"LIAGRA" Time - From "In God We Trust" to America's Kristal Nacht!

"LIAGRA" Time!

Obama began by overreaching. Now he and "wee people" are paying the price. He seemingly has had to backdown on healthcare. He will assuredly backdown, when and if he confronts Iran. So it goes for the messiah. As the rubber hits the road his tiremarks are all over from braking and skidding. Yes, experience does matter even for someone who wants to be president and never learned the skills of driving in D.C.

D.C is like a jungle full of predators and the smell of blood brings out the beast in all politicians. Obama began governing by setting up straw men, by attacking self-described 'pinatas.' First he went after GW and when that no longer served his interests he went through a whole litany of 'enemies' but the next battle seems to be with himself and his Far Left.

But do not count our messianic president out just because he is holding a losing health care hand. Taking a page from twenty years of listening to Rev. Wright, Obama has now decided to invoke God. He has chosen to make morality the issue, to still the troubled waters by using guilt as his new thematic weapon.

If you were turned off by the Republican's 'Religious Right' you have not seen anything. Wait till you get a dose of Obama's religious and divisive tactics.

So, in reality, backing down has not become a way of life at The White House? Getting a government controlled health care plan legislated has become a messianiac mission. It is critical to both Obama's presidency and his Far Left supplicants. Therefore, call out the goons. Start by attacking the founder of Whole Foods, then boycott Whole Food stores and their 50,000 employess because the founder dared to offer an alternative halth care plan that works.

Attack Americans who demand answers from their Senators and Representatives at Town Hall meetings. Accuse them of being 'Brown Shirts.' Challenge their right of assembly, of protest and use of free speech. This is all out of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged."

The most divisive president ever elected has now chosen to unleash his version of vitriol on the American public. What will follow will be a series of Obama's mellow version of 'Kristal Nacht!' I will not speculate where this all goes but I retain my deepest reservations. It has been my lifelong experience that frauds soon reveal themselves and with the passing of each day we are getting a pretty good look at a dangerous president who will stop at nothing because he wanted change and many voters bought into this 'music man's' mesmerizing ways. They dropped their guard, they abdicated reasoning, they succumbed to his emotional appeal because of angst over GW. Obama played them like a violin and they danced. Now we are going to pay a 'taxing' price.

If you can't stand the heat don't get out of the kitchen turn it up on the diners!

Obama has chosen to pit American against American. Obama the avowed healer has become Obama the actual divider and he has chosen to make God and morality his ally against us "wee people!"

"In God we Trust" is being repackaged and Rev. Wright's "God damn America." is happening all over again. (See 1, 1a, 1b and 1c below.)

This is how Sweden responds to lies. (See 1d below.)

Another 'pinata' Obama attacked recently were doctors, He spoke about them as if they were Rodney Dangerfield who always complained 'he never got any respect.'

There is something wrong when a president has to constantly do battle by creating enemies in order to attack them. That is not the mark of maturity. In fact it smacks of insecurity. But divide and conquer can become an effective strategy but it can also backfire. (see 2 below)

I warned that eventually it would come to pounce time if Obama stumbled. Are we there yet? (See 2a below.)

This was sent to me by a friend, fellow memo reader and once upon a time a government employee. What his message indicates is that Democrats are doing what they accuse Republicans of doing but apparently when 'they do' it is 'kosher.'

Politics is a dirty business, full of deception, self-righteous and self-important people who love to emerse themselves into its ugliness. These same people want to control our lives because they know what is best but they often cannot look you in the eye when challenged so they resort to bullying. This is what Obamascare is all about and this is what the health care debate is turning into - power over principle, muscle over reason, government control at all cost. (See 3 and 3a below.)

Leave it to Jackie Mason. But,in his desire to be funny he forgets that you are not asked to dial 3 for Yiddish. (See 4 below.)

Talk about Chutzpah! (See 5 below.)

Caroline Glick attacks Netanyahu for lying and for allowing himself and Israel to be bludgeoned by forthcomng agreements currently being hammered out by Czar Mitchell. Glick suggests there are alternatives if Netanyahu has the courage to seek them.

Netanyahu is a clever politician. However, he might prove no match for Obama. As with most politicians, they both take "LIAGRA" but Obama takes a bigger dose. Wintess his orchestration of the health care challenge. (See 6 and 6a below.)

But one doctor tells it like it is - not enough doctors to even do want Obama would want. Therefore, rationing is the answer and long lines the ultimate result. Those who can afford more will be in line with those who cannot and if the wealthier try to hussle the line I am sure there will be a government bureaucrat waiting to penalize and tax them. That is where health care change could take us. But then is not the goal of change to melt everyone down so that we are all equal

There is a cartoon going around with Obama's picture on it entitled "Liagra" and this is what it says:

Stronger, longer lasting fabrications
Removes remorse
So effective you will even believe your own B.S.(See 7 below.)

Have a great week, off to see my oldest daugher and her husband.

Dick

1) On defense, Obama woos right, left on health care
By PHILIP ELLIOTT


With control of the health care debate slipping from his grasp, President Barack Obama pitched his ambitious plan to both conservative talk radio and his own liberal supporters Thursday — and denied a challenge from one backer that he was "bucklin' a little bit" under Republican criticism.

Liberals were on the verge of revolt as Obama refused to say any final deal must include a government-run insurance option, while Republicans pressed their all-but-unified opposition to the White House effort. Obama, who will leave Washington Friday on vacation, said reason would prevail and it was no time to panic.

"I guarantee you ... we are going to get health care reform done. And I know that there are a lot of people out there who have been hand-wringing, and folks in the press are following every little twist and turn of the legislative process," Obama told a caller to Philadelphia-based radio talk show host Michael Smerconish during a broadcast from the White House Diplomatic Reception Room.

"You know, passing a big bill like this is always messy."

Obama is struggling to regain the momentum on a comprehensive bill that would extend health coverage to nearly 50 million Americans who lack it and restrain skyrocketing costs. Opponents of the overhaul have drowned out supporters at lawmakers' town halls around the country this month, and public backing for Obama's effort has slipped in opinion polls. Congressional Democratic leaders are preparing to go it alone on legislation, although bipartisan negotiations continue in the Senate.

On the defensive, Obama is embracing a new role of fact checker-in-chief, trying to correct untrue claims such as that the proposals would provide health care for illegal immigrants, create "death panels" or pay for abortions with taxpayer dollars. Aides say the situation has left Obama exasperated.

"Now, c'mon," a mocking Obama told a cheering crowd late Thursday at a Democratic National Committee appearance designed to re-energize activists who were instrumental in his drive to the presidency. "What we're going to have to do is to cut through the noise and the misinformation."

"I said during the campaign that the best offense against lies is the truth," Obama said. "And so all we can do is just keep on pushing the truth."

Yet for all the gnashing from Republicans and fiscally conservative Democrats, he faces equally tough opposition from lawmakers and activists on the left who insist any overhaul must include a government-run insurance option.

In fact, shortly after his comments Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi declared the Democratic-controlled House simply won't approve the overhaul without it.

"There's no way I can pass a bill in the House of Representatives without a public option," Pelosi, D-Calif., said after a round-table in San Francisco.

Obama told his DNC audience — as well as thousands watching online and listening by telephone — that health care was the toughest fight he has faced in office.

"Winning the election is just the start," he said. "Victory in an election wasn't the change that we sought."

