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My wife knows I believe, in far too many cases, political adviser's advice is not worth a dime and she said she had been listening to Herman Cain who had pretty much said the same. Herman was talking about the fact that too many campaigners are being told not to say anything controversial because it makes them vulnerable to attacks and challenges.
I told her candidates believe they have to listen to these advisers because they are paying huge sums to them. She then said well half of these advisers prove to be losers. Sometimes my wife's logic is downright prescient.
After all she said yes when I proposed!
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Netanyahu interview. (See 2 below.)
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There are some who state Obama just wants out of being president and is more than willing to pass along all the unresolved problems on his plate to the next president. We have had over 5 years of Obama learning on the job and we have more than one more to go. Can we afford his continued incompetence?
Air strikes against ISIS are failing as predicted they would. (See 3 and 3a Below.)
Obama's biggest and most dangerous abdication of presidential responsibility will be allowing Iran to gain nuclear status. (3b below.)
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When will liberals stop helping blacks with their destructive policies and impeding their chance for success. (See 4 below.)
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Because Republicans are running an uncoordinated and hesitant campaign this could be why they do not capture the Senate. (See 5 below.)
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Dick
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1)
Story by: Bruce Vincent
For those of us who sometimes find ourselves having doubts about our former President, here is an excellent piece -- worth every minute it takes to read it. This story is from Bruce Vincent of Libby, Montana who had gone to the White House with others to receive an award from the President.
He writes:
I've written the following narrative to chronicle the day of the award ceremony in DC. I'm still working on a press release but the White House press corps has yet to provide a photo to go with it. When the photo comes I'll ship it out. When you get done reading this you'll understand the dilemma I face in telling this story beyond my circle of close friends.
Stepping into the Oval Office, each of us was introduced to the President and Mrs. Bush. We shook hands and participated in small talk. When the President was told that we were from Libby, Montana , I reminded him that Marc Racicot is our native son and the President offered his warm thoughts about Governor Racicot.
I have to tell you, I was blown away by two things upon entering the office. First, the Oval Office sense of 'place' is unreal. The President later shared a story of Russian President Putin entering the room prepared to tackle the President in a tough negotiation and upon entering, the atheist muttered his first words to the President and they were "Oh, my God."
I concurred. I could feel the history in my bones. Second, the man that inhabits the office engaged me with a firm handshake and a look that can only be described as penetrating. Warm, alive, fully engaged, disarmingly penetrating. I was admittedly concerned about meeting the man. I think all of us have an inner hope that the most powerful man in our country is worthy of the responsibility and authority that we bestow upon them through our vote.
I admit that part of me was afraid that I would be let down by the moment -- that the person and the place could not meet the lofty expectations of my fantasy world. This says nothing about my esteem for President Bush but just my practical realization that reality may not match my 'dream.'
Once inside the office, President Bush got right down to business and, standing in front of his desk, handed out the awards one at a time while posing for photos with the winners and Mrs. Bush. With the mission accomplished, the President and Mrs. Bush relaxed and initiated a lengthy, informal conversation about a number of things with our entire small group. He and the First Lady talked about such things as the rug in the office. It is traditionally designed by the First Lady to make a statement about the President, and Mrs. Bush chose a brilliant yellow sunburst pattern to reflect 'hope.' President Bush talked about the absolute need to believe that with hard work and faith in God there is every reason to start each day in the Oval Office with hope. He and the First Lady were asked about the impact of the Presidency on their marriage and, with an arm casually wrapped around Laura, he said that he thought the place may be hard on weak marriages but that it had the ability to make strong marriages even stronger and that he was blessed with a strong one.
After about 30 or 35 minutes, it was time to go. By then we were all relaxed and I felt as if I had just had an excellent visit with a friend. The President and First Lady made one more pass down the line of awardees, shaking hands and offering congratulations. When the President shook my hand I said, "Thank you Mr. President and God bless you and your family." He was already in motion to the next person in line, but he stopped abruptly turned fully back to me, gave me a piercing look, renewed the vigor of his handshake and said, "Thank you -- and God bless you and yours as well."
