Russians refuse To Shake Obama's Hand

Apparently the Chosen One's buttkissery did not result in a 'reset' with the Russians after all, as the video shows the Russians snubbing Obama as goes into his usual bowin' and scrapin' act and tries to shake their hands!

Needless to say, you won't see this on CNN, the Alphabet networks, or any of the other outlets of our state run media.

Ordinarily, as an American I'd take this as an insult. But considering how Obama behaved in Moscow, I can't really blame the Russians for having contempt for him.

As a matter of fact, I have a few reasons why I wouldn't particularly want to shake hands with him myself.

But you can't say I didn't give him a chance.

(hat tip to Jim and Desert Conservative)

How Obama Talks To Christians Versus How He Speaks to Muslims

Anne Bayefsky of took careful note of the difference in tone between how Obama pandered to the Muslim World in his Cairo speech and the virtual tongue lashing he administered during his speech in Ghana, a predominatly Christian country:

Speaking in Ghana on Saturday President Obama lectured Africans on local repression, corruption, brutality, good governance and accountability. The startling contrast to his June speech in Cairo was revealing. Stroking Muslim and Arab nations has become the hallmark of Obama's foreign policy.

In Egypt, he chose not to utter the words "terrorism" or "genocide." In Egypt, there was nothing "brutal" he could conjure up, no "corruption" and no "repression".

In Ghana, with a 70% Christian population, he mentioned "good governance" seven times and added direct calls upon his audience to "make change from the bottom up." He praised "people taking control of their destiny" and pressed "young people" to "hold your leaders accountable."

He made no such calls for action by the people of Arab states--despite the fact that not a single Arab country is "free," according to the latest Freedom House global survey.

Before the Muslim world Obama donned the role of apologist-in-chief. Over and over again his examples of shortfalls in the protection of rights and freedoms were American: the "prison at Guantanamo Bay," "rules on charitable giving [that] have made it harder for Muslims to fulfill their religious obligation," impediments to the "choice" of Muslim women to shroud their bodies.

Christian Africa was to be treated to no such self-flagellation. In a rare tongue-lashing for Africans from any American president, he chastised: "It's easy to point fingers and to pin the blame of these problems on others. Yes, a colonial map that made little sense helped to breed conflict ... But the West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy ... or wars in which children are enlisted as combatants ... tribalism and patronage and nepotism ... and ... corruption."

He might equally have said to the Arab and Muslim world: "It's easy to scapegoat Israel and blame your problems on the presence of Jews--albeit on a fraction of 1% of the territory inhabited by the Arab world--but Israel is not responsible for poverty, illiteracy, torture, trafficking, slavery and oppression rampant across your countries." But he did not.

In Ghana he pointed to specific heroes that had exposed human rights abuse, singling out by name a courageous investigative reporter. In Egypt, though journalists and bloggers are routinely threatened, jailed and worse, no such brave soul came to mind.

In a Christian African nation he said, "If we are honest, for far too many Africans, conflict is a part of life, as constant as the sun. There are wars over land and wars over resources. And it is still far too easy for those without conscience to manipulate whole communities into fighting among faiths and tribes."

To the Arab and Muslim world he could have said: "Since the day of Israel's birth Arab and Muslim countries have made conflict with Israel a part of life, warring over land and manipulating whole communities into fighting in the name of Islam to render the area Judenrein."

Instead, he turned on the only democracy in the Middle East and said the presence of Jews on Arab-claimed territory--settlements--is an affront to be "stopped." It didn't matter that agreements require ultimate ownership of this territory to be determined by negotiation or that apartheid Palestine is hardly a worthy pursuit.

Read the whole thing..

Reading Palin Right

An

(courtesy of Red Planet)

Proof that great minds think alike...long time California Democrat politico Willie Brown understands Sarah Palin's decision to quit in a way many of the the pundits and even many of her fellow Republicans don't:

The pundits are wrong. Conventional wisdom is wrong. Sarah Palin's decision to step down as Alaska governor was a brilliant move.

Palin has some of the best political instincts I have ever seen. She became a pop-culture superstar overnight when John McCain made her his veep pick, and she's still second only to President Obama among politicians the public is interested in. Even in liberal San Francisco, she'd be front-page news if she ever came to town.

But that kind of celebrity comes at a high price. What a lot of people don't know is that Palin entered Alaska politics as a reformer attacking the corruption of the state's Republican establishment. As such, she was the darling of the Democrats - until she hooked up with McCain.

After the election, with Palin back home but positioning herself for a 2012 presidential run, it was clear she would catch nothing but ridicule from Alaska's Democrats. It was not going to be pretty.

If Palin wants to play on the national field, she has to be free to move around. She has to be able to drop into Indiana, Ohio or Tennessee and help Republican candidates raise money. She has to be available for radio and TV.

She has to be like Gavin Newsom, free to roam around the country, safe in the knowledge that things will pretty much take care of themselves back home.

Instead, Palin faced the prospect of being constantly pinned down in a state that is a day and a half away from the rest of America. She would have been totally isolated in every sense of the word.

Now she can study up on issues where she is lacking and become a full-time political celebrity.

The pundits call her a quitter, but let's be honest - the pundits never liked her to begin with. Better to take one hit for stepping down and move on than to stay in Alaska and die a death by a thousand cuts.

Governor or not, Palin is still the biggest star in the Republican galaxy. After all, who else have they got?

Even today, the L.A. Times is breathlessly quoting long time GOP activists and strategists as calling her a 'quitter' and 'a political trainwreck.'

But then. as Brown points out,these people always hated her and the constituency she represents anyway.

One of the things that has these GOP 'strategists' steaming was Palin's statement in an interview with the Washington Times that she might support Democrats for office who agree with her poitical philosophy:

The former Republican vice-presidential nominee and heroine to much of the GOP's base said in an interview she views the electorate as embattled and fatigued by nonstop partisanship, and she is eager to campaign for Republicans, independents and even Democrats who share her values on limited government, strong defense and "energy independence."


"I will go around the country on behalf of candidates who believe in the right things, regardless of their party label or affiliation," she said over lunch in her downtown office, 40 miles from her now-famous hometown of Wasilla -- population 7,000 -- where she began her political career.

"People are so tired of the partisan stuff -- even my own son is not a Republican," said Mrs. Palin...

Limited government, strong defense, independence...sounds very Jacksonian to me, and an absolutely brilliant move to create a broad-based movement, maybe even a third party. And remember, she has a book coming up that will undoubtedly be a bestseller. If her book outlines these principles well and she continues to speak around the country and draw the kinds of crowds she's capable of drawing, she will be in a position to get the GOP nomination practically by default - because if she pulls the trigger on a third party, you can pretty much kiss the Republicans goodbye.

Another sign that she knew exactly what she was doing are the recent Gallup polls showing that a clear majority of Americans felt that the media coverage she received was biased and unfair :

Palin herself has argued that she has been unjustly attacked by the news media, and most Americans seem to agree. The new poll finds 53% describing the news media's coverage of Palin as "unfairly negative," while just 9% say it has been "unfairly positive" and 28% say it has been "about right."

In other words, the Left has overplayed its hand.

What Sarah Barracuda sees is daylight on the court... a political opening and a constituency hardly anyone else is paying any attention to. And she's going to move the ball right towards it.

Don't be a bit surprised if we wake up the morning after the election in 2012 to find out that we've chosen a woman to clean up the mess in Washington.

In any event, it's going to be tremendous fun.

You go, Sarah Palin.

CNN Anchor's Balloon Pops After Hearing Bush Got Just as Warm an African Welcome as Obama

Heh! You can literally see CNN spokesmouth Don Lemon's face fall after hearing from a Ghana correspondent that Obama'a welcome there was not 'unprecendented'...but that President Bush got as exuberant a welcome as Obama did...

For a sample look at how President Bush was received in Africa, see here..

Of course, Bush was well received all over Africe because he did more to help the countries there combat scourges like AIDS,hunger and malaria than any other US president in history. Not that he or his party have ever got much credit for that from most black Americans at election time.



(hat tip, Weasel Zippers

Using the "J" Word

Israeli PM Benyamin Netanyahu reportedly had a discussion with German foreign minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier in which he told him frankly that Judea and Samaria ( AKA The West Bank) "could not be Judenrein."