That election, though, came with his promise of the government insurance option, a provision that Obama's team now calls "preferred" but not mandatory. During both his Thursday appearances, Obama declined to call it a deal breaker.

"What we've said is that there are a number of components to health care," he told Smerconish, who is generally seen as a conservative, although he endorsed Obama last year and supports abortion rights. "I see nothing wrong with having public option as one choice."

He said "the press got excited and some folks on the left got a little excited" when he and top administration aides last weekend made statements indicating that a publicly run health insurance option was just one of several alternatives.

Since then, Obama has faced increasing criticism from his left flank.

"And even though some White House advisers seem to have forgotten, the reason the public option has become central to reform is simple: We're fed up with the insurance companies and we need real accountability for them," liberal MoveOn.org said in a message sent to its 5 million members while the president was speaking with Smerconish. "They've had decades to fix the problems with our health care system, but they haven't done it."

One caller to Smerconish's program said he sensed the administration was making a misstep.

"I'm getting a little ticked off that it feels like the knees are bucklin' a little bit," said the caller who identified himself as Joe. "You have an overwhelming majority in both the House and the Senate, and you own the whole shooting match. ... It's very frustrating to watch you try and compromise with a lot of these people who aren't willing to compromise with you."

Obama told his audiences he is trying to reach across the aisle to craft a bipartisan plan, even as he blamed Republicans for delay. He peppered his DNC remarks with jokes and jabs at conservatives that had the partisan crowd breaking into applause and laughter.

In response, a spokesman for the No. 2 Republican in the House said he had a question for Obama and his team.

"We would love to know when, exactly — time, date, place — the president or his staff reached out to Republican leaders?" said Brad Dayspring, a spokesman for Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Va.

Republican leaders in May sent Obama a letter outlining the GOP's principles and asking to collaborate.

"And the president's response?" Dayspring said. "Meeting? Nah. Work together? No thanks. Further discussion? Nope. Instead, they went with, 'Thanks for the letter.'"

While the White House insists Obama is still looking for Republican support for a comprehensive health care bill, Democrats privately are preparing a one-party push, which they feel is all but inevitable. Polls show slippage in support for the president's approach, although respondents express even less confidence in Republicans' handling of health care.

Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney said Thursday that Obama is struggling to get a health care bill because he has been too deferential to liberals. Romney, who may challenge Obama in 2012, said on CBS' "The Early Show" that "if the president wants to get something done, he needs to put aside the extreme liberal wing of his party."

1a) Obama and the Upchuck Factor
By Christopher Chantrill

Among the most powerful psephological tools available to political strategists and commentators is the well-known Upchuck Factor. Never heard of it? I'm surprised.


The Upchuck Factor is, quite simply, the length of time it takes the US voter to decide that s/he's "had enough" of the Democrats. And it looks like this year it is hitting a new record.


You may have been taught in school, for instance, that the American people loved Franklin Delano Roosevelt so much that they would have gone on voting for him forever. In fact the American people demonstrated in the mid-term election of 1938 that they were ready to upchuck him and all his works. The 1938 elections featured an 81-seat gain in the House of Representatives for the Republicans. Figure that FDR's Upchuck Factor was 6.


What was the problem in 1938? It wasn't that complicated. After six years of political bombast and war on the private sector -- and after FDR gunned the economy into the red zone in 1936 with unprecedented stimulus -- the economy collapsed in 1937 and the American people decided that they had had enough. They determined to upchuck the New York machine politics of FDR. But then along came World War II and saved his political skin.


The 1960s is another era in which we are taught that Americans loved their government. They basked in the sun of JFK and LBJ, and loved the exciting space programs and wars on poverty. But in fact, the American people decided they had had enough after six years of it. In 1966, well before the Summer of Love, American voters upchucked and gave the Republicans 47 additional seats in the House. Two years later they sent the very un-sunny Richard Nixon to the White House. Give the JFK/LBJ Democrats an Upchuck Factor of 6.


In the late 1970s President Jimmy Carter came into office promising that he'd never lie to the American people. Maybe he didn't, but he wrecked the economy and this time the American people didn't wait six or eight years before upchucking.


It was then that the voters' digestion really started to go south. They vomited up Carter and the Democrats after four years in 1980 and elected a man that "everyone" agreed was little more than an amiable dunce. Things must have been really bad for the American people to go to that extreme. President Carter moved the Upchuck Factor to 4.


Now we come to the modern era. After twelve years of Reagan and Bush, Bill Clinton won the 1992 election for the Democrats, with the help of Ross Perot. Democrats thought that with Bill Clinton that they were really on their way. But they were wrong. The Upchuck Factor was getting stronger, and the American voters in 1994 recorded an Upchuck Factor of 2. They vomited up the Democrats in the first off-year election after 1992 and sent 54 new Republicans to the House. The distress among Democratic voters must have been extreme, but Post-election Stress Disorder hadn't been invented yet, so the mental health problems of the liberal community went undiagnosed and unfunded.


Bill Clinton was the best gut politician of his time, so he managed to avoid defeat in 1996 by passing welfare reform and seducing naïve young soccer moms into supporting him for another term. But he didn't do his party much good. An unimpressive George W. Bush managed to eke out wins against an angry, but unfocused Democratic Party in 2000 and 2004.


But now, after the solid Democratic win of 2008, it looks like the Upchuck Factor has shortened again. Now it is pegging at 6 months!


The ominous thing is that Americans are not expressing their indigestion at the ballot box in a mid-term election in their usual sensible way. Their gastric reaction to a single dose of Obama's Chicago politics is so extreme that they are heading to the nation's vomitoria already. They are spewing out their rage at politicians' town halls and even in the street.


Let's stop right there and clear away all the fun and frivolity.


This is the first time that the American middle class has taken to the streets in living memory.


Back in the 1930s street politics featured the workers in the Battle of the Overpass between Ford's striking workers and its security guards. In the 1960s it was African American marchers being set upon by Bull Connor and the KKK. In the late 1960s and early 1970s it was elite liberal youths refusing to go to war. Now all of a sudden average middle-class Americans are organizing Tea Parties and street protests. The old politics of the liberal "teach-in" has been replaced by the new politics of the town-hall "shout-in."


Liberals are beside themselves with rage. They are recounting how their parents lost their jobs during the McCarthy period, and telling each other that opposition to the president's program is all about racism.


You can tell the Democrats are in trouble when a naïve hockey mom from Alaska can appear out of nowhere and wrestle the entire Democratic Party to the ground. After all, when it comes to "death panels" for grandma you have the American people on one side and you have "comparative effectiveness research" professionals and rational ethicists on the other. How come Sarah Palin could see that and the intelligent President Obama could not?


Christopher Chantrill is a frequent contributor to American Thinker. See his roadtothemiddleclass.com and usgovernmentspending.com. His Road to the Middle Class is forthcoming.

1b) The Biggest Missing Story in Politics - One Year Update
By Bruce Walker

August 25, 2008, just about one year ago, my article on those Battleground Polls -- which have routinely shown for many years that about sixty percent of Americans are "conservatives" -- stirred up quite a ruckus. If my analysis is right, then that would explain Democrat hysteria over the town hall meetings in America as the revelation that the Left is just a small minority of Americans who have insinuated themselves into the chokepoints of information, education, entertainment, and policy in American society.