On our way out of the office we were to leave by the glass doors on the west side of the office. I was the last person in the exit line. As I shook his hand one final time, President Bush said, "I'll be sure to tell Marc hello and give him your regards."
I then did something that surprised even me. I said to him, "Mr. President, I know you are a busy man and your time is precious. I also know you to be a man of strong faith and I have a favor to ask of you."
As he shook my hand he looked me in the eye and said, "Just name it." I told him that my step-Mom was at that moment in a hospital in Kalispell, Montana , having a tumor removed from her skull and it would mean a great deal to me if he would consider adding her to his prayers that day. He grabbed me by the arm and took me back toward his desk as he said, "So that's it. I could tell that something is weighing heavy on your heart today. I could see it in your eyes.This explains it."
From the top drawer of his desk he retrieved a pen and a note card with his seal on it and asked, "How do you spell her name?" He then jotted a note to her while discussing the importance of family and the strength of prayer. When he handed me the card, he asked about the surgery and the prognosis. I told him we were hoping that it is not a recurrence of an earlier cancer and that, if it is, they can get it all with this surgery.
He said, "If it's okay with you, we'll take care of the prayer right now. Would you pray with me?" I told him yes and he turned to the staff that remained in the office and hand motioned the folks to step back or leave. He said, "Bruce and I would like some private time for a prayer."
As they left he turned back to me and took my hands in his. I was prepared to do a traditional prayer stance -- standing with each other with heads bowed. Instead, he reached for my head with his right hand and pulling gently forward, he placed my head on his shoulder. With his left arm on my mid-back, he pulled me to him in a prayerful embrace.
He started to pray softly. I started to cry. He continued his prayer for Loretta and for God's perfect will to be done. I cried some more. My body shook a bit as I cried and he just held tighter. He closed by asking God's blessing on Loretta and the family during the coming months. I stepped away from our embrace, wiped my eyes, swiped at the tears I'd left on his shoulder, and looked into the eyes of our president. I thanked him as best I could and told him that me and my family would continue praying for him and his.
As I write this account down and reflect upon what it means, I have to tell you that all I really know is that his simple act left me humbled and believing. I so hoped that the man I thought him to be was the man that he is. I know that our nation needs a man such as this in the Oval Office. George W. Bush is the real deal. I've read Internet stories about the President praying with troops in hospitals and other such uplifting accounts. Each time I read them I hoped them to be true and not an Internet perpetuated myth. This one, I know to be true. I was there. He is real. He has a pile of incredible stuff on his plate each day -- and yet he is tuned in so well to the here and now that he 'sensed' something heavy on my heart. He took time out of his life to care, to share, and to seek God's blessing for my family in a simple man-to-man, father-to-father, son-to-son, husband-to-husband, Christian- to-Christian prayerful embrace. He's not what I had hoped he would be. He is, in fact, so very, very much more.
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2)
Author: Dovid Efune
Prime Minister Netanyahu during an interview on Wednesday. (Photo: Screenshot).
Leon Panetta speaks during his last news conference as defense secretary on Feb. 13, 2013. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
2)
Author: Dovid Efune
Prime Minister Netanyahu during an interview on Wednesday. (Photo: Screenshot).
Following the summer’s conflict between Israel and Hamas, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has declared, in a wide-ranging interview with The Algemeiner, that his long held position that the Jewish state will not transfer any territory to the Palestinian Authority in the absence of extensive security arrangements has “only become firmer.”
He also asserted that the possibility that any peace agreement with the PA might unravel is justification for his strong stance on security.
I met Netanyahu last Wednesday evening at an upscale New York City hotel shortly after he reiterated support for “two states for two peoples” in a meeting with President Obama at the White House.
“We don’t just hand over territory, close our eyes and hope for the best,” the prime minister said, in response to my question about whether the creation of a Palestinian state would serve Israel’s interests, considering that a recent Anti-Defamation League poll found that anti-Semitic sentiment in the Palestinian territories is higher than anywhere else in the world.
My conversation with Netanyahu took place only a few hours after the PA submitted a draft resolution to the United Nations Security Council calling for the body to demand an Israeli withdrawal from all territory situated beyond the “Green Line” by November 2016.