For those who don't know, that's an old Nazi expression meaning "cleansed of Jews".The sign above was awarded to a German state that had achieved this goal.

To a German, that had to have struck a nerve. And I think Netanyahu was entirely correct to do so, since German ReichsKanzeller Angela Merkel just went public a week ago saying that Israel must stop all building in settlements "otherwise we will not arrive at a two-state solution that we need urgently."

Now, based on what I know about Steinmeier and Merkel, I would grant that they are both people of good will who would never agree to the idea of Israel's destruction and no doubt Netanyahu's use of a term from the old days of nacht und nebel horrified both of them. But sometimes, you have to call things by their right name to make people understand clearly what you mean.

Germany and much of the EU may desperately need a two state solution to appease their restive Muslim populations at home, but Israel definitely doesn't.

The Saudi 'peace' ultimatum that Obama endorsed and that the Palestinians are insisting on is precisely a recipe for judenrein, as well as Israel's national suicide.

There's absolutely no benefit to Israel in giving up the strategic Golan Heights to the Syrians and Hezbollah and all of Judea and Samaria (AKA the West Bank), including land legally purchased from the Arabs via the Jewish National Fund to the Palestinians...especially as it will likely become Hamastan.

There's no upside to the Israelis also giving up half of Jerusalem, which means that Jews will be denied access to their holiest sites and will have to watch their religious shrines desecrated by the triumphant Arabs, just as they were prior to 1967.

And there's no benefit in Israel making thousands of their own citizens homeless, unemployed refugees retreating to indefensible borders and allowing what's left of the Jewish State to be flooded by thousands of genocidal Arab `refugees' and their descendants.

There's no rationale for Israel to commit what amounts to national suicide in exchange for a guarantee of ill-defined `normalized ties' and peace from the Arabs...at least for as long as that lasts. Even as I write this, the Arabs are refusing to make even a pretense of any kind of gestures towards normalization until the Israelis unconditionally agree to all their demands... even with the US pushing for the Arabs to make a token gesture of some kind.

Having resettled almost a million Jews on its territory that were ethnically cleansed from the Arab world after 1948,( and nobody is even mentioning any compensation or justice for those refugees) there's no reason Israel has the sole responsibility for paying the costs involved in resolving an Arab refugee crisis that only occurred because the Arabs attempted to commit genocide against the Jews of Israel and attacked it.

The entire history of Middle East peace negotiations since Oslo resembles nothing so much as a case history at a battered woman's shelter, with an absurdly inept counselor in charge:

"Maybe if you give in on this, he'll stop hitting you. OK, that didn't work, but maybe if you try this, I'm sure he'll keep his promises and stop abusing you. OK, but I'm sure if you just give in a little more, there'll be peace between you and an end to the violence..."

Ethnic cleansing of Jews out of Judea and Samaria because the Arabs hateJews and refuse to live in peace and equality with them in the same country is no magic solution for peace..quite the opposite. After all, if Jews accept the fact that they're not allowed to live in Hebron or Gush Etzion or Gilo, what makes Tel Aviv or Haifa so different? Or when it comes down to it, New York or London?

What Netanyahu is doing is serving notice that he's no longer going to allow fence sitting. This is entirely commendable.If the Europeans - and I am no longer just referring to the Germans - want to participate in a second Holocaust even inadvertantly, they will not be able to pretend any longer.They will have to make a choice knowingly, and live with it.

And if forcing them to acknowledge that choice means making them uncomfortable about the matter, so be it.

The Pope Takes On Capitalism

Pope Benedict greeted the G-8 summit with an interesting papal encyclical entitled "Charity in Truth" that proposes an entirely new economic order:

In "Charity in Truth," Benedict denounced the profit-at-all-cost mentality of the globalized economy and lamented that greed has brought about the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

"Profit is useful if it serves as a means toward an end," he wrote. "Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty."

"The economy needs ethics in order to function correctly — not any ethics, but an ethics which is people centered," he wrote.

While acknowledging that the globalized economy has "lifted billions of people out of misery," Benedict accused unbridled growth of recent years of causing unprecedented problems as well, citing mass migration flows, environmental degradation and a complete loss of trust in the world market.

He urged wealthier countries to increase development aid to poor countries to help eliminate world hunger, saying peace and security depended on it. He specified that aid should go to agricultural development to improve infrastructure, irrigation systems, transport and sharing of agricultural technology.

At the same time, he demanded that industrialized nations reduce their energy consumption, both to better care for the environment — "God's gift to everyone" — and to let the poorer have access to energy resources.

"One of the greatest challenges facing the economy is to achieve the most efficient use — not abuse — of natural resources, based on a realization that the notion of 'efficiency' is not value-free," he wrote.

He denounced that the drive to outsource work to the cheapest bidder had endangered the rights of workers, and demanded that they be allowed to organize in unions to protect their rights and guarantee steady, decent employment for all.

Benedict called for a whole new financial order — "a profoundly new way of understanding business enterprise" — that respects the dignity of workers and looks out for the common good by prioritizing ethics and social responsibility over dividend returns.

"Above all, the intention to do good must not be considered incompatible with the effective capacity to produce goods," he wrote. "Financiers must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity so as to not abuse the sophisticated instruments which can serve to betray the interests of savers."

Pope Benedict has written similar things before during his career as a cleric and an academic, and as I understand it, this encyclical is very much in line with a large part of long standing Church doctrine.

In fact part of what led to the Schism and later the Protestant Reformation was a revolt against the Church's attempt to limit natural, economic man and his self-interest.

"The Imitation Of Christ" ( 1389 or so) by Thomas A Kempis, one of the most famous and influential books on Catholic theology spends a decent amount of ink on the topic of repressing economic man and self-interest.

Pope Benedict's chief misunderstanding here is similar to President Obama's in a way, and characteristic of people who have essentially spent their lives in institutions supported by the taxes or stipends taken from others rather than living directly by the fruits of their own labor.

A corporation or business by its very nature is an entity that takes an investment by shareholders or a proprietor and translates it into income and profit. That's why it exists. Businesses are there to make profit, not to 'do good'. Obviously, just as with individuals, there are some very necessary legal constraints that have to be put on that mission. No one wants someone selling shoddy or unsafe merchandise,infringing the rights of others by creating public nuisances or health hazards, taking money for goods and services that are never delivered, or using illegal means like blackmail or arson to coerce trade or eliminate the competition.

But aside from obvious criminal behaviour, when government, the Church or other institutions attempt to get in the way of self-interest and profit or hammer on business to channel or legislate profit towards what they deem to be 'social responsibility', several interesting things happen.

Since the primary motive of business is profit, diverted from that in the form of taxes, money spent to comply with onerous government regulations or money spent on public relations via social responsibility projects has to be made up in some way.

Businesses don't actually pay taxes or spend money to comply with regulations. They merely raise their prices to the consumer, cut the quality of the product or service they produce, cut future growth areas like expansion and research and development,move their facilities to where costs are cheaper or close production and lay off workers...or all of the above combined.

The end result? Smaller tax revenues, fewer jobs,smaller GDP, less charity and a lot more misery. And of course, ultimately, a lousier climate for investment, sometimes to the point where people mostly give up the idea of starting new businesses and employing others altogether.

That's simply how life works in the real world, and always has.And any time an attempt has been made to co-opt those rules 'to do good' in the eyes of the beholder, it's always failed miserably.

As an example, the US has been morphing in the direction of overtaxing, over regulating and otherwise interfering with economic man and the primary profit motive of business for quite some time now, and the results are quite evident. Foreign investment and the purchase of US government debt in the absence of safe and secure vehicles in places like East Asia along with the purchases by the American consumer have staved off some of the harsher realities for some time. But as America's consumer market dwindles and there's more and more demand for safe investment and savings vehicles that provide decent rates of return outside the American financial markets and the dollar, the day of reckoning gets closer. And we're in the process of making Obama's Great Leap Forward which should accelerate that day of reckoning considerably if we're unfortunate enough for it to be completely implemented.

