They have combined their talents. ( See 3 below.)
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This Marine is tired! Semper Fi! (See 4 below.)
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Never again has meaning! (See 5 below.)
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D'Souza no longer humble? (See 6 below.)
and
A checked our president? (See 6a below.)
You decide!
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Dick
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1) Why Qatar and Turkey Can't Solve the Crisis in Gaza
by David Andrew Weinberg and Jonathan Schanzer
With Washington desperate fora cease-firebetween Israel and Hamas, and with Egypthaving flamed out as a broker of calm, two of Hamas's top patrons are about to be rewarded with a high-profile diplomatic victory. U.S. and Israeli media are now reporting thatthe White House may be looking to Qatar and Turkeyto help negotiate an end to the hostilities. Qatar, in fact,helda high-profile cease-fire summit in Doha on Sunday that included Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon, the Norwegian foreign minister, and Hamas leader Khaled Meshal.
No progress was reported on Sunday. But using the good offices of Qatar is a huge mistake. The same goes for Turkey. In exchange for fleeting calm, the United States will have effectively given approval to these allies-cum-frenemies to continue their respective roles as sponsors of Hamas, which is a designated terrorist group in the United States.
Since a visit to Turkey by Qatar's ruler Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and amidst reports that Meshal has been shuttling between the two countries, Doha and Ankara have been floating terms of a joint cease-fire proposal that would reportedly grant Hamas significant benefits. Specifically, the deal would grant Hamas an open border in Gaza that would allow the group to continue to smuggle rockets and other advanced weaponry at an ever alarming pace.
The Israelis see this as a nonstarter. But the White House is nevertheless working the phones with Qatar and Turkey to see if a deal can be struck.
Since the war broke out in early July, Secretary of State John Kerry has reached out at least three times by phone to Turkey's Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and six times to his Qatari counterpart, Khalid Al Attiyah (Kerry's Mideast chief boasted last month that the secretary of state "is in very constant contact" with FM Al-Attiyah and even "keeps his number on his own cell phone"). Kerry was also expected to visit Qatar before Egypt's aborted cease-fire proposal.
It is by now no secret that Qatar has emerged as Hamas' home away from home and ATM. Shaikh Tamim's father, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, visited Gaza in 2012 when he was still the ruler of Qatar, pledging $400 million in economic aid. Most recently, Doha tried to transfer millions of dollars via Jordan's Arab Bank to help pay the salaries of Hamas civil servants in Gaza, but the transfer was apparently blocked at Washington's request.
Since 2011, Qatar has been the home of the aforementioned Khaled Meshal, who runs Hamas's leadership. During a recent appearance on Qatar's media network Al Jazeera Arabic, Meshal blessed the individuals who kidnapped and ultimately murdered three Israeli teenagers. He boasted that Hamas was a unified movement and that its military wing reports to him and his associates in the political bureau. American officials have revealed that Qatar also hosts several other Hamas leaders. Israeli authorities reportedly intercepted an individual in April on his way back from meeting a member of Hamas's military wing in Qatar who gave him money and directives intended for Hamas cells in the West Bank.
Israeli and Egyptian officials report that Qatar is so eager for a political win at Cairo's expense that it actually urged Hamas to reject the Egyptian cease-fire initiative last week. Doha is also using its vast petroleum wealth to striking diplomatic effect: one UN official source suggests that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon would not have made it to Doha for cease-fire talks on Sunday if the Qataris hadn't chartered him a plane out of their own pocket.
Turkey, for its part, has emerged as one of the most strident supporters of Hamas on the world stage. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vociferously advocated for Hamas while his government has found ways to donate hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to Hamas, mostly through infrastructure projects, but also through materials and reportedly even direct financial support.
Turkey is also home to Salah Al-Arouri, founder of the West Bank branch of the Izz Al-Din Al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas' military wing. He reportedly has been given "sole control" of Hamas's military operations in the West Bank, and two Palestinians arrested last year for smuggling money for Hamas into the West Bankadmitted they were doing so on Al-Arouri's orders. He is also suspected of being behind a recent surge inkidnapping plots from the West Bank. An Israeli security official recently noted, "I have no doubt that Al-Arouri was connected to the act" of kidnapping that helped set off the latest round of violence between the parties, which has seen hundreds killed and thousands wounded, nearly all of them Palestinians.
