Is he,? Isn't he.? Will he ?won't he.? Who knows?

A strategic gain for Iran, Syria and Hezballah should they initiate war against Israel. (See 1 below.)
More delusional thinking. Drinking your own bathwater is dangerous. (See 2 below.)

Then,is Kyle-Anne Shiver delusional or will David Broder's assessment prove correct? (See 3 and 3a below)

Perhaps Shiver is right but just in case an open letter to Sen. John McCainand an answer to what Broder poses. (See 4 below.)

Olmert is defended. As with so many public officials is Olmert being subjected to a thousand media and press cuts as was Scooter Libby et al.? (See 5 below.)

Jonathan Alter encourages Obama to touch the third rail and challenge the Liberal's play toy: "Education/Teacher Unions." If Obama does will it be for real or simply a voter ploy and should he be elected will Pelosi, Reid and the other Liberal pro-union anti-education dolts go along? (See 6 below.)

Dick


1)Iranian Early Warning Station, Anti-Air Base on Lebanese Peak


In the past few weeks, Hizballah at the behest of Iran and Syria has commandeered the 7,800-foot Mt. Sannine, a strategic asset capable of determining the outcome of the next war.

Radar-guided missile positions and an early warning station have since been deployed on its summit, which are capable of monitoring and threatening US Sixth Fleet movements in the eastern Mediterranean and Israel Air Force flights.

This development was serious enough for Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak to repeat three times in as many days that the IDF is keeping a close watch on events in the northern front, especially the deepening ties between Syria and the Lebanese Hizballah. Barak travels to Washington this week.

Mt. Sannine, which dominates the roads connecting Beirut and Damascus, is one of the most prized strategic assets in the region. It was fought over for years by Syria and Israel, both seeking to control this ideal vantage point for an early warning station to command the eastern Mediterranean, the northern half of Israel and the Damascus region.

Its takeover on behalf of Tehran places Israeli security at a grave disadvantage. This topic is expected to figure large in the talks French president Nicolas Sarkozy holds with visiting Syrian ruler Bashar Assad this week.

Military sources reveal that military movements carried out in the last two weeks by Hizballah in conjunction with Tehran and Damascus can only be interpreted as preparations for war. Lebanese sources have been saying openly that Syria, Iran and Hizballah are now in position for a new Middle East confrontation.

This development was kept under tight wraps by prime minister Ehud Olmert, the defense and foreign ministers and the chief of staff. Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi.

Senior IDF officers assert if the new military facts on the ground in Lebanon are allowed to stay in place, the next war Hizballah launches with Syria and Iran will find Israel’s ground, sea and air forces at a grave strategic disadvantage.

Yet there are no signs of Israel’s policy-makers budging.

Olmert and Livni took off for Paris Saturday night July 12 to attend the French president’s Mediterranean conference.

Our Middle East sources report that Sarkozy promised US president George W. Bush and Olmert to take up the belligerent movements in Lebanon with Assad and the Lebanese president Michel Sleiman. But political sources stress that the Olmert government’s custom of referring Israel’s military problems to external addresses is no longer working, neither for the Iranian nuclear issue nor the mounting threats posed by the Shiite Hizballah and Palestinian Hamas.

Menawhile,Iran and Syria have acted on the political front to establish a radical government in Beirut dominated by two terrorist groups under their control. Hwezballah now has veto power over Lebanon's government.

2) Embracing Delusions: Lessons for the Olmert Government
By Mark Silverberg

Governments and armies must forever be concerned to avoid the element of surprise, yet history is replete with their failures to do so. In such cases, the disasters that followed were rarely due to a lack of critical information. They were often due to faulty analysis. In a chilling premonition of what was to come, Ambassador Richard Parker wrote just days before the 9/11 tragedies:"We must never become victims of our own myths and see our opponents through a distorting, ethnocentric lens. We would do better...if we educated our policymakers and military leaders more thoroughly to be wary of simple answers and to be more alert to the diverse character of the world's peoples and the...complexities of their problems." [1]

Ambassador Parker's caution was clear -- if leaders become victims of their own delusions (and act upon those delusions -- or fail to act because of them), they expose their nations to catastrophe. These delusions represent more than simple errors in judgment. They are often indicative of threat assessments based on erroneous paradigms -- sets of beliefs, perceptions or frameworks within which critical facts are considered (or not considered) and upon which risk or threat assessments are based. The ruling security paradigm propels everything from developing needs assessments, to how to position armies for battle, to decisions on whether to create an integrated intelligence infrastructure to deal with perceived threats. If the security paradigm is wrong, if its assumptions are incorrect, so to are the threat assessments, the rules, the regulations and the procedures that are based upon it.

In the case of 9/11, the ruling security paradigm provided that the hijacking and intentional crashing of commercial passenger aircraft into buildings was highly improbable despite intelligence warnings suggesting otherwise. Besides (so the paradigm went), the oceans that historically separated America from its enemies and its "technological edge" have always (and would continue to) keep America safe -- or so it concluded.

