Barney and Obama Into Oblivion? Maybe, but Damage Remains!

"If you consider that there has been an average of 160,000 troops in the Iraq Theater of operations during the past 22 months, and a total of 2112 deaths, that gives a firearm death rate of .01152% per 100,000 soldiers per year.

The firearm death rate in Washington, DC is .086% per 100,000 for the same period. That means you are about 7 times more likely to be shot and killed in the US capital which has some of the strictest gun control laws in the U..S., than you are in Iraq.

Conclusion: The U.S. should pull out of Washington.

Also, Barney is pulling out of Congress:"Barney Frank not seeking re-election in 2012
By Alan Silverleib


Massachusetts congressman Barney Frank, a prominent 16-term liberal Democrat and arch-enemy of political conservatives nationwide, will announce Monday he does not intend to seek re-election in 2012, according to a statement from Frank's office." Now that's good news!
---
Once again Obama maneuvers himself and us into a corner.

The average American voter is, all too often, incapable of looking beyond his own narrow interests. Thus, by failing to see the larger picture their vote, even if they does vote, is often misguided. (See 1 and 1a below.)
---
Is the Euro's end in sight? If so the consequences would be ominous for world trade and economic stability. If not, the pasting together it might take would still send uncomfortable messages so the financial markets would still not be calmed. (See 2 below.)
---
Democrats could not exist were it not for media bias and union green. (See 3 below.)
---
As a nation we are down on ourselves based on this recent poll. Are we justified in feeling that way and is any of this due to Obama and his leadership and/or his policies? You decide. If you ask my opinion 'Pogo' was right: "The enemy is us."! (See 4 and 4a below.)
---
All in a day's bashing. (See 5 below.)
---
Like Icarus, has our messiah's wings begun to melt? (See 6 below.)
---
Dick
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1)US to Egypt: Stick to election plan, even if it means empowering Muslim Brotherhood
By Howard LaFranchi

The translation of the Muslim Brotherhood credo, logo above: "Allah is our objective; the Quran is our constitution, the Prophet is our leader; Jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations."

The Obama administration makes its choice

The United States is encouraging Egypt's military rulers to stick to a schedule of elections set to kick off next week, despite continuing violence — and despite the likelihood that the electoral timetable favors the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist movements.The Obama administration is in essence caught between two unpalatable options: pressing ahead for elections that the Islamists are likely to win, and thereby sounding like a force for Egypt's democratic transition; or recommending a postponement that a growing number of liberal Egyptians prefer, but which risks coming across as anti-democratic.

Egypt's transitional military rulers announced this week that parliamentary elections set to begin Monday will go ahead, despite five days of violence that has left more than 35 Egyptians dead and scores wounded.

The plan to proceed with voting was worked out at a meeting between the military and the Muslim Brotherhood, the two most powerful institutions in post-Hosni-Mubarak Egypt. The new plan also calls for presidential elections to be held before July, an apparent acceleration of a previously announced transition plan.


Other political parties were invited to the meeting, but most liberal secular movements boycotted it.

Still, many Egyptians — in particular those who spearheaded the February movement that toppled a regime — fear that the military, composed in large part of recruits from the country's more conservative rural areas, favors a Brotherhood electoral triumph. They worry that a parliamentary triumph for the Brotherhood, combined with the military staying in power at least until mid-summer, would allow the two to write a constitution — and to delineate civil and political rights to their liking.
Despite those concerns, the US is sticking to its support for the established electoral calendar.

"The best hope for democracy in Egypt is for these elections to go forward, for the people to express themselves through the ballot box, and then for the process of democratization to move forward in Egypt," State Departmentspokesperson Victoria Nuland told reporters. "We've been very clear with the SCAF [the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, Egypt's ruling body] that that's what we want to see."
But in a statement, the State Department also cautioned that it expects the political powers that emerge from the elections — and have a hand in writing Egypt's new constitution — to protect all Egyptians' civil and human rights.

"The United States supports the Egyptian people and their goal of having a democratically elected civilian government that respects universal human rights, including the protection of women, minorities, and the press, and that will help Egypt to address its economic challenges," the statement said.

Yet the US is not alone in facing a dilemma when it comes to Egypt. Egyptians themselves are worried that the country's powerbrokers are slowing and reversing the gains achieved in this year's revolution, according to a new poll. But at the same time a large minority of Egyptians also plans to vote for an Islamic party in parliamentary elections.

