Chickens Like Pork!

Liberal and media Hypocrisies:

Columbia University's president inviting and allowing Ahmadinejad to speak yet he precludes America's ROTC because of some trumped up weak argument regarding the military's: "Don't Tell Don't Ask" policy." Last time I looked, Iran's Mullah's execute homosexuals.

Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Charlie Rangel, who just admitted he happened not to report, on his tax returns, $75,000 in rental income on a villa he owns in the Dominican Republic. Furthermore, because of rent control in New York, supposedly to help Rangel's "poor" constituents, Rangel uses three adjacent rent stabilized apartments in Harlem's Lenox Terrace as his "primary" residence and a fourth he has used as an office which he now says he will vacate.

If Rangel were a Republican, Democrats would be screaming for him to resign from Congress. His "chicken" constituents return him to Congress, time and again, because he delivers pork to Harlem.

Meanwhile Tod Lindberg and Peter Whener have a field day pointing out the various hypocrisies of the media and press. What they say is what I have alluded to. Biased press and media attacks may actually elect the two their poison has been directed at.(See 1 below)

One of Olmert's parting acts will be to dangle compensation to Israeli's living in the West Bank to move elsewhere. His parting comment is that "Greater Israel No Longer Exists." (See 2 below.)

A Rabbi warns the world about the plight of persecuted Christians living in the Middle East and warns Christians to beware of the threat to them coming from radical Islamism! (See 3 below.)

Dick

1) The Bonfire of the Hypocrisies: The nomination that launched a thousand attacks.
By Tod Lindberg

Historians looking back on these tumultuous times will no doubt argue over the precise date on which the Age of Palin began. Her speech at the Republican National Convention on September 3 certainly catapulted her to national renown. But there is a good case to be made for her introductory appearance in Dayton, Ohio, five days before.

It's all there: You have the same poise and panache Palin exhibited at the convention. You have the self-assurance of a champion high-school athlete who went on to bigger and better things (unlike in the gloomy Democratic, Bruce Springsteen version of life, in which it's all downhill after your Glory Days). There's the ability to deliver a barb with a smile. And above all, that day inaugurated arguably the most incoherent and blubbering partisan response to a candidate in the history of American politics--against which the charms of the candidate stood out even more clearly.

Let's get this straight: Your party has just nominated for president a fellow who has been elected exactly once to the United States Senate, in an uncompetitive race, following a garden-variety stint in a state legislature. And your response to the GOP nominee's choice for vice president--someone who has been elected once as governor following a stint as a small town mayor--is to decry the lack of experience? Nobody ever said Barack Obama was unqualified for the No. 2 spot on the ticket.

Had Hillary Clinton won the nomination and selected Obama as her running mate--which, being a savvy politician, she would certainly have done, in order to fire up his 18 million primary supporters--Obama would have been perfectly positioned. Either he would be preparing himself as vice president for his run for the Oval Office eight years hence. Or he would be experienced and tested in a national campaign that he would never be held responsible for losing, with a fund raising base beyond the imagination of Croesus. Instead, it's McCain-Palin with the wind at their backs, and Palin who is being prepared as the outstanding future prospect for her party.

Now, you might think it hypocritical to criticize the inexperience of a vice presidential nominee who has similar experience to your presidential nominee, but that's just a failure of the imagination. Indeed, hypocrisy was the strange charge Democrats decided to make against McCain and Palin: Having run against Obama all summer for his lack of experience and accomplishment, how dare John McCain pick as his running mate someone with (ahem) experience comparable to that of the Democratic candidate for president McCain had been criticizing?

Well, maybe because it is not a sign of the strength of a candidate at the top of a ticket to need the experience of Joe Biden (or Dick Cheney) in order to allay concerns that he's not quite up to some aspects of the job. And, contrariwise, it is a sign of strength at the top when the nominee can look to the future and make a priority of party-building. Does anybody think that if Obama loses, he will have left his party in a stronger position by advancing the prospects of Joe Biden? Fortunately for Democrats, at least they've got Hillary in the wings.