Additionally, the Obama Administration had just issued its harshest condemnation yet of Israeli citizens moving into properties in areas of Jerusalem with significant or majority Arab populations and of building plans for the Givat Hamatos neighborhood.
Netanyahu’s comments highlighted just how distant his understanding of what “peace” might look like is from that of President Obama. Prior statements from the president and the administration’s insistence on condemning any Israeli building activities beyond the Green Line indicate a general endorsement of PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s claim to the entire West Bank and eastern Jerusalem. Netanyahu however, sees territory as crucial to security and views past withdrawals from Lebanon and Gaza with immense skepticism.
The prime minister’s stance also strikes a chord with the Israeli public, 55 percent of whom rated as “good” or “very good” his defiant tone at the United Nations and his subsequent robust response to the criticism from the White House.
For Netanyahu, standing up to the US president clearly boosts his political fortunes at home.
***
Netanyahu’s meeting with Obama was the first since Israel’s Operation Protective Edge dominated international headlines throughout a summer during which the US was uncharacteristically among Israel’s harsh critics. In our interview, the prime minister addressed the extreme scrutiny faced by the Israel Defense Forces, saying that the Jewish state’s army is held to a unique standard, “because old traditions die hard, and anti-Semitism is a very old tradition.”
On the issue of global anti-Jewish sentiment, which skyrocketed during the 50-day war, Netanyahu asserted that “there is no future for the Jewish people without the Jewish state.” When I asked if he sometimes feels like the prime minister of the Jewish people as well as the state of Israel, he answered, “of course I feel that way.”
Before departing for the US, Netanyahu had promised to “tell the truth of the citizens of Israel to the whole world,” as a response to “the deceitful speech of the Iranian president and [PA President Mahmoud] Abbas’s inciteful words.” Two days before our interview, he delivered at the United Nations General Assembly a blistering speech on the dangers of militant Islam, highlighting the common beliefs that connect the Islamic State to Iran and Israel’s nearest enemies, Hamas and Hezbollah. In our talk he re-iterated some of the themes from the UN address.
Finding “a more sustainable peace between Israelis and Palestinians” was high on President Obama’s agenda on Wednesday. However, both in his UN talk and in dialogue with the president, Netanyahu seemed to be most concerned with efforts towards “preventing Iran from becoming a military nuclear power.”
The full Algemeiner interview with Prime Minister Netanyahu follows:
Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu at an interview on Wednesday. (Photo: PMO).
Israel's Prime Minister Netanyahu at an interview on Wednesday. (Photo: PMO).
DOVID EFUNE:Recently, I interviewed a soldier who was wounded during Operation Protective Edge. He told me that in battle, he fought on behalf of all Jewish people. When you spoke at the United Nations you addressed global anti-Semitism. Do you sometimes feel like you are the prime minister of the Jewish people as well as Israel?
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: Well, Israel is the state of the Jewish people. There is no future for the Jewish people without the Jewish state and that’s why we have to protect it and defend it, and sometimes at terrible cost. But, of course I feel that way.
It’s not only that our soldiers defend the Jewish state for the Jewish people on the battlefield. We also have to defend it in the battlefield of public opinion, in the great battle for truth. In fact, when I first came to the UN and spoke to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, that’s what he told me. He said, ‘you’re going to a house of darkness.’ He said, ‘light a candle of truth and the light will be seen wide and far,’ and I’ve always tried to follow that, just to speak the truth, unvarnished, and I think that’s what I tried to do the other day at the UN as well.
EFUNE: So when you look around Europe, and it was something you addressed specifically, people shouting ‘Jews to the gas,’ a recent poll in England showing that 63 percent of Jews have considered leaving, similar patterns in France, do you believe that there is a future for Jews in Europe?
NETANYAHU: I think that the future of the Jewish people is intimately tied to the future of the Jewish state, and any Jew who feels that he wants to be in a place where he will be absolutely welcome, has the option and the privilege of going to Israel. This doesn’t mean that any one of us absolves the anti-Semities, and I appreciate in particular the fact that leaders of the European parliaments spoke out very strongly against this modern anti-Semitism, and I think that’s very important. But the Jews should always know they have a home in Israel.
