apparently, the LA Times obtained a video of this event. They reported on it, but refuse to release the video.
Gee, is there media bias here?
I have read at least two dozen reports about this. The best on "The Gateway Pundit" and "Little Green Footballs". The latter is the blog that broke the stories about Reuters doctoring photos that led to several resignations at that news agency.
Here is the story from National Review about the cover up:
The L.A. Times Suppresses Obama's Khalidi Bash Tape
Obama, Ayers, and PLO supporters toast Edward Said's successor, but thep ress doesn't think it's quite as newsworthy as Sarah Palin's wardrobe.
By Andrew C. McCarthy
Let's try a thought experiment. Say John McCain attended a party at which known racists and terror mongers were in attendance. Say testimonials were given, including a glowing one by McCain for the benefit of the guest of honor ... who happened to be a top apologist for terrorists. Say McCain not only gave a speech but stood by, in tacit approval and solidarity, while other racists and terror mongers gave speeches that reeked of hatred for an
American ally and rationalizations of terror attacks.
Now let's say the Los Angeles Times obtained a videotape of the party.
Question: Is there any chance any chance the Times would not release the tape and publish front-page story after story about the gory details, with the usual accompanying chorus of sanctimony from the op-ed commentariat? Is there any chance, if the Times was the least bit reluctant about publishing (remember, we're pretending here), that the rest of the mainstream media
(y'know, the guys who drove Trent Lott out of his leadership position over a birthday-party toast) would not be screaming for the release of the tape?
Do we really have to ask?
So now, let's leave thought experiments and return to reality: Why is the Los Angeles Times sitting on a videotape of the 2003 farewell bash in Chicago at which Barack Obama lavished praise on the guest of honor, Rashid Khalidi, former mouthpiece for master terrorist Yasser Arafat?
At the time Khalidi, a PLO adviser turned University of Chicago professor, was headed east to Columbia. There he would take over the University's Middle East-studies program (which he has since maintained as a bubbling cauldron of anti-Semitism) and assume the professorship endowed in honor of Edward Sayyid, another notorious terror apologist.
The party featured encomiums by many of Khalidi's allies, colleagues, and friends, including Barack Obama, then an Illinois state senator, and Bill Ayers, the terrorist turned education professor. It was sponsored by the Arab American Action Network (AAAN), which had been founded by Khalidi and his wife, Mona, formerly a top English translator for Arafat's press agency.
Is there just a teeny-weenie chance that this was an evening of Israel-bashing Obama would find very difficult to explain? Could it be that the Times, a pillar of the Obamedia, is covering for its guy?
Gateway Pundit reports that the Times has the videotape but is suppressing it.
Back in April, the Times published a gentle story about the fete. Reporter Peter Wallsten avoided, for example, any mention of the inconvenient fact that the revelers included Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, Ayers's wife and fellow Weatherman terrorist. These self-professed revolutionary Leftists are friendly with both Obama and Khalidi indeed, researcher Stanley Kurtz has noted that Ayers and Khalidi were "best friends." (And small world! it
turns out that the Obamas are extremely close to the Khalidis, who have reportedly babysat the Obama children.)
Nor did the Times report the party was thrown by AAAN. Wallsten does tell us that the AAAN received grants from the Leftist Woods Fund when Obama was on its board but, besides understating the amount (it was $75,000, not $40,000), the Times mentions neither that Ayers was also on the Woods board at the time nor that AAAN is rabidly anti-Israel. (Though the organization regards Israel as illegitimate and has sought to justify Palestinian terrorism, Wallsten describes the AAAN as a social service group.)
Perhaps even more inconveniently, the Times also let slip that it had obtained a videotape of the party.
Wallsten's story is worth excerpting at length (italics are mine):
It was a celebration of Palestinian culture a night of music, dancing and a dash of politics. Local Arab Americans were bidding farewell to Rashid Khalidi, an internationally known scholar, critic of Israel and advocate for Palestinian rights, who was leaving town for a job in New York.
A special tribute came from Khalidi's friend and frequent dinner companion, the young state Sen. Barack Obama. Speaking to the crowd, Obama reminisced about meals prepared by Khalidi's wife, Mona, and conversations that had challenged his thinking.
His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been "consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases. . . . It's for that reason that I'm hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid's dinner table," but around "this entire world."...
[T]he warm embrace Obama gave to Khalidi, and words like those at the professor's going-away party, have left some Palestinian American leaders believing that Obama is more receptive to their viewpoint than he is willing to say.
Their belief is not drawn from Obama's speeches or campaign literature, but from comments that some say Obama made in private and from his association with the Palestinian American community in his hometown of Chicago, including his presence at events where anger at Israeli and U.S. Middle East policy was freely expressed.
At Khalidi's 2003 farewell party, for example, a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, "then you will never see a day of peace."
One speaker likened "Zionist settlers on the West Bank" to Osama bin Laden, saying both had been "blinded by ideology."
Obama adopted a different tone in his comments and called for finding common ground. But his presence at such events, as he worked to build a political base in Chicago, has led some Palestinian leaders to believe that he might deal differently with the Middle East than his opponents for the White House....
At Khalidi's going-away party in 2003, the scholar lavished praise on Obama, telling the mostly Palestinian American crowd that the state senator deserved their help in winning a U.S. Senate seat. "You will not have a better senator under any circumstances," Khalidi said.
The event was videotaped, and a copy of the tape was obtained by The Times.
Though Khalidi has seen little of Sen. Obama in recent years, Michelle Obama attended a party several months ago celebrating the marriage of the Khalidis' daughter.
In interviews with The Times, Khalidi declined to discuss specifics of private talks over the years with Obama. He did not begrudge his friend for being out of touch, or for focusing more these days on his support for Israel a stance that Khalidi calls a requirement to win a national election in the U.S., just as wooing Chicago's large Arab American community was important for winning local elections.
So why is the Times sitting on the videotape of the Khalidi festivities? Given Obama's (preposterous) claims that he didn't know Ayers that well and was unfamiliar with Ayers's views, why didn't the Times report that Ayers and Dohrn were at the bash? Was it not worth mentioning the remarkable coincidence that both Obama and Ayers the "education reform" allies who barely know each other except to the extent they together doled out tens
of millions of dollars to Leftist agitators, attacked the criminal justice system, and raved about each others books just happen to be intimate friends of the same anti-American Israel-basher? (Despite having watched the videotape, Wallsten told Gateway Pundit he 'did not know' whether Ayers was there.)