Al-Arouri, it should be noted, was among the high-level Hamas officials who met with the amir of Kuwait on Monday to discuss cease-fire terms (he is pictured in the middle of the couch here).
So as Washington considers cutting a deal brokered by Qatar and Turkey for an end to the latest round of hostilities, it bears pointing out why these two countries are so influential with Hamas in the first place: because they empower the terrorist movement and provide it with a free hand for operations. A cease-fire is obviously desirable, but not if the cost is honoring terror sponsors. There must be others who can mediate.
Interestingly, both Ankara and Doha count themselves among America's friends. But their support for terrorist entities—not just Hamas—has become so obvious that U.S. legislators began to send concerned letters to officials from both countries last year. This alone is a sign that America must set the bar higher for the behavior of its allies and not reward them for bad behavior.
David Andrew Weinberg, a former Democratic Professional Staff Member at the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
Jonathan Schanzer is Vice President for Research at the Foundation and a former intelligence analyst at the U.S. Department of the Treasury. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2) What Really Happened at that Gazan UN School The sensational story was too good to pass up. Israel allegedly shelled a United Nation school being used as a refugee shelter, massacring at least sixteen people who were trying to evacuate. Even worse, the media reported that Israel had the exact coordinates of the school, knew that civilians were sheltering there, and there was no combat nearby.
In other words, the media indicted the IDF for a war crime. Even though there were no credible sources, the media assumed that information they were given was true.
GAZA (Reuters) – At least 15 people were killed and many wounded on Thursday when Israeli forcesshelled a U.N.-run school sheltering Palestinians in northern Gaza, said a spokesman for the Gaza health ministry, “Precise co-ordinates of the UNRWA shelter in Beit Hanoun had been formally given to the Israeli army … Over the course of the day UNRWA tried to coordinate with the Israeli Army a window for civilians to leave and it was never granted,” (UNRWA Spokesman Christopher) Gunness said on his Twitter page.
Memo to Reuters: The Gazan Health Ministry is run by Hamas, not really known for accurate information.
If you are looking for a little inspiration these days, you need not look far. Local author, freelance journalist and artist Debra Darvick of Birmingham has been working with her husband Martin, a photographer, to create images that speak to the heart. Labeled “His Lens/My Pen,” they sell greeting cards of their work on Etsy, a website devoted to selling art and creative accessories from around the world. They also have cards for sale in the Gallery Shop of the Birmingham Bloomfield Art Center in Birmingham.
“We’ve teamed up where I will write a meditation inspired by his photos,” said Darvick. She overlays her husband’s natural photography with inspirational sayings that she feels relate to the pictures. The result is a unique greeting card that encourages reflection on life. She leaves the inside blank so that people can write according to how the card speaks to them.
Darvick, who is also a former speechwriter, said that her aim is to bring a little more humanity to society. She said that she always asks herself what the “issues trending most with people” are at the moment, and that she can ponder for hours over a picture before coming up with the right thing to say.
“I try to use these cards and use these images as a way of bringing people together,” Darvick said.
Darvick opened up her own space on Etsy in 2008 under the name “The Infinite Peacock,” which, she explained, was a coupling of two of her favorite subjects: the “infinite” of the imagination and her long-held fascination with peacocks. Her cards are visible for sale there, along with an inspirational poster that she created. Business has been slow, she admitted, but she hopes more people will hear about it in the future.
One of her best selling items is a poster, “Mom’s Ten Commandments of Health,” inspired by lessons she taught to her twentysomething kids to help them stay healthy once they left home. The poster which sells for $9.95 and her greeting cards, which sell for $5 each, can be purchased at www.etsy.com/shop/TheInfinitePeacock.
Her work is also displayed on her website, hislensmypen.com.
Darvick and her husband are avid travelers, which is how they acquire a lot of the pictures they use.
“We travel a lot throughout the country,” she said, adding that there are many beautiful spots to visit here that can rival scenes in places like Europe. “America is beautiful.”
Among other activities, Darvick is a columnist for the online Red Thread Magazine.