Consequently, intelligence information pouring into America (especially from Israeli and German sources) in the years, months, weeks and even days prior to the disasters were recorded, noted and filed, but given a low priority. Terrorist watch lists were neither shared nor integrated. A culture of secrecy prevailed within the intelligence community. In several cases, FBI field agents who presented documented concerns about suspected terrorists (in Minneapolis and Phoenix in particular) were ignored and, some were even reprimanded for wasting time and pursuing false leads. Even the laws governing the exchange of criminal and intelligence information between the FBI and the CIA inhibited the ability of the American security and intelligence community to conduct proper threat assessments. Prior to the tragedies of 9/11, the American security and intelligence communities had become captives to an erroneous security paradigm - a fundamentally flawed security and intelligence framework that prevented them from making proper risk assessments of the danger posed by extremist Islam to America and American interests abroad. And because the assessed risk was determined to be a low priority based on the paradigm, it was not significant enough to expend the necessary human and financial capital to deal with it.

The 20th century is replete with such errors including the failure of Stalin to anticipate Operation Barbarossa (the Nazi invasion of Russia on June 22, 1941) despite 84 warnings of a pending invasion from his generals in the field, because, as he stated, he had "shaken hands with the man (Adolf Hitler)"; the failure of American intelligence to anticipate the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 despite a wealth of information suggesting that such an attack was imminent [2]; the exceptionally high murder rate of Dutch Jewry during the Holocaust (102,000 of 140,000 Dutch Jews perished) due to the failure of Dutch Jewish leaders to recognize the extent of the threat posed by Nazi Germany [3]; the American "blind spot" when it came to understanding the concept of martyrdom in Arab Muslim culture that showed itself on October 23, 1983 when a truck laden with the equivalent of more than 12,000 pounds of TNT crashed into the Marine headquarters building at Beirut International Airport, killing 241 US military personnel as they slept - this despite prior suicide bombings on its Beirut Embassy and numerous warnings that another major suicide attack was being planned against American targets [4]; and the almost universal misreading by international intelligence agencies of Saddam Hussein's true and stated intentions and actions toward Kuwait in 1990.

Erroneous security and intelligence paradigms have especially taken their toll on Israel. In 1973, Israel knew that it would eventually come into conflict with Egypt and Syria, yet despite all the evidence on the ground in early October of that year, Israeli military intelligence steadfastly refused to believe that that day had actually come. According to a report published in Yediot Aharonot, over 1,500 warnings of the military buildup reached Israeli intelligence before October 1973. The progressive steps of preparation for war, the early warning indicators were thoroughly reported, but not acted upon. That is because prior to the Yom Kippur War, Israeli military intelligence operated on the false security paradigm that the Arabs would never start a war they knew they could not win. Stubborn adherence to this concept assumed that Egypt would not go to war against Israel unless and until it was able to destroy Israel's major military airfields in order to paralyze her air force and Syria would not launch a major offensive against Israel except simultaneously with Egypt. While Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, Chief of Staff David Elazar and Mossad Chief Zvi Zamir were convinced that war was imminent and advised Prime Minister Golda Meir accordingly, Military Intelligence Chief Eli Zeira, relying upon his own "concept" of Arab intentions, disagreed. Zeira refused to draw the proper conclusions from "the facts on the ground" that indicated war was imminent. Even when Egyptian President Anwar Sadat ordered crossing equipment and tanks to the Suez Canal, Zeira and his staff continued to believe that Sadat was just bluffing - that it was all part of Egyptian military exercises designed to intimidate the Jewish State. As late as October 3rd, Zeira continued to insist that the prospect of war remained unlikely. Officers in the field who sent in reports of enemy buildups along the Suez Canal and the Golan Heights in the weeks and days prior to the commencement of hostilities were either rebuked or ignored. [5] Only too late did Zeira realize that he had made a terrible blunder. The surprise attacks across the Suez Canal and in the Golan Heights by Egyptian and Syrian forces in the early morning hours of October 6, 1973 almost led to the destruction of Israel.

The assumptions underlying the 1993 Oslo Accords were no different. The Accords were based upon Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin's erroneous perception of Palestinian intentions. He assumed that the PLO was not hostile and could be a potential peace partner; that Israel could preserve security without the use of deterrent force; that Israel could end terror by "removing its root causes"; and that the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel could be solved through full and honest negotiation.

Based upon this paradigm, Rabin was convinced that the true existential threat to Israel emanated not from the Palestinians, but from Iraq (under Saddam Hussein) and the ayatollahs in Iran. Rabin's security paradigm told him that Arafat was desirous of making peace with Israel under the right circumstances. "The Palestinians are not our enemies," he repeatedly told his Cabinet. He did not view the Palestinians as an existential threat as much as a "tactical problem" that could be resolved between "friends" provided that Israel was prepared to make "significant territorial concessions." So he bankrolled the Palestinian Authority (PA), trained and armed the Palestinian police, rehabilitated his enemy from his Tunisian exile, believing all the while that he had laid the foundations for a lasting peace with his mortal foe.