Why won't the Times tell us what was said in the various Khalidi testimonials? On that score, Ayers and Dohrn have always had characteristically noxious views on the Israeli/Palestinian dispute. And, true to form, they have always been quite open about them. There is no reason to believe those views have ever changed. Here, for example, is what they had to say in Prairie Fire, the Weather Underground's 1974 Communist manifesto (emphasis in original):
Palestinian independence is opposed with reactionary schemes by Jordan, completely opposed with military terror by Israel, and manipulated by the U.S. The U.S.-sponsored notion of stability and status-quo in the Mideast is an attempt to preserve U.S. imperialist control of oil, using zionist power as the cat's paw. The Mideast has become a world focus of struggles over oil resources and control of strategic sea and air routes. Yet the Palestinian struggle is at the heart of other conflicts in the Mideast. Only the Palestinians can determine the solution which reflects the aspirations of the Palestinian people. No "settlements" in the Mideast which exclude the Palestinians will resolve the conflict. Palestinian liberation will not be suppressed.
The U.S. people have been seriously deceived about the Palestinians and Israel. This calls for a campaign to educate and focus attention on the true situation: teach-ins, debates, and open clear support for Palestinian liberation; reading about the Palestinian movement The Disinherited by Fawaz Turki, Enemy of the Sun; opposing U.S. aid to Israel. Our silence or acceptance of pro-zionist policy is a form of complicity with U.S.-backed
aggression and terror, and a betrayal of internationalism.
SELF-DETERMINATION FOR THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE!
U.S. OUT OF THE MIDEAST!
END AID TO ISRAEL!
Barack Obama wouldn't possibly let something like that pass without a spirited defense of the Israel he tells us he so staunchly supports would he? I guess to answer that question, we'd have to know what was on the tape.
But who has time for such trifles? After all, isn't Diana Vreeland about to critique Sarah Palin's sartorial splendor?
National Review's Andrew C. McCarthy chairs the Foundation for the Defenseof Democracies's Center for Law & Counterterrorism and is the author of Willful Blindness: A Memoir of the Jihad (Encounter Books 2008 ).
National Review Online -
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Joe fall down... go "OOOPS"
So, it had to happen. The master of malapropism's that is Joe Biden, who tends to speak with his brain before his political filter sets in, admitted what those of us who have fear of Obama have been saying for a long time.
It's not surprising though, because only a few months ago Biden was calling Obama inexperienced, wrong, etc.
So what did he say? Well, he told an audience at a rally that due to Obama's inexperience in foreign policy, he is sure that the world will "test" him (note to Joe: testing Obama means putting us all in danger).
But that wasn't enough. He then told the Democratic audience that it was vital that they continue to back Obama after he makes the inevitable mistake in that test, due to his lack of experience (and might I add, notoriously bad judgment).
The funny thing is that Obama has likened his campaign to John F. Kennedy. Perhaps the worst foreign policy President of modern times.
It's an interesting comparison.
Kennedy also campaigned with the idea of meeting "without preconditions" with foreign leaders. As such, he set a meeting in 1961 with Nikita Khrushchev about Berlin.
As Kennedy himself said to Scotty Reston of the NY Times upon returning to the States the meetings were "the toughest of my life". He described himself as having been steamrolled by Khrushchev.
More tellingly, Khrushchev, as revealed in papers now declassified in Russia, said to his top aides that he simply could not believe that the American People had elected such a "pathetic" person as President.
He described the meeting as a bear facing a chipmunk.
Kennedy was taken aback by Khrushchev indifference to Kennedy's concerns about nuclear war and the possibility of 70 million deaths. Apparently he forgot that the Soviet leader had just come from a Russian revolution and war that left upwards of 50 million dead.
Hmm, does this sound like another apparatchik, blow hard leader in the world today?
This meeting led directly to erecting of the Berlin Wall, and worse, to the Cuban missile crisis.
What most Americans simply don't understand is the humiliation suffered by Kennedy and the US as a result of the crisis.
Kennedy fell hook line and sinker for Khrushchev's bluff and removed American missiles from Turkey AND guaranteed no interference in the Cuban Revolution.
Worse, as Kennedy discussed with his advisers, he needed a "shooting war" to demonstrate his strength and the only shooting war was in Southeast Asia. This was the impetus for his beginning the military buildup in Vietnam.
So, for those of you that don't think experience is important, well Joltin' Joe just told you why it is.
It's not surprising though, because only a few months ago Biden was calling Obama inexperienced, wrong, etc.
So what did he say? Well, he told an audience at a rally that due to Obama's inexperience in foreign policy, he is sure that the world will "test" him (note to Joe: testing Obama means putting us all in danger).
But that wasn't enough. He then told the Democratic audience that it was vital that they continue to back Obama after he makes the inevitable mistake in that test, due to his lack of experience (and might I add, notoriously bad judgment).
The funny thing is that Obama has likened his campaign to John F. Kennedy. Perhaps the worst foreign policy President of modern times.
It's an interesting comparison.
Kennedy also campaigned with the idea of meeting "without preconditions" with foreign leaders. As such, he set a meeting in 1961 with Nikita Khrushchev about Berlin.
As Kennedy himself said to Scotty Reston of the NY Times upon returning to the States the meetings were "the toughest of my life". He described himself as having been steamrolled by Khrushchev.
More tellingly, Khrushchev, as revealed in papers now declassified in Russia, said to his top aides that he simply could not believe that the American People had elected such a "pathetic" person as President.
He described the meeting as a bear facing a chipmunk.
Kennedy was taken aback by Khrushchev indifference to Kennedy's concerns about nuclear war and the possibility of 70 million deaths. Apparently he forgot that the Soviet leader had just come from a Russian revolution and war that left upwards of 50 million dead.
Hmm, does this sound like another apparatchik, blow hard leader in the world today?
This meeting led directly to erecting of the Berlin Wall, and worse, to the Cuban missile crisis.
What most Americans simply don't understand is the humiliation suffered by Kennedy and the US as a result of the crisis.
Kennedy fell hook line and sinker for Khrushchev's bluff and removed American missiles from Turkey AND guaranteed no interference in the Cuban Revolution.
Worse, as Kennedy discussed with his advisers, he needed a "shooting war" to demonstrate his strength and the only shooting war was in Southeast Asia. This was the impetus for his beginning the military buildup in Vietnam.
So, for those of you that don't think experience is important, well Joltin' Joe just told you why it is.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
"Just a guy in my neighborhood" Part I
In 1997, seven years before Obama's election to the Senate, William Ayers published a book entitled "AKind and Just Parent".
Guess who he chooses to highlite as one of his "neighbors" in Chicago's toney Hyde Park neighborhood?
Funny, he describes him as "author". At the time this book was published, Obama's fictional autobigoraphy had sold so poorly that it was out of print (sales estimated at 2000 copies at that time).
So Barack - he was just "some guy" in your neighborhood, but you found your way into his book?
Guess who he chooses to highlite as one of his "neighbors" in Chicago's toney Hyde Park neighborhood?