But these weren't the only hypocrisies in the air. Remember reading the discussions of Vice President Al Gore's parenting skills in all the papers the day after his teenage son got busted for dope at high school? No? That would be because Gore called around to all the papers (including the Washington Times, where I was editorial page editor at the time) and asked us not to publish it, kids being kids and being owed some privacy. The newspapers didn't. That was then: Given a preposterous Internet rumor that Sarah Palin was never pregnant with her four-month-old baby but faked it to cover up for her daughter, Bristol was fair game. This was a judgment shared among Democrats and, coincidentally, the media (the same ones who were also all over the John Edwards love-child story, remember?).

And so Democrats started pointing at the stunning "hypocrisy" of McCain putting Palin on the ticket in spite of her pregnant daughter. Shouldn't all the GOP talk about family values and abstinence education have disqualified Palin? Because, after all, Bristol is getting married and keeping the baby, and if that isn't a sure disqualification for someone's mother for the vice presidency, what is?

Plus, Sarah Palin, we've been informed endlessly, is a hypocrite with a capital H. In all the obvious ways, such as being opposed to women's rights while still having a career. Democrats have been at the forefront of cheering women on to break supposed glass ceilings, but only the right kind of women, which
you can be pretty sure a Republican woman isn't.

Then there's all the pro-life business: It just took one columnist in Salon to expose the hypocrisy there: Palin had her baby tested for Down syndrome, and then--had the baby! If she were really pro-life, there wouldn't have been any reason to have the test. As Rahul K. Parikh, M.D., explained:

We could ask, given that Palin had no doubts about seeing her pregnancy through, why she bothered to take a genetic test. Why not, as you might expect a woman in her position and with her outspoken beliefs to do, decline any testing or counseling? Of course, it seems very reasonable to want to know about the health of your baby and to have time to prepare (emotionally and otherwise) for a baby that may have a genetic disorder. But that doesn't negate the fact that by having a blood test, Palin was given a choice about what to do. .  .  . Her supporters say that Trig signals that she practices what she preaches. Her decision to make her own choice but not grant it to others is a sign of her hypocrisy.

So let's see if the pro-lifers can get this straight for a change: If you are going to have the baby anyway, you are not entitled to information about its health (even though the desire for such information is "very reasonable"), because some people who are not pro-life use such information as a basis for deciding whether to terminate their pregnancies. Got it?

But the most stunning hypocrisy of all, from the point of view of most Democrats and, coincidentally, the media again, was that McCain had promised a vice presidential nominee qualified for the job and then undertook such a haphazard, last-minute, incompetent vetting process that he found out all the things that Democrats and the media are so exercised about. And he went ahead with Sarah Palin anyway!

And just look at the bitter fruit McCain has reaped for all his "hypocrisies": Palin has helped propel him ahead of Obama in national polls for the first time. Fifty-two percent of respondents in a Pew survey think she is ready to be president now. If people could vote only for vice president, they favor her over Biden 53-44 in a CNN poll. And the unknown governor of two weeks before is now the most popular Republican politician in the country.


The Great Unmasking
By Peter Wehner


Everywhere you turn these days, you find the press in an agitated-to-furious state about the McCain-Palin campaign. Many reporters are downright angry, according to the Washington Post's media critic Howard Kurtz, in part because of the "lipstick on a pig" controversy. That's obvious to anyone who has watched the news this last week. Many in the press are lacerating themselves for covering this story, and they blame the McCain campaign for having done it to them.

A broader anti-McCain critique is embodied by one of the Washington Post's resident Obamaphiles, E.J. Dionne, Jr., "The campaign is a blur of flying pieces of junk, lipstick and gutter-style attacks . . . McCain has shown he wants the presidency so badly that he's willing to say anything, true or false, to win power."

It's touching that the MSM has recently developed such delicate sensibilities. It's also a shame that their fury at false attacks was missing during the last eight years, when Democrats hurled one false, hateful, and misleading charge after another against President Bush. But perhaps because Bush was the object of the attacks, the press didn't feel the urgent need to police them. It's also worth noting, I suppose, that having become enraptured by a man whose candidacy was based almost entirely on his persona, the mood and feelings he created, and his ethereal promise of change, many in the press now pretend they want the election to focus on a substantive debate about, oh, say, Medicare Part B.