Robert A. Hall is an actor. He plays the coroner on CSI if you watch that show. He also is a Marine Vietnam War Veteran, but does not mention that he had his legs blown off in that war.
This should be required reading for every man, woman and child in the United States of America "I'm 63 and I'm Tired" by Robert A. Hall I'm 63. Except for one semester in college when jobs were scarce and a six-month period when I was between jobs, but job-hunting every day, I've worked hardsince I was 18. Despite some health challenges, I still put in 50-hour weeks, and haven't called in sick in seven or eight years. I make a good salary, but I didn't inherit my job or my income, and I worked to get where I am. Given the economy, there's no retirement in sight, and I'm tired. Very tired. I'm tired of being told that I have to "spread the wealth" to people who don't have my work ethic. I'm tired of being told the government will take the money I earned, by force if necessary, and give it to people too lazy to earn it. I'm tired of being told that I have to pay more taxes to "keep people in their homes." Sure, if they lost their jobs or got sick, I'm willing to help. But if they bought Mc Mansions at three times the price of our paid-off, $250,000 condo, on one-third of my salary, then let the left-wing Congress-critters who passed Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act that created the bubble use their own money to help them. I'm tired of being told how bad America is by left-wing millionaires like Michael Moore, George Soros and Hollywood Entertainers who live in luxury because of the opportunities America provided to them. In thirty years, if they get their way, the United States will have: 1. the economy of Zimbabwe , 2. the freedom of the press of China 3. the crime and violence of Mexico , 4. the tolerance for Christian people of Iran 5. the freedom of speech of Venezuela . I'm tired of being told that Islam is a "Religion of Peace," when every day I can read stories of Muslim men killing their sisters, wives and daughters for their family "honor"; of Muslims rioting over some slight offense; of Muslims murdering Christian and Jews because they aren't "believers"; of Muslims burning schools for girls; of Muslims stoning teenage rape victims to death for "adultery"; of Muslims mutilating the genitals of little girls; all in the name of Allah, because the Qur'an and Sharia law tells them to. I'm tired of being told that "race doesn't matter" in the post-racial world of Obama, when it's all that matters in affirmative action jobs, lower college admission and graduation standards for minorities (harming them the most), government contract set-asides, tolerance for the ghetto culture of violence and fatherless children that hurts minorities more than anyone, and in the appointment of U.S. Senators from Illinois. I think it's very cool that we have a black president and that a black child is doing her homework at the desk where Lincoln wrote the Emancipation Proclamation. I just wish the black president was Condi Rice, or someone who believes more in freedom and the individual and less arrogantly in an all-knowing government. I'm tired of being told that out of "tolerance for other cultures" we must not complain when Saudi Arabia uses the money we pay for their oil to fund mosques and madras Islamic schools to preach hate in America, while no American group is allowed to fund a church, synagogue or religious school in Saudi Arabia to teach love and tolerance. I'm tired of being told I must lower my living standard to fight global warming, which no one is allowed to debate. My wife and I live in a two-bedroom apartment and carpool together five miles to our jobs. We also own a three-bedroom condo where our daughter and granddaughter live. Our carbon footprint is about 5% of Al Gore's, and if you're greener than Gore, you're green enough. I'm tired of being told that drug addicts have a disease, and I must help support and treat them, and pay for the damage they do. Did a giant germ rush out of a dark alley, grab them, and stuff white powder up their noses while they tried to fight it off? I don't think gay people choose to be gay, but I #@*# sure think druggies chose to take drugs. And I'm tired of harassment from "cool" people treating me like a freak when I tell them I never tried marijuana. I'm tired of illegal aliens being called "undocumented workers", especially those who aren't working, but living on welfare or crime. What's next? Calling drug dealers, "Undocumented Pharmacists"? And, no, I'm not against Hispanics. Most of them are Catholic, and it's been a few hundred years since Catholics wanted to kill me for my religion. I'm willing to fast track citizenship for any Hispanic who can speak English, doesn't have a criminal record and who is self-supporting without family on welfare, or who serves honorably for three years in our military. Those are the kind of citizens we need. I'm tired of the trashing of our military by latte liberals and journalists, who would never wear the uniform of the Republic themselves, or let their entitlement-handicapped kids near a recruiting station. They and their kids can sit at home, never