Funny, he describes him as "author". At the time this book was published, Obama's fictional autobigoraphy had sold so poorly that it was out of print (sales estimated at 2000 copies at that time).
So Barack - he was just "some guy" in your neighborhood, but you found your way into his book?
"Just a guy in my neighborhood" Part II
Hmm, and speaking of that, how is it that you wrote a book jacket blurb for that guy you didn't even know?
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Isn't ANYONE creeped out by this? Or at least a little suspicious?
I lay in bed sick today with the flu. Generally, when that happens, I turn on my "channels". History, National Geographic, Discovery, The Learning Channel, and Science Channel, etc. Not exactly high viewership numbers.
At each and every commercial break - yes, I counted, every one - I was bombarded by an Obama ad. I did not see a single McCain commercial.
But that's not really the issue.
His campaign announced this week that they claim that their contributions for the month of September total MORE THAN $100,000,000. That's more than one hundred million dollars.
That brings the total for the campaign for Obama to roughly $560 MILLION DOLLARS (through the end of September. We don't even know what October will claim)!!!
Does anyone REALLY believe this is from $10 internet contributions?
That is roughly $2 for every man woman and child in this country. Voters, non voters, democrats, republicans, infants, toddlers, children, seniors in homes, etc.
But here is the really creepy part.
Next week Obama has bought time on all four major networks. Not for a one or two minute commercial. But a prime time show.
Worse, THE OPENING PITCH OF THE WORLD SERIES IS BEING DELAYED TO AIR IT. A commercial. For an election. Not a state of the union address. Not a national emergency. A commercial.
Jeez, doesn't this creep any of you out? Let's just hold the coronation and cancel all future elections.
At each and every commercial break - yes, I counted, every one - I was bombarded by an Obama ad. I did not see a single McCain commercial.
But that's not really the issue.
His campaign announced this week that they claim that their contributions for the month of September total MORE THAN $100,000,000. That's more than one hundred million dollars.
That brings the total for the campaign for Obama to roughly $560 MILLION DOLLARS (through the end of September. We don't even know what October will claim)!!!
Does anyone REALLY believe this is from $10 internet contributions?
That is roughly $2 for every man woman and child in this country. Voters, non voters, democrats, republicans, infants, toddlers, children, seniors in homes, etc.
But here is the really creepy part.
Next week Obama has bought time on all four major networks. Not for a one or two minute commercial. But a prime time show.
Worse, THE OPENING PITCH OF THE WORLD SERIES IS BEING DELAYED TO AIR IT. A commercial. For an election. Not a state of the union address. Not a national emergency. A commercial.
Jeez, doesn't this creep any of you out? Let's just hold the coronation and cancel all future elections.
Thursday, October 16, 2008
The view from France, and Jesse....
Note the similar theme about those dastardly Jews controlling American policy as outlined in my previous posts...
THE O JESSE KNOWS
JACKSON ON OBAMA'S AMERICA
By AMIR TAHERI
EVIAN, FRANCE
PREPARE for a new America: That's the message that the Rev. Jesse Jackson conveyed to participants in the first World Policy Forum, held at this French lakeside resort last week. He promised "fundamental changes" in US foreign policy - saying America must "heal wounds" it has caused to other nations, revive its alliances and apologize for the "arrogance of the Bush administration." The most important change would occur in the Middle East, where "decades of putting Israel's interests first" would end. Jackson believes that, although "Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades" remain strong, they'll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House. "Obama is about change," Jackson told me in a wide-ranging conversation. "And the change that Obama promises is not limited to what we do in America itself. It is a change of the way America looks at the world and its place in it." Jackson warns that he isn't an Obama confidant or adviser, "just a supporter." But he adds that Obama has been "a neighbor or, better still, a member of the family." Jackson's son has been a close friend of Obama for years, and Jackson's daughter went to school with Obama's wife Michelle. "We helped him start his career," says Jackson. "And then we were always there to help him move ahead. He is the continuation of our struggle for justice not only for the black people but also for all those who have been wronged." Will Obama's election close the chapter of black grievances linked to memories of slavery? The reverend takes a deep breath and waits a long time before responding. "No, that chapter won't be closed," he says. "However, Obama's victory will be a huge step in the direction we have wanted America to take for decades." Jackson rejects any suggestion that Obama was influenced by Marxist ideas in his youth. "I see no evidence of that," he says. "Obama's thirst for justice and equality is rooted in his black culture." But is Obama - who's not a descendant of slaves - truly a typical American black? Jackson emphatically answers yes: "You don't need to be a descendant of slaves to experience the oppression, the suffocating injustice and the ugly racism that exists in our society," he says. "Obama experienced the same environment as all American blacks did. It was nonsense to suggest that he was somehow not black enough to feel the pain." Is Jackson worried about the "Bradley effect" - that people may be telling pollsters they favor the black candidate, but won't end up voting for him? "I don't think this is how things will turn out," he says. "We have a collapsing economy and a war that we have lost in Iraq. In Afghanistan, we face a resurgent Taliban. New threats are looming in Pakistan. Our liberties have been trampled under feet . . . Today, most Americans want change, and know that only Barack can deliver what they want. Young Americans are especially determined to make sure that Obama wins." e sees a broad public loss of confidence in the nation's institutions: "We have lost confidence in our president, our Congress, our banking system, our Wall Street and our legal system to protect our individual freedoms. . . I don't see how we could regain confidence in all those institutions without a radical change of direction." Jackson declines to be more concrete about possible policy changes. After all, he insists, he isn't part of Obama's policy team. Yet he clearly hopes that his views, reflecting the position of many Democrats, would be reflected in the policies of an Obama administration. On the economic front, he hopes for "major changes in our trading policy." "We cannot continue with the open-door policy," he says. "We need to protect our manufacturing industry against unfair competition that destroys American jobs and creates ill-paid jobs abroad." Would that mean an abrogation of the NAFTA treaty with Canada and Mexico? Jackson dismisses the question as "premature": "We could do a great deal without such dramatic action." His most surprising position concerns Iraq. He passionately denounces the toppling of Saddam Hussein as "an illegal and unjust act." But he's now sure that the United States "will have to remain in Iraq for a very long time." What of Obama's promise to withdraw by 2010? Jackson believes that position will have to evolve, reflecting "realities on the ground." "We should work with our allies in Iraq to consolidate democratic institutions there," he says. "We must help the people of Iraq decide and shape their future in accordance with their own culture and faith." On Iran, he strongly supports Obama's idea of opening a direct dialogue with the leadership in Tehran. "We've got to talk to tell them what we want and hear what they want," Jackson says. "Nothing is gained by not talking to others." Would that mean ignoring the four UN Security Council resolutions that demand an end to Iran's uranium-enrichment program? Jackson says direct talks wouldn't start without preparations. "Barack wants an aggressive and dynamic diplomacy," he says. "He also wants adequate preparatory work. We must enter the talks after the ground has been prepared," he says. Jackson is especially critical of President Bush's approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict. "Bush was so afraid of a snafu and of upsetting Israel that he gave the whole thing a miss," Jackson says. "Barack will change that," because, as long as the Palestinians haven't seen justice, the Middle East will "remain a source of danger to us all." "Barack is determined to repair our relations with the world of Islam and Muslims," Jackson says. "Thanks to his background and ecumenical approach, he knows how Muslims feel while remaining committed to his own faith."