As a sideline, this illustrates one of the philosophical differences between Judaism and Catholicism. I think that the Church attempts to suppress much of what John Locke would have called 'the natural man' and earthly self-interest to promote spiritual well-being in the next world, and the afterlife is paramount. I consider this a natural development since Christ was an Essene ( an ascetic Jewish sect) as well as a Rabbi.

Judaism's difference in this area as I see it is that while the afterlife is not unimportant, it is not emphasized in the same way. There is no vividly descriptive Hell or Purgatory, although there is the concept of Gehenna, which is not even mentioned in the Torah but is first referred to obliquely in the Book Of Daniel and the other prophets and defined as a place without G-d's presence. Instead, the emphasis is on channelling the natural man (which includes economic man, of course) with certain restrictions such as the the Ten Commandments, halacha and the mishna with the idea of building a better society here on earth.

This was a primary reason why the Church, even though it's doctrine was openly anti-Semitic at the time, allowed Jews a place in Europe, albeit a tenuous one. The Jews were the middle men needed to mitigate the problems of the Church attempting to repress economic man with things like 'the doctrine of the just price' and other restrictions on capitalism by providing a necessary outlet to secular Europe for activities like banking and credit while still allowing secular Catholic rulers and businessmen to fulfill church doctrines.

The Pope's latest encyclical is likely to be a scant interest except to th edevout and unlikely to be influential on countries like India and China interested in moving into the 21st century and growing their economies.

As intellectually brilliant as he is, I'm certain he must be aware of that, but feels too weak to avoid the necessity of bowing to political currents within the Church, just as he has in his positions on Islam and the relationships with Israel and the Jews.

Disappointing, to say the least.


(hat tip and a commendation to Joshua's Army member Louie Louie)

Obama In Moscow: Yalta Redux

President Obama once again has proved himself a foreign policy novice and a dangerous one at that.

This time, it was exhibited in a meeting with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his surrogate, President Dmitri Medvedev in Moscow.

Aside from the glitz and the photo-ops, America simply got hosed. Ralph Peters has it right:

We got nothing of real importance. But the government of puppet-master Vladimir Putin (nominally just prime minister) got virtually all it wanted. In Moscow, this was Christmas in July.{...}

(Obama) agreed to trim our nuclear-warhead arsenal by one-third and -- even more dangerously -- to cut the systems that deliver the nuclear payloads. In fact, the Russians don't care much about our warhead numbers (which will be chopped to a figure "between 1,500 and 1,675"). What they really wanted -- and got -- was a US cave-in regarding limits on our nuclear-capable bombers, submarines and missiles that could leave us with as few as 500 such systems, if the Russians continue to get their way as the final details are negotiated.

Moscow knows we aren't going to start a nuclear war with Russia. Putin (forget poor "President" Dmitry Medvedev) wants to gut our conventional capabilities to stage globe-spanning military operations. He wants to cut us down to Russia's size.

Our problem is that many nuclear-delivery systems -- such as bombers or subs -- are "dual-use": A B-2 bomber can launch nukes, but it's employed more frequently to deliver conventional ordnance.

Putin sought to cripple our ability to respond to international crises. (..)
We just agreed to the disarmament position of the American Communist Party of the 1950s.

Obama's cave in extended to Eastern Europe, where as I predicted he essentially acknowledged Russia's 'rights' to the old Soviet Empire in exchange for generalities( but no commitments whatsoever) on Iran and North Korea and allowing us a second route through Russian territory to Afghanistan. Our pledged agreements on missile defense with Poland and the Czech Republic are pretty much going to be written off.

And that 'offer' of a second route to Afghanistan has a vicious sting. Peters again:

This ploy is utterly transparent: Putin intends to lull us into dependency on a trans-Russia supply route -- giving him a free hand in Georgia, Ukraine and elsewhere.

By Putin's calculus, we'll complain about further aggression on Russia's frontiers, but take no action that would jeopardize our new supply line. Meanwhile, we serve as the Kremlin's proxies, protecting its sphere of influence in Central Asia against Islamist influence from the south and working on the Russians' Afghan heroin problem.

Few Americans these days remember Yalta, the conference between FDR and Stalin near the end of WWII designed to promote world peace and coexistence as an extension of our wartime alliance..even if it was an alliance of convenience. President Roosevelt, ailing and near death had high hopes for his relationship with Stalin:

I think that if I give him everything I possibly can and ask for nothing from him in return, noblesse oblige, he won't try to annex anything and will work with me for a world of democracy and peace.

Of course, as it turned out, Stalin ended up by breaking every agreement he made at Yalta and created what Ronald Reagan aptly referred to many years later as 'the evil empire' out of the territory Russia seized in Eastern Europe.

Roosevelt at least had fatigue, infirmity and the poisonous counsel of his chief State Department adviser Soviet agent Alger Hiss as something of an alibi.I can't even imagine what Obama's excuse is.

The full measure of exactly how radical our president is can be seen in this astonishing gem of historical revisionism from his speech at the New Economic School in Moscow:

And then, within a few short years, the world as it was ceased to be. Now, make no mistake: This change did not come from any one nation. The Cold War reached a conclusion because of the actions of many nations over many years, and because the people of Russia and Eastern Europe stood up and decided that its end would be peaceful.

That's how the Cold War ended? The Soviets just decided the time had come to sing Kumbayah and ring down the Iron Curtain? Nothing to do with the generations of Americans in our military and FBI and CIA who battled the monster up close and personal for decades, deterring Soviet expansionism? Nothing to do with the dissidents who risked the gulags and worst,nothing to do with Solidarity,Afghanistan, or the Israelis kicking the Soviets out of the Middle East?

In Obama's view, I suppose Reagan, The Pope and Thatcher were just a trio of bystanders who had nothing to do with destroying the Soviet Empire....instead of strong leaders who defied the conventional wisdom that Soviet rule was here to stay, defeated it on their own terms and freed millions.

This is of a piece with Obama's whacked-out version of the history of the Muslim world as portrayed in his Cairo Speech. The truly sad thing is that I'm certain it's not mere flattery, and even if it was, those kind of lies eventually come back to haunt you. No, I'm sure Obama - portrayed by his synchopants in the media as a brilliant intellectual - actually believes his fantasy version of history.

The Russians, of course loved it. What they want is to be a world power equal to the US again. As Peters said, Putin wanted to cut us down to Russia's size.

Obama went a pretty far way towards giving him that, while getting nothing tangible in return.

Robert Avrech over at Seraphic Secrets also has some great commentary on this.

Watcher's Council Nominations, 7/8/09

The Watcher's Council is a group of some of the most incisive blogs in the`sphere. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one of their own and one from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.

This week I'm subbing for the Watcher, who is on a secret mission so arcane and hush hush it would be worth my life to even hint at it. So no Council entry for me this week, but do check out my intro piece to the nominations, Sarah Palin Pulls The Trigger..as well as all the world class entries this week:


COUNCIL

• The Provocateur - How Bonds Work (and How Current Policy Will Wreck Them and the Economy With It)
• Right Truth - Pride Or Lack Thereof
• Rhymes With Right - In Re: Palin
• The Glittering Eye - Haeckel and the Development of Nations
• Mere Rhetoric - Prominent Jewish Democrats Double Down On Obama.Unpersuasively.
• Wolf Howling - The Pot Simmers
• Soccer Dad - Extra! Extra! get Your Paper
• Bookworm Room - The Declaration of Independence . . . and chickens?

NON-COUNCIL

• Submitted By: Right Truth – Star Parker - When Color Trumps Christianity
• Submitted By: The Provocateur – Ralph Peters - The Moscow Giveaway
• Submitted By: Rhymes With Right – Reclusive Leftist - Feminists and the mystery of Sarah Palin
• Submitted By: Joshuapundit – Diana West - Allies Don’t Declare Victory Over Each Other”
• Submitted By: The Glittering Eye – Michael Totten - The Real Quagmire in the Middle East
• Submitted By: Mere Rhetoric – Rick Richman / Commentary - The Coming U.S. Peace Plan
• Submitted By: Wolf Howling – Seraphic Secrets - The Great Obama Moscow Give-away
• Submitted By: Soccer Dad – Rubin Reports - The Middle East is a place where wishful
  thinking gets people killed but makes careers for politicians, diplomats,
  academics, and journalists
• Submitted By: Bookworm Room – Investor’s Business Daily - Canada’s Single-Prayer Health Care

Judge Rules Against Ward Churchill Reinstatment

There's some good news out of Denver today, as academic fraud, plagiarist, America hater and anti-Semite Ward Churchill was denied in his suit to be rehired as a professor at the University of Colorado.

