Local Censorship and No 'Whine' Before Its Time!

The silence is deafening not only from from the sanctimonious Left but also silence from the local editor of the Editorial Page who seems to believe in censorship.

Sent him an e mail four days ago and have not received a response and doubt I will. (See 1 and 1a below.)
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Rich Lowry writes about our president - no 'whine' before its time! (See 2 below.)
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Dick

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1) Moment of truth for leftists

Israel is your Country too

Op-ed: Following attack, leftists must decide whether they're 'useful idiots' or anti-Semites
By Assaf Wohl

Hello there, global leftist:


Almost every day, Israel's citizens are told of more displays of hostility by you against us. Often we are informed of various boycotts imposed on Israeli goods, the cancellation of cultural events in Israel, and even attempts to boycott Israeli academia.


This past week I watched Pink Floyd's Roger Waters urging a boycott on Israel. His arguments included an embarrassing combination of charges, including the finest lies taken from al-Jazeera's propaganda. The most prominent argument was Israel's portrayal as a racist "apartheid state" that sets up a wall separating Arabs and Jews.


Now, listen to what happened Saturday. One or more terrorists infiltrated the community of Itamar, which is located beyond the protective fence.

Gaza residents celebrated the massacre, so this is not a case of individual madness. These are the same Palestinians who celebrated the death of thousands at the Twin Towers. These are the same people who are standing at the squares of Tehran, Damascus, Beirut and even Istanbul, screaming "Death to Israel." As it turns out, "Israel" can also be a baby.


Let's put ideology aside for a moment and only talk numbers. Before the fence was built, premeditated acts of horror were perpetrated within Israel regularly. In 2002 alone, some 189 Israelis were massacred in 53 terror attacks. As the fence kept expanding, hostilities declined, until in 2009 they stood at zero. So these are the numbers.


My conclusions, which are only premised on the data presented above, are simple: With a fence in place, there are no massacres. Without a fence, hundreds of civilians are massacred. Hence, those interested in removing the fence support the slaughter of Israelis. So why do you, dear leftist, endorse massacres in practice?


Useful idiots
Ask yourself the following question: Why do you compare the premeditated slaughter of civilians to unintentional harm to civilians who serve as a human shield for rocket launchers and suicide bombers? There are two possible answers here.


The first answer, my leftist comrade, is that you're simply an idiot. Don't be insulted, my friend, you're not "just an idiot." You are an idiot of the type Lenin referred to as "useful idiot." What does that mean? You're simply being exploited.


You are being exploited by global Islam in a bid to eliminate a democratic state. After all, you would not be able to survive even five minutes in the alternative they prepare for you. If you want, you can look into the state of freedom of expression, prosecution of Christians, stoning of women and hanging of homosexuals in the Muslim world.


You likely believe that you are legitimately criticizing the State of Israel. Yet here you're lying to yourself a little. There is no state like Israel, surrounded by an ocean of billions of people calling for its extermination. Its neighbors, who realized they cannot defeat it on the battlefield, are simply exploiting you: They fire rockets at our kindergartens from the safety behind your back – yes, you, the one calling for boycotts and screaming "apartheid."


Anti-Semitism
The second and less flattering possibility is that you're not a "useful idiot," but rather, a mere anti-Semite. Is there another way for you to explain your obsession with Israel? Do you show the same determined disapproval towards China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela or North Korea?


The campaign against the Jewish state is disproportional in a way that cannot be explained away. I too admit that the Jews are an especially annoying people. Yet we do not tend to explode on buses as a form of revenge; not even in Germany. At most we'll argue with you until you die of boredom.



Perhaps you believe that you'd be able to clear you conscience of the persecution of Jews and the Holocaust if only you prove that we're worse than you. Perhaps the fact that the annoying Jews, according to the Bible at least, introduced to the world the morality which Islam and Christianity are premised on drives you nuts. Maybe you are interested in highlighting our injustices because someone branded us as the "Chosen People." One way or another, I have no intention to again march into the gas chambers because of a 3,000-year-old story.


By the way, guess what the next target for extermination is? You really don't know? Go ahead and look in the mirror. In Brussels, Paris, London and Malmo you shall soon be an extinct species fighting for its survival under Islamic laws. And while you're at it at the mirror, look at yourself and say the following: "Now, after I read this, I am no longer a useful idiot. Rather, I am an anti-Semite who is assisting the murder of Jews, in practice."


Does it seem exaggerated to you? Maybe so. But in the bottom line, as far as the outcome is concerned, this is precisely what you're doing.

2)Waiting For Godot:

Tom: I discussed with you the evening of Kim's address (February 21st) that people of late have approached me and said they no longer see my LTE's in your paper. I responded I still write and send them and always copy the Editorial Board Editor (you.)


You responded you would check but I have not heard from you and I subsequently sent about 6 more letters, always copying you , but none have been published.