Amir Taheri's next book, "The Persian Night: Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution," is due out next month.
THE O JESSE KNOWS
JACKSON ON OBAMA'S AMERICA
By AMIR TAHERI
EVIAN, FRANCE
PREPARE for a new America: That's the message that the Rev. Jesse Jackson conveyed to participants in the first World Policy Forum, held at this French lakeside resort last week. He promised "fundamental changes" in US foreign policy - saying America must "heal wounds" it has caused to other nations, revive its alliances and apologize for the "arrogance of the Bush administration." The most important change would occur in the Middle East, where "decades of putting Israel's interests first" would end. Jackson believes that, although "Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades" remain strong, they'll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House. "Obama is about change," Jackson told me in a wide-ranging conversation. "And the change that Obama promises is not limited to what we do in America itself. It is a change of the way America looks at the world and its place in it." Jackson warns that he isn't an Obama confidant or adviser, "just a supporter." But he adds that Obama has been "a neighbor or, better still, a member of the family." Jackson's son has been a close friend of Obama for years, and Jackson's daughter went to school with Obama's wife Michelle. "We helped him start his career," says Jackson. "And then we were always there to help him move ahead. He is the continuation of our struggle for justice not only for the black people but also for all those who have been wronged." Will Obama's election close the chapter of black grievances linked to memories of slavery? The reverend takes a deep breath and waits a long time before responding. "No, that chapter won't be closed," he says. "However, Obama's victory will be a huge step in the direction we have wanted America to take for decades." Jackson rejects any suggestion that Obama was influenced by Marxist ideas in his youth. "I see no evidence of that," he says. "Obama's thirst for justice and equality is rooted in his black culture." But is Obama - who's not a descendant of slaves - truly a typical American black? Jackson emphatically answers yes: "You don't need to be a descendant of slaves to experience the oppression, the suffocating injustice and the ugly racism that exists in our society," he says. "Obama experienced the same environment as all American blacks did. It was nonsense to suggest that he was somehow not black enough to feel the pain." Is Jackson worried about the "Bradley effect" - that people may be telling pollsters they favor the black candidate, but won't end up voting for him? "I don't think this is how things will turn out," he says. "We have a collapsing economy and a war that we have lost in Iraq. In Afghanistan, we face a resurgent Taliban. New threats are looming in Pakistan. Our liberties have been trampled under feet . . . Today, most Americans want change, and know that only Barack can deliver what they want. Young Americans are especially determined to make sure that Obama wins." e sees a broad public loss of confidence in the nation's institutions: "We have lost confidence in our president, our Congress, our banking system, our Wall Street and our legal system to protect our individual freedoms. . . I don't see how we could regain confidence in all those institutions without a radical change of direction." Jackson declines to be more concrete about possible policy changes. After all, he insists, he isn't part of Obama's policy team. Yet he clearly hopes that his views, reflecting the position of many Democrats, would be reflected in the policies of an Obama administration. On the economic front, he hopes for "major changes in our trading policy." "We cannot continue with the open-door policy," he says. "We need to protect our manufacturing industry against unfair competition that destroys American jobs and creates ill-paid jobs abroad." Would that mean an abrogation of the NAFTA treaty with Canada and Mexico? Jackson dismisses the question as "premature": "We could do a great deal without such dramatic action." His most surprising position concerns Iraq. He passionately denounces the toppling of Saddam Hussein as "an illegal and unjust act." But he's now sure that the United States "will have to remain in Iraq for a very long time." What of Obama's promise to withdraw by 2010? Jackson believes that position will have to evolve, reflecting "realities on the ground." "We should work with our allies in Iraq to consolidate democratic institutions there," he says. "We must help the people of Iraq decide and shape their future in accordance with their own culture and faith." On Iran, he strongly supports Obama's idea of opening a direct dialogue with the leadership in Tehran. "We've got to talk to tell them what we want and hear what they want," Jackson says. "Nothing is gained by not talking to others." Would that mean ignoring the four UN Security Council resolutions that demand an end to Iran's uranium-enrichment program? Jackson says direct talks wouldn't start without preparations. "Barack wants an aggressive and dynamic diplomacy," he says. "He also wants adequate preparatory work. We must enter the talks after the ground has been prepared," he says. Jackson is especially critical of President Bush's approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict. "Bush was so afraid of a snafu and of upsetting Israel that he gave the whole thing a miss," Jackson says. "Barack will change that," because, as long as the Palestinians haven't seen justice, the Middle East will "remain a source of danger to us all." "Barack is determined to repair our relations with the world of Islam and Muslims," Jackson says. "Thanks to his background and ecumenical approach, he knows how Muslims feel while remaining committed to his own faith."
Amir Taheri's next book, "The Persian Night: Iran Under the Khomeinist Revolution," is due out next month.
What's the real issue?
What has gotten lost in the ridiculous debate about William Ayers, and his terrorist past, is that it is not those acts and Obama's lies about his relationship with Ayers that are ultimately the most important thing to consider. Although, btw, we might update Obama that the events were not when he was 8, as they mostly took place in the early seventies. I was 10 at the time and Obama is 2 years older than I. Funny, but I knew of the weatherman, even at that age as they were on the news constantly.
Ayers is simply a representation of 2 other issues. The first and less "global" issue, is Obama's continued lies about his relationship with him, how much time he spent with him, what that board did, and where it sent the money, etc. etc.
Why is THAT important? Because it is the same thing he has done with all the controversial figures in his past. From Reverend Wright, Tony Rezko, the mysterious "Fred" from his autobiography that turned out to be the Chairman of the American Communist party; to Rashid Khalidi, the press representative of the PLO; to Edward Said, member of the PLO Revolutionary Council; to Robert Malley and his secret meetings with Hamas; to Samantha Powell and her calling Hillary a monster and than advocating sending American troops to fight Israel; to his secret conversations with Canadian officials telling them "don't worry, I'm lying about my stance on NAFTA; and on and on....
What is it that he does? He immediately declares them not important, once they've been caught, creates the fiction that he is not close to them, and then finds someone "more mainstream" that is simply more subtle in representing those views.