having to make split-second decisions under life and death circumstances, and bad mouth better people than themselves. Do bad things happen in war? You bet. Do our troops sometimes misbehave? Sure. Does this compare with the atrocities that were the policy of our enemies for the last fifty years and still are? Not even close. So here's a deal for those folks. I'll let myself be subjected to all the humiliation and abuse that was heaped on terrorists at Abu Ghraib or Gitmo, while the critics of our military can be subject to captivity by the Muslims, who tortured and beheaded Daniel Pearlin Pakistan, or the Muslims who tortured and murdered Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins in Lebanon, or the Muslims who ran the blood-spattered Al Qaeda torture rooms our troops found in Iraq, or the Muslims who cut off the heads of school girls in Indonesia because the girls were Christian -- then we'll compare notes. British and American soldiers are the only troops in history that civilians came to for help and handouts, instead of hiding from in fear. I'm tired of people tellingme that their party has a corner on virtue and the other party has a corner on corruption. Read the papers; bums are bipartisan. And I'm tired of people telling me we need bipartisanship. I live in Illinois , where the "Illinois Combine" of Democrats has looted the public treasury for years. Not to mention the tax cheats in Obama's cabinet. I'm tired of hearing wealthy athletes, entertainers and politicians of both parties talking about "innocent" mistakes, "stupid" mistakes or "youthful" mistakes, when all of us know they think their only mistake was getting caught. Speaking of poor, I'm tired of people with a sense of entitlement who have air-conditioned homes, color TVs and two cars called poor. The majority of Americans didn't have that in 1970, but we didn't know we were "poor." The poverty pimps have to keep changing the definition of poor to keep the dollars flowing. I'm real tired of people, rich or poor, who don't take responsibility for their lives and actions. I'm tired of hearing them blame the government, or discrimination or big-whatever for their problems. Yes, I'm tired, but I'm also glad to be 63, mostly because I'm not going to have to see the world these people are making. I'm just sorry for my granddaughter. Robert A. Hall is a Marine Vietnam Veteran who served five terms in the Massachusetts State Senate.
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5) A Tunnel Too Far
War is either the arm of political strategy or an existential moment. For modern national states, armed conflict is a late if not last resort. As a nation, the U.S., and its body politic, have a perspective rooted in its history and related cultural and religious roots. We presume that all conflicts should be rationalized, and that compromise is good and pragmatic. As a result, we see others through our lens.
As we are again in the Gaza, we misunderstand the driving forces by thinking in this way. This creates a false premise that there is no absolute “right,” and that the absence of fighting is, no matter the cost, advantageous.
To understand the paradox of our current thinking, reflect on our actions during the Second World War. To fight successfully, we developed a self-serving moral ground. The war comprised ”good” versus implacable “evil,” which legitimized victory at all costs. We affirmed the dictum that wars truly end only with an enemy’s complete destruction or surrender. Nighttime bombardments of cities from high altitude, purposeful targeting of Dresden, and the firebombing of Tokyo were not perceived as ambiguous or repugnant actions. We were preserving our “way of life” and confronting an adversary that would do the same and more, if it could, to us.
At its heart and soul, Israel confronts a reality that we choose to deny. Be it the charter of the PLA, the doctrine of Hamas, or the tripwire to the recent Kerry negotiations, the central challenge is to the right of Israel to exist and to be the homeland of the Jewish people.
It does not take much reading of primary sources to see that Israel is regarded, in whole or in part, as illegitimate. This is tacitly acknowledged during academic debates but rebutted by an argument that Israel is and will remain a fact on the ground and that, thus, the words are simply rhetorical.
History turns, however, on the proximate event. The shooting of the archduke, Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin, and the World Trade Towers shifted the fulcrum. We used these events, each in its own time and context, as direction-finders, pointing to a path made clear and seemingly inevitable.
For Israel, I propose three recent events that will serve the same purpose. First was the celebration in song by the killers of the Israeli teenagers moments after their murder. Second was the targeting of population centers by longer-range and heavier-payload rockets. Third, and perhaps most telling, was the attempted infiltration by Hamas of Israel proper, via tunnels, towards a kibbutz with the intent of slaughter. These were neither tactical nor strategic events. They are existential and, in a telling way, biblical.