The 2011 Annual Arab Public Opinion Poll, released this week by Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland and the Brookings Institution's Saban Center, finds that a plurality of Egyptians — 43 percent — consider the military rulers to be working to slow or reverse the gains of the revolution. Another 21 percent say they are working to advance these gains.

At the same time, about one-third of Egyptians expect to vote for an Islamic party in the parliamentary elections, according to the poll. That level of support is expected to make the Muslim Brotherhood's political party, the Freedom and Justice Party, Egypt's single-largest political force.

1a)America’s Pakistan Mess Gets Worse With Alleged NATO Strike
Even before NATO allegedly killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, this alliance was a wreck. By Bruce Riedel


Decades of deceit that have put Obama in diplomatic hell—and why Pakistan holds all the cards.


America’s relationship with Pakistan is crashing. Decades of mistrust and duplicity on both sides are coming to the surface. The Pakistani Army has an agenda that is at odds with ours. At bottom, we are on opposite sides of the war in Afghanistan, and that poisons everything.

The death of two dozen Pakistani jawans, or soldiers, allegedly due to NATO airstrikes, is the latest crisis in a year of crises along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Of course, we need to let the two armies investigate what exactly happened and apportion blame. But the facts won't change the downward slide in the relationship. In 2011 we have argued over drones, a CIA contractor named Raymond Davis, Osama bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad, the assassination of Afghan peace negotiator and former president Burhanuddin Rabbani, and the Taliban attack on the U.S. Embassy in Kabul in September, which the Pakistani Army orchestrated. In every case, the details were disputed, but the big takeaway is clear—we just don't trust each other. Two of the six biggest countries in the world simply have no faith in each other's word.

This trust gap is the result of decades of mutual deceit and lying. Pakistan proclaimed it was our ally against communism or Al Qaeda or whatever when what it really just wanted was arms and help to fight India. America promised to help democracy in Pakistan and instead backed four brutal military dictators. Ironically, the Army believes we have betrayed it over and over again. We have.

Now we are at war in Afghanistan. Since at least 2005, Pakistan's Army has been assisting the Afghan Taliban in fighting the Afghan government we support and the world accepts as the legitimate government of the country. Pakistan's Army backs a medieval monstrosity that would impose a reprise of the Taliban hell of the 1990s. It prefers this to what it dreads: a pro-India regime on its western border. It tries to hide its hand, but regularly its troops along the border shelter the Taliban and even provide artillery support. It harbors their leaders, including Mullah Mohammed Omar in Quetta. It gives training and advice to those who kill Americans. Former Joint Chiefs chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, who knows Pakistan well, said it clearly: it backs our enemy.

Pakistan proclaimed it was our ally against Al Qaeda or whatever when what it really just wanted was arms and help to fight India.

This is the fundamental problem that all the diplomatic niceties can't ignore. NATO supports the Karzai government. Pakistan's Army (not its civilian government) backs the Afghan Taliban. The Army has politically neutered the civilians elected to run Pakistan in 2008. Three years ago it used the Nov. 26 terror attack on Mumbai to neuter President Asif Zardari; he wanted to cooperate with India's investigation of the terrorists, and it didn't. It won. Now it has engineered the ouster of Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, whom it has long despised because he literally wrote the book on their lying and deceit. It won again.

Now it is interfering with NATO's supply line from Karachi. About half our supplies come through there. The Pakistani Army controls both our logistics and the Taliban's. It's a good place to be in war. The Army knows it. Now it also has threatened (again) to shut down a drone base.

America has to engage Pakistan. It is too important not to engage. It is on track to have the third-largest nuclear arsenal in the world. But we also need to help Pakistan's weak democracy and contain its generals. It is a tough balance. A year ago, President Obama promised he would visit Pakistan in 2011. The visit is not even on the agenda anymore. The U.S.-Pakistan relationship is in tatters. It is likely to get even worse now.

Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.

Bruce Riedel, a former longtime CIA officer, is a senior fellow in the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution. At President Obama’s request, he chaired the strategic review of policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2009. He is author of the book Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America and the Future of the Global Jihad and The Search for Al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology and Future
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2)Is this really the end?
Unless Germany and the ECB move quickly, the single currency’s collapse is looming


EVEN as the euro zone hurtles towards a crash, most people are assuming that, in the end, European leaders will do whatever it takes to save the single currency. That is because the consequences of the euro’s destruction are so catastrophic that no sensible policymaker could stand by and let it happen.