For those of you who've forgotten, Churchill was originally fired from his professorship at the University of Colorado not for saying that 9/11 was justified or for his comment that the victims of 9/11 were `little Eichmanns' but for academic fraud, shoddy research and outright plagiarism.

Churchill sued, and a jury later ruled that the firing was politically motivated, but awarded this creep the grand total of $1 in damages. Churchill and his attorneys used that as a springboard to sue for reinstatement.

Under Colorado law, the decision on whether to force the University to reinstate Churchill was left up to the judge, Larry J. Naves of Denver District Court.

The University claimed that they had fired Churchill for due cause, that if he returned the relationship between him and the university would be adversarial and that other professors would likely leave if Churchill were reinstated.

Judge Naves saw it their way. He ruled that the decision by the university's governing Board of Regents "occurred with sufficient procedural protections." He also noted in his decision the huge financial settlement of $1 that jurors awarded Churchill in damages.

So if the ruling stands, Ward Churchill will no longer be subsidized by those little Eichmans the American taxpayers. Or allowed to rape and pollute the minds of students in a classroom.

Israel And Iran - Close To The Edge

Is the IDF getting closer to pulling the Mullah's fangs? Maybe.

There have been a number of signs in the wind.


The first one, from the U.K. Telegraph, is a story that claims that Saudi Arabia has assured Israel that it will look the other way if IAF jets fly over the Saudi's airspace during a raid against targets in Iran:

The head of Mossad, Israel’s overseas intelligence service, has assured Benjamin Netanyahu, its prime minister, that Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli jets flying over the kingdom during any future raid on Iran’s nuclear sites. Earlier this year Meir Dagan, Mossad’s director since 2002, held secret talks with Saudi officials to discuss the possibility.

The Israeli press has already carried unconfirmed reports that high-ranking officials, including Ehud Olmert, the former prime minister, held meetings with Saudi colleagues. The reports were denied by Saudi officials.

“The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israeli air force flying through their airspace on a mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of both Israel and Saudi Arabia,” a diplomatic source said last week.

Although the countries have no formal diplomatic relations, an Israeli defence source confirmed that Mossad maintained “working relations” with the Saudis.

This particular story has gotten a lot of mileage, but the writer has been known to be less than reliable before.It could be true,or it could be he simply figured something out. Readers of this site will remember this from about two months ago:

The Arabs, particularly the Saudis are absolutely appalled at the idea of an Iran with nukes. The Eastern part of Saudi Arabia near the Persian Gulf is where the oil is, and it's mostly populated by Shiites who are treated like an underclass there.The Saudis are terrified of the idea that the Iranians might foment unrest there, or use it to blackmail them.

During that summit in Europe Obama attended ( site of the famous bowing incident) back in April, my sources tell me that King Abdullah actually had a fairly forceful conversation with the Chosen One on the sidelines about his Iranian non-policy...to no avail. Egypt's Hosni Mubarak feels the same way, because he's going to be dealing with Hamas' parent organization the Muslim Brotherhood, which is his main political opposition, and he's trying to hand over power to his kid Gamal ( AKA 'Jack') without worrying about an Iranian proxy. That's precisely why the Egyptians have cracked down on Hamas and the weapons smuggling from Iran in a huge way lately.

With Obama adamantly opposed to assisting Israel with Iran and Turkey more firmly in the Islamist camp every day, I wouldn't be at all surprised if the Saudis gave some covert assistance to Israel in knocking out Iran's nukes when it comes to that. The path to Bushehr and Arak may very well involve a flight over Saudi territory...without the Saudis' 'knowledge', of course. Shimon Peres and Saudi King Abdullah supposedly had a clandestine meeting the other day, although Abdullah denied it after the story slipped out. They may very well have been discussing this if they met.

Afterwards the Sunni autocracies will squawk a great deal about 'Zionist aggression', but behind the scenes they will collectively heave a huge sigh of relief.

Simply put, an Israeli flight via Saudi Arabia makes a lot of sense in terms of the interests of Israel, the Saudis, for Barack Obama and the US, who can thus claim plausible deniability.

Unless the Israelis go through either Saudi Arabia or Iraq, Israel would be forced to use much longer routes through Turkey or around the butt end of Arabian Peninsula, both of which add to the difficulty of the emission, especially when it comes to both the size of the strike force and the all important issue of mid-air refueling.

No one's certain how many mid-air refueling tankers the Israeli airforce has in stock, but it's likely between 5-7 KC-707s. The recent IAF destruction of a Hamas bound Iranian arms convoy in the Sudan utilized these planes, and more importantly, allowed the IAF to refuel a second time in mid-air and go after a target they initially missed.

The number of KC-707s available, the amount of fuel they can carry and the distance the IAF planes need to travel affects the size of the Israeli strike force, the payload they can carry, and how many targets they can hit.Going through Saudi Arabia increases all three factors, and would actually allow a second strike if necessary.

Another weapon the Israelis have to use is their fleet of nuclear armed Dolphin-class submarines, which are capable of firing cruise missiles that can strike Iranian nuclear facilities. Recently, one of these subs transited the Suez Canal into the Red Sea for the first time, which could also be a sign of things to come. The Egyptians denied allowing it, but their ships were seen escorting the sub through the Canal and there's no way it could have gotten through the Canal without Egypt's knowledge.

Like the Saudis, the Mubarak regime is terrified of Obama's non-policy for dealing with Iran's nukes, and they realize that only the Israelis are capable of dealing with this menace. Obama's funding of Hamas and his insistence that the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas' parent organization, be allowed high profile attendance at his Cairo speech convinced the Egyptians if nothing else did.

Allowing the Israeli subs to use the Canal makes it a lot easier for Israel's subs to get onto easy range of Iran via the Red Sea.

And Israel also has the option of using land based ballistic missiles (ICBMs) against Iran when it comes down to it. And given Iran's current state of development, Israel's Arrow Two missile defense system and Israel's Green Pine Radar would likely be able to deal with any long range attempts to retaliate from Iran.

Where the Mullahs could retaliate is by using their proxies closer to Israel to try and strike and by targeting Jews and facilities like synagogues, community centers and schools outside of Israel for terrorist attacks.

Hamas is still attempting to recover from the damage done to them by Operation Cast Lead and would likely not participate except with a few token missile launches at Israel's south, and I doubt the Syrians would get involved because of their strategic weakness. But Hezbollah could very well unleash its replenished missile arsenal against Israel. The IDF would have to keep enough operational capabilities on alert in order to deal with a Hezbollah attack.

Terrorist strikes against Jewish targets outside of Israel are a real possibility, abut then again, that's something the mullahs have done before even without the motive of an Israeli attack.

The biggest headache Israel faces in taking out Iran's nukes is likely to be from the US, oddly enough.

Slo-Joe Biden made headlines recently by indicating that Israel has a 'green light' when it comes to attacking Iran. In an interview on ABC's "This Week," Slo-Joe said Israel can determine for itself how best to deal with the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.

"We cannot dictate to another sovereign nation what they can and cannot do when they make a determination, if they make a determination, that they're existentially threatened."

Most people put this down to Biden'd propensity to shoot himself in the foot with his mouth, especially after Obama hurriedly corrected him the next day, saying there was absolutely no green light implied.

I doubt that Biden was just running his mouth. I think this was a head fake.

Barack Obama has made it crystal clear that he essentially wants the destruction of the US/Israel relationship.It's his trump card for 're-engaging' with the Muslim world, getting the US out of the Middle East and elsewhere, cutting back on national defense and putting that money to work in establishing his domestic agenda -a socialist welfare state where the international community comes before national sovereignty, the private sector is either severely diminished or controlled by government, and enough of the American people are desperate and dependent on government for a paycheck, health care or other entitlements to ensure political dominance for himself and the Democrats for years to come.