Christian nations, defined as those whose values and belief systems favor peaceful and tolerant outcomes, assume that others, even of a different ethic, want the same things. The United States will try to find a satisfying middle ground with anyone willing to talk long enough. Iran now, North Korea later…no matter, for talking is always better than fighting.
Hamas, until now, has benefited from our lack of underlying moral symmetry with Israel. We have encouraged Israel to act as if a middle ground can be compromised with a fatal disease. Until these three small events, this was prudent, but it may be prudent no longer.
The IDF is sent into battle with a reminder that it is sword of Israel. It is an agent less of the State than of the people. At some point, the harsh reality of its history is finally accepted. “Death to the Jews” fills the air in many capitals, East and West. Until this moment, this was taken as the background noise. But “Death to the Jews” is now its own reality. Israel is perilously close to the IDF code: Israel cannot afford to lose one war and cannot fight on its own soil.
The words of outgoing President Shimon Peres that the fighting will stop at the moment the rocketing stops are prescient. Hamas has miscalculated what would bring Israel to negotiations or move it away from compromise. Yahweh can be a very vengeful God, and the modern state of Israel may prove a bit less modern than others imagine it to be.
Faced with clear risk to Jews for simply being Jews and aware that even more radicalized jihadist groups wait in the wings, Israel may choose to show that it too can be as merciless as was our Army Air Corp over Germany or the Enola Gayover Hiroshima.
We taught the world a lesson about what a mighty nation will do when its way of life is thought threatened. Israel has had ample reason to avoid this moment. Now, faced with that moment, it is likely to show that the two words that underpin the State and thus the people, “never again,” have meaning.
In the 1980s, Dinesh D’Souza received some advice from his editor. “Write for the critics. The success of your book will depend on book reviews,” D’Souza recalled Adam Bellow of the Free Press telling him. D’Souza was in no position to argue. His previous books had not sold well, and as a young star in the conservative firmament, he wanted to burst into a bigger intellectual universe. So D’Souza took the path of humility: He followed Bellow’s advice, which was strategic as much as it was intellectual. Bellow recalled advising D’Souza and other controversial authors that their works should “hew to a high standard of argumentation and should be written to persuade an intelligent and open-minded adversary. That way, when they indignantly attack you, they only expose their own close-minded prejudice.”
In the spring of 1991, Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus was published. It was immediately successful. The Atlanticran an excerpt. The eminent historian C. Vann Woodward wrote a long, favorable review of the book in The New York Review of Books. “… [O]ne need not be a right winger to be concerned about the problems D’Souza raises, however welcome he may be as an ally,” Woodward wrote. The book stayed on The New York Times’ bestseller list for 15 weeks.
D’Souza’s decision to stay humble and write for the critics helped make Illiberal Education a success, but his background and hard work helped too. Born in Mumbai in 1961, D’Souza was a rare prodigy. He was a young, non-white, Ivy League-educated conservative immigrant arguing within the tradition of liberal education. His criticisms of political correctness and multiculturalism could be not dismissed as the work of a has-been or crypto-racist. “I especially empathize with minority students, who seek to discover principles of equality and justice that go considerably beyond the acquisition of vocational skill,” he wrote in Illiberal Education.
Raised in a Catholic household and educated by Spanish Jesuits, D’Souza was also a Christian public intellectual of erudition and wisdom. He cited Simone Weil and Reinhold Niebuhr in his books as easily as he did Scripture. His main criticism of the Reverend Jerry Falwell was the minister’s tendency to let his conservatism get the best of his Christianity. A passage from his first book, Falwell Before the Millennium: A Critical Biography, illuminates D’Souza’s own recent work:
In Reinhold Niebuhr’s words, “Political controversies are always conflicts between sinners, and not between righteous men and sinners.” Falwell is in the pulpit. The Bible speaks of good and evil, and in the Bible the two do not mix. But in politics, distinctions are often less vivid. Falwell’s rhetoric, however, frequently does not distinguish between liberals, socialists, and Communists. He sometimes regards his enemies as opposing not just his programs, but God Himself. So he demonizes his critics the way they do him.