EFUNE: Do you foresee a scenario where most of Europe’s Jews will end up in Israel?
NETANYAHU: I think that they can exercise a privilege that wasn’t available to, in some cases, their parents, in some cases their grandparents, and that is that there is a Jewish state that embraces them and calls them to make aliyah and come home.
EFUNE: Moving on to a different subject, why do you think it is that the IDF is the most scrutinized army in the world?
NETANYAHU: Well, there is a triple standard when it comes to Israel. There is a standard for dictatorships, there is a standard for democracies, and there is still a third standard for the democracy called Israel. Why is that the case? Because old traditions die hard, and anti-Semitism is a very old tradition. And just as the Jews were maligned, scrutinized, and vilified, and people attributed to us these horrible actions that had nothing to do with reality, the same is true now. What was true of the Jewish people is now true unfortunately of the Jewish state.
EFUNE: You have said ISIS is Hamas, Hamas is ISIS. They are branches of the same poisonous tree…
NETANYAHU: …That’s right…
EFUNE: After meeting today with President Obama, do you feel that he shares this view of the world and the challenges that you’re dealing with?
NETANYAHU: Well, I think he understands fully well that Hamas is a terrorist organization committed to Israel’s destruction. The point I made at the UN was that Hamas and ISIS share fanatic methods. It’s true that ISIS beheads people, and Hamas executed dozens of Palestinians in the recent conflict by putting a bullet in their head but you know, for the victims and their families, the horrors are the same.
But they also share a fanatic ideology. Ever increasing enclaves, expanding enclaves of militant Islam, and their goal ultimately is not merely to dominate the Middle East but to dominate the world, and these people are very dangerous. I didn’t say that they’re twins, there are core differences, they’re brothers, or, as I said, branches of the same poisonous tree of militant Islam. I believe that anyone observing the facts understands this.
EFUNE: Today, you reiterated support for two states for two peoples. A recent poll on anti-Semitic attitudes around the world, conducted by the Anti-Defamation League, found that the most anti-Semitic territories on the planet are the Palestinian controlled regions where 93 percent hold anti-Semitic views, not just anti-Israeli. How is a two state solution feasible in that kind of climate?
NETANYAHU: Well you have to have certain things accompanying it, otherwise it can’t come into being. The first thing is that they have to recognize the Jewish state. They can’t ask us to recognize the Palestinian state and not recognize the Jewish state, the nation state of the Jewish people.
EFUNE: That’s tied to the anti-Semitism?
NETANYAHU: First of all, there can’t be peace without it. Secondly, even if we had that — the Palestinian leadership actually gave up the right of return, recognized the right of the Jews to a state of their own — it still may take a long time to percolate, and we have to allow for the fact that it might not percolate. That’s why we need very robust security arrangements both to protect the peace and protect Israel if the peace unravels.
So these are some of the things that have to precede any two states, for two people solution and I’ve been very clear about that. Not only have I been clear, I think that I’ve been borne out by what has happened in Gaza. We don’t just hand over territory, close our eyes and hope for the best. We did that in Lebanon and we got thousands of rockets. We did that in Gaza, we got Hamas and 15,000 rockets. So we’re not gonna just replicate that. We want to see genuine recognition of the Jewish state and rock solid security arrangements on the ground. That’s the position I’ve held, and it’s only become firmer.
The author is the Editor-in-Chief of The Algemeiner and director of the GJCF.
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3) The Insiders: Panetta, Gates and Clinton are trying to tell us something about Obama
Much is being written about the revelations in former secretary of defense and CIA chief Leon Panetta’s new book, “Worthy Fights,” regarding President Obama’s inadequacies and mistakes as commander in chief. The Panetta revelations have provoked a fresh appraisal of similar disclosures from former secretary of defense Bob Gates in his book and the more gentle — but still direct — criticisms of the president found in former secretary of state Hillary Clinton’s book.