By signalling the Mullahs that he plans to do nothing of any substance to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, Obama has pretty much ensured that Israel will eventually be forced to act.

So when Israel attacks Iran, don't be surprised if Obama tries to use it as a catalyst to severely curtail aid to Israel, condemn Israel in the UN (which might include sanctions or IAEA inspections of Israel's nukes) and force a 'peace' settlement with Israel on the Arab's terms.

The Israelis will obviously have to deal with Iran's nukes, and there's no way around it. The world will be a better place with the Mullah's nuclear plans derailed or delayed. But they shouldn't expect any gratitude for it, and they should be making contingency plans for the end result, especially where the Obama Administration is concerned.

Barack Obama - Profiles In Weakness

Why is President Barack Hussein Obama so weak and dysfunctional on foreign policy? While there are a great many items since he took office we could cite, let's examine just a few of the more recent items...

*For all his blather about being 'disturbed' by the Iranian regime's violence towards its own people and not being 'reconciled to a nuclear Iran', Obama is doing absolutely nothing at all to prevent Iran from developing nukes. As a matter of fact he is going to block the imposition of another round of already agreed to tougher financial sanctions against Iran at next week's G8 summit.

*The Assad regime in Syria is a particularly vile fascist dictatorship. It's a firm ally of Iran and a major sponsor and enabler of terrorism. Assad's regime has been directly implicated by a UN tribunal in the murder of a number of Lebanese politicians including ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, and was caught with an illegal clandestine North Korean nuclear reactor hidden away in the Syrian desert that the Israelis destroyed. Obama's response to this rogue state has been to re-open diplomatic relations and relax US sanctions against Syria.

* En route to his summit with Putin and Medvedev, Obama has already essentially forgiven Russia for invading Georgia and has given the Russians reason to believe that he's prepared to engage in a 'grand bargain' that would break America's pledged word by failing to follow through on agreements the Bush Administration signed for missile defense bases and military aid in Poland and the Czech Republic as well as ending support for the Ukraine and the Baltic states in exchange for a 'reset' of relations that would supposedly result in Russian assistance on Iran and in allowing supplies to go through Russian territory to Afghanistan.

* In Honduras, the Obama Administration has sided with Latin American Dictators like Chavez and Castro in demanding the re-instatement of Chavez ally and leftist dictator Manuel Zelaya after he was impeached by the Honduran congress ( including his own party) after defying the country's Supreme Court and attempting to hold an illegal referendum to make himself 'president-for-life'.

To understand where the weakness evidenced by Obama in foreign policy, it's necessary to look at Obama's ideology and his openly expressed goals.This is not a president who places a priority on foreign affairs, with the exception of attempting to appease the Muslim world, distance the US from its traditional allies and bludgeon Israel into accepting the Saudi 'peace' ultimatum

Barack Obama is a domestic policy guy and at his core, an anti-military isolationist like most Leftists. And like most Leftists, he resonates to their common view of America as an imperialist power that needs to be taken down a peg, and rejects the image of American exceptionalism.

His main priority is not a strong foreign policy but in domestically establishing a socialist welfare state where national sovereignty is diminished in favor of the international order, the private sector is either severely diminished or controlled by government, and enough of the American people are desperate and dependent on government for a paycheck, health care or other entitlements to ensure political dominance for himself and the Democrats for years to come.

In that context, disengagement from foreign affairs and military cutbacks are seen as a means to an end, freeing up money, energy and space for Obama's domestic agenda.

To get us out of the Middle East, he's prepared to remove US forces from the region, acquiesce to a nuclear armed Iran and essentially torpedo the long standing alliance between America and Israel.

To get America out of Europe, he's prepared to allow Russia a free hand with the old Soviet Empire - what the Russians refer to as Russia's 'near abroad'- and allow the Russians to blackmail Europe with its control of energy.

In East Asia, he is obviously prepared to let China and North Korea dominate the region, or at least not to impede them in any direct way.Japan,another long standing US ally, can expect to have to look to its own defenses without any significant American backup.

This new policy can be seen even in Afghanistan. Obama made a lot of noise during the campaign about Afghanistan. He was going mend relations with our allies, and it would be easy for him get our NATO allies to send more combat troops there. And he was going to pull American troops out of Iraq to go to the 'real war'....
if you remember, he was going to invade Pakistan with a couple of brigades and made much of the fact that he was going to 'follow bin-Laden to the ends of the earth" unlike Bush "who took his eye off the ball".

Remember all that?

Of course none of this happened. As I predicted, aside from undermining Musharraf, an American ally, Obama's blather about something he obviously knew diddly squat about was a certain way to ensure that our European allies did nothing in the way of pitching in - after all, why should they send more troops if the Americans were going to provide manpower for Afghanistan from Iraq? Once Obama got in, they essentially dealt themselves out. And as for Pakistan, somebody finally convinced the Chosen One to look at a map, realize Afghanistan is landlocked and that ticking the Pakistanis off by invading their territory would not only involve him in yet another war he didn't want but cause Pakistan to choke off the 75% of supplies to Afghanistan that comes via the port of Karachi and into Afghanistan through the Torkham Pass.

Remember, Obama's primary goal is to pull US forces out of the Muslim world, which is a large part of what al-Qaeda wanted in the first place. So our policy now by the admission of Obama's own commander, Brig. Gen. Lawrence D. Nicholson is not to go on the offensive and kill our enemies but to win hearts and minds, drink tea, eat goat and attempt to stabilize the situation enough so we can say our mission is over and skedaddle.

To try and ensure this, Obama was willing to make deals with the Russians to get them to allow transport of supplies for Afghanistan through Russian territory and for Russia give Kyrgyzstan permission to re-rent the Manas air base to us. And Obama will continue to walk lightly with Iran and try to bargain with the mullahs to keep Iran's interference and arming of insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan to a minimum until we're safely out.

Given the political fallout that might occur here at home from a precipitous pull out, both Putin and the Mullahs have something Obama wants very much.

The real question, Afghanistan aside, is whether retreating from various points of global conflict and ceding those areas to countries that are not exactly our friends will help us or hurt us in the long run. I hope I'm mistaken, but I have the feeling it's going to cost us a great deal in blood and treasure to find out.

Sarah Palin Pulls The Trigger

Governor Sarah Palin's announcement that she was resigning as Alaska's governor and letting her Lieutenant governor and political ally Sean Parnell take over shocked the political world and pretty much sucked all the oxygen out the room for a couple of news cycles. She even knocked Micheal Jackson's OD off the front pages...now that's star power.

She had a few things to say about the matter , and a transcript of her remarks is here. I recommend you read it, because the video cams didn't cover the whole thing.

I'm not claiming to be clairvoyant, but I had a feeling this was coming fairly soon. Time will tell, but I think it was exactly the right decision, whether she plans a future in politics or not.

With one stroke, she bought herself exactly the space she needs to plan her next move and got the hyenas off of her. As an ex-governor, she's no longer a target for the well-funded and organized campaign to bankrupt the Palin family via various frivolous 'ethics complaints.' Number 15 was just thrown out of court as groundless just like all the others, but in the meantime it's cost the Palins half a million bucks in legal fees...and they are not wealthy people. With her out of office, that particular drain in time, money and energy is a thing of the past.

Whether she decides to bag politics for good or not, it was the smartest thing she could have done. Either way, she has a book to write, a new baby to care for, and some very real groundwork and planning to do if she decides on a run for the presidency in 2012 or 2016.

Alaska is simply too far away logistically from what Alaskans call the Lower 48 for anyone to serve as a sitting governor and still devote the time and energy it will take to run for president or have any influence nationally. Believe it or not, Anchorage is farther away from Los Angeles than Los Angeles is from Baltimore. And it's easier and faster to fly from Iowa to Europe than from Anchorage or Juneau to Iowa. The travel time and expense alone is a major disadvantage.

If Sarah Palin did have any plans to run for national office, she had a tough choice to make. She could either continue to be governor of Alaska or resign and do what she will need to do to go for the prize. She couldn't do both, so she thought about it and then with characteristic boldness, she made a decision.