At 53, D’Souza looks only slightly older than he did a generation ago. His hair is graying at the temples and his face has gotten fuller. His sympathies and work ethic have not changed much either. But he has expanded his range from author and public speaker to filmmaker, serving as a writer and director of both 2016: Obama’s America and America: Imagine a World Without Her.
He has also struck a series of road bumps. In October 2012, D’Souza was forced to step down as president of Kings College in Manhattan after running afoul of the evangelical school’s sexual mores; he divorced his wife of two decades; and he pled guilty to using straw donors to aid the candidacy of Wendy Long, a friend who ran for the U.S. Senate in 2012. In the eyes of progressives, those sins and crimes made D’Souza a moral hypocrite and phony. In the eyes of critics, he trots out straw men rather than concrete arguments. But both were symptoms rather than causes of his change intellectually (and perhaps spiritually) from a generation ago. D’Souza has not so much broken bad as fallen victim to pride.
“It was my very first book,” D’Souza said recently of Illiberal Education, smiling nostalgically at the thought of the critical and financial success it received. Except it wasn’t. In addition to the Falwell book, he had written a book on the great works of the Catholic intellectual tradition and co-edited another that boasted an introduction from no less a Republican titan than Richard M. Nixon. The chronological order of the books does not matter, but D’Souza’s belief that Illiberal Education was his first is a window into his mind. He is more than an author. His books have massive appeal to Fox News viewers; he refers to the ones that did not as his “pre-books.” Whatever the view of his critics on the left or right—and in the last five years nearly all have heaped scorn on The Roots of Obama’s Rage and Obama’s America—he plays to the crowd. “The book industry was changing after Illiberal Education, and I found out you could make money by not writing for the critics, that book reviews didn’t matter,” D’Souza said.
D’Souza said those words at a Ralph Reed-organized forum in Washington, D.C., one Saturday morning in late June. D’Souza spoke at the conference twice that day. The first time he appeared on the stage of the Regency ballroom inside the Omni Shoreham Hotel, members of the audience did not simply cheer. They stood up and applauded. Afterwards, he repaired to a narrow, windowless lobby to sign his new book. At 10:27 a.m., 11 copies of America: Imagine a World Without Her were stacked untidily on a makeshift table to his left. Over the next half hour, the number of copies dwindled to three or four. The (white) movement conservatives at the conference gobbled them up—a middle-aged man in blue jeans and T-shirt who asked D’Souza to pose for a selfie; two pretty brunettes wearing broad smiles who looked to be in their twenties and thirties; and several middle-aged women. Movement conservatives’ love for D’Souza is no joke. 2016made $33.4 million at the box office, the second highest total for a political documentary of all time. America is expected to fall short of that lofty total, but has a realistic shot at grossing $25 million, a sum that would make it the third biggest political documentary of all time.
The movement has provided D’Souza with at least one collaborator too. While he used to seek the help of the historian Gordon Wood, now he works with Bruce Schooley, who hovered near D’Souza in a lobby of the Omni Shoreham wearing an aqua-blue suit. D’Souza met the middle-aged Bay Area resident on a National Review cruise 15 years ago, and they’ve worked together on several projects since; Schooley served as an executive producer and writer on America. D’Souza has said Schooley is “really an entrepreneur of ideas.” Among those ideas is the FlipTree, an artificial Christmas tree Schooley designed and marketed after surviving a bout with cancer. D’Souza showed his appreciation for his friend’s product by endorsing it in a YouTube video last year. “Once you roll the tree to where you want it, you just take off the bag and flip; no more heavy tree parts or complicated electrical cords,” D’Souza tells the camera without irony.
Yet D’Souza, though long close to the movement—he served as a domestic adviser in the Reagan White House—was always careful not to make it an exclusive relationship.
His early books kept conservatives at arm’s length and reached out to critics in the center. Illiberal Education was a work of solid journalism. D’Souza traveled to the campuses of five prestigious universities and interviewed students and faculty at length, and before he submitted his final draft, he sent out chapters for review to dozens of intellectuals and prestigious journalists, including Jonathan Rauch and the late William Raspberry.