Gallup, which has also polled the ideology of Americans, has presented the data in a much murkier way. While the Battleground Poll allows respondents six options -- "very conservative," "somewhat conservative," "moderate," "unsure," "somewhat liberal," and "very liberal," the Gallup asks (or reveals) only whether respondents identify themselves as "conservative," "moderate," or "liberal." Nevertheless, three Gallup Polls this summer have shown just how profoundly conservative Americans are. On June 15, for example, Gallup revealed that conservatives are the largest ideological group in America: 40% of us call ourselves conservative, 35% of us call ourselves moderates, and 21% of us call ourselves liberal. Moreover, Gallup shows that since 1992 conservatives have become an increasingly larger share of America.


Then, on July 6, Gallup revealed that Democrats were becoming more conservative, independents were becoming more conservative, and Republicans were becoming dramatically more conservative (a whopping 58% of Republicans said that they had become more conservative in the last few years.) Viewed from every angle, both Gallup and the Battleground poll identify conservatives as the largest ideological group in America and a group that is growing fast.


The most fascinating poll, however, was revealed by Gallup on August 14. The impact appears deliberately downplayed by Gallup. The title of the article simply states that the conservative ideology prevails in the South. That is hardly news. Gallup also, erroneously interprets its own data by stating that conservatives outnumber liberals in almost every state. In fact, the data poll shows that in every state of the nation, conservatives outnumber liberals. (Did Bruce just say that? Yes, he did!)


In the People's Republic of Massachusetts, 30% of the respondents identified themselves as conservative and 29% identified themselves as liberals. In Bernie Sander's Vermont, 29% of the people call themselves conservative and 28% call themselves liberals. In Hawaii, conservatives outnumber liberals by five percentage points. This probably understates the percentage of conservatives. Being called a conservative in Massachusetts or Vermont is like being called a child molester, and the polling organization, Gallup, tilts clearly Left, not Right.


And consider these states in which the number of conservatives is ten percentage points or more than the number of liberals: Maryland (+10%), Illinois (+12%), Minnesota (+13%), Michigan (+15%), Wisconsin (+17%), Pennsylvania (+18%.) These states are considered very Blue states, but conservatives outnumber liberals in each state by a whopping margin.


Is there anywhere in America where liberals outnumber conservatives? Yes, in the District of Columbia liberals are 65% of the population and conservatives are 14%.


There is a big secret out there. One year ago, I called it "The Biggest Missing Story in Politics" - Battleground Polls, the most accurate and bipartisan polling group around, had been reporting in poll after poll for many years that just about 60% of Americans called themselves conservative - which might explain how Ronald Reagan got about 60% of the popular vote in 1984! Ed Goeas, after the election, looked at the data again, trying to probe deeper and find out what it meant (he did an excellent and fair job.) The result: America is a conservative nation.


Now Gallup has come up with three polls in three months, which deal explicitly with the ideology of Americans, which confirms everything I have been writing about the strong conservative character of our country. The Red State / Blue State map reflects a partisan divide in America, but not an ideological divide at all. If Red State means "conservative" and Blue State means "liberal," then guess what? The entire map of the United States, except for a peculiar tiny rectangle carved out of southern Maryland, is Red State. The Biggest Missing Story in Politics is still The Biggest Missing Story in Politics. What is it that Republicans don't get?

Bruce Walker is the author of two books: Sinisterism: Secular Religion of the Lie, and his recently published book, The Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity.

1c)Pull the Plug on ObamaCare: It's the best cure for what ails the Obama presidency.
By PEGGY NOONAN

Looking back, this must have been the White House health-care strategy:

Health care as a subject is extraordinarily sticky, messy and confusing. It's inherently complicated, and it's personal. There are land mines all over the place. Don't make the mistake the Clintons made and create a plan that gets picked apart, shot down, and injures the standing of the president. Instead, push it off on Congress. Let them come up with a dozen plans. It will keep them busy. It will convince them yet again of their importance and autonomy. It will allow them to vent, and perhaps even exhaust, their animal spirits. Various items and elements within each bill will get picked off by the public. Fine, that's to be expected. The bills may in fact yield a target-rich environment. Fine again. Maybe health care's foes will get lost in the din and run out of ammo. Maybe they'll exhaust their animal spirits, too.

Summer will pass, the fight confined to the public versus Congress. And at the end, in the fall, the beauty part: The president swoops in and saves the day, forcing together an ultimate and more moderate plan that doesn't contain the more controversial elements but does constitute a successful first step toward universal health care.

That's not what happened.

It all got hotter, quicker than the White House expected. The many plans of Congress congealed in the public mind into one plan, and the one plan became a poison pool. The president is now immersed in it.

Here's another thing that didn't work. (I write as if health-care reform or insurance reform or whatever it's called this week is already a loss, a historic botch, because it is. Even if the White House wins, they lose, because the cost in terms of public trust and faith was too high.)

Every big idea that works is marked by simplicity, by clarity. You can understand it when you hear it, and you can explain it to people. Social Security: Retired workers receive a public pension to help them through old age. Medicare: People over 65 can receive taxpayer-funded health care. Welfare: If you have no money and cannot support yourself, we will help as you get back on your feet.

These things are clear. I understand them. You understand them. The president's health-care plan is not clear, and I mean that not only in the sense of "he hasn't told us his plan." I mean it in terms of the voodoo phrases, this gobbledygook, this secret language of government that no one understands—"single payer," "public option," "insurance marketplace exchange." No one understands what this stuff means, nobody normal.

And when normal people don't know what the words mean, they don't say to themselves, "I may not understand, but my trusty government surely does, and will treat me and mine with respect." They think, "I can't get what these people are talking about. They must be trying to get one past me. So I'll vote no."

In a more beautiful world, the whole health-care chapter could become, for the president, that helpful thing, the teachable moment. The president the past month has been taught a lot by the American people. It's all there in the polls. He could still step back, rethink, say it didn't work, promise to return with something better.

When presidents make clear, with modesty and even some chagrin, that they have made a mistake but that they've learned a lesson and won't be making it again, the American people tend to respond with sympathy. It is our tradition and our impulse.

Such admissions are not a sign of weakness. John F. Kennedy knew this after the Bay of Pigs. He didn't blame his Republican predecessor, Dwight Eisenhower, or the agencies that had begun the invasion's tentative planning under Ike. JFK made it clear he'd learned a great deal, which increased confidence in his leadership. His personal popularity rose so high that he later wryly noted that the more mistakes he made, the more popular he became.

I suspect the American people would appreciate seeing Barack Obama learn from this, and keep going. He's their president. He will be for the next few difficult years, which will no doubt contain moments he will have to lead us through. They also probably wouldn't mind seeing a wry, modest, very human and self-critical stance from a new president who doesn't strut and doesn't swagger but does have a level of 1950s cool, Old Vegas cool, of supreme and confident smoothness that one wouldn't mind seeing ruffled a bit by that old ruffler, reality. Critics of George W. Bush will say here, "Did he ever show wry self-criticism?" No, he didn't. And that's why it ended so well for him.

Modern presidents are always afraid to show anything so human as modesty or doubt. They're afraid of the endless cable-news loop of "I think I was wrong, I think I misjudged, I didn't get it right." They're afraid of death by soundbite. Which is understandable. But they should get over it, especially when it comes to a bit of self-criticism, and even a bit of self-doubt. Modesty is one of the prevailing moods of the moment, it's part of where the American people are and have been since at least a year ago when the economy tanked. We all lived through the abundance, made investments, not only financial ones, that turned out good or bad, made mistakes of judgment, and are wondering about the past decade, and its mistakes, and our part in its mistakes.