Part of that decision no doubt involved Todd and the kids. The family vote she tells us about in her speech, the one she said she'd tell us more about later? I'm betting it was a vote to either stay in Alaska and go back to normal life or spend more time in the Lower 48 and go for the prize.

After what they've been through as a family that couldn't have been an easy decision. People forget that along with he other accomplishments, Sarah Palin is a mom who obviously loves her kids. One of my favorite pictures of her is an off the cuff shot of her getting off an airplane somewhere with a huge sloppy grin on her face as she and Piper run towards each other on the tarmac.

I have never seen anyone's family in American politics vilified the way the Palins were, or with so little cause...not Nixon's family in the darkest days of Watergate, not Chelsea Clinton during the impeachment, not even the Bush twins. The Letterman smut directed at Palin's 14-year-old daughter was likely the final sign to Governor Palin that the time had come to advance in another direction.

When you can't even go to a charity fundraiser or a baseball game without some overpaid low life media whack job trying to get at you through your kids, it undoubtedly provides some food for thought.

So that final "hell, yeah!" from one of the Palins might just have signified the opening of the 2012 campaign.

Will the resignation hurt her? I doubt it. No one who reallyunderstands what Sarah Palin is about is really going to care in the grand scheme of things if everything else works out. As a matter of fact, I only hope Our Dear Leader or one of his court jesters in the media brings it up, hopefully in one of the nationally televised debates. I can just see Sarah Palin winking at the camera and reminding Barack Obama about a certain Illinois Senator who served all of 140 days of his first term before he decided to jump the shark and devote his time and energy to running for president.

If she's decides to run, we'll know within a year or so. Look for her to be out on the trail fundraising, putting a killer staff together, giving good internet( unlike the RNC, she learned something from watching Obama operate),doing interviews and speaking to the American people.

And don't be surprised if she does it independently of the normal GOP apparatus.

The thing about Sarah Palin is that accidentally or deliberately, she tapped into an authentic political vein in the American people, and it's one that a lot of the Republican Party isn't comfortable with, especially the part of the party that wants to evolve into Democrat-lite.

Ronald Reagan had exactly the same problem but he was able to build his own independent organization within the GOP, find his own voice and cause a revolution in American politics.

It remains to be seen if Sarah Palin does the same. She remains the most exciting and viscerally appealing politician in the Republican Party, the only one who draws huge crowds and actually reaches people . If she does decide to run but the Big Boys won't let her play, don't be surprised if a third party coalesces around her and the GOP goes the way of the Whigs.

A nauseatingly smug Andrea Mitchell just announced on Mess NBC that Sarah Palin is through in politics. If I were you Andrea, I wouldn't bet the condo on it just yet.

There's an old Irish saying I'm quite fond of: "Let him laugh who wins."

Selah.

A Few More Palin Reactions...

Rush Limbaugh( by far the smartest man in the room): "Pure speculation.."

Ann Coulter (second smartest):"A brilliant move...she's gotten too big for Alaska."

Mary Matalin thinks Palin resignation is a "brilliant move."

PART I



PART II



Mike Huckabee and Karl Rove's reaction.

Jay Cost: "Maybe she doesn't want to run for president..If I were in her shoes, having been asked by my party's nominee to accept the vice-presidential nomination, then having been put through the wringer the way she and her family have, I wouldn't want to run for the presidency. I wouldn't want to run for reelection as governor. And I too would be inclined to resign altogether. One difference between her and me: I would not have been as gracious as she was last Friday."

Andrew Breitbart: New York Times barbie Strikes Again: "What a shock that Maureen Dowd devoted her New York Times column Sunday to attack Sarah Palin. It did not so much criticize Alaska's governor for prematurely stepping down from her official duties as to finish off what sister snipers Katie Couric and Tina Fey began last fall. The assassination of Sarah Palin -by media."

Qu'rans Burned By Israelis

Aw come on, you know better than that. It's only Muslims that treat other religions with that kind of disrespect:

Arabs raided the yeshiva of Homesh in Samaria {AKA the Northern West Bank- rm} on Wednesday and torched dozens of books of the Talmud and of the Five Books of Moses, leaving behind a pile of ashes. The arsonists ignored personal equipment, including beds, tables and chairs, and concentrated all their energies on Jewish texts.

“It was a horrible sight to see dozen of holy books of the Talmud and Bible burned almost completely,” said Rabbi Elishama Cohen, head of the yeshiva that has been the stronghold of the community the past two years. {...}

“The Arabs did this very thoroughly and carefully,” Rabbi Cohen added. “We succeeded in saving the remains of some of the burned books and several pages where the letters still are recognizable, the same pages we learned the past several days.”

Return to Homesh leader Yossi Dagan said that the yeshiva students gathered the remains of the books to bury them according to Jewish law. “We demand that the Prime Minister establish a community larger than the original Homesh. This needs to be the answer of the government to this desecration and national humiliation."

Again, this is far from an isolated incident. The Palestinians have made a point of defiling or destroying any Jewish Holy sites that are in or near the areas of Judea and Samaria (AKA the West bank) that they occupy, Like Rachel's tomb and Joseph's tomb. even synagogues inside Israel have been deliberately targeted

As for religious sites the Jews have magnanimously attempted to share with Muslims, it's been a failure. The Muslim Waqf in Jerusalem routinely destroys any Jewish artifacts in come across in its illegal exacavations on the Temple Mount. And at the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, where the Israelis attempted to allow Muslims equal access with separate scheduled times, the Jews returned during their Holy Days to find that the Muslims had urinated on the Jew's Torah scrolls and decked out the desiganted Jewish area with Hamas flags and anti-Semitic grafitti.

In fact, this behavior is characteristic of virtually every area controlled by Islam or situated on Islam's aptly named 'bloody borders.' From Nigeria to Pakistan to Indonesia, non-Muslims, their religious edifices and their Holy books are a target.

For all the constant Muslim whining about intolerance and Islamophobia, it is overwhelmingly Islam and many of its adherents that are the major culprits when it comes to religious bigotry..because for the most part, Islam simply doesn't play well with others. The sooner we realize that and take the appropriate steps to enforce demands upon Islam for the same tolerance and respect towards non-Muslims that it demands from them, the better.

As for this particular ugliness, the Israelis would be smart to publicize it worldwide and use it as a rationale for widening Israel's security buffer, expanding the size of Homesh and expelling some of these Arabs away from the vicinity.

Eventually, they're going to end up having to do it anyway.


(hat tip, Pam)

Colin Powell Has Some Second Thoughts On Obama..

Well, how 'bout that?

Colin Powell, one of President Obama's most prominent Republican supporters, expressed concern Friday that the president's ambitious blitz of costly initiatives may be enlarging the size of government and the federal debt too much.

"I'm concerned at the number of programs that are being presented, the bills associated with these programs and the additional government that will be needed to execute them," Mr. Powell said in an excerpt of an interview with CNN's John King, released by the network Friday morning.

Mr. Powell, a retired U.S. army general who rose to political prominence after a long and accomplished military career, said that health care reform and many of Mr. Obama's other initiatives are "important" to Americans.

But, he said, "one of the cautions that has to be given to the president -- and I've talked to some of his people about this -- is that you can't have so many things on the table that you can't absorb it all."

"And we can't pay for it all," said Mr. Powell, who was the first African-American to serve as secretary of state, under former President George W. Bush.

Gee, general...all you had to do was listen to what was coming out of Obama's mouth during the campaign and you could have avoided having to embarrass yourself!

Actually, what I think we can take this to mean is that Powell didn't receive whatever reward he was promised for jumping on the Obama bandwagon with a prominent endorsement and turning on the GOP, which was entirely responsible for his advancement and prominence.

Rest assured, if he actually was still in touch with anyone meaningful in the Obama Administration, he wouldn't be flapping his gums.

The Obama Blues...

Courtesy of Red Planet Cartoons....and a hat tip to MK.

Watcher's Council Results, 7/03/09

The Council has spoken! A complete rundown of the voting tallies is here.