But his paradigm for peace with the Palestinians was a delusion that ultimately led to disaster. Even as Arafat returned triumphantly to Ramallah, he had already made his preparations for continuing his terror war against Israel. Despite repeated warnings from Israeli Military Intelligence officials that a "Lebanon-like situation" was developing in the territories, Foreign Minister Shimon Peres told them - "You are destroying my peace." [6] As early as September 8, 1993, five days before signing the Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles (DOP), Arafat told an Israeli journalist who came to interview him in his Tunis headquarters: "In the future, Israel and Palestine will be one united state in which Israelis and Palestinians will live together" -- that is, Israel would no longer exist.

Even as he shook Yitzhak Rabin's hand on the White House lawn under President Clinton's outstretched hands, Arafat was assuring the Palestinians in a pre-recorded Arabic-language message broadcast by Jordanian radio that the DOP was merely one aspect of the PLO's June 1974 "Strategy of Phases" (an approach supported to this day by his successor Mahmoud Abbas). That "Strategy" stipulated that the Palestinians should seize "whatever territory Israel was prepared or compelled to cede and use it as a springboard for further territorial gains until achieving the complete liberation of Palestine." [7] In the end, more Israelis lost their lives in Palestinian terrorist attacks in the first three years following the Oslo Accords than in the previous decade, and it would become far worse as time went on.

The same delusions characterized the policy of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in unilaterally withdrawing from Gaza during the summer of 2005 -- a decision based upon his unshakable belief that Israel would be safer by disengaging from all contact with the Palestinians; that he could win their hearts and minds and support Mahmoud Abbas' stature among his own people by "jump-starting" the 2003 Roadmap to Peace, by releasing hundreds of unrepentant Palestinian terrorists from prison (despite the experience of the May 20, 1985 Ahmed Jibril prisoner release where 114 of 238 terrorists released back into the West Bank and Gaza resumed their terrorist activities), [8] handing over West Bank towns to Palestinian security control, withdrawing from Gaza and dismantling Israeli military infrastructures in Gaza and the northern West Bank, supporting the incorporation of terrorists into the new Palestinian Security Services, and allowing the infusion of billions of dollars in foreign aid into the PA -- funds that were known at the time to be used to support a culture of corruption, government malfeasance and terrorism. [9]

Sharon's belief in disengagement, like Rabin's embrace of the Oslo Accords over a decade earlier, failed to correctly assess the risk involved, most notably, the numerous agreements violated by the PA since the Oslo Accords:

- the peace initiatives and ceasefires derailed by Palestinian terrorism; the recurring intelligence reports of increased terror-related activities throughout Gaza;

- prior knowledge that Mahmoud Abbas had been seeking large quantities of heavy weapons from more than twenty world governments in contravention of every international accord the Palestinians had signed with Israel and every pledge Abbas had made to the Bush administration and other world leaders to that date [10];

- the repeated warnings from Israeli military intelligence that Hamas was smuggling missiles, mortar shells, and Kassam rockets under the Philadelphi Corridor that connects Gaza with Egypt; Abbas' declared intention to incorporate known terrorists into his new Palestinian Security Force;

- the long-term implications of Israel's concession to stop pursuing Palestinian terrorists in Gaza and the West Bank (at that point in time) and allowing them to carry weapons in open violation of the Roadmap to Peace (which called for terrorists to be disarmed);

- Abbas' declared insistence on demanding a "right of return" of Palestinians to Israel proper;

- his unwillingness or inability to dismantle the Palestinian terror infrastructure and implement law and order; the increasing control exercised by Iran's Hezbollah operatives over many Palestinian terror cells, the decisive victory of Hamas over the PA in the January 2005 Gaza municipal elections;

- the rampant corruption throughout the Palestinian Authority;

- the "culture of death" that permeates all aspects of Palestinian society (two-thirds of Palestinians see terror as an effective weapon);

- the Palestinian perception that any withdrawal from Gaza would represent an Israeli retreat in the face of violence* and the speeches by Palestinian leaders to the effect that Gaza was merely the first stage in the phased destruction of "the Zionist enemy."


Despite these danger signals, Sharon was determined to carry out his withdrawal while receiving nothing of substance in return from the Palestinians. In spite of the warnings from his intelligence and security chiefs that Gaza and the West Bank would explode in violence, and that Israeli cities would come under missile attack from terrorists based in the south and eventually the east, Sharon could not be dissuaded from his disengagement delusion, and he made clear that he would tolerate no dissent by sacking both his IDF Chief of Staff, Moshe Ya`alon and his Shin Bet Security Services Director Avi Dichter who fundamentally disagreed with his security paradigm. Both had warned Sharon that releasing hundreds of seasoned terrorists into the general Palestinian population would be an error of monumental proportions, and that a withdrawal from Gaza without first destroying the terrorist infrastructures there would sow the seeds of a second Lebanon and encourage even more deadly attacks on Israel after the terrorists were rearmed and reorganized -- all of which has now come to pass.

