Our downhill skiing President.---
---
Perhaps this explains why Democrats are the way they are.
Sent to me by one of my most level headed memo readers. (See 1 below.)
---
Kennedy understood about taxes. The key is also to reduce government spending. Then the economy would right itself and the nation's future would be more secure.
Sent by a dear friend , outstanding cook and fellow memo reader. (See 2 below.)
---
The Marine Corps has a 14 point leadership trait test. It is a time and battle tested test.
When applied to Obama, one can argue there is a degree of subjectivity involved but Michael Fraley believes Obama, the Commander in Chief, flunks and explains why Obama is an 'un-leader.' (See 3 and 3a below.)
---
Lee Cary believes voters feel betrayed and soon will show those who betrayed them the door. (See 4 below.)
---
I have maintained for years, the Interstate Commerce Clause has been stretched far beyond its intended meaning. The State of Virginia's law suit challenges 'Obamascare' and their Attorney General may have found a vulnerability based on its failure to include a severance clause because of Democrat piggishness and arrogance and ironically Sen. Brown's election. (See 5 below.)
---
Iran keeps punching through technology thresholds and is ready to start equipping the Lebanese Army. Meanwhile, Netanyahu remains mute and Obama hides in his sanction bunker.
Consequently, a conflict, born out of timidity, appears increasingly likely. (See 6 below.)
----
Just who are the Palestinians and why have they been able to trap the world into catering to them? (See 7 and 7a below.)
---
Michelle Malkin does not understand the idea that Muslim rage should be laid on our doorstep and we should tread ever so lightly.
Muslim rage has been exploding all over the place for years without our matches. (See 8 and 8a below.)
---
Conservatism equates with racism in the eyes of many Liberals. Why? This author explains. (See 9 below.)
---
This from a long time friend. Yes, I drown people with my missives but at least I seem to have scored with one memo reader who I admire very much: "...By the way, you’re drowning me with all these articles but I read them all. I’m on SquawkBox this Friday, September 17th; 7-9AM and some of your material may come up during the 2 hours I will be hosting the show.
I have to remark again on how well you’re writing - so explicit and clear and you make your point(s) so well. I wish I had that talent but I don’t. Keep it up. I look forward to your missives every day."
Another response from a very bright friend: "...I need to find a way to stay home Friday from 7 to 9. I hope he talks about how the infrastructure spending – stimulus spending intended to “help” the construction industries – have done little. We believe they have been counterproductive. In fact, on our last analyst call, our CEO finally told one of the analysts that the “stimulus” spending was not accretive, but simply replaced the funds that the municipalities were going to spend on water infrastructure anyway. What it did was what every welfare program does – it took the eyes away from long-term accountability for municipal spending.
---
Dick
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) With the November midterms just around the corner, it is time to assess the good and bad of politics and politicians. Perhaps, the information below will help to clarify and to guide our political thought processes
The Lawyers' Party
By Bruce Walker
The Democratic Party has become the Lawyers' Party. Barack Obama is a lawyer. Michelle Obama is a lawyer. Hillary Clinton is a lawyer. Bill Clinton is a lawyer. John Edwards is a lawyer. Elizabeth Edwards is a lawyer.
Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate). Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Look at leaders of the Democrat Party in Congress: Harry Reid is a lawyer. Nancy Pelosi is a lawyer.
The Republican Party is different.
President Bush is a businessman. Vice President Cheney is a businessman. The leaders of the Republican Revolution: Newt Gingrich was a history professor. Tom Delay was an exterminator. Dick Armey was an economist. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill First is a heart surgeon. Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976.
The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work, who are often the targets of lawyers.
The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick, like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history, like Gingrich.
The Lawyers' Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want and need, as the enemies of America . And, so we have seen the procession of official enemies, in the eyes of the Lawyers' Party, grow..
The United States has 5% of the world's population and 66% of the world's lawyers! Tort (Legal) reform legislation has been introduced in congress several times in the last several years to limit punitive damages in ridiculous lawsuits such as "spilling hot coffee on yourself and suing the establishment that sold it to you" and also to limit punitive damages in huge medical malpractice lawsuits. This legislation has continually been blocked from ever being voted on by the Democrat Party. When you see that 97% of the political contributions from the American Trial Lawyers Association goes to the Democrat Party, then you realize who is responsible for our medical and product costs being so high!
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)President John F. Kennedy- Economic Club of New York- Dec. 14, 1962
"The final and best means of strengthening demand is to reduce the burden on private income which are imposed by our present tax system.
And this administration pledged itself last summer to an across the board, top to bottom cut in personal and corporate income taxes to become effective in 1963.
I'm not talking about a 'quickie' or a temporary tax cut, which would be more appropriate if a recession were imminent.
Nor am I talking about giving the economy a mere shot in the arm to ease some temporary complaint. I am talking about the accumulated evidence of the last five years, that our present tax system, developed as it was in good part during World War II to restrain growth, exerts too heavy a drag on private economy, too large a share of personal and business purchasing power. That it reduces financial incentives for personal effort, investment and risk taking.
In short, to increase demand and lift the economy, the Federal Government's most useful role is not to rush into a program of excessive increases in public expenditures, but to expand the incentives and opportunities for private expenditures.
For all these reasons, next year's tax bill should reduce personal as well as corporate income taxes, for those in the lower brackets who are certain to spend their additional take home pay, and for those in the middle and upper brackets who can thereby be encouraged to undertake additional efforts and enable to invest more capital.
...an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3)Obama Flunks the Leadership Test
By Michael Fraley
The U.S. Marine Corps' 14 Leadership Traits serve as a standard against which to compare President Obama's actions in his nineteen months in office. By this standard, he is not simply an unqualified leader, but the antithesis of a good leader: an "un-leader."
It is often difficult for us to prove things which are self-evident. Anecdotes and examples are not without merit, but in a vacuum, these alone often fall short. Without some set standard, it can always be argued that one's position is arbitrary and subjective, determined only by a preexisting bias.
Such is perhaps the case when discussing the leadership qualities of an individual, and in particular a sitting president. Results might be the truest test of ability, but without the passage of time, all results are not known, and such a standard is subject to dispute. Polling data is not a true test of leadership attributes: many great leaders went against the prevailing mood only to be later acknowledged for their insight and resilience. How to judge?
A standard for excellence in leadership is what we need, and where better to find such a standard than from the United States Marine Corps? The 14 Leadership Traits provide a time-tested (and battle-tested) list of what characterizes the good leader. And although there remains a certain degree of subjectivity when it comes to measuring an individual against these traits, in totality, they offer a very complete and convincing picture of the degree of one's leadership qualifications.
The 14 Leadership Traits are:
•BEARING - Creating a favorable impression in carriage, appearance, and personal conduct at all times.
•COURAGE - A mental quality that recognizes fear of danger or criticism, but enables a Marine to proceed in the face of it with calmness and firmness.
•DECISIVENESS - Ability to make decisions promptly and to announce them in a clear, forceful manner.
•DEPENDABILITY - The certainty of proper performance of duty.
•ENDURANCE - The mental and physical stamina measured by the ability to withstand pain, fatigue, stress, and hardship.
•ENTHUSIASM - The display of sincere interest and exuberance in the performance of duty.
•INITIATIVE - Taking action in the absence of orders.
•INTEGRITY - Uprightness of character and soundness of moral principles.
•JUDGMENT - The ability to weigh facts and possible courses of action in order to make sound decisions.