Of course, when his campaign co chair Tony McPeak said that American Politics were controlled by "certain voters in NY and Miami", no one batted an eye because that type of anti semitism is still winked at.
For example, Tony Lake, Susan Rice, and my favorite Columbia Professor (yes, another guy that Obama "didn't" meet there, wink wink. Amazing how all these Columbia people we both knew of keep turning up in his life but he really doesn't know them)Zbigniew Brzezinski, have all ascribed to Jimmy Carter's The Jews control the world theory presented in his most recent book. Specifically defending that piece of trash that caused virtually his entire staff at the Carter Center to quit in disgust.
But what is the BIG picture here? Simply this. The one absolute common strain that all of these people hold is that America (and it's tool, Israel) is to blame for all the worlds ills. They view America as an imperialist, hegemonic monstrosity, reigning terror and totalitarianism on the world.
This is where the Democratic party has been wrong since Hubert Humphrey. Even JFK, who bungled every foreign policy issue he had, got this one right. As did Johnson. But somewhere, in the guilt over the social issues of the '60's and '70's the Democrats just decided that we must be a force for evil. That's why the bad guys hate us. Not jealousy, or just that the bad guys are bad. It has to be our inherent villianry.
Equally, they also, as evidenced by their belief in the modern retelling of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" written by the fully Arab funded ex President, believe that it is Israel that is the cause of all of our problems. That the single answer to ending Islamic terrorism is to end the conflict between Israel and the so called Palestinians. Never mind Chechnya, Sudan, Chad, The Asian subcontinent, Turkey, etc. etc..
If you ascribe to that theory, than you are a natural supporter. I just hope you can live with the thinly veiled anti-semitism that goes with it.
Ayers is simply a representation of 2 other issues. The first and less "global" issue, is Obama's continued lies about his relationship with him, how much time he spent with him, what that board did, and where it sent the money, etc. etc.
Why is THAT important? Because it is the same thing he has done with all the controversial figures in his past. From Reverend Wright, Tony Rezko, the mysterious "Fred" from his autobiography that turned out to be the Chairman of the American Communist party; to Rashid Khalidi, the press representative of the PLO; to Edward Said, member of the PLO Revolutionary Council; to Robert Malley and his secret meetings with Hamas; to Samantha Powell and her calling Hillary a monster and than advocating sending American troops to fight Israel; to his secret conversations with Canadian officials telling them "don't worry, I'm lying about my stance on NAFTA; and on and on....
What is it that he does? He immediately declares them not important, once they've been caught, creates the fiction that he is not close to them, and then finds someone "more mainstream" that is simply more subtle in representing those views.
Of course, when his campaign co chair Tony McPeak said that American Politics were controlled by "certain voters in NY and Miami", no one batted an eye because that type of anti semitism is still winked at.
For example, Tony Lake, Susan Rice, and my favorite Columbia Professor (yes, another guy that Obama "didn't" meet there, wink wink. Amazing how all these Columbia people we both knew of keep turning up in his life but he really doesn't know them)Zbigniew Brzezinski, have all ascribed to Jimmy Carter's The Jews control the world theory presented in his most recent book. Specifically defending that piece of trash that caused virtually his entire staff at the Carter Center to quit in disgust.
But what is the BIG picture here? Simply this. The one absolute common strain that all of these people hold is that America (and it's tool, Israel) is to blame for all the worlds ills. They view America as an imperialist, hegemonic monstrosity, reigning terror and totalitarianism on the world.
This is where the Democratic party has been wrong since Hubert Humphrey. Even JFK, who bungled every foreign policy issue he had, got this one right. As did Johnson. But somewhere, in the guilt over the social issues of the '60's and '70's the Democrats just decided that we must be a force for evil. That's why the bad guys hate us. Not jealousy, or just that the bad guys are bad. It has to be our inherent villianry.
Equally, they also, as evidenced by their belief in the modern retelling of the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion" written by the fully Arab funded ex President, believe that it is Israel that is the cause of all of our problems. That the single answer to ending Islamic terrorism is to end the conflict between Israel and the so called Palestinians. Never mind Chechnya, Sudan, Chad, The Asian subcontinent, Turkey, etc. etc..
If you ascribe to that theory, than you are a natural supporter. I just hope you can live with the thinly veiled anti-semitism that goes with it.
Monday, October 13, 2008
In the interest of truth...
I make no assertions that Barack Obama ever actively condoned what Bill Ayers and his fellow weatherman did in the 1960's and '70's. However, I do believe he is fundamentally lying about his relationship with him. As I have indicated in other posts, Ayers was a well known figure on the Columbia Campus when both Barack and I attended in the early 1980's, so even if he didn't meet him then (which I also doubt as they were both friends of, and students of Edward Said, at this time) he certainly would have been aware of him. That fact alone, by the way, should have made him reticent to serve on the Annenberg board, but that is neither here nor there for this post.
However, even if that were not true, when they met years later in Chicago, it is unlikely, given the small Columbia community (Columbia is the smallest school in the Ivy League.) there would not have been the natural mutual alumni "Hey, you went to Columbia too?" So, to describe him as "some guy in my neighborhood" strains all credibility. Oh, and not to mention their frequent appearances at events together at the U of Chicago for their other friend Rashid Khalid, but again, I digress.
That is not the topic of this post.
Bill Ayers and what he said, is. I have seen the Barackophiles running to tell us all that Ayers never really said those things in the NY Times. That's not what he meant.
Well, it's simple. Go back and read the entire article published shockingly, on 9/11. Better yet, here it is for you. Unedited.
No Regrets for a Love Of Explosives; In a Memoir of Sorts, a War Protester Talks of Life With the Weathermen
By DINITIA SMITH
Published: September 11, 2001
''I don't regret setting bombs,'' Bill Ayers said. ''I feel we didn't do enough.'' Mr. Ayers, who spent the 1970's as a fugitive in the Weather Underground, was sitting in the kitchen of his big turn-of-the-19th-century stone house in the Hyde Park district of Chicago. The long curly locks in his Wanted poster are shorn, though he wears earrings. He still has tattooed on his neck the rainbow-and-lightning Weathermen logo that appeared on letters taking responsibility for bombings. And he still has the ebullient, ingratiating manner, the apparently intense interest in other people, that made him a charismatic figure in the radical student movement.
Now he has written a book, ''Fugitive Days'' (Beacon Press, September). Mr. Ayers, who is 56, calls it a memoir, somewhat coyly perhaps, since he also says some of it is fiction. He writes that he participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971, the Pentagon in 1972. But Mr. Ayers also seems to want to have it both ways, taking responsibility for daring acts in his youth, then deflecting it.
''Is this, then, the truth?,'' he writes. ''Not exactly. Although it feels entirely honest to me.''