It shouldn't become a wallow, but there's nothing wrong with self-reflection and trying to learn from everything we did that was wrong, and right. It wouldn't be so bad to see a president echo this.

A final factor contributed to the mess of the health-care debate, and that the White House might ponder it. Looking back, what a lucky man President Clinton was to have—to help bring about after his own health-care fiasco—a Congress controlled by the opposite party. What a great and historic team Mr. Clinton and Newt Gingrich were, a popular Democratic president and a determined GOP leader with a solid majority. Welfare reform, a balanced budget, and a sense the public could have that not much crazy would happen and some serious progress might be made. If Mr. Clinton pressed too hard, Mr. Gingrich would push back. If Mr. Gingrich pressed too hard Mr. Clinton pushed back. Two gifted, often perplexing and always controversial Boomers who didn't even like each other, and yet you look back now and realize: Good things happened there.

Right now Mr. Obama's gift is his curse, a Congress dominated by his party. While the country worries about the economy and two wars, the Democrats of Congress are preoccupied with the idea that this is their moment, now is their time, health care now, "Never let a good crisis go to waste," the only blazingly memorable phrase to be uttered in the new era.

It's not especially pleasurable to see history held hostage to ideological vanity, but it's not the first time. And if they keep it up, they'll help solve the president's problem. He'll have a Republican congress soon enough.



1d) Sweden denies Israel request to condemn IDF organ harvest article

Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt has rejected Israeli calls for an official condemnation of a recent article by a top Swedish newspaper that alleged that Israel Defense Forces soldiers kill Palestinian civilians in order to harvest their organs.

Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman had asked Bildt to print a a state rebuttal to the piece, which was published earlier this week in Sweden's top newspaper Aftonbladet. Israel's Ambassador to Sweden Benny Dagan was expected to make a similar request during a meeting Friday with Sweden's Deputy Foreign Minister.

Bildt denied the request, however, writing in a blog post late Thursday that he would not condemn the article as "freedom of expression is part of the Swedish constitution."


"Freedom of expression and press freedom are very strong in our constitution by tradition. And that strong protection has served our democracy and our country well," Bildt wrote.

"If I were engaged in editing all strange debate contributions in different media I probably wouldn't have time to do much else."

Bildt said he understood why the article stirred strong emotions in Israel, but said basic values in society are best protected by free discussion.

The article has enraged Israeli officials, who called it blatantly racist and said it played on vile anti-Semitic themes.

Bildt, meanwhile, says the condemnation of anti-Semitism is "the only issue on which there has ever been complete unity in the Swedish parliament."

The article in Sweden's biggest-selling newspaper was first reported internationally by Haaretz.com on Tuesday, and has sparked fierce widespread debate both in Sweden and abroad. The article claims that as far back as 1992, the IDF was taking organs from Palestinian youths it killed, and also mentions an ongoing U.S. crime investigation involving members of the American Jewish community.

The Foreign Ministry is doubtful that the Swedish government will publish a condemnation, and are therefore considering other measures. One idea is to cancel an upcoming visit by Bildt to Israel, which is planned for ten days from now.

Another idea is to allow Bildt to make his visit to Israel, but to use the visit as a well publicized criticism of the article, and for officials to refuse to speak with him about any subject other than the article.

Foreign ministry officials said if there is no official Swedish condemnation this crisis will not be solved.

Lieberman has informed foreign ministry employees to weigh canceling the government press cards of writers from Aptonbladt in Israel, as well as to refuse to assist the paper in any way whatsoever in covering Israeli news.

It also emerged Thursday that Defense Minister Ehud Barak is considering a slander lawsuit against the writer of the article.

The Swedish government on Thursday distanced itself from a statement by its ambassador to Israel, in which she criticized the article saying that "the condemnation was solely the judgment of the embassy [in Tel Aviv], and designed for an Israeli audience." The comments came in a statement released Thursday by the Swedish Foreign Ministry.

"The article in the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet is as shocking and appalling to us Swedes, as it is to Israeli citizens," said Ambassador Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier on Wednesday.

"Just as in Israel, freedom of the press prevails in Sweden," Bonnier said. "However, freedom of the press and freedom of expression are freedoms which carry a certain responsibility."



2) Devaluing Doctors -- and Care
By Marshall Ackerman



Physicians have been cast as the villains in the drama that our national health-care debate has become. We stand accused of raising charges to private insurers to compensate for low Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements as well as care of the uninsured or illegal immigrants; doing more to get paid more; seeing patients more often than necessary to increase revenue; and providing inefficient and ineffective care to patients in the hospital. Our motives are impugned. The care we render is being disparaged and our professionalism disregarded -- yet somehow it is assumed that doctors are merely passive pawns to be moved around the chessboard of health care.

Where are the investigative journalists? How many physicians who are not radiologists own their own MRI machine, CT scanner, PET scanner or other sophisticated diagnostic equipment to which they refer their patients? Why would President Obama blast pediatricians for doing tonsillectomies for profit, when any intelligent person knows that pediatricians do not do surgery? They care for sick children and refer them to ear, nose and throat specialists when surgery is needed. Why does no one seem to be aware that surgeons have functioned under a "global reimbursement" system for more than 35 years? Surgeons are paid a set fee for the care rendered for surgery or fracture care for a fixed period (frequently 90 days) regardless of how often they see a patient or how long the patient remains in the hospital.

For that matter, why would intelligent physicians fill their schedules with unnecessary return visits for Medicare/Medicaid patients, who are the lowest payers in the mix, limiting the number of new patients they could see? And how is it that so many physicians "pass along" the losses of caring for the uninsured or Medicare/Medicaid patients when in fact doctors labor under contracts with big insurers that are basically take-it-or-leave-it with payment rates not much higher than Medicare, which has become the new standard?

I have been a practicing orthopedic surgeon for 40 years. I have observed profound changes in my profession since the advent of Medicare, changes that have affected patients' access to care. As reimbursements plummeted, internists abandoned hospital care to the new specialty of hospitalists, created boutique practices and stopped participating with health insurance companies. Physicians in all specialties have been retiring at earlier ages than ever before. In my own office, our staff has doubled over the past 40 years to enable us to handle the growing stream of government and insurer mandates. Our reimbursements continue to drop -- with no ability to pass on these costs. We are not the Mayo Clinic. There is no foundation to provide computers and electronic medical records or research grants to supplement salaries. Everything we do must come out of the reimbursement we receive for the care we provide to each patient.

Total joint replacement surgery for an arthritic hip and knee is a prime example of the difficulties physicians face and of the implications of health-care reform as envisaged by Congress and academic "experts." In 1971 I was paid $1,000 for a total hip replacement. Today, I would be paid approximately $1,600 for the same service. There is no multiplier -- a surgeon can only do one patient at a time. We continue in our practice for the immense satisfaction we receive from knowing that this surgery does more to restore a high quality of life to patients than any other surgery, and for the gratitude patients show. We implant devices because we believe, based on medical literature, that they are the best choices for patients. The overwhelming majority of surgeons have not received fees from implant manufacturers -- many times lowering the profitability of our hospitals.