•JUSTICE - Giving reward and punishment according to the merits of the case in question. The ability to administer a system of rewards and punishments impartially and consistently.
•KNOWLEDGE - Understanding of a science or an art. The range of one's information, including professional knowledge and an understanding of your Marines.
•LOYALTY - The quality of faithfulness to country, the Corps, and unit, and to one's seniors, subordinates, and peers.
•TACT - The ability to deal with others without creating hostility.
•UNSELFISHNESS - Avoidance of providing for one's own comfort and personal advancement at the expense of others.
With a standard of leadership in hand, we can now examine just how well President Obama stacks up as a leader.
BEARING and ENTHUSIASM
Does the president carry himself like the leader of the greatest superpower?
•Did President Obama Really Bow to the Saudi King?
•OBAMA BOWS TO PRESIDENT OF COMMUNIST CHINA
•How low will he go? Obama gives Japan's Emperor Akihito a wow bow
•Obama Bows Again to Communist China, America Hangs Head in Shame
It seems, to the detriment of the Republic, that Obama shows real enthusiasm only for bowing to despots.
DECISIVENESS and DEPENDABILITY
Dependable? We can depend on this president to do the opposite of what the people want and what the Constitution requires.
•Amid crises, Obama declares war -- on Arizona
•Obama Stimulus Failure: Economy Sheds More Jobs
•Senate Oversight Report, "FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP: PRESIDENT OBAMA AND THE FLAWED FEDERAL RESPONSE TO THE BP DISASTER"
•The danger of Obama's dithering: His foreign policy brings to mind Jimmy Carter, or perhaps Ethelred the Unready.
Rather than being decisive, Obama turns exclusively to the socialist dogma that defines him: progressivism is his default position.
ENDURANCE and INITIATIVE
As far as date nights, parties, golf, and vacations go, Barack Obama has shown initiative and exceptional endurance.
•President and Ms. Obama Take in Another Concert: Fiddling While Rome Burns
•Obama's (Politically) Risky Golf Obsession
•Biden Carries Administration Message While Obama Vacations
Governing? Well, not so much.
•Gates Says U.S. Lacks a Policy to Thwart Iran
•Has Obama become bored with being president?
COURAGE and INTEGRITY
This administration has been characterized by nothing as much as its string of broken campaign promises and out-and-out lies, along with a series of special deals for favored special interests.
•Obama finds room for lobbyists
•Obama Now Selling Judgeships for Health Care Votes?
•Summer of corruption: Obama's Big Labor ethics loophole
He and his spokesmen continually talk out of both sides of the mouth or, like Baghdad Bob, take outlandish positions in public which are completely divorced from reality.
•Obama blaming Bush.....again
•What chilled the U.S. economy? An ill 'headwind' from Europe, says Obama
•Obama now blames poor job numbers on congressional inaction. Wait! His party runs Congress
JUDGMENT and KNOWLEDGE
What is not clear is that Obama has even a cursory knowledge of the areas for which he has the most far-reaching policy ambitions.
•Obama: Doctors May Choose Amputation Because Of Reimbursement
•Most Say Obama Lacks Clear Plans on the Oil Spill, Energy or Jobs
It is difficult to imagine a more misinformed approach to economic policy. Those on both sides of the aisle have publicly warned about the looming dangers, yet Obama appears to place little value in the opinions of others.
•Buffett Says He Can't See Rationale for Bank Levy
•Former Obama -supporter Mort Zuckerman believes the Obama administration is the most fiscally irresponsible government in American history.
Rather, he pushes ahead with his agenda of incredible spending to a level that is more than irresponsible...something more like delusional.
•From 7 stories Obama doesn't want told - 1. He thinks he's playing with Monopoly money
JUSTICE and LOYALTY
This president displayed his notion of justice soon after taking office by firing Gerald Walpin from his post as AmeriCorps IG without legally required due process. Since the beginning, Obama and his goons have gone after the good guys:
•The Obama Thugocracy Goes After Joe the Plumber
•DOJ files charges against Sheriff Joe ahead of September 10 deadline
And all the while:
•Former DOJ Official Charges Racism Drove DOJ to Kill Black Panther Voter Intimidation Case
•Gitmo gall: Charges dropped against Cole bombing jihadist
It might seem as if this administration has it precisely backwards.
•Iran election: Barack Obama refuses to 'meddle' over protests
•Presidents Chávez, Obama et al Are Meddling Egregiously with Honduras
What about loyalty? To country? To those who stood by him as he rammed through unpopular legislation?
•The President's Apology Tour
•House Democrats, Out on a Limb for Obamacare, Hear a Snapping Sound
TACT and UNSELFISHNESS
No tact with this man.
•Obama: Cambridge police acted 'stupidly' in Gates arrest
•Obama to GOP: ‘I Won'
•Report: Obama humiliated Netanyahu at the White House
Selfless or self-absorbed? You decide:
•Obama Starts Ft. Hood Remarks with a "Shout Out"
•Obama: Iraq begins and ends with I, I, I
•Obama: She's going to be buried in an Obama T-shirt
The examples go on and on, and they could fill the pages of a health care bill. These are a small but representative sampling of this president in action over these last nineteen months. One, two, or three categories are certainly not enough to judge an individual's leadership qualities. But what here emerges, and what is truly troubling, is an overall picture of not simply a lack of leadership qualities, but an individual who is in every way the antithesis of a principled and effective leader -- an un-leader.
This, as even a blind man can see, is having monumentally negative effects in our economy, national security, and liberty. We can ill afford to allow this un-leader to go unchecked for much longer. We can ill afford, as a people and as a Republic, to repeat this mistake and to ever again hand such an un-leader the keys to power in this nation.
Michael Fraley is a former USAF pilot who considers his oath "to support and defend the Constitution of the United States" a lifelong commitment.
3a)Can't Take the Heat?
By Ruben Navarrette
SAN DIEGO -- When it comes to serving as leader of the free world, "confident" and "resolute" always look better on your resume than "insecure" and "self-absorbed."
Would someone please explain this to President Obama? After nearly two years in office, he still hasn't figured out that the job isn't all about him. Why else would Obama continue to be so thin-skinned and find it so difficult to take criticism?
In one of the biggest contradictions of his presidency, Obama obviously doesn't care what we think of him -- except when it's obvious he does.
In his first year in office, Obama sprinted from one major policy item to another. Whether the issue was race relations, immigration, climate change or education reform, Obama didn't seem to care much about whether his initiatives, plans and goals were popular with the mainstream. All that mattered was that he believed his path was the correct one.
It was a point that Obama emphasized during his Labor Day remarks in Milwaukee, telling supporters that he has been challenging "some powerful interests who had been dominating the agenda in Washington for a very long time." And while, Obama said, these interests are not happy with, for instance, his efforts to achieve financial reform, "it was the right thing to do."
A few days later in Cleveland, Obama hit that note again.
"I am keenly aware that not all of our policies have been popular," he said. "So no, our job is not easy. But you didn't elect me to do what was easy. You didn't elect me to just read the polls and figure out how to keep myself in office."
One thing that certainly wasn't easy was the contentious debate over health care reform. Piles of polling data showed that as many as two-thirds of the American people were wary of making radical and transformative changes to the nation's health care system. They obviously didn't want to buy what Obama and congressional Democrats were selling. And yet, rather than discourage the president, this negative reaction only seemed to inspire him to go out and pitch the product even harder.