A euro break-up would cause a global bust worse even than the one in 2008-09. The world’s most financially integrated region would be ripped apart by defaults, bank failures and the imposition of capital controls (see article). The euro zone could shatter into different pieces, or a large block in the north and a fragmented south. Amid the recriminations and broken treaties after the failure of the European Union’s biggest economic project, wild currency swings between those in the core and those in the periphery would almost certainly bring the single market to a shuddering halt. The survival of the EU itself would be in doubt.

Yet the threat of a disaster does not always stop it from happening. The chances of the euro zone being smashed apart have risen alarmingly, thanks to financial panic, a rapidly weakening economic outlook and pigheaded brinkmanship. The odds of a safe landing are dwindling fast.

Markets, manias and panics

Investors’ growing fears of a euro break-up have fed a run from the assets of weaker economies, a stampede that even strong actions by their governments cannot seem to stop. The latest example is Spain. Despite a sweeping election victory on November 20th for the People’s Party, committed to reform and austerity, the country’s borrowing costs have surged again. The government has just had to pay a 5.1% yield on three-month paper, more than twice as much as a month ago. Yields on ten-year bonds are above 6.5%. Italy’s new technocratic government under Mario Monti has not seen any relief either: ten-year yields remain well above 6%. Belgian and French borrowing costs are rising. And this week, an auction of German government Bunds flopped.

The panic engulfing Europe’s banks is no less alarming. Their access to wholesale funding markets has dried up, and the interbank market is increasingly stressed, as banks refuse to lend to each other. Firms are pulling deposits from peripheral countries’ banks. This backdoor run is forcing banks to sell assets and squeeze lending; the credit crunch could be deeper than the one Europe suffered after Lehman Brothers collapsed.

Add the ever greater fiscal austerity being imposed across Europe and a collapse in business and consumer confidence, and there is little doubt that the euro zone will see a deep recession in 2012—with a fall in output of perhaps as much as 2%. That will lead to a vicious feedback loop in which recession widens budget deficits, swells government debts and feeds popular opposition to austerity and reform. Fear of the consequences will then drive investors even faster towards the exits.

Past financial crises show that this downward spiral can be arrested only by bold policies to regain market confidence. But Europe’s policymakers seem unable or unwilling to be bold enough. The much-ballyhooed leveraging of the euro-zone rescue fund agreed on in October is going nowhere. Euro-zone leaders have become adept at talking up grand long-term plans to safeguard their currency—more intrusive fiscal supervision, new treaties to advance political integration. But they offer almost no ideas for containing today’s conflagration.

Browse all The Economist's euro crisis covers with our interactive carousel
Germany’s cautious chancellor, Angela Merkel, can be ruthlessly efficient in politics: witness the way she helped to pull the rug from under Silvio Berlusconi. A credit crunch is harder to manipulate. Along with leaders of other creditor countries, she refuses to acknowledge the extent of the markets’ panic (see article). The European Central Bank (ECB) rejects the idea of acting as a lender of last resort to embattled, but solvent, governments. The fear of creating moral hazard, under which the offer of help eases the pressure on debtor countries to embrace reform, is seemingly enough to stop all rescue plans in their tracks. Yet that only reinforces investors’ nervousness about all euro-zone bonds, even Germany’s, and makes an eventual collapse of the currency more likely.

This cannot go on for much longer. Without a dramatic change of heart by the ECB and by European leaders, the single currency could break up within weeks. Any number of events, from the failure of a big bank to the collapse of a government to more dud bond auctions, could cause its demise. In the last week of January, Italy must refinance more than €30 billion ($40 billion) of bonds. If the markets balk, and the ECB refuses to blink, the world’s third-biggest sovereign borrower could be pushed into default.

The perils of brinkmanship

Can anything be done to avert disaster? The answer is still yes, but the scale of action needed is growing even as the time to act is running out. The only institution that can provide immediate relief is the ECB. As the lender of last resort, it must do more to save the banks by offering unlimited liquidity for longer duration against a broader range of collateral. Even if the ECB rejects this logic for governments—wrongly, in our view—large-scale bond-buying is surely now justified by the ECB’s own narrow interpretation of prudent central banking. That is because much looser monetary policy is necessary to stave off recession and deflation in the euro zone. If the ECB is to fulfil its mandate of price stability, it must prevent prices falling. That means cutting short-term rates and embarking on “quantitative easing” (buying government bonds) on a large scale. And since conditions are tightest in the peripheral economies, the ECB will have to buy their bonds disproportionately.