• First place with 2 points! – The Razor - Settlement
• Second place with 1 1/3 points – (T*) – Right Truth - LIFE
• Second place with 1 1/3 points – (T*) – The Glittering Eye - Affording Everything
• Third place with 2/3 point – (T*) – The Provocateur - The Libertarians Downfall: Conspiracy Theories
• Third place with 2/3 point – (T*) – Joshuapundit - Masquerade In Iran
• Third place with 2/3 point – (T*) – Mere Rhetoric - Shh… Massachusetts Proves Mandate-Based Health Reform Will Be A Disaster
• Fourth place with 1/3 point – (T*) – Wolf Howling - Politicized Science
• Fourth place with 1/3 point – (T*) – Soccer Dad - Diehl me out

Winning Non-Council Submissions

• First place with 2 1/3 points! – Fausta’s Blog - Responses to “Coup in Honduras – Correction: This is NOT a coup”
• Second place with 1 2/3 points – Christina Hoff Sommers - Persistent Myths in Feminist Scholarship
• Third place with 1 point – (T*) – The League of Ordinary Gentlemen - Iraq June 30th
• Third place with 1 point – (T*) – EU Referendum - Rigging The Debate
• Fourth place with 2/3 point – (T*) – Delaware Liberal - Should Sanford Resign?
• Fourth place with 2/3 point – (T*) – Diana West - “Role of Women in Iran Protest Kindles Hope”…OF WHAT?
• Fifth place with 1/3 point – (T*) – American Daughter - Religion and Politics Don’t Mix
• Fifth place with 1/3 point – (T*) – Financial Times - Obama is Choosing to be Weak

As always, congratulations not only to the winners but to the participants.

The Fourth Of July...

And remember that our freedom is purchased, every day, by brave men and women like these:






































































Let's never forget that America is a special place as we enjoy celebrating our nation's birthday. Below are the words to our national anthem, written by Francis Scott Key after witnessing the heroic defense of Fort McHenry from the British invaders. Take a minute to really read the words ( especially the last three verses) and think about what they mean:


The Star Spangled Banner

O say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?


On the shore dimly seen thro' the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
'Tis the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!


And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion,
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.


O thus be it ever when free-men shall stand

Between their lov'd home and the war's desolation;

Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land

Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us a nation!

Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,

And this be our motto: “In God is our trust!”

And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

"Advancing In A Different Direction.." Sarah Palin Resigns As Alaska's Governor

Governor Sarah Palin announced today that she's resigning as Alaska's governor and her Lieutenant governor and political ally Sean Parnell will take over as of July 25th.

She had a few things to say about the matter , and a transcript of her remarks is here.

I'm not claiming to be clairvoyant, but I had a feeling this was coming fairly soon.

Alaska is simply too far away logistically from what Alaskans call the Lower 48 for anyone to serve as a sitting governor and still devote the time and energy it will take to run for president in 2012. Believe it or not, Anchorage is farther away from Los Angeles than Los Angeles is from Baltimore.

Sarah Palin had a tough choice to make. She could either continue to be governor of Alaska or resign and take some time to consider whether she wanted to go for the prize. She couldn't do both, she thought about it and then with characteristic boldness, she made a decision.

There are other factors involved, obviously. As an ex-governor, she's no longer a target for the well-funded and organized campaign to bankrupt the Palin family via various frivolous 'ethics complaints.' Number 15 was just thrown out of court as groundless just like all the others, but in the meantime it's cost the Palins half a million bucks in legal fees...and they are not wealthy people. With her out of office, that particular drain in time, money and energy is a thing of the past. And she has a book to write and a new baby to care for, and some very real soul searching and planning to do if she decides on a run for the presidency in 2012.

Part of that soul searching will likely have to do with the effect on her family. When you can't even go to a charity fundraiser or a baseball game without some low life trying to get at you through your kids, it undoubtedly provides some food for thought.

If she decides to run, we'll know within a year or so. Look for her to be out on the trail fundraising, doing book interviews and speaking to the American people.

And don't be surprised if she does it independently of the normal GOP apparatus.

The thing about Sarah Palin is that accidentally or deliberately, she tapped into an authentic political vein in the American people, and it's one that a lot of the Republican Party isn't comfortable with, especially the part of the party that wants to evolve into Democrat-lite.

Ronald Reagan had exactly the same problem but he was able to build his own independent organization within the GOP, find his own voice and cause a revolution in American politics.

It remains to be seen if Sarah Palin does the same. She remains the most exciting and viscerally appealing politician in the Republican Party, the only one who draws huge crowds and actually reaches people . If she does decide to run but the Big Boys won't let her play, don't be surprised if a third party coalesces around her and the GOP goes the way of the Whigs.

A nauseatingly smug Andrea Mitchell just announced on Mess NBC that Sarah Palin is through in politics. If I were you Andrea, I wouldn't bet the condo on it just yet.

There's an old Irish saying I'm quite fond of: "Let him laugh who wins."

Selah.

WAPO Solicits Lobbyist Cash For Access To Obama Officials, Congress, And Its Staff

The Washington Post decided to solicit lobbyists and other interested parties to fork over between $25,000 and $250,000 per head for what it described as an 'underwriting opportunity'.

As the WAPO's marketing flier detailed, this 'opportunity' involved off-the-record, "non-confrontational" access to "those powerful few" - Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and even the paper’s own reporters and editors - at private salons held at publisher Katherine Weymouth's home.

This only surfaced because a health care lobbyist released the flier to the Politico, because the lobbyist felt it was a conflict for the Washington Post to try and charge for private access to its health care reporting and editorial staff.

Once they got caught with their pants down, publisher Weymouth quickly engaged in some damage control:

With the Post newsroom in an uproar after POLITICO reported the solicitation, Weymouth said in an email to the staff that "a flier went out that was prepared by the Marketing department and was never vetted by me or by the newsroom. Had it been, the flier would have been immediately killed, because it completely misrepresented what we were trying to do."


Weymouth said the paper had planned a series of dinners with participation from the newsroom “but with parameters such that we did not in any way compromise our integrity. Sponsorship of events, like advertising in the newspaper, must be at arm's length and cannot imply control over the content or access to our journalists. At this juncture, we will not be holding the planned July dinner and we will not hold salon dinners involving the newsroom. “

She made it clear however, that The Post, which lost $19.5 million in the first quarter, sees bringing together Washington figures as a future revenue source. “We do believe that there is a viable way to expand our expertise into live conferences and events that simply enhances what we do - cover Washington for Washingtonians and those interested in Washington,” she said. “ And we will begin to do live events in ways that enhance our reputation and in no way call into question our integrity.”

(Translation: "This was a great idea that would have made us a lot of money if we could have just kept it quiet. Next time, we'll vet the marketing list better to make sure nobody opens their mouth and makes us look bad." - rm)

Executive editor Marcus Brauchli was as adamant as Weymouth in denouncing the plan promoted in the flier. “You cannot buy access to a Washington Post journalist,” Brauchli told POLITICO. Brauchli was named on the flier as one of the salon’s "Hosts and Discussion Leaders."

Brauchli said in an interview that he understood the business side of the Post planned on holding dinners on policy and was scheduled to attend the July 21 dinner at Weymouth’s Washington home, but he said he had not seen the material promoting it until today. “The flier, and the description of these things, was not at all consistent with the preliminary conversations the newsroom had,” Brauchli said, adding that it was “absolutely impossible” the newsroom would participate in the kind of event described in the solicitation for the event.

So in other words, Brauschli knew all about it and was fine with actually performing...he just didn't like the advertising. Especially the way it looked when it went public.

And obviously, in spite of what he said, you can buy access to a WAPO journalist.All the flier did was advertise the price.

Now, I can actually understand where Madame Weymouth's head was at. Many of the WAPO's newsroom employees ceased to be actual journalists a long time ago, and they cost a lot of money. Expenses have to be met, and after all, times in the biz being what they are, a number of them might very well be at work on certain corners in Georgetown to make ends meet if Weymouth didn't provide them with a paycheck. There's a certain twisted logic in using them to help shake a little cash out of the johns lobbyists.

But my main interest lies in the Obama officials and congressmen - 'the powerful few' - who agreed to participate in this scheme and show up. Obviously, Weymouth had a few big names lined up, if she charged up to a quarter mill for an entrance fee. People like to get their money's worth.