The indifference to poll data drove Obama's critics up the wall, and they would claim the government wasn't responsive to their concerns or representative of their views.
To be honest, this part of the story didn't bother me. Good presidents listen to their constituents and can tell you exactly where they are. Great presidents lead their constituents to places they might not want to go. It was refreshing to see Obama stake out positions and defend them, even if they weren't popular. After all, do we really need more politicians telling people what they want to hear just to get re-elected?
But what is troubling is that Obama, once he decides to stake out an unpopular position, can't seem to take the heat. Every few months or so, he'll make some crack about how he's being mistreated and unappreciated.
And that's what happened in Milwaukee when Obama was discussing those "powerful interests who had been dominating the agenda in Washington for a very long time." Not only do these political foes not give our president the proper respect but, in fact, he said, "they talk about me like a dog."
That quote -- which seemed oddly out of place in Obama's remarks on labor and the economy -- sounded to some reporters like a line from a Jimi Hendrix song, "Stone Free." The lyrics go: "They talk about me like a dog/Talkin' about the clothes I wear/But they don't realize they're the ones who's square."
The White House hasn't said if Hendrix was the inspiration for the dog talk. Regardless, Obama's message seemed to be: He's the cool dude and his critics are squaresville. It's as if he believes that he alone understands some great truth about America, and that the rest of us are still in the dark.
What if Obama has that backward? One thing is for sure: This victim rap is certainly not cool. It's admirable that Obama shrugs off polls and does what he thinks is right even if it costs him politically. But then why complain about the cost in ways that make you look like the injured party?
Leadership isn't just about standing up for principle. It's also being able to stand up to criticism. Twenty months into the job, Obama is still much better at one than the other
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4)We Are the Ones Who'll Show You the Door
By Lee Cary
The citizen resistance to Obama's progressive agenda that quickened in the summer of 2009 will soon intersect with an electoral coda. On November 2, Democrats featured in the political ballet we've endured during the last two years will face the voters.
"Spontaneous, uncoordinated, passionate -- citizen resistance to Obama socialism grows by the day...Regardless of the decibel-level of the opposition to Obamacare and Cap & Tax that Congress hears back home, many will return to their Safe Zone inside the Capitol and vote against the wishes of their constituents. They are, after all, wiser and more knowledgeable in these matters than the voters. They may chose not to give us the government we want, but the government they think we should want. And would want, if we knew what was good for us. Such is the timeless arrogance of power. If that happens, stand-by. For the American resistance will continue to mount, and soon begin to register on the Richter scale."
In his Super Tuesday speech on February 5, 2008, Presidential Candidate Senator Barack Obama told a crowd of adoring fans that, "Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for." With great delight, the crowd cheered.
Now another election approaches. During the intervening months, much has changed in America. But not all of it came in ways that all among the cheering crowd had hoped. More than a few now know they were seduced by the siren song of soaring oratory that lured them to buy the sizzle without tasting the steak. Consequently, Obama's presidency and our national affairs are in a mess of historic proportions. And his once-celebrated rhetorical flourishes have turned strangely bland and flat, having gone from soar to bore in two years.
During the last great silly season, Obama remarked in August 2008 that "McCain doesn't know what he's up against." He was right about that. Unlike McCain, though, many Democrat members of Congress do know what they're up against in the midterm election. They're up against We The People.
The legacy media calls it voter anger. The span of that anger, Beltway pundits explain, ranges from the disappointment of those on the Left who feel betrayed by Democrat underachievement to the Right's association with a trumped-up media charge of racism against the Tea Party movement. Tea Party people and the GOP minority in Congress have become the default scapegoats to explain the Democrats' failures. But it was we the people who handed the surgical wing over to a cadre of grocery butchers. And now that patients are flat-lining, the Chief of Surgery says, "Yea, but just think how bad it'd be we hadn't operated."
So while "anger" is the template word popular among the legacy media, it doesn't fully capture the public mood. It misses the insult and offense we feel from a ruling class in Congress, led by the White House, who think it more effective to drive Americans like cattle than lead us as civil servants. We will follow, but we won't be herded. We've been irrevocably offended by their smug condescension and insulted by their collective arrogance -- mostly by Democrats, but not solely so -- and the Jeremiah Wright chickens are close to home.
When Confederate President Jefferson Davis replaced General Joe Johnston as commander of the Confederate army that opposed Union General William Tecumseh Sherman's march toward Atlanta, he fired a field commander who led one of the most brilliant strategic retreats against a superior force in military history. Johnston was so respected by his former enemies that decades later, he was invited to serve as an Honorary Pallbearer at Sherman's funeral. In his place, Davis appointed a firebrand named John Bell Hood who was defeated at the Battle of Atlanta and then carelessly crashed the remnants of Johnston's army against the Union bulwarks at the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee. Upon hearing that Johnston had been sacked, one of his soldiers said, "We loved him, because he made us love ourselves."
Many of us are persuaded that Barack Obama carries a biased respect for America that runs short of love for country. We don't expect our elected leaders to display a greater patriotism than those they serve. But neither will we long abide leaders who display less. We notice these things.
The collective jury has reached a decision on the current congressional Democrats. If their losses are great enough come November, that same jury will immediately begin deliberating on the victorious Republicans. For now, though, the message for many Democrats in Congress is this.
We are the ones who'll show you the door.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5)ObamaCare's Fatal Flaw?
By Louis Case
Scott Brown's election could be the most significant turning point in the whole ObamaCare fiasco. And not because it was an "expression of the will of the people," because, as we've learned, that doesn't matter to our Washington overlords. No, Brown's election has trapped Congress in its own sloppy arrogance.
In a September 8 appearance on Greta Van Sustern's "On The Record," Virginia's Attorney General, Ken Cuccinelli, explained the significance of the Brown victory in the context of Virginia's lawsuit to overturn ObamaCare.
In 2010, before ObamaCare was passed, the Commonwealth of Virginia passed its Health Care Freedom Act, which says, more or less, that Virginia residents cannot be required to buy health insurance. After ObamaCare passed, Virginia sued in federal court to have ObamaCare declared unconstitutional because it exceeded the scope of the Commerce Clause. The case already survived its first challenge by the federal government.
On September 3, both parties filed a Motion for Summary Judgment and a Memorandum in Support. To win such a motion, the movant must show that "there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law" (Fed. R. Civ. P. 56[c].) One section of Virginia's Memorandum in Support of the Motion focused on the issue of severance.
Virginia is asserting that certain portions (that is, the personal mandate) of ObamaCare are unconstitutional. If Virginia prevails, it leaves the question of what happens to the rest of the ObamaCare statute. This is where the concept of severance comes in. Normally, all comprehensive laws contain a boilerplate severance clause: it says that if any portion of the law is found to be unconstitutional, that portion is severed from the rest of the law -- that is, the rest of the law stands.
But ObamaCare contains no severance clause. Virginia is asserting that if it prevails on its substantive claims, the whole law is unconstitutional. (If Virginia does not prevail, any one of the twenty-plus legal challenges have the same severance argument available.)