Consider the implications when a global fee will be paid to the hospital: Then hospital and physician incentives will be aligned, and patients will bear the cost of the search for ever-cheaper implants and techniques, such as a return to cemented total hips. Forget metal-on-metal bearings, resurfacing, rotating platforms, high-flex knees, navigation systems or bilateral replacements. And if our hospitals are financially penalized for occurrences such as infection and deep-vein thrombosis after surgery, who will operate on the obese, the hypertensive or the diabetics among us? Experience with government funding reveals a never-ending spiral of decreased reimbursements in the name of restraining costs. In the end, this will come out of the care we all receive.

At your next visit to your specialist, take a tip from the drug company ads and "ask your doctor": Does he or she plan to retire early if reform legislation passes close to its present form? Does he or she plan to continue to participate with Medicare/Medicaid or participate with insurers that will not reimburse adequately? How does your doctor think health-care reform will affect the care you receive in his or her specialty? Access to a waiting list is not access to health care. Let's stop pointing fingers and start considering the real flaws and strengths of our system and how to improve it.

The writer, an orthopedic surgeon, has worked in private practice in the Washington metro area since 1969.

2a) Obama's Ailing Popularity
Todd J. Zywicki


President Obama took to the stump this week to respond to criticisms of his health care plan. But he now confronts an even deeper problem, one that threatens not only the success of Obamacare, but his presidency itself. Since the beginning of his term, Obama's personal popularity has exceeded that of his policies--a gap that was obviously unsustainable. Yet the final resolution remained unclear: Would his personality make his policies more popular, or would his policies drag down his personal likeability?

As the health care debate unfolds, we are seeing something we could not have predicted just weeks ago. President Obama's popularity is eroding--fast.

This week the Rasmussen poll of likely voters found the president's approval rating dipping below 50% for the first time. This is not only due to Obama's unpopular health reform program (although that may explain some of it). It is also because of the process he has used to push his signature initiative--a process that reeks of arrogance, deception and bullying.

This was unexpected: Even those who weren't crazy about the president's policies generally liked and respected the man. He seemed to be even-tempered, honest and somewhat earnest. He came across as reflective and open to debate, listening and persuasion.

This Obama has disappeared in the past few weeks while the health care debate has unfolded. Rather than open, he comes across as a sarcastic and lecturing professor. Rather than honest, he has seemed duplicitous and slick. Rather than careful and measured, his plan appeared rushed and extreme.

Voters were willing to forgive haste and sloppiness in ramming through a pork-laden economic stimulus bill that only loosely splattered on the target. To many, the financial crisis and rising unemployment justified a kitchen-sink approach. Sure, there would be waste, many voters acknowledged, but better to do too much than too little. After all, what was a few billion dollars when the economy itself seemed near collapse? Washington's urgency and inattention to the details of the legislation seemed appropriate leadership in a time of crisis. And most recognized that the Congress, not Obama, was to blame for the less appetizing ingredients in the stimulus crock pot.

These traits are less acceptable in the context of health care reform; this is a systemic, generational change, and it affects our health and medical care. Haste is irresponsible and reckless when the stakes are so high, and the need for urgency comparatively weak. The Rasmussen poll finds that a clear majority of Americans are more concerned that health reform be done right rather than enacting the hastily constructed proposal currently on the table.

The refrain of a health care system in "crisis" is not just overwrought, but obviously untrue for most Americans whose personal experience is of a health insurance system that works pretty well, albeit with some inconvenience, most of the time and provides state-of-the-art care, albeit inefficiently, almost all of the time. We are not creating a one-time obligation, but a fundamental entitlement that will be with us indefinitely.

Finally, the town hall confrontations across America have shown a political class that brazenly refuses to read--much less master--the details of the legislation, an irresponsible arrogance that was tolerated when it came to the stimulus legislation but which voters are much less willing to accept when there is no need for panic.

There is a growing perception of condescension surrounding the selling of the White House's health care plan. Common sense tells us the government cannot simultaneously expand coverage and reduce costs. The government cannot dramatically inflate demand for health care services and eliminate market mechanisms for allocating them without devising some way of rationing supply and demand through political means. To suggest otherwise, as the White House has, is not just misleading but insulting. And the American people don't like to have their intelligence insulted.

The phony sense of crisis, the inattention to the details and the transparent dishonesty of many of the claims have made voters question not only the program but the president. What does Obama have to hide? Why won't he level with us? The discovery that there are hidden, controversial provisions in the plan has sparked rumors about imaginary provisions. Denouncing the false concerns as "lies," as the White House has done, doesn't redeem the apparent effort to obfuscate certain details of the plan. And the now-abandoned request of loyalists to report "suspicious communications" to the White House did nothing to assuage voters' distrust.

It is this distrust, more than anything, that is eroding Obama's popularity. Voters no longer see him as a grown-up, straight-shooter and basically good guy who is trying to do his best, but as a political opportunist taking advantage of their charity and trust.

George W. Bush had a long way to fall after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when the American people trusted him to use his power responsibly to do what needed to be done to wage the war on terror. But he abused this mandate to justify policies that had little to do with keeping us safe. The American people eventually came to feel like they had been suckered by a president who took advantage of their goodwill, and they turned on him with a vengeance. Is Barack Obama in the same position, post-financial crisis?

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel famously announced his desire not to squander a good crisis. But Americans recognize that the health care system, while troubled, is not in crisis. Nor, as President Obama might soon discover the hard way, is global climate change a crisis for which voters will tolerate job-killing legislation enacted through slap-dash decision-making and irresponsible haste. Unless Obama quickly recognizes that voters know the difference between an authentic and inauthentic crisis, the success of his health care overhaul--and perhaps his presidency itself--is in jeopardy.

Todd J. Zywicki is a professor at George Mason University School of Law and a senior scholar at Mercatus Center.


3)Somehow, I have gotten on the mail list of the Chatham County Democratic Committee. This is the Party that claims all protests against Obama's health care plan are organized ventures and there is no grassroots movement taking place at all.

In response to that, let me share with you a note that I received from them yesterday as they "organize" a rally outside a Jack Kingston town meeting to be held on Friday. Guess only the Right organizes...the Left simply pulls together a contrived gathering of opposition.

The "colored type" emphasis in the body of this message are their's, not mine.


Dear CCDC Members and All Supporters of Health Care Reform,


Riding on the waves of the success of our rally last week at Congressman John Barrow's office - 50+ attendees - it is time to mobilize the forces once more.

This week's rally will take place at Congressman Jack Kingston's office this coming Friday, August 21, at 12 noon.

I am working to get support for this rally from other local organizations who are on record as supporting universal health care reform. Additionally the mantra for each of us is, "Each One Bring 5." So please "phone a friend (s)."

JACK KINGSTON – SAVANNAH OFFICE
1 Diamond Causeway, Suite 7
Savannah, GA 31406

In the words of Valerie Jarrett, President Obama's senior advisor, when she responded to questions from bloggers and activists at a Netroots Nation conference in Pittsburg last week, "winning health care reform is a 'retail operation', ' a block by block,' 'person by person' effort."



~Mildred~

Mildred Reynolds,
- CCDC -

3a) A Little More Heat, Please
By Eugene Robinson

Here's the least surprising news of the week: Americans are souring on the Democratic Party. The wonder is that it's taken so long for public opinion to curdle. There's nothing agreeable about watching a determined attempt to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

A poll released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center reports that just 49 percent of respondents have a favorable view of the Democrats, compared to 62 percent in January and 59 percent in April. This doesn't mean, though, that Americans look any more kindly upon the Republican Party -- favorability for the GOP has been steady at 40 percent throughout the year, according to Pew.