My own view is that the debate about "lipstick on a pig" was silly and will soon be forgotten. Yet it's not as if it broke any barriers in that regard. To take just one arguably more serious example: Recall that in February, Barack Obama said, "We are bogged down in a war that John McCain now suggests might go on for another 100 years."

It's a charge Obama repeated, even though he knew it was untrue. (The Annenberg Political Fact Check said, "It's a rank falsehood for the DNC to accuse McCain of wanting to wage 'endless war' based on his support for a presence in Iraq something like the U.S. role in South Korea.") The fact that the accusation was false didn't seem to matter; one Obama aide told the Politico, "It's seldom you get such a clear shot." But for some reason, the press didn't go into a tizzy on this matter. Puzzling.

Presidential campaigns have long been a mix of lots of things: substantive speeches and political ones, policy papers and personal countenance, issues and character, biography and narrative, charges and counter-charges, and appeals to evocative images and American symbols. Elections are often intense affairs that involve high moments and low ones, moments of drama and trivia. This campaign is no different. And compared to past presidential campaigns - the 1800 election between Jefferson and Adams, two of our more important and impressive Founders, comes to mind - this campaign is a walk in the park.

The important political point is that McCain is controlling the conversation of the election. He has stripped Obama of his mythological standing and has begun making a strong case that he and Palin, rather than Obama and Biden, are the authentic agents of change in this election. Obama is also in a dangerous place for a politician: constantly explaining himself and declaring, in an obvious state of frustration and confusion, "enough is enough." If this continues for the next seven weeks, McCain will probably win.

Chuck Todd, NBC's political director, made an interesting analogy this morning. He spoke about how for years people claimed the Miami Hurricanes were a dirty team--and they won championship after championship. I actually don't think either the McCain campaign or the Obama campaign are particularly dirty. And the effort to portray Republicans as the Party of the Mean (in contrast to Democrats, the Party of Issues) is a tired liberal talking point.

One other observation: The ferocious response Sarah Palin's nomination has provoked among the political class is turning this election into one based on a cultural narrative rather than an economic debate. The dripping condescension that some of Palin's critics are demonstrating toward her is boomeranging. She is becoming a heroine to many Republicans, who are as energized as I can remember in defense of Palin. And in attacking Palin, many Democrats and liberal commentators are mocking her faith, worldview, and life experiences. In that sense, a great unmasking is taking place. A wide swath of liberals are revealing their arrogance, their cultural elitism, and even their ugliness. It may be therapeutic. And it may also cost them the election.




2) Olmert: No such thing as 'Greater Israel' anymore
By Barak Ravid

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday said that the concept of "Greater Israel is over. There is no such thing. Anyone who talks that way is deluding themselves."

Addressing the cabinet during the weekly meeting, which focused on the evacuation-compensation bill which proposes offering NIS 1.1 million to families willing to move out of West Bank settlements, Olmert said that this was not always his stance.

"During Camp David I thought that [then prime minister] Ehud Barak's concessions were too much, and I told him as much. I thought that land from the Jordan River through to the sea was all ours, but ultimately, after a long and tortured process, I arrived at the conclusion that we must share with those we live with, if we don't want to be a bi-national state."

During the meeting, Vice Premier Haim Ramon presented the cabinet with the outline of a plan to offer NIS 1.1 million to Jewish families willing to voluntarily evacuate their homes in the West Bank.

Ramon's proposal is estimated at a total cost of NIS 2.5 billion. The plan would offer settlers who choose to relocate to the Negev an additional 25 percent compensation and those who agree to move the Galilee region an additional 15 percent.

18 percent of the 60,000 settlers currently living in the West Bank have said they would be willing to relocate. A survey conducted by the Prime Minister's Office showed that more than 11,000 settlers living beyond the security barrier would agree to leave their homes.

Ramon told the cabinet members that "the evacuation of residents of Judea and Samaria is an unavoidable step for those who believe in two states for two peoples - and that includes most of the Israeli public."

Ramon added that Israel's position in negotiations with the Palestinians and in the eyes of the international community would only be bolstered by an announcement that Israel wants to end its presence in the West Bank.