If a severance clause is normal boilerplate, why does not ObamaCare contain one? This is where Scott Brown's election enters. Recall that the House passed its version of ObamaCare. On Christmas Eve, after much horsetrading and bribing, the Senate passed its version. The Senate version was not drafted to be in its final form; it was drafted to get 60 votes. Normally, these bills would be reconciled in a conference committee, and the final version would have to be voted on again with 60 votes in the Senate. However, before it could be sent to conference and reconciled, Scott Brown won in Massachusetts -- a reconciled bill could no longer get 60 votes! That is why the House had to vote up or down on the Senate bill, which was basically a draft without the normal boilerplate inserted.
As Virginia argued in its Memorandum (Pages 24 to 28), the presence of a severance clause raises a presumption that Congress did not intend the whole statute to depend on the constitutionality of any particular clause. But with no severance clause, they are not entitled to that presumption. A court cannot sever the offending clause on its own if the statute would not function as Congress intended.
Attorney General Cuccinelli took clear delight in the box the feds are in. On the one hand, to prevail on its claim that the personal mandate is a proper exercise of the Commerce Clause, the feds must argue that it is necessary and essential to ObamaCare. On the other hand, to get around the severance problem, the feds must argue that the personal mandate is not essential. In the severance portion of the Memorandum (Pages 24 to 28), Virginia cited and quoted the statute itself, the feds' pleadings, and the feds' oral arguments emphasizing the necessity and importance of the personal mandate. I'm sure that section could have been much, much longer, but courts put limits on the size of Memoranda.
Courts sometimes examine the legislative history to divine congressional intent. Cuccinelli cleverly addressed that in his "On The Record" interview. He said there were two possible reasons for the exclusion of a severance clause: 1) sloppiness, or 2) a sort of mutually assured destruction -- that is, these senators inserted their little pet projects, and if they couldn't have theirs, then nobody else could have their pet projects, either. This was clever because against the background of behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing, it's plausible. So when the feds assert at oral argument that Congress intended severability and cite newspaper articles, congressional records, etc. to back it up, guess what they open the door to.
While it's foolish to hazard a prediction of what courts will do, there is reason for optimism. There are factors in addition to the solid legal arguments against ObamaCare that might influence the court. First, a majority of people hate the law. Second, there is much litigation over it. Third, it is a fundamental and permanent change from a free America to a Euro-America. A single judge can end all that strife. Moreover, if you were a judge, would you like to go down in history as the one who gave up on America?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6) IAEA: Iran crosses critical line for nuclear-arming missiles
Iran crossed the critical nuclear threshold taking it nearer to being able to arm ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads, weapons inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency reported last week.
Though this finding failed to elicit any response from the US or Israel, military sources report, NATO secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen hurried over to Washington Sunday, Sept. 12 with a call to action for President Barack Obama: “Based on their (Iranian) public statements we know that Iran already has missiles with a range sufficient to hit targets in Europe, and they don't hide the fact that they want to further develop their capability.”
He came away with a pledge of 200 million euros in creating a missile shield for Europe against the Iranian threat.
While even Europe has roused itself to the menace from Iran, the fast encroaching threat to Israel remains unaddressed by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and defense minister Ehud Barak. They appear unmoved even in the face of the coming visit to Lebanon on Oct. 13-14 by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He is coming specifically to clinch Iran’s grip on Lebanon and its buildup as Iran’s forward front for retaliation should Israel venture to strike its nuclear facilities.
This buildup crossed every possible red line some time ago without an Israeli response. The Iranian president will exploit this vacuum by paying a visit to the South Lebanese-Israeli border village of Edeissa, from which on Aug. 3, Lebanese army snipers soldiers were put up by Hizballah to ambush Israeli troops and shoot dead Col. Dov Harari.
(Israel’s only response was to knock out two Lebanese APCs klling three Lebanese troops, and issuing warnings relayed by US intermediaries that the IDF would meet further incidents by wiping out the entire Lebanese military system in the space of four hours.)
Lebanese President Gen. Michel Suleiman phoned Ahmadinejad Sept. 11 to say that the Lebanese people was “eagerly awaiting” his coming and stress that henceforth the Lebanese national army would fight Israel shoulder to shoulder with its comrades in Hizballah.
Will the Lebanese president accompany Ahmadinejad’s on his symbolic visit to Edeissa? Or Lebanese army chief Gen. Jean Kahwaji? Or will Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah venture to leave his bunker-hideout to honor the guest?
This decision matters greatly. The Israeli government’s silence with regard to the provocative nature of the event matters even more.
Tehran will be using it to uphold the Lebanese army’s “heroic act” in attacking Israel. It will be welcomed as an honored member of the Iranian-Syrian-Palestinian “resistance front” against Israel alongside Hizballah.
Iran has thus gained a new strategic acquisition operating at its behest for tying Israel’s hands not only against striking Tehran but defending itself against aggressive acts by its Lebanese neighbor.
Ahmadiinejad is planning to use his visit to celebrate an Iranian-Lebanese defense pact coupled with a large-scale transaction to supply the Lebanese armed forces with the weapons needed to take on the IDF. These deals will kick off the merger and standardization of Lebanese and Hizballah weapons systems.
The next time Lebanese troops attack Israel they are likely to be using Iranian arms.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7)Who are the Palestinians?
‘Palestinianism’ no more than political construct, rather than legitimate national identity
By Moshe Dann
Prime Minister Netanyahu has called upon Palestinian leaders to recognize the right of the Jewish people to national self-determination – "two states for two nations." But are Palestinian Arabs a nation, or a people? What is "Palestinian national identity" based on? Although taken for granted today, Palestinianism has neither a long, nor distinguished history, which may explain why the peace process between Israel and the Arabs has failed and will continue to fail.
Palestinianism, inherently meant only one thing: the rejection of a Jewish state in any form. A few elite Arab intellectuals did talk about Palestinianism, but it was not widely accepted. As Columbia University Professor Rashid Khalidi shows in his book on the subject, not until Zionists began settlements did local Arabs seek an alternative.
Focused on opposition to Zionists, rather than a positive self definition, "Palestinian identity" then, as now, was negative. Palestinian leaders, like the mufti of Jerusalem, Hajj Amin al-Husayni, an ardent supporter of the Nazis, and arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat - "fathers" of Palestinianism - rejected Zionism and promoted terrorism.
Anti-colonial and anti-Zionist uprisings against British rule were not directed towards another independent Palestinian state. Nor were Arab riots and pogroms, like those in 1929, 1936, for example, nationalistic. There were no calls for a Palestinian state; the battle cry was, "Kill the Jews."
Arab leaders like Auni Bey Abdul-Hadi told the Peel Commission in 1937: "There is no such country as 'Palestine'; 'Palestine' is a term the Zionists invented!"
During the 1930s, anti-British and anti-Jewish riots were enflamed by the newly created "Arab – not Palestinian - Higher Committee," the central political organ of the Arab community of Mandate Palestine.
In 1946, Arab historian Philip Hitti testified before the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry that "there is no such thing as Palestine in history.” In 1947, Arab leaders protesting the UN partition plan argued that Palestine was part of Syria and “politically, the Arabs of Palestine (were) not (an) independent separate … political entity.”
In 1947, the UN proposed a "Jewish" State and an "Arab" – not Palestinian – State. Efforts to organize a political leadership in 1948, in response to the establishment of Israel, soon collapsed.
The womb of Palestinianism was war, the Nakba (catastrophe) in the Arab narrative, the establishment of the State of Israel. Five well-armed Arab countries invaded the nascent state, joining local Arab gangs and militias in a genocidal war to exterminate the Jews. This was not seen as a war for Palestinian nationalism, however; it was a genocidal war against Jews and Zionism itself.