What it does mean, however, is that Republican efforts to obstruct, delay, confuse, stall, distort and otherwise impede the reform agenda that Americans voted for last November have had measurable success. And it means that Democrats, having been given a mandate -- one as comprehensive as either party is likely to enjoy in this era of red-vs.-blue polarization -- don't really know how to use it.

That the Democratic Party is no paragon of organization and discipline is almost axiomatic. That's not the problem. The Pew poll suggests that the Democrats' weakness is neither strategic nor tactical, but emotional. To quote the poet William Butler Yeats: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

There's not enough passion on the Democratic side, not enough heat. There's some radiating from the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, too little emanating from the Democratic majority in the Senate, and not nearly enough coming from President Obama. Republicans, by contrast, have little going for them except passion -- but they're using it to impressive effect.

Step back from the health care debate for a moment and survey the landscape. Democrats are within sight of a goal that has fired the party's dreams for half a century. They have the power to enact meaningful reform. Polls show that Americans are hungry for reform. The solid wall of opposition once presented by big business has crumbled. Even the insurance companies and Big Pharma are ready to deal. Yet somehow we've gotten sidetracked onto an argument about "death panels," while a provision that many advocates believe is central to effective reform -- a government-run, public health insurance -- is suddenly in doubt.

How could this happen? The Pew survey suggests, basically, that Republicans are more passionate about the health care issue than Democrats.

According to Pew, those who would be "pleased" if health care reforms proposed by Obama and Congress are enacted outnumber those who would be "disappointed." But when you look at those who feel most passionately about the issue, just 15 percent say they would be "very happy" if the reforms go through, while 18 percent say they would be "angry." Among Republicans, a full 38 percent would be angry if health care reform finally passes -- but among Democrats, just 13 percent would be angered if it doesn't.

It's hard to argue that anger, per se, is something we need more of in American politics. But passion -- which sometimes, yes, finds expression in anger -- is a powerful and legitimate tool. Health care reform is something the Democratic Party has been trying to achieve since the Truman administration, and only 13 percent of Democrats would be angry if it fails? Only 27 percent of Democrats would be "very happy" if reform passes, according to Pew, while 42 percent could only bestir themselves to feel "pleased" that the Grail long sought by the most beloved Democrat of all, ailing Sen. Edward Kennedy, has finally been attained?

One reason for this imbalance of passion about health care reform, I believe, is that there still is no single piece of legislation around which Democrats -- and others who see the need for reform -- can rally. But it's impossible to deny that the Republican strategy of generating anger and fear has also been a major factor.

Where are the millions who so passionately chanted "Yes, we can!" at Obama's campaign rallies? Where are the legions who cried tears of joy on Election Night and tears of pride on Inauguration Day? Is Sarah Palin now the only politician capable of inspiring "passionate intensity"?

Passion finds expression in anger, but also in hope. Democrats knew and felt that during the campaign. If they forget it, they might as well also forget about achieving the kind of fundamental change that the country sorely needs.



4) Jackie Mason On Speaking Spanish

There may be those among you who support including Spanish in our national language. I for one am 110% against this! We must preserve
the exclusivity and above all, the purity of the English language.


To all the shlemiels, shlemazels, nebbishes, nudniks, klutzes, putzes, shlubs, shmoes, shmucks, nogoodniks, and momzers that are out there pushing Spanish, I just want to say that I, for one,
believe that English and only English deserves linguistic prominence in our American culture. To tell the truth, it makes me so farklempt, I'm fit to plotz. This whole Spanish schmeer gets me
broyges, specially when I hear these erstwhile mavens and luftmenschen kvetching about needing to learn Spanish. What chutzpah!


These shmegeges can tout their shlock about the cultural and linguistic diversity of our country, but I, for one, am not buying their shtick. It's all so much dreck, as far as I'm concerned. I exhort you all to be menshen about this and stand up to their
fardrayte arguments and meshugganah, farshtunkene assertions. It wouldn't be kosher to do anything else.

Remember, when all is said and done, we have English and they've got bubkes! The whole myseh is a pain in my tuchas!

5)Ahmadinejad's defense minister is wanted by Interpol for 1994 Buenos Aires atrocity

Ahmadi Vadhidi, whom President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has designated Iran's next defense minister, was head of the notorious al Qods Brigades which ordered and organized the bombing attack on the Jewish center in Buenos Aires in 1994 that left 84 people dead.

Interpol has issued an international warrant for his arrest for this crime. (See attached photo)

Al Qods is responsible for the Revolutionary Guards terrorist operations in foreign countries. For the attack on the Jewish center, Vadhidi used Hizballah operatives with whom he was acquainted from his days as commander of the IRGC's Lebanon Corps in the 1980s.

He was especially close to Hizballah's bombing and abduction expert, the late Imad Mughniyeh. Together, they plotted and executed the kidnapping of a series of high-ranking Western officials in those years, among them William Buckley and Col, Richard Higgins.

Buckley, the CIA station chief in Lebanon, was snatched in 1984, the first senior US intelligence official to be interrogated under torture by joint teams employed by Vadhidi and Mughniyeh. He did not survive the ordeal.

Four years later, the due captured Col. William Richard ("Rich") Higgins, the highest-ranking US military and intelligence officer in Lebanon at the time. He too was tortured to death in the attempt by Iranian agents to extract the secrets of US Middle East operations.

Vadhidi has been employed in recent years at home base in Tehran, latterly as deputy defense minister with responsibility for "aerodynamic development" i.e. missiles. He has also served as head of the ministry's planning department and head of the Expediency Council's political-security commission.

The Iranian president is poised to unveil his cabinet in the coming days. Composed mainly of his most brutal cronies and loyal yes-men - as well as three women for the first time - it faces the opposition of large sections of parliament who threaten to withhold endorsement.

6) Et tu, Netanyahu?
By Caroline B. Glick



This week we discovered that we have been deceived. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's principled rejection of US President Barack Obama's bigoted demand that Israel bar Jews from building new homes and expanding existing ones in Judea and Samaria does not reflect his actual policy.

Housing and Construction Minister Ariel Attias let the cat out of the bag. Attias said that the government has been barring Jews from building in the areas since it took office four months ago in the hopes that by preemptively capitulating to US demands, the US will treat Israel better.

And that's not all. Today Netanyahu is reportedly working in earnest to reach a deal with the Obama administration that would formalize the government's effective construction ban through 2010. Netanyahu is set to finalize such a deal at his meeting with Obama's Middle East envoy George Mitchell in London next Wednesday.

Unfortunately, far from treating Israel better as a result of Netanyahu's willingness to capitulate on the fundamental right of Jews to live and build homes in the land of Israel, the Obama administration is planning to pocket Israel's concession and then up the ante. Administration officials have stated that their next move will be to set a date for a new international Middle East peace conference that Obama will chair. There, Israel will be isolated and relentlessly attacked as the US, the Arabs, the Europeans, the UN and the Russians all gang up on our representatives and demand that Israel accept the so-called "Arab peace plan."