Vast monetary loosening should cushion the recession and buy time. Yet reviving confidence and luring investors back into sovereign bonds now needs more than ECB support, restructuring Greece’s debt and reforming Italy and Spain—ambitious though all this is. It also means creating a debt instrument that investors can believe in. And that requires a political bargain: financial support that peripheral countries need in exchange for rule changes that Germany and others demand.

This instrument must involve some joint liability for government debts. Unlimited Eurobonds have been ruled out by Mrs Merkel; they would probably fall foul of Germany’s constitutional court. But compromises exist, as suggested this week by the European Commission (see Charlemagne). One promising idea, from Germany’s Council of Economic Experts, is to mutualise all euro-zone debt above 60% of each country’s GDP, and to set aside a tranche of tax revenue to pay it off over the next 25 years. Yet Germany, still fretful about turning a currency union into a transfer union in which it forever supports the weaker members, has dismissed the idea.

This attitude has to change, or the euro will break up. Fears of moral hazard mean less now that all peripheral-country governments are committed to austerity and reform. Debt mutualisation can be devised to stop short of a permanent transfer union. Mrs Merkel and the ECB cannot continue to threaten feckless economies with exclusion from the euro in one breath and reassure markets by promising the euro’s salvation with the next. Unless she chooses soon, Germany’s chancellor will find that the choice has been made for her.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3)Just in case you wonder why Obama and friends are so hot to support labor
unions, particularly government employee unions, check out these Union contributions
.

Leading Union Political
Campaign Contributors
1990-2010
Democrats first then Republicans

American Fed. Of
State, County, & Municipal
Employees
$40,281,900
$547,700

Intel Brotherhood of
Electrical Workers
29,705,600
679,000

National Education
Association
27,679,300
2,005,200

Service Employees
International Union
26,368,470
98,700

Communication Workers
of America
26,305,500
125,300

Service Employees
International Union
26,252,000
1,086,200

Laborers
Union
25,734,000
138,000

American Federation
of Teachers
25,682,800
200,000

United Auto
Workers
25,082,200
182,700

Teamsters
Union
24,926,400
1,822,000

Carpenters and
Joiners Union
24,094,100
658,000

Machinists &
Aerospace Workers Union
23,875,600
226,300

United Food and
Commercial Workers Union
23,182,000
334,200

AFL-CIO
17,124,300
713,500

Sheet Metal Workers
Union
16,347,200
342,800

Plumbers &
Pipefitters Union
14,790,000
818,500

Operating Engineers
Union
13,840,000
2,309,500

Airline Pilots
Association
12,806,600
2,398,300

International
Association of Firefighters
12,421,700
2,685,400

United Transportation
Workers
11,807,000
1,459,300

Ironworkers
Union
11,638,900
936,000

American Postal
Workers Union
11,633,100
544,300

Nat'l Active &
Retired Fed.. Employees
Association
8,135,400
2,294,600

Seafarers
International Union
6,726,800
1,281,300

Source: Center for Responsive Politics, Washington, D.C.

Wouldn't it be nice if the unions put that money in their pension funds???
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4)Pew Poll: Fewer Americans Believe U.S. is the Greatest
By Forrest Jones


The belief that the United States is the greatest country in the world is waning, according to a poll from the Pew Research Center.

When asked if they agree with the statement "our people are not perfect, but our culture is superior to others," 49 percent of Americans either completely or mostly agreed, way down from 60 percent agreeing in 2002 and 55 percent in 2007, the poll finds, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

While confidence in American exceptionalism may be waning, support for American individualism is not.

"Nearly six-in-ten (58 percent) Americans believe it is more important for everyone to be free to pursue their life’s goals without interference from the state, while just 35 percent say it is more important for the state to play an active role in society so as to guarantee that nobody is in need," Pew researchers conclude.

"In contrast, at least six-in-ten in Spain (67 percent), France (64 percent) and Germany (62 percent) and 55 percent in Britain say the state should ensure that nobody is in need."