‘Palestinians’ used to be Jews
Arab gangs that attacked Jews in 1947/8 were called the "Arab - not Palestinian - Army of Liberation." The reason is that prior to Israel's establishment, the notion of a "Palestinian people" was irrelevant, since Arab affiliations are primarily familial and tribal – not national. And also because "Palestinian" meant something else back then.
Before 1948, those who were called (and called themselves) "Palestinians" were Jews, not Arabs, although both carried the same British passports. In fact, only after Jews in Palestine called themselves Israelis, in 1948, could Arabs adopt "Palestinian" as theirs exclusively. Indeed, the central organ of the pre-Israel Jewish community was called "The Palestine Post" – later changed to the Jerusalem Post.
The establishment of UNRWA in 1949 to provide for Arab refugees provided the institutional structure to build and preserve the idea of an "Arab Palestinian people" – and their "right of return." Today, in 58 camps, with an annual budget of nearly a billion dollars, the residents are indoctrinated with hatred and Israel's eventual destruction. Except in Jordan, which granted most citizenship, the residents of these UNRWA towns are severely restricted and denied basic human and civil rights.
Were it not for UNRWA, there would probably be no "Palestinian refugee" problem today. The problem is UNRWA's controversial definition of "Arab refugee," which includes anyone who claimed residence in Palestine since 1946, regardless of their origin; this date is important because it marks the high point of a massive influx of Arabs from the region into Palestine, primarily due to employment opportunities and a higher standard of living.
This category of "refugees" was different from all others in that it included not only those who applied in 1949, but all of their descendents, forever, with full rights and privileges; the total population is expected to reach seven or eight million next year, and keeps growing. This is one of the core issues preventing any resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict. UNRWA's existence, therefore, perpetuates the conflict, prevents Israel's acceptance, and breeds violence and terrorism.
Palestinianism was defined in 1964, in the PLO Covenant, when Jordan occupied "the West Bank," a Jordanian reference from 1950 to distinguish the area from the East Bank of the Jordan River, and Egypt held the Gaza Strip. On behalf of the "Palestinian Arab people," the Covenant declared their goal: a "holy war" (Jihad) to "liberate Palestine," i.e. destroy Israel. There was no mention of Arabs living in "the West Bank" and Gaza Strip, since that would have threatened Arab rulers. Arab "refugees" were convenient proxies in the war against Israel; Palestinianism became a replacement nationalism for Zionism, a call to arms against Jews.
Solution is regional
This balancing act was no longer necessary after 1967, when Israel acquired areas that had been originally assigned to a Jewish State by the League of Nations and British Mandate - Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip - and the Golan Heights, all rich in Jewish history and archeology. A year later, the PLO Covenant was amended to cover both "occupations" – in 1948 and 1967.
Dedicated to armed struggle, its goal has never changed; unable to defeat Israel militarily, however, the Arab strategy is to demonize and delegitimize, creating yet another Arab Palestinian state, in addition to Jordan. In order to accomplish this, it concocted a narrative, an identity and ethos to compete with Zionism and Jewish history: Palestinianism.
Presented in the PLO Covenant and Hamas Charter (1988), the purpose of Palestinianism is to "liberate Palestine" and destroy Israel; neither reflect any redeeming social or cultural values.
"Palestinianism" lacks the basic requirements of legitimate national identity: a separate, unique linguistic, cultural, ethnic, or religious basis; it is nothing more than a political-military construct, currently led by Fatah and Hamas terrorist organizations. However, it became legitimized by the UN.
Despite mega-terrorist attacks and, backed by the Arab League, Muslim and "non-aligned" countries, the PLO was accepted by the United Nations in 1974. The following year, the UN passed its infamous "Zionism is Racism" resolution, sanctioning Israel's demonization, and setting the UN on a course of Israel's destruction.
The myth of Palestinianism worked because the media accepted Arab and PLO claims and their cause. Nearly all media, for example, use the term "Palestinian," or "Israeli-occupied West Bank," reinforcing Palestinian claims, rather than the authentic designation which appears on earlier maps, Judea and Samaria, referring to its Jewish history. The term "West Bank" is a political, not geographic statement.
By the early 1990s, some Israeli politicians, Left-dominated media, academia, cultural elite and some jurists accepted "Palestinianism as a way of expressing their opposition to "settlements," and hoping for some sort of mutual recognition with the PLO. Their efforts culminated in the Oslo Accords (1993), which gave official Israeli sanction to Palestinianism.
Anti-Israel academics around the world promote "Palestinian" archeology, society and culture as a brand name, and a political message. Advertising works; every time someone uses the term "Palestinian," it acknowledges and reinforces this myth. Palestinianism, however, regardless of its lack of historical, cultural and societal roots, is now well-established as a political identity that demands sovereign rights and a territorial base. The question seems to be not if, but where.
The solution is regional. Arab Palestinians are entitled to civil and human rights in their host countries where they have lived for generations. A second Arab Palestinian state, in addition to Jordan, which was carved out of Palestine in 1922 -whose population is two-thirds "Palestinian" - will not resolve any core issue at the heart of the conflict. The conflict is not territorial, but existential; recognition of a Jewish state is anathema. That explains why Palestinian Arab leaders refuse to accept it in any form.
The problem, for Palestinianism, is not "the occupation" in 1967, but Israel's existence; seen as an exclusively Arab homeland, Palestine is an integral part of the Arab world, completely under Arab sovereignty. This is axiomatic; there are no exceptions and no compromises.
Promoted in media, mosques and schools, anti-Jewish incitement, denial of the Holocaust and Jewish history, and rejection of the right of Jewish national self-determination, by definition, Palestinianism is the greatest obstacle to peace.
7a)Who's bluffing: Abbas or Netanyahu?
By Jackson Diehl
The conventional wisdom about Mahmoud Abbas and Binyamin Netanyahu as they head into the second round of Mideast peace talks this week goes something like this: Abbas is a moderate who genuinely wants a two-state settlement but may be too weak politically to deliver. Netanyahu is a hawk who holds a commanding political position in Israel but doesn't really accept Palestinian statehood.
So how come it is Netanyahu who has spent the past week talking up a "historic compromise with our Palestinian neighbors" and promising "to embrace original thinking" to achieve it, even as ministers of his own cabinet loudly proclaim their opposition? And why has Abbas, who has described himself as having been dragged into the talks, been giving interviews in which he has repeatedly threatened a walkout and publicly ruled out concessions that Palestinian pollsters say a majority of his people are willing to accept?
In the Middle East, of course, things -- like public statements -- are not always what they seem. But the contradiction between the usual judgments about the Israeli and Palestinian leaders and what they actually have been saying underlines what may be the most intriguing aspect of the latest "peace process." The talks have been structured so that most of the negotiating will be done directly between Netanyahu and Abbas in private conversations. Yet no one -- not the usual experts, not the Obama administration, and not even most people in the Israeli and Palestinian governments -- is quite sure what the two leaders' real intentions are.
Start with Netanyahu. As prime minister during the 1990s, the Likud leader did more than his share to wreck the Oslo plan for a two-state solution, and he has never said publicly that he would accept a fully sovereign Palestinian state with a capital in Jerusalem. But as the Jerusalem Post diplomatic writer Herb Keinon observed last week, Netanyahu's rhetoric has been rapidly shifting: He's begun calling Abbas "a partner for peace" and using the term "West Bank" rather than the Israeli nationalist term, "Judea and Samaria."