That deceptively named plan, which Obama has all but adopted as his own, involves Israel committing national suicide in exchange for nothing. The Arab plan -- formerly the "Saudi Plan," and before that, the Tom Friedman "stick it to Israel 'peace' plan" -- calls for Israel to retreat to the indefensible 1949 armistice lines and expel hundreds of thousands of Jews from their homes in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. It also involves Israel agreeing to cease being a Jewish state by accepting millions of foreign, hostile Arabs as citizens within its truncated borders. The day an Israeli government accepts the plan - which again will form the basis of the Obama "peace" conference" -- is the day that the State of Israel signs its own death warrant.

Then there is the other Obama plan in the works. Obama also intends to host an international summit on nuclear security for March 2010. Arab states are already pushing for Israel's nuclear program to be placed on the agenda. Together with Obama administration officials' calls for Israel to join the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty -- which would compel Israel to relinquish its purported nuclear arsenal -- and their stated interest in having Israel sign the Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty -- which would arguably force Israel to allow international inspections of its nuclear facility in Dimona -- Obama's planned nuclear conclave will place Israel in an untenable position.

Recognizing the Obama administration's inherent and unprecedented hostility to Israel, Netanyahu sought to deflect its pressure by giving his speech at Bar Ilan University in June. There he gave his conditional acceptance of Obama's most cherished foreign policy goal -- the establishment of a Palestinian state in Israel's heartland.

Netanyahu's conditions -- that the Arabs generally and the Palestinians specifically recognize Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state; that they relinquish their demand that Israel accept millions of hostile Arabs as citizens under the so-called "right of return;" that the Palestinian state be a "demilitarized" state, and that Arab states normalize their relations with Israel were supposed to put a monkey wrench in Obama's policy of pressuring Israel.

Since it is obvious that the Arabs do not accept these eminently reasonable conditions, Netanyahu presumed that Obama would be forced to stand down. What Netanyahu failed to take into consideration was the notion that Obama and the Arabs would not act in good faith -- that they would pretend to accept at least some of his demands in order to force him to accept all of their demands, and so keep US pressure relentlessly focused on Israel. Unfortunately, this is precisely what has happened.

Ahead of Obama's meeting Tuesday with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Al Quds al Arabi, reported that Obama has accepted Netanyahu's call for a demilitarized Palestinian state. Although Netanyahu is touting Obama's new position as evidence of his own diplomatic prowess, the fact is that Obama's new position is both disingenuous and meaningless.

Obama's supposed support for a demilitarized Palestinian state is mendacious on two counts. First, Palestinian society is already one of the most militarized societies in the world. According to the World Bank, 43 percent of wages paid by the Palestinian Authority go to Palestinian militias. Since Obama has never called for any fundamental reordering of Palestinian society or for a reform of the PA's budgetary priorities, it is obvious that he doesn't have a problem with a militarized Palestinian state.

The second reason his statements in support for a demilitarized Palestinian state are not credible is because one of the central pillars of the Obama administration's Palestinian policy is its involvement in training of the Fatah-led Palestinian army. US Lt. Gen. Keith Dayton is overseeing the training of this army in Jordan and pressuring Israel to expand its deployment in Judea and Samaria.

The US claims that the forces it is training will be responsible for counter-terror operations and regular police work, and therefore, it is wrong to say that Dayton is raising a Palestinian army. But even if this is true today, there is no reason not to assume that these forces will form the backbone of a future Palestinian army. After all, the Palestinian militias trained by the CIA in the 1990s were trained in counter-terror tactics. This then enabled them to serve as the commanders of the Palestinian terror apparatus from 2000 until 2004 when Israel finally defeated them. It is the uncertainty about these forces that renders Obama's statement meaningless.

And that gets to the heart of the problem with Netanyahu's conditional support for Palestinian statehood. Far from deflecting pressure on Israel to make further concessions, it trapped Israel into a position that serves none of its vital interests.

For Israel to secure its long-term vital national interests vis-�-vis the Palestinians, it doesn't need for the US and the Palestinians to declare they agree to a demilitarized state or for a Palestinian leader to announce that he recognizes Israel's right to exist or even agrees that Israel doesn't have to commit national suicide by accepting millions of Arab immigrants. For Israel to secure its national interests, Palestinian society needs to be fundamentally reorganized.

As we saw at the Fatah conclave in Bethlehem last week, even if Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas were to accept Netanyahu's conditions, he wouldn't be speaking for anyone but himself. Fatah's conclave -like Hamas's terror state in Gaza - gave Israel every reason to believe that the Palestinians will continue their war against Israel after pocketing their state in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. There is no Palestinian leader with any following that accepts Israel. Consequently, negotiating the establishment of a Palestinian state before Palestinian society is fundamentally changed is a recipe for disaster.

Furthermore, even if Netanyahu is right to seek an agreement with Mitchell next week, he showed poor negotiating skill by preemptively freezing Jewish construction. Domestically, Netanyahu has lost credibility now that the public knows that he misled it. And by preemptively capitulating, Netanyahu showed Obama that he is not a serious opponent. Why should Obama take Netanyahu's positions seriously if Netanyahu abandons before them before Obama even begins to seriously challenge him?

Beyond the damage Netanyahu's actions have inflicted on his domestic and international credibility is the damage they have caused to Netanyahu's ability to refocus US attention and resolve where it belongs.

As Netanyahu has repeatedly stated, the Palestinian issue is a side issue. The greatest impediment to Middle East peace and the greatest threat to international security today is Iran's nuclear weapons program. A nuclear armed Iran will all but guarantee that the region will at best be plagued by continuous war, and at worst be destroyed in a nuclear conflagration.

Netanyahu had hoped that his conditional support for Palestinian statehood, and his current willingness to bar Jews from building homes in Judea and Samaria would neutralize US pressure on Israel and facilitate his efforts to convince Obama to recognize and deal rationally with the issue of Iran's nuclear weapons program. But as Ambassador Michael Oren made clear on Sunday, the opposite has occurred.

In an interview with CNN, Oren said that Israel is "far from even contemplating" a military strike against Iran's nuclear installations." He also said, "The government of Israel has supported President Obama in his approach to Iran, initially the engagement, the outreach to Iran."

From this it appears that Israel has not only made no headway in convincing the administration to take Iran seriously. It appears that Jerusalem has joined the administration in accepting a nuclear armed Iran.

It is possible that Oren purposely misrepresented Israel's position. But this too would be a disturbing turn of events. Israel gains nothing from lying. Oren's statement neutralizes domestic pressure on the administration to get serious about Iran. And if Israel attacks Iran's nuclear installations in the coming months, Oren's statement will undoubtedly be used by Israel's detractors to attack the government.

Some critics of Netanyahu from the Right like Ariel Mayor Ron Nachman claim that it may well be time to begin bringing down Netanyahu's government. They are wrong. We have been down this road before. In 1992 the Right brought down Yitzhak Shamir's government and brought the Rabin-Peres government to power and Yassir Arafat to the gates of Jerusalem. In 1999 the Right brought down the first Netanyahu government and gave Israel Camp David and the Palestinian terror war.

There is another way. It is being forged by the likes of Vice Premier Moshe Ya'alon on the one hand and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee on the other.

Ya'alon argues that not capitulating to American pressure is a viable policy option for Israel. There is no reason to reach an agreement with Mitchell on the administration's bigoted demand that Jews not build in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. If the US wants to have a fight with Israel, a fight against American anti-Jewish discrimination is not a bad one for Israel to have.