Leon Panetta speaks during his last news conference as defense secretary on Feb. 13, 2013. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
None of these individuals are amateurs. They were not manipulated into writing what they did by greedy publishers hoping to sell books. They are not a bunch ofScott McClellans, the now-forgotten White House press secretary under President George W. Bush, who shamed himself by using his so-called memoir to turn on Bush 43. Panetta, Gates and Clinton are not lightweights who are in over their heads, nor do they think they need to reveal secrets to get attention. They are all distinguished leaders who don’t shoot from the hip or have anything to prove. So when they agree on something, whatever they are telling us should be treated seriously. The world should take notice.
The explosive conclusions they all independently report about President Obama should not be seen as acts of disloyalty or selfishness, as The Post’s Dana Milbank suggests in his latest piece, “Leon Panetta, other former Obama subordinates show stunning disloyalty.” What else could have motivated their so-called disloyalty? Maybe we should look at their revelations not as selfish, disloyal acts, but as sincere warnings from patriots. Are they trying to tell others still serving in this administration that President Obama has the wrong instincts and a misguided worldview? Do they think the president needs to be aggressively hounded into doing the right thing to protect America’s interests and not be left to his own devices? Perhaps Panetta, Gates and Clinton are telling those who still serve in government that President Obama’s biases and instincts need to be challenged. The few adults left in the administration should not roll over, and the Republican opposition needs to be constantly vigilant in order to try to shape a more protective American national security posture. Maybe Panetta, Gates and Clinton are putting loyalty to a country at risk ahead of deference to the president who appointed them.
All three knew their disclosures would be flashpoints in the media and that many would find fault in their decision to go public. Gates and Panetta have both held their last government jobs, they don’t need the money and they don’t have an agenda beyond contributing to the historical record. Clinton may have a more tangled mix of motives behind her latest book, but the points she makes are still valid when reinforced by Gates and Panetta.
The bottom line is that all three have made it clear: There are problems within the Obama administration, and they saw those problems up close. As Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal told Milbank, “Secretary Panetta and others are echoing what is obvious from the outside, but it’s more powerful when it’s coming from people on the inside.”
So rather than have a knee-jerk reaction, rush to protect President Obama and see character flaws in three people who have served their country in a variety of capacities, maybe we should listen more closely to what they are telling us. The Obama apologists who are howling that Panetta, Gates and Clinton are just trying to sell books know better.
3a) ISIS Marches to a Massacre
The siege of Kobani shows the holes in Obama’s strategy.
Turkish Kurds sit on the outskirts of Suruc, on the Turkey-Syria border, on Tuesday, as they watch the aftermath of an airstrike in Kobani, Syria. ASSOCIATED PRESS
The siege of Kobani has left hundreds dead and forced some 200,000 to flee, mostly to Turkey. The city’s fall would mean a massacre of civilians and Kurdish fighters—ISIS doesn’t distinguish among “apostates”—that would put Kobani in the same sentence with Srebrenica. So soon after Mr. Obama’s call to arms, it would also be a blow to American prestige and a huge recruiting tool for ISIS. The jihadists would claim they’ve defeated an America unable to stop them.
For three weeks the U.S. has watched while doing little to help undermanned Syrian Kurdish fighters holding out against the terrorist army that is using stolen American weapons. The black flag of ISIS appeared Monday above buildings in an outlying district of Kobani, which before the war had a population of some 50,000.
Global View Columnist Bret Stephens on the Islamic State’s advance to the Turkish border, and the political implications for President Obama. Photo credit: Associated Press.
After the Kurds begged for help, the U.S. on Tuesday escalated air strikes against ISIS artillery positions near Kobani. But the bombing is late and insufficient. ISIS fighters move in small teams and many are dug into urban areas.
The Syrian Kurds are trapped between the President’s refusal to act beyond cursory bombing and neighboring Turkey’s cynical realpolitik. In northern Syria and across the Middle East, the Kurds are secular, mostly Sunni Muslims and staunch friends of America. The U.S. needs to protect and strengthen these allies to defeat Islamist terror and restore order in the region.