In the wake of the Knesset approval of the disengagement, Nabil Sha`ath (Palestinian Authority Foreign Minister) commented: "May this be only one step in the liberation of all of Palestine", and Ahmed al-Bahar, a top Hamas leader in Gaza left no doubt that the Israeli withdrawal represented a major strategic victory for the Palestinians: "The painful and qualitative blows which the Palestinian resistance dealt to the Jews and their soldiers over the past four-and-a-half years led to the decision to withdraw from the Gaza Strip," he said. "The withdrawal marks the end of the Zionist dream and is a sign of the moral and psychological decline of the Jewish state."

As the former Chief Justice of the Israeli Supreme Court (Moshe Landau) commented in 2000: "I believe that we face adversaries who are much cleverer than we are, adversaries who know that they have to proceed in stages. As far as they are concerned, things are entirely clear - they don't want us here, but in the meantime, they are prepared to make do with whatever they can get at each stage that moves them closer to their ultimate objective." [11]

Emanuele Ottolenghi of Oxford University wrote recently: "In diplomacy no less than in war, deception works because those being deceived prefer to live within the deception rather than to acknowledge the sobering facts staring them in the face, and thereby to accept the frightening responsibility of having to act to address and reverse them." [12]

Given the nature of a society that:

- places greater value on: annihilating Israel than on building a modern Palestinian state;

- extols the virtues of "martyrdom" to its own children, that hangs posters of "martyred heroes" in its restaurants and marketplaces;

-preaches hatred of Jews and Israel in its schools, from its pulpits, through its media and throughout its culture;

- urges the kidnapping of hostages for ransom, the use of women and children as human shields;

- stages exhibition killings to terrorize the enemy,

it is difficult to believe that the delusions of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in:

- eliminating key security road blocks on the West Bank, discussing the deployment of an all-Arab peace-keeping force in Gaza knowing that such a force would inhibit Israel's ability to respond aggressively to terrorist attacks emanating from Gaza;

- offering to return major strategic assets like Mt. Dov (Shebaa Farms) to Hezbollah (no doubt soon to be expanded to include the seven Shi'a villages that existed in the Galilee prior to 1948, and the large Palestinian refugee presence in Lebanon) and the Golan Heights to Syria;

- rehabilitating Syrian President Assad who, until now, has been regarded as an international pariah, increasing the credibility of Hamas by accepting a ceasefire knowing that the Islamist organization is merely buying time to enhance its military capabilities and strategic position in order to continue its war against Israel;

- offering unheard of unilateral concessions on Jerusalem, knowing that Mahmoud Abbas has no support among his people, no power to carry out any serious security agreements, and that any agreement Israel and the PA made would crumble a day later due to the PA's weakness;

- releasing terrorists like Samir Kuntar who have committed atrocities against Israelis in the past and who have pledged to do so again in future;

- conveying the message to its enemies that it will pay any price for the return of its captured soldiers - dead or alive.

one is left to wonder how many more delusions Israel's leaders can afford to embrace before their nation is relegated to the dustbin of history.


* Prior to the announcement of the disengagement plan, 75% of the Palestinian public believed that the intifada had failed, but a few months after the planned withdrawal was announced, 74% agreed that the plan is "a victory for the armed struggle". The initial poll results appeared in October 2003 in the official PA daily al-Hayat al-Jadida, while a later confirming poll was conducted in September 2004 by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research directed by Khalil Shikaki.

notes

1. Ambassador Richard Parker, "Prisoners of a Concept", Air University (ATC), September 6, 2001. The failures of the Bush Doctrine in the Middle East can also be attributable to a paradigm for American foreign policy in the Middle East that failed to understand and address the nature of extremist Islamism in the Muslim world (Clifford D. May, The Peace Test:

Bush offered Palestinians a state; they said no deal," National Review Online, July 3, 2008; Mark Silverberg, "The End of the Bush Doctrine," Israel Insider, November 17, 2007).

2. Roberta Wohlstetter, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision, Stanford, CA: Press, 1962.

3. Joel Fishman, "Failure of Perception and Self-Deception", Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, March 15, 2001.

4. Erik J. Dahl, "Smarter Intelligence", The Boston Globe, November 23, 2004.

5. Major Rodney C. Richardson, "Yom Kippur War: Grand Deception or Intelligence Blunder", http://www.americanthinker.com/cgi-bin/at-admin/www.GlobalSecurity.org, 1991; see also Ambassador Richard B. Parker, op. cit. and his earlier article in the Air University Review, January-February, 1981.