Keinon offered three possible explanations of the prime minister's behavior, including that he is trying to put Abbas on the spot or appease Barack Obama. But it seems at least plausible that Netanyahu was serious when he told his cabinet that he can accept a Palestinian state on two conditions: that Israel is recognized as "the national state of the Jewish people" and that a stringent security regime ensures that "there will be no repetition of what occurred after we left Lebanon and Gaza" --both of which have been occupied by Iranian-backed militants who, among other things, have deployed thousands of rockets aimed at Israeli cities.
To that I would add a third proviso: Netanyahu wants the implementation of Palestinian statehood to be phased, even if its final terms are agreed upon in advance. Initially at least, Israeli forces would patrol Palestine's eastern border with Jordan, and perhaps some settlements on Palestinian territory would remain in place.
That may or may not be workable. But it's worth noting that Abbas, following his first extended private conversation with Netanyahu in Washington, spent the subsequent days giving interviews to Arab media in which he publicly rejected each of those terms. Palestinians, he said, will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state; they will not allow Israeli forces to remain in the West Bank. In fact, if he's pressured to make any concessions, he told the al-Quds newspaper, "I'll grab my briefcase and leave."
Palestinian partisans rush to explain: Abbas says such things only because he is under terrible domestic pressure, not only from Hamas but from the Palestinian "street." But is he? A study of recent Palestinian opinion polls by David Pollock of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy pointed out that 60 percent of Palestinians will accept "mutual recognition of Israel as the state for the Jewish people and Palestine as the state for the Palestinian people." Half say they could tolerate an interim Israeli presence on the Jordanian border "for reasons of security."
Abbas has managed to convince the Obama administration that he is serious about a peace settlement. So perhaps he is. Perhaps, too, Netanyahu -- an acknowledged master of political public relations -- has succeeded in creating an image of his intentions that is the opposite of reality. In any case, both men will soon have to decide whether to deliver on their words. We can only hope that it is Abbas, and not Netanyahu, who is bluffing.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8)The Eternal Flame of Muslim Outrage
By Michelle Malkin
Shhhhhhh, we're told. Don't protest the Ground Zero mosque. Don't burn a Koran. It'll imperil the troops. It'll inflame tensions. The "Muslim world" will "explode" if it does not get its way, warns sharia-peddling imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. Pardon my national security-threatening impudence, but when is the "Muslim world" not ready to "explode"?
At the risk of provoking the ever-volatile Religion of Perpetual Outrage, let us count the little-noticed and forgotten ways.
Just a few months ago in Kashmir, faithful Muslims rioted over what they thought was a mosque depicted on underwear sold by street vendors. The mob shut down businesses and clashed with police over the blasphemous skivvies. But it turned out there was no need for Allah's avengers to get their holy knickers in a bunch. The alleged mosque was actually a building resembling London's St. Paul's Cathedral. A Kashmiri law enforcement official later concluded the protests were "premeditated and organized to vitiate the atmosphere."
Indeed, art and graphics have an uncanny way of vitiating the Muslim world's atmosphere. In 1994, Muslims threatened German supermodel Claudia Schiffer with death after she wore a Karl Lagerfeld-designed dress printed with a saying from the Koran. In 1997, outraged Muslims forced Nike to recall 800,000 shoes because they claimed the company's "Air" logo looked like the Arabic script for "Allah." In 1998, another conflagration spread over Unilever's ice cream logo — which Muslims claimed looked like "Allah" if read upside-down and backward (can't recall what they said it resembled if you viewed it with 3D glasses).
Even more explosively, in 2002, an al-Qaida-linked jihadist cell plotted to blow up Bologna, Italy's Church of San Petronio because it displayed a 15th century fresco depicting Mohammed being tormented in the ninth circle of Hell. For years, Muslims had demanded that the art come down. Counterterrorism officials in Europe caught the would-be bombers on tape scouting out the church and exclaiming, "May Allah bring it all down. It will all come down."
That same year, Nigerian Muslims stabbed, bludgeoned or burned to death 200 people in protest of the Miss World beauty pageant — which they considered an affront to Allah. Contest organizers fled out of fear of inflaming further destruction. When Nigerian journalist Isioma Daniel joked that Mohammed would have approved of the pageant and that "in all honesty, he would probably have chosen a wife from among them," her newspaper rushed to print three retractions and apologies in a row. It didn't stop Muslim vigilantes from torching the newspaper's offices. A fatwa was issued on Daniel's life by a Nigerian official in the sharia-ruled state of Zamfara, who declared that "the blood of Isioma Daniel can be shed. It is abiding on all Muslims wherever they are to consider the killing of the writer as a religious duty." Daniel fled to Norway.
In 2005, British Muslims got all hot and bothered over a Burger King ice cream cone container whose swirly-texted label resembled, you guessed it, the Arabic script for "Allah." The restaurant chain yanked the product in a panic and prostrated itself before the Muslim world. But the fast-food dessert had already become a handy radical Islamic recruiting tool. Rashad Akhtar, a young British Muslim, told Harper's Magazine how the ice cream caper had inspired him: "Even though it means nothing to some people and may mean nothing to some Muslims in this country, this is my jihad. I'm not going to rest until I find the person who is responsible. I'm going to bring this country down."
In 2007, Muslims combusted again in Sudan after an infidel elementary school teacher innocently named a classroom teddy bear "Mohammed." Protesters chanted, "Kill her, kill her by firing squad!" and "No tolerance — execution!" She was arrested, jailed and faced 40 lashes for blasphemy before being freed after eight days. Not wanting to cause further inflammation, the teacher rushed to apologize: "I have great respect for the Islamic religion and would not knowingly offend anyone, and I am sorry if I caused any distress."
And who could forget the global Danish cartoon riots of 2006 (instigated by imams who toured Egypt stoking hysteria with faked anti-Islam comic strips)? From Afghanistan to Egypt to Lebanon to Libya, Pakistan, Turkey and in between, hundreds died under the pretext of protecting Mohammed from Western slight, and brave journalists who stood up to the madness were threatened with beheading. It wasn't really about the cartoons at all, of course. Little-remembered is the fact that Muslim bullies were attempting to pressure Denmark over the International Atomic Energy Agency's decision to report Iran to the UN Security Council for continuing with its nuclear research program. The chairmanship of the council was passing to Denmark at the time. Yes, it was just another in a long line of manufactured Muslim explosions that were, to borrow a useful phrase, "premeditated and organized to vitiate the atmosphere."
When everything from sneakers to stuffed animals to comics to frescos to beauty queens to fast-food packaging to undies serves as dry tinder for Allah's avengers, it's a grand farce to feign concern about the recruitment effect of a few burnt Korans in the hands of a two-bit attention-seeker in Florida. The eternal flame of Muslim outrage was lit a long, long time ago.
8a) Islam must turn other cheek
How absurd is it that the deranged pastor of a tiny Florida church can make the entire world hold its breath just by threatening to burn a book?
The Rev. Terry Jones of the Dove Outreach Center in Gainesville is a hate-filled nut, for sure. But nothing he's done or vowed to do in offering what can only be viewed rationally as a minor insult to Islam merits the paranoia in the West about a worldwide wave of bloodshed at the hands of offended radicals.
Jones was implored not to carry out his promise to burn a copy of the Quran by, among others, the United Nations, the pope, Gen.general David Petraeus and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.