As for Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ’s government is letting its distrust of Kurdish intentions cloud its moral and strategic interests. Turkey refuses to let weapons and supplies cross into Kobani to reach the Syrian Kurdish YPG, or People’s Protection Committees. Ankara suspects them of links to the banned Turkish Kurdish terrorist group, the PKK. Though Turkey’s parliament last week voted to support the Obama campaign, its formidable military sits on the border, watching the ISIS onslaught.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said last week that “we do not want Kobani to fall,” and he shouldn’t. With Kobani in ISIS hands, a long chunk of Turkey’s (and thus NATO’s) southern frontier would be in the hands of a fanatical terrorist army. Mr. Davutoglu said this week the Turks were prepared to send ground forces into Syria but first wanted to see “a clear strategy” from President Obama. Join the club.
Speaking on Tuesday at a Syrian refugee camp in southern Turkey, Mr. Erdogan argued that ISIS can’t be defeated by air power alone. “The terror will not be over,” he said, “unless we cooperate for a ground operation.” America’s military brass have made clear they agree.
Mr. Erdogan didn’t offer details about a ground operation but he called for a no-fly zone to ground Bashar Assad ’s planes in Syria, a secure border security zone, and more training and arming of moderate Syrian rebels. These columns have suggested the same for more than three years.
The regional frustration with Washington dates to the beginning of the Syrian uprising in spring 2011. The Turks and pro-American Gulf states turned against Assad’s regime and backed the rebels. The Turks, who have the best army, were reluctant to take the risk to move militarily on their own.
Out of character, Mr. Erdogan even turned the other cheek after Syria shot down a Turkish reconnaissance plane in 2012. But Turkish officials urged America to arm Syria’s rebels and weaken the Assad regime with air strikes and said it would follow the U.S. lead. Washington refused.
In his reversal last month on Iraq and Syria, President Obama ruled out U.S. ground forces and left out the Assad regime from his ISIS plan. As Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham wrote in these pages on Tuesday, the absence of a policy to remove Assad is a “self-defeating contradiction.” Turkey and the Gulf allies think the campaign against ISIS will strengthen their nemesis Assad and his Iranian godfathers. They are right to be worried.
The Turks and friendly Arab are looking for American leadership in Kobani and beyond. The Syrian city needs weapons and fuel supplies, a more intense bombing campaign, and maybe U.S. Special Forces to end the ISIS siege. This early crisis in the Obama campaign exposes flaws in his strategy that will continue to undermine the military effort and the anti-ISIS regional alliance.
No successful war plan is static, and Mr. Obama needs to adjust his now if he wants to stop a massacre in Kobani and the continuing march of ISIS.
Sunday night, the residents of Tehran got a light show when an explosion at a military complex east of the city shook the Iranian capital. According to theNew York Times, an orange flash lit up the city, but officials denied that the incident occurred at Parchin–though how exactly an “ordinary fire” would create such a display was left unsaid. But whatever it was that happened at the place where Iran has been conducting military nuclear research, the incident is a reminder that despite the all-out push for détente with the Islamist regime being conducted by the Obama administration, its nuclear program presents a clear and present danger to the world.
Parchin is famous because it is not just another of Iran’s many nuclear facilities. What makes it special is the fact that the regime has consistently denied inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency access to it. Western and Israeli intelligence agencies as well as the UN monitoring group believe Parchin is where Iran has conducted high-explosive experiments related to nuclear-weapons research. In other words, Parchin is the locus of some of the world’s worst fears about Iran’s nuclear ambitions as well as of its government’s most egregious lies and deceptions of the international community.
Speculation about the cause of the incident is inevitable. Was it American or Israeli sabotage? From 2010 to 2012, there were a number of suspicious incidents at Iranian nuclear facilities, computer viruses aimed at knocking out their infrastructure, as well as assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. But in the last year as the Obama administration shifted away from sanctions and attempts to stop Iran to a campaign of appeasement, we’ve heard very little about any action to forestall their nuclear progress. The explosion could have been a Western covert operation aimed at pressuring the Iranians to be more reasonable in the ongoing nuclear talks or it could be an Israeli effort to knock out Iranian capabilities or to refocus U.S. attention on the threat.
But it could just as easily be another “work accident,” such as many other occurrences that illustrated the dangerous nature of the work being conducted at Parchin.
The truth is we don’t yet know the truth about what happened in Parchin. But the precipitate cause of the explosion is not as important as what the facility represents and why the West should not be blindly assuming that everything Iran says about its program is the truth.