But why would someone want to read a memoir parts of which are admittedly not true? Mr. Ayers was asked.
''Obviously, the point is it's a reflection on memory,'' he answered. ''It's true as I remember it.''
Mr. Ayers is probably safe from prosecution anyway. A spokeswoman for the Justice Department said there was a five-year statute of limitations on Federal crimes except in cases of murder or when a person has been indicted.
Mr. Ayers, who in 1970 was said to have summed up the Weatherman philosophy as: ''Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at,'' is today distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. And he says he doesn't actually remember suggesting that rich people be killed or that people kill their parents, but ''it's been quoted so many times I'm beginning to think I did,'' he said. ''It was a joke about the distribution of wealth.''
He went underground in 1970, after his girlfriend, Diana Oughton, and two other people were killed when bombs they were making exploded in a Greenwich Village town house. With him in the Weather Underground was Bernardine Dohrn, who was put on the F.B.I.'s 10 Most Wanted List. J. Edgar Hoover called her ''the most dangerous woman in America'' and ''la Pasionara of the Lunatic Left.'' Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn later married.
In his book Mr. Ayers describes the Weathermen descending into a ''whirlpool of violence.''
''Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon,'' he writes. But then comes a disclaimer: ''Even though I didn't actually bomb the Pentagon -- we bombed it, in the sense that Weathermen organized it and claimed it.'' He goes on to provide details about the manufacture of the bomb and how a woman he calls Anna placed the bomb in a restroom. No one was killed or injured, though damage was extensive.
Between 1970 and 1974 the Weathermen took responsibility for 12 bombings, Mr. Ayers writes, and also helped spring Timothy Leary (sentenced on marijuana charges) from jail.
Today, Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn, 59, who is director of the Legal Clinic's Children and Family Justice Center of Northwestern University, seem like typical baby boomers, caring for aging parents, suffering the empty-nest syndrome. Their son, Malik, 21, is at the University of California, San Diego; Zayd, 24, teaches at Boston University. They have also brought up Chesa Boudin, 21, the son of David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin, who are serving prison terms for a 1981 robbery of a Brinks truck in Rockland County, N.Y., that left four people dead. Last month, Ms. Boudin's application for parole was rejected.
So, would Mr. Ayers do it all again, he is asked? ''I don't want to discount the possibility,'' he said.
''I don't think you can understand a single thing we did without understanding the violence of the Vietnam War,'' he said, and the fact that ''the enduring scar of racism was fully in flower.'' Mr. Ayers pointed to Bob Kerrey, former Democratic Senator from Nebraska, who has admitted leading a raid in 1969 in which Vietnamese women and children were killed. ''He committed an act of terrorism,'' Mr. Ayers said. ''I didn't kill innocent people.''
Mr. Ayers has always been known as a ''rich kid radical.'' His father, Thomas, now 86, was chairman and chief executive officer of Commonwealth Edison of Chicago, chairman of Northwestern University and of the Chicago Symphony. When someone mentions his father's prominence, Mr. Ayers is quick to say that his father did not become wealthy until the son was a teenager. He says that he got some of his interest in social activism from his father. He notes that his father promoted racial equality in Chicago and was acceptable as a mediator to Mayor Richard Daley and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1966 when King marched in Cicero, Ill., to protest housing segregation.
All in all, Mr. Ayers had ''a golden childhood,'' he said, though he did have a love affair with explosives. On July 4, he writes, ''my brothers and I loved everything about the wild displays of noise and color, the flares, the surprising candle bombs, but we trembled mostly for the Big Ones, the loud concussions.''
The love affair seems to have continued into adulthood. Even today, he finds ''a certain eloquence to bombs, a poetry and a pattern from a safe distance,'' he writes.
He attended Lake Forest Academy in Lake Forest, Ill., then the University of Michigan but dropped out to join Students for a Democratic Society.
In 1967 he met Ms. Dohrn in Ann Arbor, Mich. She had a law degree from the University of Chicago and was a magnetic speaker who often wore thigh-high boots and miniskirts. In 1969, after the Manson family murders in Beverly Hills, Ms. Dohrn told an S.D.S. audience: ''Dig it! Manson killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they shoved a fork into a victim's stomach.''
In Chicago recently, Ms. Dohrn said of her remarks: ''It was a joke. We were mocking violence in America. Even in my most inflamed moment I never supported a racist mass murderer.''
Ms. Dohrn, Mr. Ayers and others eventually broke with S.D.S. to form the more radical Weathermen, and in 1969 Ms. Dohrn was arrested and charged with resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer during the Days of Rage protests against the trial of the Chicago Eight -- antiwar militants accused of conspiracy to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
In 1970 came the town house explosion in Greenwich Village. Ms. Dohrn failed to appear in court in the Days of Rage case, and she and Mr. Ayers went underground, though there were no charges against Mr. Ayers. Later that spring the couple were indicted along with others in Federal Court for crossing state lines to incite a riot during the Days of Rage, and following that for ''conspiracy to bomb police stations and government buildings.'' Those charges were dropped in 1974 because of prosecutorial misconduct, including illegal surveillance.
During his fugitive years, Mr. Ayers said, he lived in 15 states, taking names of dead babies in cemeteries who were born in the same year as he. He describes the typical safe house: there were usually books by Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh, and Che Guevara's picture in the bedroom; fermented Vietnamese fish sauce in the refrigerator, and live sourdough starter donated by a Native American that was reputed to have passed from hand to hand over a century.
He also writes about the Weathermen's sexual experimentation as they tried to ''smash monogamy.'' The Weathermen were ''an army of lovers,'' he says, and describes having had different sexual partners, including his best male friend.
''Fugitive Days'' does have moments of self-mockery, for instance when Mr. Ayers describes watching ''Underground,'' Emile De Antonio's 1976 documentary about the Weathermen. He was ''embarrassed by the arrogance, the solipsism, the absolute certainty that we and we alone knew the way,'' he writes. ''The rigidity and the narcissism.''
In the mid-1970's the Weathermen began quarreling. One faction, including Ms. Boudin, wanted to join the Black Liberation Army. Others, including Ms. Dohrn and Mr. Ayers, favored surrendering. Ms. Boudin and Ms. Dohrn had had an intense friendship but broke apart. Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn were purged from the group.
Ms. Dohrn and Mr. Ayers had a son, Zayd, in 1977. After the birth of Malik, in 1980, they decided to surface. Ms. Dohrn pleaded guilty to the original Days of Rage charge, received three years probation and was fined $1,500. The Federal charges against Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn had already been dropped.
Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn tried to persuade Ms. Boudin to surrender because she was pregnant. But she refused, and went on to participate in the Brink's robbery. When she was arrested, Ms. Dohrn and Mr. Ayers volunteered to care for Chesa, then 14 months old, and became his legal guardians.