His back-and-forth deliberating was covered as if it was another Bay of Pigs stand-off and this scruffy preacher had his finger on the button.
Come on. Jones should have been entirely ignored. He's not an official of our government, nor is he a national leader in any fashion. He's an obscure redneck, or at least he was until the cameras showed up at his 50-member church.
That Jones captured so much attention is an indication of what the West is up against in its effort to coexist with Islam.
Yeah, I know -- all Muslims aren't mayhem makers. But the lunatic fringe is apparently wide enough to trigger an extreme overreaction from our nation's top offices to a silly little publicity stunt.
If Muslim sensibilities are so tender they can't ignore the bizarre rants of an insignificant American fanatic then this is a culture with a serious anger management issue, and one the West can't help with.
There's no way to head-off every potential slight to Islam. Last time it was Danish cartoons, this time it's a Pentecostal pew jumper who lays down his snakes to strike a match.
Tomorrow, an atheist in Italy may name his dog Mohammad, or a biker in Australia will have a likeness of the prophet tattooed on his backside.
The only answer is for Islam to grow up. Religion invites antagonism; get used to it.
Using the destruction of a book as an excuse to rampage is unacceptable and immature. A Quran, like a Bible, is a physical thing. What makes both books holy are the ideas and inspiration they contain, not the pages and ink. The religion won't be broken by taunts, or by bonfires.
Burning a Quran in the Florida swamps doesn't weaken the foundation of Islam any more than burning an American flag in Pakistan dents our nation's underpinnings, or coating an icon of the Virgin Mary with elephant poop, like that "artist" once did in Cincinnati, undermines Christianity.
Grown-ups shrug off such affronts for the ignorance they are, and move on. They don't go nuts, as the radicals did after the cartoon episode.
We've had the mantra "Islam is a religion of peace" drilled into us for the past nine years. But Muslims still have some work to do to make that case. Peaceful religions aren't so easily provoked to violence. Religions of peace turn the other cheek.
Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The News. Reach him at nfinley@detnews.com. Read more at detnews.com/finley and watch him at 8:30 p.m. Fridays on "Am I Right?" on Detroit Public TV, Channel 56
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
9)Conservatism does not equal racism. So why do many liberals assume it does?
By Gerard Alexander
From an immigration law in Arizona to a planned mosque near Ground Zero to Glenn Beck emoting at the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, the controversies roiling American politics in recent weeks and months have featured an ugly undertone, suggesting meanness, prejudice and, in the eyes of some, outright racism. And it is conservatives -- whether Republican politicians, Fox News commentators or members of the "tea party" movement -- who are invariably painted with that brush
There is power in the accusation of racism against conservatives, one that liberals understand well. In an April 2008 post on Journolist, a private online community for liberal journalists, academics and activists, one writer proposed a way to distract conservatives from the campaign controversy surrounding the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama's pastor. "If the right forces us all to either defend Wright or tear him down, no matter what we choose, we lose the game they've put upon us," Spencer Ackerman wrote. "Instead, take one of them -- Fred Barnes, Karl Rove, who cares -- and call them racists."
No doubt, such accusations stick to conservatives more than to liberals. It was then-Sen. Joe Biden, a Delaware Democrat, after all, who described presidential candidate Obama as "the first mainstream African American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy." If a conservative politician had offered such an opinion, his or her career might have ended; Biden was rewarded with a spot on Obama's ticket. Liberal missteps on race and ethnicity are explained away, forgiven and often forgotten; conservative ones are cast as part of a sinister, decades-long story of intolerance and political calculation, in which conservative ideology and strategy are conflated with bigotry.
That larger story is well-known and oft-repeated -- and, I would argue, vastly oversimplified and simply wrong in its key underlying assumptions. But its endurance explains why the party of Lincoln is so easily dubbed the party of Strom Thurmond or Jefferson Davis, and why many critics believe that an identity politics of white America now tilts conservatives against not just blacks but also Hispanics, Muslims and anyone else outside a nostalgic and monochromatic description of the American way of life.
The narrative usually begins with Barry Goldwater opposing provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and with Richard Nixon scheming to win the presidency through a "Southern strategy" -- appealing to the racial prejudice of working-class whites in the South to pry them away from the Democratic coalition assembled by Franklin Roosevelt. In this telling, bigoted Southerners were the electoral mountain to which the Republican Moses had to come, the key to the GOP winning the White House. Wooing them entailed much more than shifting the party slightly away from Democrats on racial issues; in return for political power, Republicans had to move their politics and policies to where bigots wanted them to be. This alliance supposedly laid the foundation for a new American politics.
As Dan Carter, George Wallace's biographer, put it, "The Wallace music played on" in "Barry Goldwater's vote against the Civil Rights Bill of 1964, in Richard Nixon's subtle manipulation of the busing issue, in Ronald Reagan's genial demolition of affirmative action, in George Bush's use of the Willie Horton ads, and in Newt Gingrich's demonization of welfare mothers." More recently, it continues through inflammatory campaign ads ("Harold, call me!"), offensive tea party signs, Rand Paul's unusual-because-explicit skepticism about the Civil Rights Act -- all the way to calls to end birthright citizenship for the U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants and to keep Muslim worship well away from the nation's hallowed ground in Lower Manhattan. In this interpretation, core conservative principles -- limited government, tax cuts, welfare reform and toughness on crime -- actually have race at their heart.
This reading of the conservative movement presents problems of logic and history, relying on assumptions that fall apart on close examination. First, it assumes that Republicans depended on white Southerners to become politically competitive in the 1960s. Second, it assumes that Republican presidents from Nixon forward swayed these voters by giving them the policies they wanted. Third, it assumes that the modern conservative policy agenda is best seen as racially motivated. Finally, it assumes that conservative positions on recent controversies are just new forms of that same white-heartland bigotry.
These assumptions are badly flawed.
First, Republicans did not decisively depend on white Southerners to create their modern presidential majorities when the race issue was at its most polarizing. The conventional wisdom is that the GOP had little choice in the 1960s but to seek out Southern white voters and tacked hard to the right on civil rights to do it. But Republican presidential candidates pried apart the New Deal coalition in the 1950s, with the performance of Dwight Eisenhower in 1952 and Nixon in 1960. This chronology has big implications. From 1952 through the 1980s, GOP presidential candidates consistently beat or nearly matched their Democratic opponents, with the clear exceptions only of 1964 and 1976. Republicans did this mostly by crafting majority coalitions in the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain states, in the industrial Midwest and mid-Atlantic, and ultimately in California -- and only partially by realigning several Southern states. Moreover, these were the least "Southern" states, such as Florida, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.
This means that the GOP presidential majority and much of the party's modern policy agenda were forged not in the racial heat of the 1960s South, but first in the 1950s and across the country.
Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) recently argued that race did not play a central role in the partisan shift in the South, saying the transformation was led by a younger generation of Southerners in the post-segregation 1970s. But the best evidence that things other than race mattered most in the shift was that it was an even older generation that moved to the GOP in the peripheral South. By the time Lyndon Johnson reportedly remarked that the Civil Rights Act would deliver the South to the Republicans for a generation, the GOP had already won nearly half the region's Electoral College votes three times in a row.