Until UN inspectors have gone over every inch of the place without allowing the Iranians to try to clean up and erase all evidence of their nuclear research, as they have repeatedly tried to do, we simply don’t know how close Tehran is to realizing their nuclear goal. But while the interim deal signed by the West with Iran last year paid lip service to the principle of transparency, the fact that the IAEA still hasn’t gotten into Parchin and is not even negotiating about Tehran’s ballistic missile program and other aspects of the threat undermines confidence in a process that is already based more on Western hopes than Iranian reality.
This is important because the current compromise proposals on the table in the Iran talks seem to be based more on trust than on verification. The idea that Iran could be allowed to keep thousands of centrifuges for producing nuclear fuel for weapons on condition that the pipes were disconnected between them is farcical on its face. But even if we thought that this made a smidgeon of sense (and the idea that such a provision was a serious obstacle to an Iranian nuclear breakout is ludicrous even by the debased standards of Obama administration foreign policy) it would have to be based on a foundation of rigorous and intrusive surprise inspections that the Iranians have never allowed at any crucial site.
Whether Parchin is being sabotaged—a prospect that would renew one’s faith in the smarts of whichever government, be it American or Israeli, that sponsored the attack—or has suffered an accident unrelated to international concerns, the IAEA must be allowed in immediately.
While there is little reason to believe that any nuclear deal would be observed by Tehran, until the inspectors get in there and other facilities, President Obama is doing nothing more than gambling the future of the world on Iranian promises. The Parchin explosion is a reminder of how dangerous such a premise would be.
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4) Jason Riley: The RealClearReligion Interview
"Uncle Jason, why do you talk so white?"
The Wall Street Journal's Jason Riley says this question posed by niece is indicative of the collapse of black culture. In his latest book, Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed, Riley argues that bad public policies have contributed to the breakdown of the black family. Late last month, I spoke to Riley about his faith, black culture, and why blacks don't need another Martin Luther King, Jr.
RealClearReligion: What inspired you to write this book?
Jason Riley: I saw a need for a new generation of blacks to be saying these things about the impact of black culture -- particularly in our inner cities and our ghettos -- on these black outcomes that we're seeing. I'm not breaking any new ground here. There are people like Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, and Walter Williams, and others who have been saying these things for decades. I thought it was necessary for a younger generation to continue saying these things for a younger generation of readers.
RCR: What is your faith background?
JR: I grew up in a very religious household. My parents were divorced when I was very young and I grew up living with my mother, although my father was still a very big part of my upbringing. My mother was born a Baptist and later converted to become a Jehovah's Witness. I was baptized a Jehovah's Witness when I was fifteen or so, but I voluntarily left the faith in my late teens.
It was a pretty strict religious upbringing. We attended services three times a week. It was certainly an experience that shaped my thinking on a number of issues. I grew up in a home where my father didn't live, but I also had a lot of male role models in the church. It was a racially integrated congregation, but it was mostly black. I was exposed to any number of black men who were role models in the sense that they took care of their families, dressed a certain way, spoke a certain way, didn't drink to excess, didn't smoke, didn't curse. That was my idea of what it meant to be a man. I was surrounded by those types, not only within the congregation, but my extended family on my mother's side were all Jehovah's Witnesses.
RCR: Do you think the role models you found in church are missing today?
JR: I don't know that they're missing. I'm not sure that they carry the sway with today's young people that they did with me. But they've been there. The church is still there. It's still a very important institution in the black community. More broadly speaking, you have a family breakdown issue going on. I don't know that the church can compensate entirely for that.
The real problem is the breakdown of the black family. One of the statistics I like to remind people of is that as late as 1960, two out of three black children were raised in two-parent homes. Today, more than 70 percent of black children are not. In some of these ghettos, it runs as high as 80 or 90 percent of black kids living in single-parent homes. I think that has a lot to do with those bad outcomes we see in terms of school completion, in terms of involvement in the criminal justice system, drug use, and teen pregnancy, and so forth. It's the lack of fathers in homes raising boys, teaching them what it means to be men, and teaching them what it means to be black. I think the breakdown of the family has been extremely detrimental to black culture.