A few months later Ms. Dohrn was called to testify about the robbery. Ms. Dohrn had not seen Ms. Boudin for a year, she said, and knew nothing of it. Ms. Dohrn was asked to give a handwriting sample, and refused, she said, because the F.B.I. already had one in its possession. ''I felt grand juries were illegal and coercive,'' she said. For refusing to testify, she was jailed for seven months, and she and Mr. Ayers married during a furlough.
Once again, Chesa was without a mother. ''It was one of the hardest things I did,'' said Ms. Dohrn of going to jail.
In the interview, Mr. Ayers called Chesa ''a very damaged kid.'' ''He had real serious emotional problems,'' he said. But after extensive therapy, ''became a brilliant and wonderful human being.'' .
After the couple surfaced, Ms. Dohrn tried to practice law, taking the bar exam in New York. But she was turned down by the Bar Association's character committee because of her political activities.
Ms. Dohrn said she was aware of the contradictions between her radical past and the comforts of her present existence. ''This is where we raised our kids and are taking care of our aging parents,'' she said. ''We could live much more simply, and well we might.''
And as for settling into marriage after efforts to smash monogamy, Ms. Dohrn said, ''You're always trying to balance your understanding of who you are and what you need, and your longing and imaginings of freedom.''
''Happily for me, Billy keeps me laughing, he keeps me growing,'' she said.
Mr. Ayers said he had some of the same conflicts about marriage. ''We have to learn how to be committed,'' he said, ''and hold out the possibility of endless reinventions.''
As Mr. Ayers mellows into middle age, he finds himself thinking about truth and reconciliation, he said. He would like to see a Truth and Reconciliation Commission about Vietnam, he said, like South Africa's. He can imagine Mr. Kerrey and Ms. Boudin taking part.
And if there were another Vietnam, he is asked, would he participate again in the Weathermen bombings?
By way of an answer, Mr. Ayers quoted from ''The Cure at Troy,'' Seamus Heaney's retelling of Sophocles' ''Philoctetes: " " 'Human beings suffer,/ They torture one another./ They get hurt and get hard.' ''
He continued to recite:
History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
Thinking back on his life , Mr. Ayers said, ''I was a child of privilege and I woke up to a world on fire. And hope and history rhymed.''
However, even if that were not true, when they met years later in Chicago, it is unlikely, given the small Columbia community (Columbia is the smallest school in the Ivy League.) there would not have been the natural mutual alumni "Hey, you went to Columbia too?" So, to describe him as "some guy in my neighborhood" strains all credibility. Oh, and not to mention their frequent appearances at events together at the U of Chicago for their other friend Rashid Khalid, but again, I digress.
That is not the topic of this post.
Bill Ayers and what he said, is. I have seen the Barackophiles running to tell us all that Ayers never really said those things in the NY Times. That's not what he meant.
Well, it's simple. Go back and read the entire article published shockingly, on 9/11. Better yet, here it is for you. Unedited.
By DINITIA SMITH
Published: September 11, 2001
''I don't regret setting bombs,'' Bill Ayers said. ''I feel we didn't do enough.'' Mr. Ayers, who spent the 1970's as a fugitive in the Weather Underground, was sitting in the kitchen of his big turn-of-the-19th-century stone house in the Hyde Park district of Chicago. The long curly locks in his Wanted poster are shorn, though he wears earrings. He still has tattooed on his neck the rainbow-and-lightning Weathermen logo that appeared on letters taking responsibility for bombings. And he still has the ebullient, ingratiating manner, the apparently intense interest in other people, that made him a charismatic figure in the radical student movement.
Now he has written a book, ''Fugitive Days'' (Beacon Press, September). Mr. Ayers, who is 56, calls it a memoir, somewhat coyly perhaps, since he also says some of it is fiction. He writes that he participated in the bombings of New York City Police Headquarters in 1970, of the Capitol building in 1971, the Pentagon in 1972. But Mr. Ayers also seems to want to have it both ways, taking responsibility for daring acts in his youth, then deflecting it.
''Is this, then, the truth?,'' he writes. ''Not exactly. Although it feels entirely honest to me.''
But why would someone want to read a memoir parts of which are admittedly not true? Mr. Ayers was asked.
''Obviously, the point is it's a reflection on memory,'' he answered. ''It's true as I remember it.''
Mr. Ayers is probably safe from prosecution anyway. A spokeswoman for the Justice Department said there was a five-year statute of limitations on Federal crimes except in cases of murder or when a person has been indicted.
Mr. Ayers, who in 1970 was said to have summed up the Weatherman philosophy as: ''Kill all the rich people. Break up their cars and apartments. Bring the revolution home, kill your parents, that's where it's really at,'' is today distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois at Chicago. And he says he doesn't actually remember suggesting that rich people be killed or that people kill their parents, but ''it's been quoted so many times I'm beginning to think I did,'' he said. ''It was a joke about the distribution of wealth.''
He went underground in 1970, after his girlfriend, Diana Oughton, and two other people were killed when bombs they were making exploded in a Greenwich Village town house. With him in the Weather Underground was Bernardine Dohrn, who was put on the F.B.I.'s 10 Most Wanted List. J. Edgar Hoover called her ''the most dangerous woman in America'' and ''la Pasionara of the Lunatic Left.'' Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn later married.
In his book Mr. Ayers describes the Weathermen descending into a ''whirlpool of violence.''
''Everything was absolutely ideal on the day I bombed the Pentagon,'' he writes. But then comes a disclaimer: ''Even though I didn't actually bomb the Pentagon -- we bombed it, in the sense that Weathermen organized it and claimed it.'' He goes on to provide details about the manufacture of the bomb and how a woman he calls Anna placed the bomb in a restroom. No one was killed or injured, though damage was extensive.
Between 1970 and 1974 the Weathermen took responsibility for 12 bombings, Mr. Ayers writes, and also helped spring Timothy Leary (sentenced on marijuana charges) from jail.
Today, Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn, 59, who is director of the Legal Clinic's Children and Family Justice Center of Northwestern University, seem like typical baby boomers, caring for aging parents, suffering the empty-nest syndrome. Their son, Malik, 21, is at the University of California, San Diego; Zayd, 24, teaches at Boston University. They have also brought up Chesa Boudin, 21, the son of David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin, who are serving prison terms for a 1981 robbery of a Brinks truck in Rockland County, N.Y., that left four people dead. Last month, Ms. Boudin's application for parole was rejected.
So, would Mr. Ayers do it all again, he is asked? ''I don't want to discount the possibility,'' he said.