6. Joel Fishman, op.cit.

7. Efraim Karsh, "Arafat Lives", Commentary, January 2005.

8. Margot Dudkevitch, "Freed Prisoner Killed on Terror Mission", Jerusalem Post Online, February 21, 2005.

9. Steven Stotsky, "Does Foreign Aid Fuel Palestinian Violence?" Middle East Quarterly, July 1, 2008.

10. DEBKAfile, "Terrorists Shatter Phony Calm in Tel Aviv, Shop for Heavy Weapons", February 26, 2005.

11. Justice Moshe Landau, Ha'aretz Magazine (English Edition), October 6, 2000.

12. Emanuele Ottolenghi, "The Iranian Shell Game", israelagainsterror.blogspot.com, June 30, 2008.

3) Could 2008 Be a McCain Landslide?
By Kyle-Anne Shiver

Ah yes, dear readers, this title has nailed me. I'm an unconventional thinker, a woman who is wont to go madly against the grain, in nearly all matters. I'm usually in the unpopular camp, the one who disdains conventional wisdom and consensus science. I'm just too darned independent-minded for my own good sometimes.

And 2008 is one of those times.

John McCain, the poor dear, is being characterized as the tired, old guy, not only by the media elites and the opposition Party, but nearly just as often, by his own prospective voters. "We're all but doomed," say the naysayers. Even if McCain manages to squeak through the White House door on the slimmest Electoral College majority, it will be by the skin of his ancient teeth, say the analysts.

Nearly all around the globe, the media trumpets are prematurely heralding an Obama victory with a fanfare fitting for the legendary phoenix arising from the ashes. The American Obamaphiles are gleefully fondling all their golden eggs, and busily counting their chickens, positively certain that every single one of them will hatch on November 4.

Maybe; maybe not.

Oh my, I can nearly hear the limb beneath my feet, straining and about to break, as I shimmy out to its farthest reach on this prognostication.

The 2008 Presidential election could be a landslide victory for John McCain.

I'm basing my assessment here on 3 factors: Time, the Anti-Obama vote and Obama's own arrogance.

Time

It's only July 13th, folks. There are 113 days remaining until November 4th. In this internet era, when news travels around the globe faster than a speeding bullet, 113 days are long enough for even the most polished, eloquent orator in American history to put both feet in his mouth dozens of times.

And every time Obama has one of his infamous verbal slips, it's recorded for profit or just plain fun, and spun into enough YouTube entertainment to last into the next decade. Every gaffe, every misstep, every flip-flop, turn-around and attempted take-back that the candidate utters, every single day for the next 113, will be viewed by hundreds of thousands of people, who then take their impressions to the office, the diners, the bus stops, the hairdressers and the assembly lines. The NYT could only ever dream of such influence.

Americans tend to be a forgiving lot, but each one of us has his own personal limit to the number of take-backs he is willing to allow a single person. I'm predicting that as Obama continues to morph into new positions nearly every day, that a great many voters are going to reach the limit, the point where they stop listening to this candidate because they simply stop trusting his word.

Trust is usually proffered generously, but once lost, disillusionment rarely permits its return, at least not within the confines of 113 days.

How many voters will still trust Obama by November 4th? Perhaps far less than the conventional wisdom is predicting. Time is not on Obama's side.

The Anti-Obama Vote

Discouraged conservatives and Republicans, even those who say now that they will stay home on Election Day, are at the end of the day, responsible citizens. They will, I predict, see well in advance of November 4th, just how much damage could be done by Obama, especially if he gets a filibuster-proof Senate majority and an even larger majority in the House of Representatives.

The Republican anti-Obama vote, I believe, will hinge on two issues, namely, the Supreme Court and our war against IslamoFascism. Forward thinking Republican voters will vote for treading water with McCain for 4 years over letting the whole American ship go down to defeat.

Disillusionment among loyal Democrats has already begun and is mounting rapidly. In the wake of Hillary Clinton's concession, a great many disgruntled Democrats started a grassroots groundswell under one banner group, PUMA, which stands for: Party Unity My A**. There are already more than 200 separate groups that are uniting under the PUMA banner, with only one thing in common. They vow that, no matter what, they will not support Barack Obama. There is already "Democrats for McCain" gear and all the hoopla that goes with it.

Add to these renegade groups the fact that Obama currently has a web mutiny on his hands, occurring on his very own networking site. The largest of these mutinous web supporter groups only formed the last week of June and already has more than 22,800 members. This particular group, "Please vote NO on Telecom Immunity - Get FISA right," formed over the latest Obama flip-flop, reneging on his October FISA promise to "support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies." Obama voted for the FISA bill, with immunity still in it.

As I've said already, trust is a fragile commodity. Once a person loses it, disillusioned followers can get mighty angry and even vindictive. With 113 days to go, and this many folks already vowing that the Obama they see now is "not the Obama they knew," with some even demanding returns on their campaign contributions, the emotional winds that have carried Barack this far may turn on him.

And I'm predicting that they will. By November 4th, we could even see hurricane-force passions blowing against Obama and at McCain's waiting back.

Obama's Arrogance

There are few things in this life as satisfying to more experienced people than to see haughty pride get its comeuppance.