The remainder of the region -- the race-obsessed Deep South -- repeatedly tried to be a presidential kingmaker in the 1960s but failed. Instead of reforming the GOP in its image, the Deep South's white electorate was among the last to join an already-winning Republican presidential coalition in the early 1970s. Wallace voters ended up supporting Nixon, Reagan and other Republicans, but much more on the national GOP's terms than their own. The Republican Party proved to be the mountain to which the Deep South had to come, not the other way around.
In this view, we should pay attention to conservative voters' underlying problems but disregard the policy demands they voice; these are illusory, devoid of reason or evidence. This form of liberal condescension implies that conservative masses are in the grip of false consciousness. When they express their views at town hall meetings or "tea party" gatherings, it might be politically prudent for liberals to hear them out, but there is no reason to actually listen.
This explains why the second assumption is also wrong. Nixon made more symbolic than substantive accommodations to white Southerners. He enforced the Civil Rights Act and extended the Voting Rights Act. On school desegregation, he had to be prodded by the courts in some ways but went further than them in others: He supervised a desegregation of Deep South schools that had eluded his predecessors and then denied tax-exempt status to many private "desegregation academies" to which white Southerners tried to flee. Nixon also institutionalized affirmative action and set-asides for minorities in federal contracting.
Not surprisingly, white Southern leaders such as Strom Thurmond grew bitterly frustrated with Nixon. This explains what Gallup polls detected in 1971-72: A large number of white Southern voters preferred Wallace to Nixon. Only when the Alabaman was shot in May 1972 did Nixon inherit Wallace's voters -- not because of Nixon's policies on race but despite them.
After the mid-1970s, school desegregation and enforcement of the Civil Rights Act faded as the most decisive -- or divisive -- racial issues in the country. In the decades that followed, the conservative policy platform became the new focus of liberal cries of racism. Critics such as Thomas and Mary Edsall interpreted the Reagan agenda's major elements as indirect attempts to maintain white privilege: Tax cuts denied resources to a government that could be an agent of social change and lift up the underprivileged. Calls to limit government, especially federal power, stood to do the same. Reagan's attacks on "welfare queens" emphasized negative images of minorities and ultimately helped end an entitlement for the neediest. Campaigns against crime refreshed stereotypes of threatening African Americans and imprisoned millions along the way. Criticism of affirmative action assaulted a major mechanism of workplace advancement for minorities and women.
These policy positions remain central to the conservative domestic agenda, but calling them racist, the third assumption, presumes something very strange: that conservatives do not mean what they say about them. Welfare reform is deliberately anti-black (or anti-minority or anti-poor) only if conservatives secretly believe that welfare actually does help its beneficiaries and are being deceitful when they argue that long-term dependency devastates inner-city communities. Tax cuts are part of a racist agenda only if conservatives do not believe that lower taxes will enhance economic growth and social mobility for all. Conservative opposition to raising the minimum wage is anti-poor only if free-marketeers are feigning concern that increases will price less-skilled people out of the workforce (as when Milton Friedman called the minimum wage "one of the most . . . anti-black laws on the statute books") and secretly agree with liberals that increases will benefit the working poor over the long term.
By such reasoning, conservatives should oppose all government programs that they believe help minority groups. But at least one expansive policy area defies this expectation: education. Most conservatives, even as they turned against busing and welfare, continued to support large public education budgets. Many conservatives may support issuing school vouchers and shutting down the federal Education Department, but those positions concern which level of government should control schools -- not whether government should pay for education for all. Overwhelming majorities of Republicans joined Democrats in 2007 to reauthorize Head Start, the early-education program in which well over half the students are from minority groups. And substantial majorities of whites (conservatives as well as liberals) have voiced support for what sociologist William Julius Wilson calls "opportunity-enhancing affirmative action," policies that would unofficially but inevitably direct disproportionate benefits to minorities.
All these programs aim to give beneficiaries not guaranteed incomes but better chances to succeed by boosting their skills. (It was George W. Bush, after all, who insisted that academic achievement by minority students had to factor into measures of school performance.)
Finally, there is reason to be skeptical of the latest assumptions of conservative prejudice. Conservatives have taken the lead in two major recent controversies: opposition to a planned Islamic center near Ground Zero and support for Arizona's law requiring immigrants to carry their papers and requiring police to question those they suspect of being here illegally. Liberal critics swiftly labeled both positions bigotry: Islamophobia and prejudice against immigrants from Latin America. To these critics, the racial resentment of past decades has simply been expanded into a more generalized prejudice against racial and religious minorities.
Of course, conservatives don't see it that way. A long-held conservative belief holds that a minimal amount of shared cultural content is required for a healthy American society. This content includes an understanding of the nation's history and virtues, including the opportunity and social mobility it has offered so many. This helps explain, for instance, why conservatives were long skeptical of bilingual education, suspecting that it slowed assimilation. They have logically been concerned about large numbers of immigrants whose presence in the United States is often transitory and whose relationship with the country is purely economic. And they have been cautious about high levels of even legal immigration when it involves people who arrive in large enough numbers and in a concentrated enough time and place to create zones in which pressures to assimilate are mitigated.
Most conservatives do not understand how Arizona's move to enforce federal immigration laws can be deemed bigoted -- especially considering that they have long supported crackdowns on lawbreakers of all types. The planned Islamic center near Ground Zero raises alarms, in part, because the insensitivity of its architects to 9/11's emotional legacy suggests their deeper distance from American sensibilities. Lest that position seem anti-Muslim, conservatives of every stripe, including those who have led the charge against the center, roundly condemned the planned burning of the Koran by a Florida pastor. They did so on the same grounds: Just because someone has a legal right to do something (build a center, burn a book) does not mean it is a wise, desirable or respectful thing to do.
There is no doubt that the contemporary Republican electorate contains some out-and-out bigots, just as the Democratic electorate contains people who hate others on the basis of class. These very real prejudices occasionally erupt into public expression, whether in remarks about Jews over the years by Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton or in shocking signs at tea party rallies.
But most conservatives have been less concerned with the "hardware" of people's race or ethnicity and more concerned with the "software" of their values or culture. This is why the white Protestant core of the modern conservative movement has not merely integrated Catholic "ethnics" but also rallied behind the Irish American William F. Buckley and the Italian American Antonin Scalia. Jews, women and Hispanics have been similarly integrated into both its ranks and leadership; indeed, many white conservatives swoon when members of minority groups proudly share their values. This explains why, in the 2008 campaign, conservatives were at least as roused by Obama's ties to the white former radical William Ayers as the black Jeremiah Wright, both of whom seemed to make a living out of damning America.
Liberal interpretations that portray modern conservatism as standing athwart the "rights revolution" of the 1960s are hard pressed to explain the growing number of minority and female candidates favored by the conservative rank and file. Marco Rubio, Nikki Haley, Susana Martinez, Brian Sandoval, Tim Scott, Ryan Frazier, Raul Labrador and Jaime Herrera are GOP nominees for the Senate, governorships and the House because Republican voters preferred them over their white opponents. Allen West in Florida and Jon Barela in New Mexico were the consensus GOP choices to run for competitive House seats. Many of these candidates are well-positioned to win their races and help change the public face of modern conservatism.
The old conservatism-as-racism story has outlived all usefulness and accuracy. November might be a good time to start a rethink.
Gerard Alexander is an associate professor of politics at the University of Virginia and a visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. His most recent Outlook article, on Feb. 7, was "Why are liberals so condescending?"
____________________________________________________________________________________-
No comments:
Post a Comment