RCR: Why aren't black pastors doing more to keep the nuclear family together?
JR: I think they're doing what they can. I think if you visit some of these churches, you're going to find more women than men. I think they're up against a culture that is pulling these young black men in a completely different direction probably more so now than ever. In addition, we have public policies that aren't helping, and in many cases, are harming the situation. When you have a policy like open-ended welfare benefits, it does not encourage a group to develop a work ethic. When you oppose school choice for kids, keeping them stuck in failing schools instead of providing better options for them, you're not helping the situation in the ghetto.
RCR: Why is there an abundance of black religious leaders on the left?
JR: There is a long tradition of black leaders coming out of the church. Martin Luther King, Jr. predates your Jesse Jacksons and Al Sharptons. Traditionally, the ministers were the better-educated people in the black community, and they were natural leaders. I don't have a problem with it per se; I don't care where the leaders come from. I'm not sure that blacks today need another Martin Luther King, Jr. to play the role that someone like King played. I think we're beyond that. I think the problems facing the black community today are going to be addressed at a more local level, community by community. I'm not sure that a premiere black leader has got to step up and take charge in the way that it's happened in the past.
There are a lot of blacks who don't self-identify as conservatives, but when it comes to attitudes towards education, criminality, and culture, I think you'd find little daylight between them and Clarence Thomas. This is an audience that the black leadership largely ignores because that's not where black leaders today want the emphasis. They don't want the emphasis on black responsibility, or black culture, as the main barrier to black progress in America. Their agenda is to keep the focus on whites and white behavior. It's very lucrative for them and it keeps them relevant in the debate.
One of the messages in this book is that blacks ultimately have to help themselves. There may be some residual racism out there, but that is not what is producing the unemployment rates. That is not what is producing the achievement gap in schools. That is not what is producing the black arrest and incarceration rates. Obama and Holder are pretending that "Bull" Connor runs the Ferguson, Missouri police department. You have liberal elites out there pretending as if nothing has changed since the 1950s with regard to race relations. That's simply not the case and I think in a lot of these black congregations, they would agree with me. Blacks have to get their own act together. This is not about pretending that the main barrier blacks face today is white racism.
RCR: What is the disconnect between black church pews and the voting booths?
JR: There are several reasons blacks continue to support the Democratic Party in the numbers that they do. One is black history. Where were conservatives during the Civil Rights Movement? There are a lot of blacks alive today who know the answer to that and remember it. That is going to impact how they vote for their entire lives. Secondly, many blacks don't see a viable alternative to the Democratic Party. They've been convinced that government is good for them and the bigger the government, the better. The left has done a brilliant job of encouraging dependency on government: the Party that gives you things. You have this over-reliance on government in the black community, whether it is in terms of jobs or in terms of handouts.
Republicans don't do much in terms of black outreach. By and large, Republican candidates write off the black vote. I don't ascribe a racial animus to that; I think it's pragmatic politics. Republicans don't think they need black voters to win elections. I don't expect to see more black outreach until Republicans think they need this constituency to win. Right now, you have a huge debate over the Latino vote in Republican circles, but there is no such debate going on in GOP circles about blacks.
RCR: How have race relations fared under Barack Obama?
JR: Some things that are unhelpful would be his sending out Eric Holder to criticize voter ID laws as some Republican racist conspiracy to disenfranchise blacks. Obama has aligned himself with people like Al Sharpton, speaking at Sharpton's annual conference in Harlem. I consider Al Sharpton one of the most racially divisive people in this country. The President's public friendship with this man doesn't help race relations.
The more substantive problem is that Obama has continued to push policies that harm the black underclass such as higher minimum wage laws, which push blacks out of labor markets. He opposed the voucher program in D.C., and tried to end the voucher program in Louisiana.
To his credit, Obama has said some things that need to be said about black culture. He has gone before black audiences and talked about growing up without a father and the bad outcomes associated with that. He has gone to give commencement addresses at black colleges and told male graduates about the importance of being role models in black communities. I like to see him do that and I wish he'd do that more often. Sometimes I wish that's all he would talk about.
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