So, who were these 'powerful few' who agreed to appear? And what were they supposed to get out of it? Was it a tradeoff for favorable coverage in the paper? Or was it something as mundane as part of the take?


To me, that's the real story. Unfortunately, so far it's missing in action, and it will likely stay that way.

The Afghanistan Surge Begins - Or Does It?

Our warriors in Helmand province are engaged in a large operation against the Taliban, according to the WAPO.

But based on what our Marine's own commander is saying (no doubt dictated by the Obama Administration) I doubt the Taliban is exactly quaking in their turbans:

Once Marine units arrive in their designated towns and villages, they have been instructed to build and live in small outposts among the local population. The brigade's commander, Brig. Gen. Lawrence D. Nicholson, said his Marines will focus their efforts on protecting civilians from the Taliban and on restoring Afghan government services, instead of mounting a series of hunt-and-kill missions against the insurgents.

"We're doing this very differently," Nicholson said to his senior officers a few hours before the mission began. "We're going to be with the people. We're not going to drive to work. We're going to walk to work." {...}

The U.S. strategy here is predicated on the belief that a majority of people in Helmand do not favor the Taliban, which enforces a strict brand of Islam that includes an-eye-for-an-eye justice and strict limits on personal behavior. Instead, U.S. officials believe, residents would rather have the Afghan government in control, but they have been cowed into supporting the Taliban because there was nobody to protect them. {...}

"Our focus is not the Taliban," Nicholson told his officers. "Our focus must be on getting this government back up on its feet." {..}

In meetings with his commanders at forward operating bases over the past three days, Nicholson acknowledged that focusing on governance and population security does not come as naturally to Marines as conducting offensive operations, but he told them it is essential that they focus on "reining in the pit bulls."

"We're not going to measure your success by the number of times your ammunition is resupplied. . . . Our success in this environment will be very much predicated on restraint," he told a group of officers from the 2nd Battalion, 8th Marines on Sunday. "You're going to drink lots of tea. You're going to eat lots of goat. Get to know the people. That's the reason why we're here."

General Douglas MacArthur once answered a reporter who asked him to define defensive war by using one word: "Defeat."

A few things stand out here. First you might remember that a certain presidential candidate criticized then-President Bush for alienating our allies and promised that he would mend those relationships and get NATO to send more troops. Now that he actually has the job of commander-in-chief, it's obvious from who's doing the heavy lifting in Helmand that President Obama's rhetoric on this subject was just another crack fantasy.

Second, there's a huge assumption being made here that the people of Helmand are instinctively anti-Taliban and favor the Karzhai Afghan government. I'm not sure I'd take that bet.

The population of Helmand province is mostly made up of ethnic Pashtuns,the same group the Taliban is primarily composed of. And Helmand is surrounded by Pashtun controlled areas with substantial Taliban influence, Kandahar province to its east and Nimroz province to the west. Pakistan makes up its southern border.

Given the tribal nature and clan loyalties inherent in Afghan society and its historic and traditional hatred of foreigners, the idea that the people of Helmand are going to jettison their Pashtun homeboys in favor of a bunch of stinking ferenghi infidels who want girls to go to school seems to be a long shot to me, especially since it's obvious that our warriors have some pretty restrictive Rules of Engagement in place.

I hope I'm mistaken, but this smells a lot like the old Hearts And Minds/ fortified villages strategy used in Vietnam.

Another factor I think complicates matters is Helmand's prominence as an opium growing area. It appears no one in the Obama Administration has taken up my idea of controlling the traffic and starving the Taliban of funds by offering the growers the option of selling the crops to us at market price or having their fields destroyed. That means our troops are going to be in the position of either looking the other way as the locals continue to deal with the Taliban or of trying to interfere with the traffic - which is not exactly going to win friends and influence people among the locals.

I sincerely hope someone sat down and thought about these angles before they dispatched our troops to drink tea, eat goat and hang out with the locals while they make sure to avoid shooting at the enemy too much.

Watcher's Council Nominations, 7/01/09

The Watcher's Council is a group of some of the most incisive blogs in the`sphere. Every week, the members nominate two posts each, one of their own and one from outside the group for consideration by the whole Council.

So, let's see what we have this week....and do check out the Watcher's excellent take on the recent Cap and Trade nonsense in Congress...


COUNCIL

• Joshuapundit - Masquerade In Iran
  Are Mousavi and his followers in Iran an actual reform movement and a positive democratic change in Iran? Do we really have a dog in this particular fight? I don't see it that way in the least, heart-rending as the pictures of student demonstrators in Tehran being brutalized by the basij and Iranian security forces are. As I try to show, the label of "democratic reform" attached to Mousavi and many of his followers is simply a masquerade.
  
  A continuation of this theme is contained in my Non-Council nomination by Diana West, which reveals how much a 'feminist' and crusader for women's rights Mrs. Mousavi really is, as opposed to how she's been painted by the media.


• The Razor - Settlement - a fascinating post by Scott, as he recounts his attempts to give away useful items in a still affluent society and wonders aloud if real poverty actually exists in America.


• Rhymes With Right - How A Real President Responds Greg looks at Obama's response to the protests in Iran a finds it wanting and compares it with that of another president at another time and place.
  


• The Glittering Eye - Affording Everything One of the things I love about Dave's pieces is that I frequently encounter things I otherwise wouldn't have. This week,his take on the cap and trade debate involves Pigovian taxes, a term I was completely unfamiliar with before.
  
  Want to know what they are? Inquire within.



• Mere Rhetoric - Shh… Massachusetts Proves Mandate-Based Health Reform Will Be A Disaster This week Omri takes on the proposed Obama healthcare debacle by looking at its earlier ancestor..RomneyCare, as practiced in Massachusetts.
  
  You might feel a bit different about supporting Romney in 2012 after reading this.
• Wolf Howling - Politicized Science GW takes a definitive look at the global warming scam, with his usual attention to detail.



• Soccer Dad - Diehl me out SD gets the prize this week for the cleverest title, a play on words utilizing the name of WAPO columnist Jackson Diehl.
  
  Diehl could hardly be termed a friend of Israel. Nevertheless, he warns that Obama may have backed himself into a corner with his dogmatic anti-Israel stance on the Middle East, and Soccer Dad examines the premise.



• Bookworm Room - All violence is equal, but some violence is more equal than others Two movie reviews of two films containing graphic violence..and two completely different critical reactions. And Ms. Bookworm shows us how it all depends on the politics involved!
• The Provocateur - The Libertarians Downfall: Conspiracy Theories Mike's entry this week focuses on what he feels is the main Achilles heel of libertarian politics.
• Right Truth - LIFE A wonderfully poetic piece this week from Debbie, reflecting on life, it's lessons, and our beloved country.

NON-COUNCIL

• Submitted By: Right Truth – American Daughter - Religion and Politics Don’t Mix
• Submitted By: The Provocateur – Washington Post – George Will - On Race, The Slog Goes On
• Submitted By: The Watcher – Forbes.com – Karl Gaard - Waxman-Markey Flunks Math
• Submitted By: The Razor – Financial Times - Obama is Choosing to be Weak
• Submitted By: Rhymes With Right – Delaware Liberal - Should Sanford Resign?
• Submitted By: Joshuapundit – Diana West - “Role of Women in Iran Protest Kindles Hope”…OF WHAT?
• Submitted By: The Glittering Eye – The League of Ordinary Gentlemen - Iraq June 30th
• Submitted By: Mere Rhetoric – Kaplan / Washington Post - Iran’s Struggle, and Ours
• Submitted By: Wolf Howling – EU Referendum - Rigging The Debate
• Submitted By: Soccer Dad – Fausta’s Blog - Responses to “Coup in Honduras – Correction: This is NOT a coup”
• Submitted By: Bookworm Room – Christina Hoff Sommers - Persistent Myths in Feminist Scholarship

Today's Must Reads:

Today's all new Must reads are up...and there's some tasty and vital stuff there, so partake.

I particularly liked Victor Davis Hanson's Thuggery 101, Ralph Peter's piece on iraq and Rants and Raves take on the GOP sex scandals..

If any members of Joshua's Army run across something you'd like included here, please e-mail me the link so I can take a look at it. Selah.

(graphic courtesy of The Webdesign Guru)