Shas Chairman Eli Yishai voiced his opposition to the plan, saying "whoever brings about the evacuation of settles will lead to the evacuation of Jerusalem and to the eradication of the Jewish identity."

Yishai said that Shas would do everything in its power to prevent the proposal from being implemented. "This legislation is a colossal strategic mistake and presents Israel as lacking in principles. We still have not recovered from the cursed expulsion and there are people dragging us into further expulsion," he said, referring to Israel's 2005 disengagement from the Gaza Strip.

Public Security Minister Avi Dichter said of the plan that "this discussion is fundamentally flawed and problematic. It is a little like putting the cart before the horse. Even if homes are legally demolished, it will be hard to prevent them from being rebuilt, and it could get violent. Voluntary evacuation will only serve to weaken rather than strengthening Israel."

3) Persecution and systematic destruction of Christians in the Middle East must be stopped
By Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein



An Islamic court in Shiraz, Iran , has just convicted two men of being infidels. Their crime? Converting to Christianity. The possible sentence? Death. Not too far away in Saudi Arabia, an outraged father recently hacked his own daughter to death for the same "abomination."


In the daily drumbeat of Mideast news, there is one story of historic proportion that goes nearly unreported: the persecution and systematic destruction in the Islamic world of some of the world's oldest Christian communities.


Sure, we hear when a Catholic bishop is murdered in Iraq, when machete-armed fanatics attack Egyptian Copt worshipers, or when churches are torched in Hamas-controlled Gaza.


But what about the jailing in Saudi Arabia of foreign workers for holding forbidden Christian prayers? Or the arrest in Pakistan of a Christian man for marrying a Muslim woman? Or the continuing problem of an Islamic educational system that teaches the young that Christians (as well as Jews) are "the descendants of apes and pigs"?


The pattern is nearly the same wherever extremist Islam holds sway. From Bangladesh to Darfur, Christians have become regular targets for Islamic thugs and the governments that back them. Just this month, a Pakistani court upheld the kidnapping, conversion and "marriage" to older Muslim men of two Christian sisters, aged 10 and 13.


Even in lands that are not under orthodox Sharia law, Christian communities feel the pressure of persecution. In constitutionally secular Turkey, a legally recognized Protestant church in the capital of Ankara is under threat of closure by local police. Many Christians in Islamic lands have become subject to such terror that they are fleeing the homelands their ancestors have known almost since the time of Jesus. Iraq's Christian sects now feel forced to pray in secret. Others simply leave. Although they comprise less than 4% of Iraq's population, Iraqi Christians now account for 40% of its refugees.


Lebanon's once politically powerful Christian community has already shrunk almost beyond recognition. Thirty years ago, Lebanon was 60% Christian; today it is barely 25%. And the growing political power of Iran-backed Hezbollah is encouraging further departures.


Even in the Holy Land, where Jesus walked, there is an increasing Christian exodus from both the West Bank and Gaza. Part of it surely stems from the continuing Palestinian-Israeli conflict. But much of it results from a growing Islamic campaign to force Christians to sell their property and leave.


The only place in the Mideast where Christian communities continue to grow is in the Jewish State of Israel. Israel's tolerance is logical. What people of faith know the dangers of religious persecution better than the people of Israel — especially those whose families originated in the Islamic world? Between 1948 and 1956 more than 850,000 Jews were forced to flee the Arab lands where their families had lived for centuries.


When, in 2001, Afghan fanatics destroyed two ancient statues of Buddha, the world was shocked. But between 1948 and 1967, when Islamic forces controlled the Holy City of Jerusalem, there was a systematic campaign to erase the historic Jewish presence. Synagogues were destroyed and ancient Jewish gravestones carted away. Even today, the Palestinian Authority denies Israel's right to consider itself a Jewish state and denies the historic Jewish connection to Jerusalem.


If there is hope for true peace in the Middle East, it won't simply come from Israeli and Palestinian leaders shaking hands at a formal ceremony. It hinges on extremist Islam reforming its view of others. People of commitment and tolerance all around the world — Christians, Jews, Muslims and others — must speak out loudly and forcefully to prevent the Islamic world's Christians from suffering the same fate as its now all-but-nonexistent Jewish communities.