Ya'alon's argument was borne out by Huckabee's visit this week to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria. Huckabee's trip showed that the administration is not operating in a policy vacuum. There is plenty of strong American support for an Israeli government that would stand up to the administration on the Palestinian issue and Iran alike.

Netanyahu's policies have taken a wrong turn. But Netanyahu is not Tzipi Livni or Ehud Olmert. He is neither an ideologue nor an opportunist. He understands why what he is doing is wrong. He just needs to be convinced that he has another option.

JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post.

6a) The Truth About Death Counseling
By Charles Krauthammer

Let's see if we can have a reasoned discussion about end-of-life counseling.

We might start by asking Sarah Palin to leave the room. I've got nothing against her. She's a remarkable political talent. But there are no "death panels" in the Democratic health care bills, and to say that there are is to debase the debate.

We also have to tell the defenders of the notorious Section 1233 of H.R. 3200 that it is not quite as benign as they pretend. To offer government reimbursement to any doctor who gives end-of-life counseling -- whether or not the patient asked for it --is to create an incentive for such a chat.

What do you think such a chat would be like? Do you think the doctor will go on and on about the fantastic new million-dollar high-tech gizmo that can prolong the patient's otherwise hopeless condition for another six months? Or do you think he's going to talk about -- as the bill specifically spells out -- hospice care and palliative care and other ways of letting go of life?

No, say the defenders. It's just that we want the doctors to talk to you about putting in place a living will and other such instruments. Really? Then consider the actual efficacy of a living will. When you are old, infirm and lying in the ICU with pseudomonas pneumonia and deciding whether to (a) go through the long antibiotic treatment or (b) allow what used to be called "the old man's friend" to take you away, the doctor will ask you at that time) what you want for yourself -- no matter what piece of paper you signed five years ago.

You are told constantly how very important it is to write your living will years in advance. But the relevant question is what you desire at the end -- when facing death -- not what you felt sometime in the past when you were hale and hearty and sitting in your lawyer's office barely able to contemplate a life of pain and diminishment.

Well, as pain and diminishment enter your life as you age, your calculations change and your tolerance for suffering increases. In the ICU, you might have a new way of looking at things.

My own living will, which I have always considered more a literary than legal document, basically says: "I've had some good innings, thank you. If I have anything so much as a hangnail, pull the plug." I've never taken it terribly seriously because unless I'm comatose or demented, they're going to ask me at the time whether or not I want to be resuscitated if I go into cardiac arrest. The paper I signed years ago will mean nothing.

And if I'm totally out of it, my family will decide, with little or no reference to my living will. Why? I'll give you an example. When my father was dying, my mother and brother and I had to decide how much treatment to pursue. What was a better way to ascertain my father's wishes: What he checked off on a form one fine summer's day years before being stricken; or what we, who had known him intimately for decades, thought he would want? The answer is obvious.

Except for the demented orphan, the living will is quite beside the point. The one time it really is essential is if you think your fractious family will be only too happy to hasten your demise to get your money. That's what the law is good at -- protecting you from murder and theft. But that is a far cry from assuring a peaceful and willed death, which is what most people imagine living wills are about.

So why get Medicare to pay the doctor to do the counseling? Because we know that if this white-coated authority whose chosen vocation is curing and healing is the one opening your mind to hospice and palliative care, we've nudged you ever so slightly toward letting go.

It's not an outrage. It's surely not a death panel. But it is subtle pressure applied by society through your doctor. And when you include it in a health care reform whose major objective is to bend the cost curve downward, you have to be a fool or a knave to deny that it's intended to gently point you in a certain direction, toward the corner of the sick room where stands a ghostly figure, scythe in hand, offering release.

7) Commentary: Why the doctor won't see you now
By Dr.Kevin Pho


Dr. Kevin Pho says health reform can't succeed as long as there's a shortage of primary care doctors.

When President Obama recently cited the number of Americans without health insurance, he declared that, "We are not a nation that accepts nearly 46 million uninsured men, women, and children."

Uninsured patients often delay preventive care, waiting to seek medical attention only when their conditions worsen. This leads to more intensive treatment, often in the emergency department or hospital where costs run the highest.

Universal health coverage is therefore a sensible goal, and the reforms being considered all make considerable effort to provide everyone with affordable health care.

But expanding coverage cannot succeed as long as there remains a shortage of primary care clinicians.

After all, what good is having health insurance if you can't find a doctor to see you?

Massachusetts is often held out as a model for national health reform, and the bills being considered in Washington emulate much of that state's 2006 landmark universal coverage law. As a physician in neighboring New Hampshire, I have had the opportunity to observe the effect of the Massachusetts reforms.

Today, 97 percent of Massachusetts residents have health insurance, the highest in the country. But less publicized are the unintended consequences that the influx of half a million newly insured patients has had on an unprepared primary care system.

The Massachusetts Medical Society reported that the average wait time for a new patient looking for a primary care doctor ranged from 36 to 50 days, with almost half of internal medicine physicians closing their doors entirely to new patients. And when you consider that Massachusetts already has the highest concentration of doctors nationwide, wait times will likely be worse in other, less physician-abundant parts of the country, should universal coverage be enacted federally.

When patients are forced to wait weeks to obtain medical care, they inevitably find their way into the emergency department for treatment that ordinarily can be handled in a doctor's office. Indeed, since health reform was passed, according to state data provided to the Boston Globe, Massachusetts emergency rooms have reported a 7 percent increase in volume, which markedly inflates costs when you consider that emergency room treatment can be up to 10 times more expensive than an office visit for the same ailment.

Alwyn Cassil, a spokeswoman for the nonpartisan Center for Studying Health System Change, told HealthDay News that expanding coverage without improving access to care is a "recipe for failure," as well as unsustainable, "because it will just bankrupt us."

Massachusetts is finding out just how difficult it is to fiscally maintain universal coverage. In part due to soaring health costs, the state Legislature has proposed reducing health benefits for 30,000 legal immigrants and cutting funding to inner-city hospitals like Boston Medical Center, which, according to the Boston Globe, may "force it to slash programs and jeopardize care for thousands of poverty-stricken families."

The success of universal health coverage depends on an adequate supply of primary care providers. But the Association of American Medical Colleges is forecasting a shortage of 46,000 primary care physicians by 2025, a deficit that not only will balloon under any universal coverage measure, but cannot be made up as doctors, nurse practitioners and physician assistants all gravitate towards more lucrative specialty practice.

It's not only the financial incentives that need to substantially change for primary care to prosper. More important, the working conditions for the physicians already in the field have to improve. A recent survey in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that roughly half of primary care doctors reported practicing in a work environment "strongly associated with low physician satisfaction, high stress ... and [an] intent to leave."

Primary care clinicians routinely face unreasonable time pressures, a chaotic work pace, and bureaucratic impediments. Onerous paperwork requirements that obstruct patient care have to be reduced. And instead of the current system which encourages doctors to rush through as many office visits as possible, physicians who take the time to counsel, guide, and address all of their patients' concerns should be rewarded. Better valuing the doctor-patient relationship will increase satisfaction, not only for physicians, but for their patients as well.

Such solutions, however, have been largely absent from the health reform conversation.

Although it is a moral imperative for every American to have access to health insurance, alleviating the shortage of primary care providers is of equal importance. The prospect of suddenly adding tens of millions of patients to an overburdened primary care system has the potential to make the already dire state of American health care even worse.