D’Souza broke with critics in the center after the publication of his follow-up, 1995’s The End of Racism: Principles for a Multiracial Society, a work of even more prodigious scholarship (the book had 46 pages of footnotes). “I wanted to leave no stone unturned: to go where the truth led me,” D’Souza recalled. “I argued that if racism had a beginning, it can have an end … For me, race is like bushy eyebrows. It’s nothing.” But his argument struck black conservatives as a dog whistle to the David Dukes of America. D’Souza used such words as “parasitic” to describe blacks’ relationship with government. He absolved non-blacks of responsibility for helping the black poor.
In October 1995, writer Glenn Loury and community builder Robert L. Woodson Sr. announced they were resigning their posts at the American Enterprise Institute because D’Souza was a fellow there. D’Souza took the episode as proof that critics outside the conservative orbit were committed more to a political agenda than the truth with a capital “T.” Already a recent convert to the idea that book sales were not wedded to critics’ judgments, D’Souza decided to stop writing with one eye on the reaction of critics.
Sometimes, conservative authors have broken new intellectual ground despite unhinged reactions from critics on the left and the center. Witness “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action,” Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s 1965 report on the parlous state of the black family, which was considered so incendiary that Ivy League professors and students prevented Moynihan from speaking on their campuses. Today, Moynihan’s report is viewed as prophetic.
Yet failing to take on the best arguments of the other side—“to play Notre Dame” in the words of Charlie Peters, editor emeritus of Washington Monthly—carries risks. D’Souza’s subsequent books and films testify to the intellectual pitfalls of ignoring the critics. His demonization of President Obama is a case in point. In the book Obama’s America, D’Souza wrote that “Obama is not merely the presiding instrument of American decline, he is the architect of American decline. He wants America to be downsized.” This claim is problematic, to put it mildly. The jobless rate has declined from 7.8 percent in January 2009 to 6.1 percent in June; the administration’s bailout of General Motors helped revive the car industry; and the editors of The Economistconcluded recently that “reports of the death of American influence in the Middle East are exaggerated.”
In the movie America, D’Souza ridicules Obama’s “you didn’t build that” comment in July 2012. “What he’s saying is that [the business] was not earned but stolen,” D’Souza says. However offensive to entrepreneurs Obama’s comment was, the context of the quote was Obama’s argument that the federal government helps individuals and businesses succeed by helping create infrastructure like public schools, the Internet, and roads. “The point is,” Obama said, “is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.”
At times, America lives up to D’Souza’s old intellectual standards. He meets in person with left-wing critics, including Ward Churchill, a former professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado Boulder. He argues persuasively that Alexis de Tocqueville is a more reliable guide than Howard Zinn to troubling episodes in early American history such as slavery and the treatment of Native Americans. D’Souza admits he improperly helped Senate candidate Wendy Long in 2012.
In fact, America contains a brief scene in which D’Souza is shown wearing handcuffs in a room that looks like a jail or prison cell. But is this real humility or a Uriah Heep act? D’Souza’s pride, his belief he needs neither intellectual nor moral critics, has brought about his fall from the first rank of conservative intellectuals. That's a shame, because if he'd stayed humble D'Souza could have reached an exalted status.
6a) Barack Obama has already checked out of his job
The degree to which Barack Obama is now phoning it in – sleepwalking perfunctorily through his second term, amid golf rounds and dinner parties – is astonishing
US President Barack Obama enjoys a round of golf in HawaiiPhoto: EPA
By Matt K Lewis
President Obama has emotionally checked out of his job a couple of years early, it seems. How can one tell?
Candidates for president who brazenly assume they are the inevitable victor are sometimes accused of “measuring the drapes” for the White House.
Obama, conversely, seems to be prematurely packing his bags in hopes for an early departure.
Top priority? Barack Obama greets people in Delaware (AFP/Getty)
Just last week, for example, the Los Angeles Times reported that “The First Family is believed to be in escrow on a contemporary home in a gated community where entertainers Frank Sinatra, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby once maintained estates”.
George Santayana observed that “Americans don’t solve problems, they leave them behind”. Perhaps the president is taking this to heart.