The United States economy is on track to post stronger growth rates, although many are worried the country is joined at the hip with debt-ridden Europe.

"Prudence suggests that the fragile state of the U.S. economy would not easily withstand turbulence coming across the Atlantic," Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco economists write in a report.

"A European sovereign debt default may well sink the United States back into recession. However, if we navigate the storm through the second half of 2012, it appears that danger will recede rapidly in 2013."


© Moneynews. All rights reserved.


4a)Another Danger Sign: US Debt Eclipses Economic Output
By Forrest Jones

The United States has joined the rogues gallery of nations whose debt has exceeded its annual economic output, or gross domestic product (GDP).

The U.S. national debt has broken $15.033 trillion, higher than the $15.032 trillion gross domestic product, meaning as of now, the country's debts are higher than its annual output, according to usdebtclock.org, citing government data.

That's serious, says Gennaro Bernile, a professor of finance at the University of Miami


"The message is very simple: the minute that the debt becomes as large as GDP, GDP has to start growing more than the interest that the U.S. pays in order to keep up with the debt."

That's just to break even and assuming the U.S. doesn't get dragged back into another recession.

"If the debt and the GDP are at the same level, and with the debt you have to pay interest at 1 percent, that means that next year the growth in GDP has to be at least 1 percent to keep just with the interest payments," Bernile adds.


Like in Europe, U.S. policymakers must decide what steps to take to reduce debt burdens, as tough austerity measures often lead to reduced government, and reduced government leads to reduced public-sector payrolls, and that means less tax revenues going back into the Treasury.

"The big debate is how do you reconcile shrinking the government with not killing the economy, because the government is a big chunk of the economy, and if you shrink the government you shrink the economy," Bernile says.

Other experts point out that should debt exceed GDP due to a cyclical dip in the economy, don't worry about the sky falling.

But when debt exceeds GDP due to structural reasons, such as not matching spending with revenue, then the situation will get dicey.

"If it's structural, that's a problem," says Steve Blitz, an economist at ITG Investment Research.

"If the economy is growing faster than the government is paying for that debt, then what will happen over time is that debt will just shrink relative to GDP as long as the budget deficit is going down. You get into trouble when you have an enlarged and growing structural budget deficit, and that comes from a misalignment of taxes and entitlements, and that is a problem."

The country did enter the recession running structural deficits thanks in part to the Bush tax cuts, increased military spending and changes to Medicaid prescription policies, Blitz says.

"You ramp up your spending, you cut your taxes and as a result you created what you would call a structural deficit."

But there is a way out, at least for the United States.

Spending will decline on its own as President Obama's stimulus programs wear away and people return to work, military campaigns in the Middle East wind down while a better economy results in higher tax revenue.

Furthermore, the interest paid on U.S. debts are very low, and as the economy expands, growth will exceed the rate of interest paid on the debt.

"As a result, that will also work to bring down the debt-to-GDP ratio," Blitz says.

"The problem you have in Italy and Greece is that they are paying interest on their debt that is way above the rate of growth of their economies."

The U.S. shouldn't get complacent, though.

"Are we in that situation today? No we are not. Can we get there? Yes."

Medical costs are rising, and so are pensions even in private corporations, but political leaders spend more time politicizing the issue.

"It would really be nice if people in Washington began to act like adults," Blitz says

"This is an economy-wide problem, it's not a Republican problem, it's not a Democrat problem, it's not a liberal problem or a conservative problem. It is an issue that the U.S. economy faces."

Others point out the country is spending too much but add it's not too late for the U.S. to work its way out of its hole.

"I do not think this is a no-win situation. I do think it is reversible. The biggest problem is we need to act now. We can't sit around and wait for the economy to get better. We have to be fiscally responsible," says economist and author Mark Skousen.

"What it takes is leadership, and we don't have leadership."

That means leadership is lacking at the White House, Skousen adds.

It also means the country needs a simplified tax code.

Take the Bush tax cuts — they weren't permanent but should have been.

Plus the tax code is confusing and hard to manage.

"I always point to Hong Kong as the best example. Hong Kong has had the same tax code for 50 years. It's basically a progressive tax code with a maximum of 16 percent to 18 percent on individuals and businesses. We need that kind of tax planning," Skousen says.

Some argue that the government needs to raise taxes to help narrow deficits, which almost always means tax hikes.