How many working people in this Country have not had at least one experience with a young upstart, walking right out of college and into a position without a lick of hard knocks or humbling pragmatic necessity to be his guide? He's the guy who's got the whole business figured out because he read a book about it, or the gal who thinks raising great kids is no harder than summarizing the mistakes of others. And Barack Obama fits this stereotype to a perfect T.

He's 47 years old, but has spent the bulk of his adult life either coddled in an out-of-touch academia or perennially running for one office after another. He has not even had to stare down or discipline teenage children, for goodness' sake.

Yet, he's got it all figured out, down to the nuts and bolts of exactly why the rest of us "bitter" folks "cling to" our "religions and our guns." His two books are little more than summations of what other people think, their motivations and their difficulties. Reading his two autobiographical books leaves one with the uneasy impression that although Obama thinks he knows everything there is to know about us, he has yet to even figure out himself.

So, this is the man who has all of life and everything about American politics so well mastered, that he thinks he is ready to be President?

The vast majority of American voters are over 30, and in the voting booth, a candidate gets no extra points for excitement. No matter how thrilled some will be to vote for Barack Obama, their votes will count not one whit more than the old-fashioned, responsible votes cast for John McCain.

We've already witnessed Obama's highly fortuitous, completely unpredictable rise.

I'm betting we may also witness his fall before November 4th, and that his fall from grace will be every bit as phenomenal as was his rise.

3a) Obama's Enigma
By David Broder

WASHINGTON -- John McCain is the candidate who actually had experience as a wartime flyer, but Barack Obama is the one who has most successfully adapted a favorite tactic of those intrepid aviators. When the pilots were over a target heavily defended by anti-aircraft guns, they would release a cloud of fine metal scraps, hoping to confuse the aim of the shells or missiles being fired in their direction.

In the weeks since he clinched the Democratic presidential nomination, the Illinois senator has done a similar trick, throwing out verbal hints of altered positions on any number of issues. This is creating quandaries for the Republicans who can't figure out where to aim.

In their effort to embarrass him, Republicans ask: Who is the real Barack Obama? Is he, as he claims, a fresh face, heralding a new era of post-partisan politics, or a cynical old-style pol making poll-driven adjustments with scant regard for principles? A protectionist or a free-trader? A corporate-basher or an ally of interest-group contributors? Is he a doctrinaire liberal, disguising himself as a late-blooming centrist?

Last week, the Republican National Committee, in a statement cataloguing some half-dozen recent Obama "flip-flops," threw up its hands without offering answers. The McCain campaign issued its own list of Obama's changed positions totaling 17 items, but confessed that "nobody knows what Barack Obama truly believes."

I can do no better, and I confess that it is only speculation to suggest that Obama's recent performance is motivated by a desire to confuse the opposition. Candidates often change their emphasis, if not their basic positions, once they shift from running against others in their own party primaries and start thinking about a general election with millions more voters of all ideologies poised to weigh in. McCain has done some of that himself, most notably in the week when he campaigned in the traditionally Democratic territories of New Orleans, Selma, Ala., and Appalachia.

But Obama's case is more challenging than the typical candidate's post-primary adjustment. For one thing, he is more opaque than the usual nominee. No one in recent decades has emerged as the party standard-bearer from so truncated a political career: four years in the United States Senate, during which he has yet to lead on any major domestic or foreign policy issue, preceded by largely anonymous service in the Illinois state Senate.

There have been few occasions when Obama's professed beliefs can be tested against his action. And in the fight for the nomination, virtually no issues emerged on which Obama's stands were seriously challenged by his opponents.

He won by convincing a narrow majority of Democratic voters that he could mobilize otherwise distrustful and alienated citizens with his promise to change Washington and to introduce a more open and less partisan brand of politics. Because his personal credibility was such a key to his success -- and remains so -- the changes now occurring in his positions have a significance far beyond themselves.

Few if any of those inclined to support him have been so deeply offended by his readiness to "refine" his pledge to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq in 16 months or his opting out of the public finance system he had once pledged to use (to cite the first two items on McCain's bill of particulars) that they are thinking of switching sides.

Obama will be in trouble only if the pattern continues to the point that undecided voters come to believe that he has a character problem -- that they really can't trust him. As Peter Hart, the Democratic pollster, repeatedly reports from his focus groups with independents, this campaign turns much more on voters' struggle to size up Obama than it does on McCain.

Obama is making it hard for the Republicans to figure out how to attack him. The risk for him is if he also frustrates those voters' need to understand what makes him tick. They don't elect enigmas to the Oval Office.


4) Dear Senator McCain:

Were I involved in your advertising campaign I would propose a series of ads depicting two chameleons in the image of Obama - one named Flip the other Flop. I would have Flip state an earlier position espoused by Obama and then portray Flop reversing that position. Beneath Flip and Flop I would have a running tag line saying change-words have meanings - change- words have meaning etc.