For rumours to catch fire, an element of truth must typically be involved.
The fact that the press would find relevance in speculating on Obama’s post-White House residence – and identify California as the kind of scene the future ex-president would want to hang out in when he leaves office – is perhaps telling.
And, indeed, this comes on the heels of multiple reports from outlets such as The New York Times and Politico, detailing how Obama has increasingly been spending his time at trendy restaurants and fancy, late-night dinner parties with celebrities and various intellectuals.
Rubbing elbows with the rich and elite is fine enough. Unfortunately, the work suffers. The degree to which he is now phoning it in – sleepwalking perfunctorily through his second term – is astonishing.
And based on his recent handling of situations much more serious than a possible post-presidential move to sunny California, it seems as if “No Drama Obama” is no longer even worried about keeping up appearances; he doesn’t care enough to fake it.
Consider this: In recent days, a) Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was shot down, apparently by Russian separatists in Ukraine, b) In the Gaza strip, the numbers killed continued to mount as Israelis and Palestinians exchange rocket fire, c) a huge influx of children fleeing Central American poverty and gang warfare swamped America’s southern border, creating a humanitarian crisis. And, oh yeah, d) Christians living in Mosul were given the choice to either convert to Islam or flee the area they have inhabited for nearly two thousand years.
You know what else has happened during this time? a) Obama played many rounds of golf, b) he attended numerous fund-raisers, c) he dined on barbecue in Texas and burgers in Delaware, and d) he almost appeared on the comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night television show in Hollywood.
I say “almost” because the White House finally relented. “We ultimately elected not to have the president do that interview over the course of this trip,” the White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, conceded. “And that is at least in part related to the challenges of doing a comedy show in the midst of some of these other more serious matters that the president’s dealing with in the international scene.”
The irony is that Obama won election in 2008, partly based on his ability to demonstrate leadership (at least, rhetorically).
And, despite a less-than-perfect first term, the public believed enough in his “hope and change” mantra to return him to office - a move reminiscent of Samuel Johnson’s observation about second marriages being “a triumph of hope over experience”.
But today, one wonders if Obama even has the energy left to summon some of the old magic that got him elected. A souffle, as they say, doesn’t rise twice.
While we tend to think of them as polar opposites, Obama’s predecessor had been similarly excoriated for similarly botching a few big moments where he should have been on the job. For President George W Bush, the images of Hurricane Katrina continue to haunt his legacy. He later regretted not going to there immediately after the hurricane hit.
“I should have touched down in Baton Rouge, met with the governor, and walked out and said, 'I hear you. We understand. And we’re going to help the state and help the local governments with as much resources as needed’,” he confessed in 2010.
Woody Allen famously said, 80 per cent of life is just showing up. He wasn’t wrong. But, in lieu of showing up, there is an even easier way to avoid looking quite so out of touch. If Obama were worried about bad optics – about appearing out of touch – he might play a bit less golf (another lesson he could have learned from his predecessor).
During one unfortunate event caught on tape, and featured in the Fahrenheit 9/11 film trailer, the then President Bush was unfortunately filmed saying: “I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you.” Then, holding up a golf club, he added: “Now, watch this drive.”
This was a brutal blow. Fair or not, playing golf has a way of making one look simultaneously elitist and aloof. Obama tends to dismiss such cautionary tales.
For example, the suggestion that while in Texas he should have gone to the border and addressed the growing humanitarian crisis (instead of attending fund-raisers) was dismissed as the suggestion he do a theatrical “photo-op”.
This is at best unromantic, and, at worst, cynical. Words matter.
Showing up matters. Was it a “photo-op” when Ronald Reagan spoke in front of the Brandenburg Gate and declared: “Tear down this wall!”?
I suppose one could have made that argument.
Obama’s not dumb, and he’s clearly capable of marshalling an effective propaganda campaign when he wants to. So what explains this series of bad optics, which might be described by PR professionals as political malpractice?
The only thing that makes sense is that he is exhausted and, perhaps, has checked out of the job early.
If Nero fiddled while Rome burned, then Obama is dining out, golfing, and raising money while the world collapses.
Matt K Lewis is a senior contributor at The Daily Caller website in Washington, DC
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