That doesn't work either, Skousen says, adding that raising taxes will only encourage more spending.

"If you raise taxes it means they have more leeway to spend more money," Skousen says, referring to policymakers, who almost always ask how much revenue is coming in when planning budgets.

"You let them off the hook."

A Super Committee made up of 12 lawmakers, six Democrats and six Republicans, has been working on a plan to cut at least $1.2 trillion from the country's deficits, but has failed.

"After months of hard work and intense deliberations, we have come to the conclusion today that it will not be possible to make any bipartisan agreement available to the public before the committee's deadline," the panel's co-chairs, Republican Representative Jeb Hensarling and Democratic Senator Patty Murray, said in a statement on Nov. 21, CNBC reports.

Market watchers say they weren't surprised.

"These days it's pretty hard to have confidence in the political side of things," says Rick Bensignor, chief market strategist at Merlin Securities in New York, CNBC adds.
© Moneynews. All rights reserved.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5)WaPo quota system: A major Israel-bashing spread once a week
By Leo Rennert

At the Washington Post, it has become an all too predictable ritual -- a major Israel-bashing article by Jerusalem correspondent Joel Greenberg once a week -- preferably at the weekend.

Greenberg's highly selective pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel coverage gets top play in the foreign news section. It is designed and executed by Greenberg to put Israel in the worst possible light, while keeping silent about all too real Palestinian obstacles to a two-state solution.

A case in point: Greenberg's latest dispatch in the November 27 edition, spread across a full half page with a six-column headline that reads, "In Israel, concerns grow about stifling dissent -- Threats against anti-settlement activist come amid legal proposals that some say are aimed at government's leftist critics."

Stifling dissent in the Jewish state? For anyone acquainted with all the raucous debate in Israeli society about political and religious issues, this sounds like a bad joke. But Greenberg nevertheless pushes the alarm button about a supposedly imminent danger to democratic dissent.

His evidence? A couple of pieces of legislation in the Knesset that would restrict funding of leftist "human rights" groups by foreign governments and restrict access to Israel's ultra-liberal Supreme Court by such groups. That, along with death threats received by an activist of Peace Now, an anti-Israel group that advocates full Israeli retreat to the 1967 lines without reciprocal Palestinian concessions.
 Put it all together, Greenberg argues, and it amounts to nothing less than an "extremist challenge to Israel's democracy."

With a closer look, however, Greenberg's case quickly begins to fall apart. The legislative crackdown against foreign-financed NGOs (non-governmental organizations)? It's going nowhere because Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is keeping it safely bottled up, as Greenberg -- after his all his dire forecasts -- is finally forced to admit. But Greenberg's admission doesn't pop up until the 12th paragraph, well into the second half of his article -- a reality check that most readers won't even notice as they scan the biased headline and the biased top of his story, and then go on to peruse other parts of the Sunday paper.

The death threats to a Peace Now researcher, it turns out, are getting serious attention from Israeli authorities and a suspect already has been arrested. But readers aren't told that until the 19th paragraph -- again, well after Greenberg milks the death threats to the fullest and presents them as a death-knell to Israel's democracy.

For good measure, Greenberg also takes aim at "militant Jewish settlers" who in recent months have attacked Palestinian mosques, cars and olive groves in the West Bank. True -- up to a point.　 Violence in the West Bank, however, is not a one-way affair of settlers attacking Palestinians, as Greenberg would have Post readers believe. It's a two-way affair, with plenty of Palestinian violence against settlers, which Greenberg fails to report.

Just to mention two incidents in recent months that Greenberg doesn't include in his article: Five members of the Fogel family of the Jewish community of Itamar near Nablus -- Udi Fogel, his wife Rath, and children Yoaf, 11, Elad, 4, and three-month-old Hadas -- were stabbed to death by a Palestinian terrorist. Also, Asher Palmer and his one-year-old son Yonathan were killed when a Palestinian hurled a rock through the windshield of their car.

Why not present a complete picture of West Bank violence? Why not take aim at extremists from both sides?

And that's exactly the problem with Greenberg's coverage. Palestinians tend to be portrayed only as victims, while only Israeli transgressions merit big play. Would the Post ever splash across a half page with a six-column headline pieces about Mahmoud Abbas glorifying suicide bombers or teaching Palestinian children that "Palestine" stretches from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, swallowing up all of Israel?
Of course, not.