I believe in free speech and finally, I believe the 'fourth estate', as it were, is there to protect free speech, to reveal corruption and be a positive community voice as you did yourself recently vis a vis the matter of the way the appointment of a city manager was conducted. I also wrote a letter expressing my own thoughts about that and it too was not published.


So, if the local paper, the editorial staff and /or the editor (you) of the editorial page are engaged in censorship that would be a sad state of affairs but until I receive an explanation I have no recourse but to paraphrase Shakespeare: "...something might be rotten in Savannah "


It is my understanding you are in charge of the editorial page and LTE's so per our conversation I continue to await a response.


Respectfully,


Dick

Another LTE he refused to publish:

Last week "moderate Fatah Palestinians" slaughtered five members of the Folger family with knives, including an 11-year-old child, a four-year-old boy, and a three-months-old baby girl.

To make sure they were dead they slit their throats. Subsequently Palestinians gave out candy and cheered.

Neither a peep from our 'Bully Pulpit 'president who has decried bullying nor peaceniks who, at the drop of a hat, rush to criticize and/or blame Israel for any and everything.

We truly live in a sick world where morality is held hostage to political and commercial interests and Arab hatred.

Settlements versus assassinations - quite a stark contrast and silence from the world at large suggests they condone the latter over the former.

Dick
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2)The Whiniest President Ever
Obama laments how influential he is.
By Rich Lowry

It was fashionable at the end of the 1970s, after a dreary parade of
presidential failures punctuated by Jimmy Carter, to say the presidency
had grown too unwieldy. The historian Barbara Tuchman spoke for all the
academic and journalistic believers in the theory of the impossible
presidency when she mused, “Maybe some form of plural executive is
needed, such as they have in Switzerland.”

Ah, yes, the wonders of the plural executive. Why didn’t that occur to
James Madison?

Pres. Barack Obama has belatedly joined the ranks of presidential
fatalists. The job isn’t too complex necessarily; it’s too damn
influential. According to the New York Times, Obama has been telling
aides that it’d be easier to be president of China. No one hangs on Hu
Jintao’s every word, or expects global leadership from a grasping,
one-party state that has never been a beacon to the world.

In the history of presidential lamentations, this has to rank among the
most pathetic. It brings to mind the affecting scene from The King’s
Speech when Colin Firth, playing the stammering monarch-to-be, breaks
down and weeps at the prospect of the crown being thrust upon him: “I’m
not a king.” Except Barack Obama campaigned for two years straight to be
president of the United States — and doesn’t stutter.

The proximate cause of Obama’s angst is the crisis in Libya. Obama
announced that Moammar Qaddafi must go, and proceeded to do nothing that
might give his words any bite. The administration is still agonizing
over the no-fly zone, even as Qaddafi routs the rebels. The no-fly zone
isn’t a panacea — realistically, it’d only be a way station to more
robust military action. Perhaps the administration wants to rule it out.
Fine. But decide already. If Obama wasn’t going to aid the rebels in any
way — not even recognize their provisional government, not even arm them
— he should have modulated his words accordingly.

Obama lacks executive flair. Talk to New Jersey governor Chris Christie
and he will tell you at length how much he loves making decisions. It’s
hard to imagine a Chris Christie enjoying life as a legislator. Obama
came to the presidency after a political career spent marinating in
senates, first in Illinois, then in Washington.

Osama bin Laden famously talked of the weak horse and the strong horse.
Obama is the show horse. As a U.S. senator, he distinguished himself
more by saying things than by passing legislation. In the White House,
he has replicated his role as the non-legislating legislator on a grand
scale. His successes have been as the leader of the Democrats in
Congress, although even here, the word “leader” applies only loosely. He
set the broad goals and gave the speeches; otherwise, he let Nancy
Pelosi and Harry Reid run riot.

The stakes of Obama’s self-imposed passivity aren’t as dire as those of
Pres. James Buchanan, who pleaded powerlessness as the country fell
apart around him on the cusp of the Civil War. William Seward commented
acerbically: “[He] shows conclusively that it is the duty of the
president to execute the laws — unless somebody opposes him; and that no
state has a right to go out of the Union — unless it wants to.” Nor has
President Obama reached the depths of a Jimmy Carter, who literally
disappeared in the run-up to his infamous 1979 “malaise” speech.

At the dawn of America’s global power, a bumptious Theodore Roosevelt
raced to make America’s influence felt around the world — and earned a
Nobel Peace Prize as a result. President Obama gives off a sense of
world-weariness and exhaustion with America’s leadership — and has
earned a Nobel Peace Prize as a result. He reflects the deep vein of
declinism running through the country’s elite, the same class of people
who pronounced the presidency uninhabitable just as Ronald Reagan
arrived to prove them wrong.

Today, as in the late 1970s, the job isn’t too big, nor is the country
too powerful: The man is too small.

Rich Lowry is editor of National Review.
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