''I don't think you can understand a single thing we did without understanding the violence of the Vietnam War,'' he said, and the fact that ''the enduring scar of racism was fully in flower.'' Mr. Ayers pointed to Bob Kerrey, former Democratic Senator from Nebraska, who has admitted leading a raid in 1969 in which Vietnamese women and children were killed. ''He committed an act of terrorism,'' Mr. Ayers said. ''I didn't kill innocent people.''
Mr. Ayers has always been known as a ''rich kid radical.'' His father, Thomas, now 86, was chairman and chief executive officer of Commonwealth Edison of Chicago, chairman of Northwestern University and of the Chicago Symphony. When someone mentions his father's prominence, Mr. Ayers is quick to say that his father did not become wealthy until the son was a teenager. He says that he got some of his interest in social activism from his father. He notes that his father promoted racial equality in Chicago and was acceptable as a mediator to Mayor Richard Daley and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1966 when King marched in Cicero, Ill., to protest housing segregation.
All in all, Mr. Ayers had ''a golden childhood,'' he said, though he did have a love affair with explosives. On July 4, he writes, ''my brothers and I loved everything about the wild displays of noise and color, the flares, the surprising candle bombs, but we trembled mostly for the Big Ones, the loud concussions.''
The love affair seems to have continued into adulthood. Even today, he finds ''a certain eloquence to bombs, a poetry and a pattern from a safe distance,'' he writes.
He attended Lake Forest Academy in Lake Forest, Ill., then the University of Michigan but dropped out to join Students for a Democratic Society.
In 1967 he met Ms. Dohrn in Ann Arbor, Mich. She had a law degree from the University of Chicago and was a magnetic speaker who often wore thigh-high boots and miniskirts. In 1969, after the Manson family murders in Beverly Hills, Ms. Dohrn told an S.D.S. audience: ''Dig it! Manson killed those pigs, then they ate dinner in the same room with them, then they shoved a fork into a victim's stomach.''
In Chicago recently, Ms. Dohrn said of her remarks: ''It was a joke. We were mocking violence in America. Even in my most inflamed moment I never supported a racist mass murderer.''
Ms. Dohrn, Mr. Ayers and others eventually broke with S.D.S. to form the more radical Weathermen, and in 1969 Ms. Dohrn was arrested and charged with resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer during the Days of Rage protests against the trial of the Chicago Eight -- antiwar militants accused of conspiracy to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
In 1970 came the town house explosion in Greenwich Village. Ms. Dohrn failed to appear in court in the Days of Rage case, and she and Mr. Ayers went underground, though there were no charges against Mr. Ayers. Later that spring the couple were indicted along with others in Federal Court for crossing state lines to incite a riot during the Days of Rage, and following that for ''conspiracy to bomb police stations and government buildings.'' Those charges were dropped in 1974 because of prosecutorial misconduct, including illegal surveillance.
During his fugitive years, Mr. Ayers said, he lived in 15 states, taking names of dead babies in cemeteries who were born in the same year as he. He describes the typical safe house: there were usually books by Malcolm X and Ho Chi Minh, and Che Guevara's picture in the bedroom; fermented Vietnamese fish sauce in the refrigerator, and live sourdough starter donated by a Native American that was reputed to have passed from hand to hand over a century.
He also writes about the Weathermen's sexual experimentation as they tried to ''smash monogamy.'' The Weathermen were ''an army of lovers,'' he says, and describes having had different sexual partners, including his best male friend.
''Fugitive Days'' does have moments of self-mockery, for instance when Mr. Ayers describes watching ''Underground,'' Emile De Antonio's 1976 documentary about the Weathermen. He was ''embarrassed by the arrogance, the solipsism, the absolute certainty that we and we alone knew the way,'' he writes. ''The rigidity and the narcissism.''
In the mid-1970's the Weathermen began quarreling. One faction, including Ms. Boudin, wanted to join the Black Liberation Army. Others, including Ms. Dohrn and Mr. Ayers, favored surrendering. Ms. Boudin and Ms. Dohrn had had an intense friendship but broke apart. Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn were purged from the group.
Ms. Dohrn and Mr. Ayers had a son, Zayd, in 1977. After the birth of Malik, in 1980, they decided to surface. Ms. Dohrn pleaded guilty to the original Days of Rage charge, received three years probation and was fined $1,500. The Federal charges against Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn had already been dropped.
Mr. Ayers and Ms. Dohrn tried to persuade Ms. Boudin to surrender because she was pregnant. But she refused, and went on to participate in the Brink's robbery. When she was arrested, Ms. Dohrn and Mr. Ayers volunteered to care for Chesa, then 14 months old, and became his legal guardians.
A few months later Ms. Dohrn was called to testify about the robbery. Ms. Dohrn had not seen Ms. Boudin for a year, she said, and knew nothing of it. Ms. Dohrn was asked to give a handwriting sample, and refused, she said, because the F.B.I. already had one in its possession. ''I felt grand juries were illegal and coercive,'' she said. For refusing to testify, she was jailed for seven months, and she and Mr. Ayers married during a furlough.
Once again, Chesa was without a mother. ''It was one of the hardest things I did,'' said Ms. Dohrn of going to jail.
In the interview, Mr. Ayers called Chesa ''a very damaged kid.'' ''He had real serious emotional problems,'' he said. But after extensive therapy, ''became a brilliant and wonderful human being.'' .
After the couple surfaced, Ms. Dohrn tried to practice law, taking the bar exam in New York. But she was turned down by the Bar Association's character committee because of her political activities.
Ms. Dohrn said she was aware of the contradictions between her radical past and the comforts of her present existence. ''This is where we raised our kids and are taking care of our aging parents,'' she said. ''We could live much more simply, and well we might.''
And as for settling into marriage after efforts to smash monogamy, Ms. Dohrn said, ''You're always trying to balance your understanding of who you are and what you need, and your longing and imaginings of freedom.''
''Happily for me, Billy keeps me laughing, he keeps me growing,'' she said.
Mr. Ayers said he had some of the same conflicts about marriage. ''We have to learn how to be committed,'' he said, ''and hold out the possibility of endless reinventions.''
As Mr. Ayers mellows into middle age, he finds himself thinking about truth and reconciliation, he said. He would like to see a Truth and Reconciliation Commission about Vietnam, he said, like South Africa's. He can imagine Mr. Kerrey and Ms. Boudin taking part.
And if there were another Vietnam, he is asked, would he participate again in the Weathermen bombings?
By way of an answer, Mr. Ayers quoted from ''The Cure at Troy,'' Seamus Heaney's retelling of Sophocles' ''Philoctetes: " " 'Human beings suffer,/ They torture one another./ They get hurt and get hard.' ''
He continued to recite:
History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave.
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed-for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
Thinking back on his life , Mr. Ayers said, ''I was a child of privilege and I woke up to a world on fire. And hope and history rhymed.''
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