Sometimes you can/must beat a candidate with his own words. Of course you too have flipped and flopped on some issues. Times and circumstances change and it is sometimes legitimately sensible to adjust. In your case, at least, you have a long public history and voting record and thus, some understanding of who you are. In the case of Obama, voters do not. That said, you must be prepared to respond truthfully to charges against your own flip flopping and explain why - even if it means doing what politicians must do, ie. appeal to a core constituency that conflicts with their own thinking.

I believe voters are increasingly incapable of reasoned discernment. White guilt, depression over the Iraq War and the downturn in the economy are more likely to drive emotion than produce clear thinking. Not even supporters of Obama can tell you where he intends to take the nation because he has disavowed many of his earlier positions. What are his core beliefs? If he has any, they have been wrapped in a "burrito" of soaring rhetoric and empty platitudes sauced with clever phraseology.

A thoughtful questioning of Obama flip flops exposes his greatest weakness. Asking voters to think about where this unknown puppy, wet behind the ears but filled with arrogance and umbrage, will take this nation should prove effective if you also explain why his flip flops should be unsettling.

If you engage him in a debate you should ask which Obama has appeared. Obama flip or Obama flop.

Not only is Obama clever but he is also lucky. He is advantaged by the improving situation in Iraq and the growing assertiveness of their government and leaders and demonstrated effectiveness of their U.S. trained military - all of which he has disavowed, dodged and denied.

In the end, the American people may be so dispirited they are unwilling to vote for a Republican because The Party has lost its moorings. Voters might be so infatuated with the siren song of change nothing you say or do will cut it. Certainly, it appears, the press and media want Obama, their new anointed messiah of change,to win.

However, if you continue to run a flat and unfocused campaign, one lacking a cohesive theme, as I believe you have and are continuing to do, and as Senator Dole did, you will let Obama win by default. The stakes are far too great for this.

All elections are crucial but this one more than any other with the financial mess we find ourselves in, our declining dollar, energy dependency, future off balance sheet obligations down the road, a nuclear Iran looming on the horizon and a Pelosi and Reid led Congress. Pretty chilling!

Time and some sensible response to the financial melt down is the best medicine but in an election year Congress can’t afford that luxury. A Manhattan Project type challenge bringing the nation’s best minds to devise solutions to our energy independence is long overdue. Negotiating from a position of weakness with Iran and N Korea has led to a decade of dead ends, hopeless appeasements and rejections. Both nations continue to develop WMD, while simultaneously playing us like a violin. They view America as the pitiful Gulliver we have become and well they should considering our repeated empty bluffs and threats.

President Bush, as have all presidents, has made his share of mistakes but he has at least been steadfast in his determination regarding the threat Islamist radicalism portends. Our allies may have begun to see their own interests are equally threatened and thus, have begun to align themselves rhetorically with us but Europe remains a fading hope and NATO a paper tiger. The U.N. remains what former Amb. Bolton described in his recent book – inept and ineffectual.

Frankly, I do not know why any human being wants to assume the responsibilities of being president considering the poor odds of success but you have chosen to do so, so I implore you square your broad shoulders, hitch up your belt and work overtime at getting your act together.

Respectfully,

5) Key witness in Olmert’s travel affair proclaims his innocence
By Roni Sofer

Diaspora affairs advisor to PM takes vow of silence amidst media turmoil on new ‘Olmertours’ case, saying he ‘never pocketed a shekel’ to fund family pleasures. Non-profit groups associated with affair surprised by investigation


The travel coordinator at the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor during Ehud Olmert’s term as minister, attacked Saturday the police’s conduct in what is termed the "Olmertours" affair.



“I regret that in my own country what you say in an investigation room is published in the newspapers the following day and no one thinks it abnormal,” wrote Rachel Risby-Raz, who is considered a key witness in the affair.

Rocking the Boat
Olmert aides say new fraud suspicions a coup attempt. Source close to prime minister responds angrily to allegations that non-profit groups funded Olmert's trips abroad, says 'this is an attempt to oust a governing prime minister.' Olmert tells his associates, 'I never took a penny from them...I'm being turned into a criminal'


According to the new allegations under investigation for some weeks, Olmert and his family members benefited from hundreds of thousands of dollars fraudulently received, when a few institutions were simultaneously asked to fund official trips abroad during his previous public positions.



Among the governmental bodies allegedly funding the trips are: AKIM (caring for Israel’s mentally disabled), Aleh (caring for Israel’s disabled, together), Soldiers’ Welfare Association, the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum.



Raz, who is currently serving as the diaspora affairs advisor the Prime Minister’s Office issued a statement to the press following the publication of the affair.



“The prime minister is neither a thief nor a swindler. He never pocketed a shekel or used public funds for his family’s needs. I am very upset by the lies being published by the media daily.


“I fully cooperated with the investigators,” Raz added. “I am not suspected of any offense nor have I violated any law. Unfortunately, and unlike other sources who incessantly leak information, I cannot discuss the details of the investigation, defend the prime minister and my good reputation or reveal the truth, since I may be accused of disrupting the investigation.”