Because, in the final analysis, even-handed journalism, thy name is not the Washington Post.

Leo Rennert is a former White House correspondent and Washington bureau chief of McClatchy Newspapers
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6)Obama's Influence Fades
By Jeannie DeAngelis


"Sic transit gloria mundi" is a Latin phrase that means "Thus passes the glory of the world." The Bible says it best: "For, 'All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall.'"
It was just a few short years ago that Barack Obama sat high atop the pinnacle of celebrity; now, if monthly style and culture magazine GQ (Gentlemen's Quarterly) is any indication of where in the "passing glory" trajectory Obama is presently situated, Barack's flower of fame is in the process of dropping its petals and destined for a shelf somewhere, pressed between the pages of a dusty history book.
Since making his first appearance on the political stage, Obama has graced the cover of GQ on more than one occasion, and in less than four years has been voted "Leader of the Year" twice. That was quite an accomplishment, especially for a man who, at the time, had done pretty much next to nothing.

In the superficial world in which we live, the withered grass and faded flower of fleeting popularity is watered and fertilized with hype, stylish appearance, media influence, and left-leaning political persuasion, all of which Barack Obama possesses in abundant excess.

According to Gentlemen's Quarterly, in 2007 superstar politician Barack Obama "ruled." The President led the "Men of the Year" for the accomplishment of getting elected in 2008. For the 2009 edition, after America's transformative president was crowned GQ "Leader of the Year," an uncomfortable close-up of his face graced the quarterly's cover, and not surprisingly Obama was later seen clutching the issue under his arm.

Laying laurels at Obama's feet, GQ described the President's first year in office in the following way:

It's been a big year for our new president. He is juggling, mightily, two wars; he staved off the second Great Depression; he fielded rage from tea baggers; and he is working to accomplish what very few have -- real health care reform. And that's just the short list.

One short year later, Barack Obama, a man GQ lauded as being responsible for "usher[ing] in massive transformation, both domestically and to our standing around the world," has been relegated to GQ's roster of the year's (whoa) "Least Influential People Alive."

Allegedly when the list is posted online, the President will occupy the number 25 slot on GQ's "25 Least Influential People Alive" list, which is somewhat encouraging, because least of the least Governor Tim Pawlenty came in at number one.　
Besides T-Paw Obama shares the humiliating distinction with the likes of MSNBC host Ed Schultz, who is known for recently calling conservative talk show host Laura Ingraham a "right wing slut." The roster also includes Newsweek　editor and cover controversy queen Tina Brown, ousted Egyptian "President" Hosni Mubarak, C&W singer Hank 'Hitler Hullabaloo' Williams, Jr., and House Majority Leader John 'Is it Safe to Smoke in a Tanning Bed' Boehner, who probably earned the title of 'least influential' after spending the spring of 2011 golfing with the Duffer-in-Chief.
In 2009, Nobel Peace Prize winner/Leader of the Free World Barack Obama began his foray into the Hall of Influential Fame when it was revealed that, by his very existence, he had moved the international peace process forward.
Since then, few would argue that President Obama's presence in Washington DC has resulted in a whole slew of extraordinary circumstances. If influence is defined as " the capacity or power of persons or things to be a compelling force　on or produce effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of others," then GQ's 'least influential' standards obviously don't take into account the power of negative influence.

Think of it -- in three short years, this historic president has: influenced America's unemployment rate, which presently hovers around 9%; contributed to the racial divide, which is now wider than ever; fostered class warfare, which is presently 'occupying' the nation's streets; established lax national security standards; grown poverty; ignored a porous border; sued a couple of states; continued to push entitlement programs; and contributed to the national debt, which has ballooned out of control.

With the long list of liberal accomplishments Obama keeps accruing, for GQ to suggest that the President lacks influence is outrageous.

There's got to be more to a liberal publication crowning Barack Obama one of the "least influential" people on the planet. It may very well be that while the President remains a dominant force, he may also be falling victim to the fickle nature of the world's worship.

Either way, Barack Obama has proven he will not be deterred by popular opinion -- not GQ's or anyone else's.　 As one of America's most influential presidents, if Barack Obama gets his way the influence he plans to wield has only just begun. In the end, at the rate he's going, Obama's　boldest achievement may turn out to be singlehandedly transforming the greatest nation in the world into a vast wasteland of wilted grass, faded flowers and past glory.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------