Raz also addressed her relationship with the prime minister in the last few years, writing: “I respect and admire Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with whom I have been working for the past seven years. Anyone who knows him knows he’s a wonderful man, warm and caring, human and possesses amazing abilities.



“For the past 35 years, the prime minister has dedicated his time to advancing the country’s interests. His contribution to Israel and to the Jewish nation is immense, and it is my privilege to partake in his work,” she said.


Yad Vashem: PM always agreed to help us

Meanwhile, a series of non-profit organizations and associations were surprised to hear that Olmert allegedly took money from them unlawfully to fund his trips abroad. The various organizations did not criticize the prime minister's conduct in responding to the new affair this weekend, but did not outright defend him either.



Avner Shalev, chairman of the Yad Vashem Directorate, told Ynet, “We are surprised by the current investigation. Prime Minister Olmert has been active throughout his public appointments in helping the Friends of Yad Vashem Worldwide in their fundraising efforts.



"It is worth mentioning that half of Yad Vashem’s on-going budget is funded by donations and the prime minister has always agreed to help us raise them.”



Yad Vashem Spokesperson Iris Rosenberg added that on the occasions when the prime minister was invited by the Friends of Yad Vashem Worldwide – they paid him for expenses, flights and accommodation, as customary.



AKIM Israel Chairman Reuven Samuel did not address the actual suspicions, but spoke about the relationship between the organization he represents and the prime minister.


“AKIM Israel has about 20 fellowships worldwide; five years ago, Ehud Olmert was invited by our US fellowship to volunteer by participating and lecturing in a gala event for children with mental deficiency.



"As customary, the fellowships funded his flight and accommodation. AKIM Israel has nothing to do with the prime minister’s probe.

6) Obama’s No-Brainer on Education
By Jonathan Alter

Moderates would respond to a Democrat willing to slip the ideological stranglehold of a liberal interest group.


One of the best things about the democratic primaries was that horse-race-obsessed reporters rarely asked the candidates about education. Why was that good? Because hundreds of delegates who were at stake are members of Paleolithic teachers unions, ready to pounce on any challenge to the failed system they dominate. When the subject did arise, it quickly became a pander party with President Bush's (and Ted Kennedy's) No Child Left Behind (NCLB) as the piñata.

But with the general election underway, Barack Obama has a chance to show that he can move at least as far toward real change in education as John McCain. Obama deserves kudos for drawing scattered boos earlier this month for mentioning charter schools when appearing via satellite before the National Education Association. (He was expected to be received more politely by the other big union, the American Federation of Teachers, at its convention last weekend.) But that was just a baby step. Now Obama needs to embrace a Grand Education Bargain—much higher pay for teachers in exchange for much more accountability for performance in the classroom. Good teachers need to be rewarded with more pay and respect for being members of our noblest profession. They need more resources. But they also need to be removed from the classroom when they fail to improve. Obama occasionally says as much, but goes fuzzy when it comes to how.

The stakes couldn't be higher. The United States now ranks 25th among 30 industrialized countries in math. "If I told you your basketball team finished in 25th place, you'd be outraged," says former West Virginia governor Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education. When the landmark "A Nation at Risk" report was issued 25 years ago, the education system was ailing, but the United States was still No. 1 in college-graduation rates. Now we are No. 21. "We simply have not progressed," says former Colorado governor Roy Romer, who heads a commission that recently updated the report. "The rest of the world has." For example, the average European nation has 13 more school days than we do.

The irony is, we know what works to close the achievement gap. At the 60 KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) schools, more than 80 percent of 16,000 randomly selected low-income students go to college, four times the national average for poor kids. While KIPP isn't fully replicable (not enough effective teachers to go around), every low-income school should be measured by how close it gets to that model, where kids go to school from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and part of the summer, and teachers are held strictly accountable for showing student improvement.

Railing against the tyranny of tests is fashionable, but it isn't going to save our children and our economy in the 21st century. Nor will more money for important programs like art and music. The more basic problem is that we have no way of determining which teachers can actually teach. That's right: teaching is arguably the only profession in the country with ironclad job security and a well-honed hostility to measuring results. Because of union resistance, NCLB measures only schools, not individual teachers. The result is that school districts fire on average only one teacher a year for poor performance. Before recent reforms (which have boosted test scores), New York City dismissed only 10 of 55,000 teachers annually. What business could survive that way?

Teachers unions bristle at the business comparison. But they should listen to Andy Stern, head of the nation's largest union, the SEIU: "Education is like any business. You need a return on investment. Outcomes do matter. Paying people according to outcomes does matter. I don't care if a teacher has a high-school degree, college or a Ph.D. if he or she can produce results." Stern is worried that if his brethren in the teachers unions don't embrace accountability now, "parents will vote with their choices" and the unions will begin dying, as they already are in reform-minded cities like Washington, D.C., and New Orleans.