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MONDAY, AUGUST 23, 2010

HANSON OUTS THE MOSQUE GUY – AT 7:55 P.M. ET:  The Ground Zero mosque controversy can get worse for President Obama.  Victor Davis Hanson reports that the man behind the mosque has a full treasury of quotable quotes, none of them designed to cheer Americans:

Self-described Sufi moderate Imam Rauf may prove to be an Islamic version of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. With Wright, the Left kept insisting that outrage over his racist and anti-American remarks was driven by right-wing racism, and for a while, the narrative worked — hence Obama’s pre-under-the-bus assertion that he “could no more disown Reverend Wright than” etc. But then Wright committed the mortal sin of insulting the elite media right at their embryo, at the D.C. National Press Club.

So too Imam Rauf. He has a vast record of quackery — the latest tidbit is his 2005 contorted assertion that Westerners have more innocent Muslim blood on their hands than does al-Qaeda (e.g., “We tend to forget, in the West, that the United States has more Muslim blood on its hands than al Qaida has on its hands of innocent non-Muslims”), presumably because between 1991 and 2003 America tried to stop Saddam’s aggressions and WMD program through non-violent sanctions...

...Perhaps with two or three more disclosures from Imam Rauf’s corpus of speeches, we will hear a stronger walk-back from the president — something analogous to “The person I saw yesterday is not the person I met 20 years ago.”

COMMENT:  We learned today that this learned buffoon also called for the end to the state of Israel, something that will certainly go down well in New York City. 

The Democrats are becoming desperate to get rid of this issue, which can only hurt them.  As we reported earlier today, Scott Rasmussen has found that three out of four Americans who are not members of the political class oppose the placement of the mosque at Ground Zero.

August 23, 2010     Permalink

DISGRACEFUL CHUCK – AT 7:32 P.M. ET:  Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate Joe Sestak, fortunately in trouble against Pat Toomey, is calling in the little guns.  He will soon be endorsed by a man for whom the word "turncoat" was apparently fashioned:

Pennsylvania Democrat Joe Sestak’s campaign for Senate is getting a much-needed bipartisan boost in a competitive race.

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) will endorse the Democratic nominee at events in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia on Tuesday, according to Sestak’s campaign.

This is hilarious.  This is a "bipartisan boost"?  Hagel is no longer a Republican, refused to back John McCain in the 2008 election, and his wife openly supported Barack Obama.  Hagel declined to run for reelection to the Senate, as it was clear that the Republican Party would not have renominated him anyway.

Sestak faces former Rep. Pat Toomey in November, and recent polls show him lagging behind the Republican nominee. Sestak needs to shore up support from independents and Republicans in order to win the seat currently occupied by the man he defeated in the Democratic primary, Sen. Arlen Specter, a former Republican himself.

The feelings appear to be mutual between Sestak and Hagel. In a forum earlier this month, Sestak called Hagel the “No. 1 guy I’ve met” in the Senate.

“I talk to him probably every couple weeks,” Sestak said on Aug. 3. “I think he is the guy who I most admired in the Senate.”

Hagel is a snake, but this snake may wind up as our next secretary of defense, when Bob Gates leaves.  Endorsing Obama ally Sestak is a logical step toward that end.  Hagel was a constant thorn in the side of President Bush, and contributed nothing to the war on terror.

Sestak is a former Navy vice admiral whose separation from the Navy is widely believed to have occurred under less than glowing circumstances, but the details are being kept secret. 

A few weeks ago Sestak was also endorsed by New York City's increasingly eccentric Mayor Bloomberg, whose latest cause is boosting the mosque at Ground Zero.

With friends like those...

August 23, 2010     Permalink

THE REAL AMERICA VS. THE POLITICAL CLASS:  Scott Rasmussen has done late polling on the Ground Zero mosque dispute.  It reveals a sharp divide, as usual, between common-sense America and the political class:

A lot more voters are paying attention to the plans to build a mosque near the Ground Zero site of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City, and they don’t like the idea.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 85% of U.S. voters say they are now following news stories about the mosque planned near Ground Zero. That’s a 34-point jump from a month ago when only 51% said they were following the story.

The new finding includes 58% who are following the story very closely, up from 22% in mid-July.

Now 62% oppose the building of a mosque near where the World Trade Center stood in LowerManhattan, compared to 54% in the previous survey. Twenty-five percent (25%) favor allowing the mosque to go ahead, and 13% more are not sure.

Sixty-eight percent (68%) of the Political Class, however, favor building the mosque near Ground Zero. Seventy-seven percent (77%) of Mainstream voters are opposed.

COMMENT:  So, take out the political class and we find that three of four mainstream voters oppose the location of the mosque.  Well, I guess they're all 1) bigots, 2) racists, 3) Islamophobes, 4) paid-up members of the Israel lobby; 5) Fox News fanatics; and 6) people who keep secret pin-ups of Sarah Palin.

There are plenty of people in the Washington press corps who'd take that last paragraph seriously.

August 23, 2010      Permalink

LEAVE IT TO THE BRITS – AT 9:09 A.M. ET:  We've said before that some of the sharpest commentary on the Obama administration is coming from British columnists.  And now Toby Harnden of London's Telegraph is giving legs to one of the most intriguing questions making the political rounds:  Will Barack Obama settle for being a one-term president?

Almost everything Obama does these days suggests that he doesn't care much about being re-elected. Strange as it might seem, perhaps he wants to be a one-term president.

Obama was elected in 2008 at an extraordinary moment in American politics. Suddenly, this charismatic figure, elected to the Senate without serious opposition in 2004 and without any executive experience, was catapulted into the White House.

His presidential bid had been based on the power of his life story and his ability with the spoken word. Doubtless he was as surprised as anyone else that he pulled it off. Governing has been altogether more difficult for him and there are signs he is already tiring of it.

There were signs as soon as he finished the cake at the inaugural ball.  All this deciding business, and this stuff about protecting the country.  A golfer and world traveler could get bored.

Doubtless he has been advised to prove he is "connected" to ordinary Americans by doing things like being seen attending church and taking "regular" holidays. But Obama seems happy to act as a European-style secularist, vacation in Martha's Vineyard and send his daughters to one of America's most exclusive private schools.

Obama does not suffer for self doubt. He has long seemed so convinced of his own virtue that to question his motives is illogical. Increasingly, his pronouncements carry the tone of one who believes those who disagree are stupid or bigoted.

Yeah, we've noticed. 

For Obama, the crowning moments of his presidency have been speeches abroad - the statement in Strasbourg that America had been "dismissive and arrogant", the address to the Muslim world from Cairo, the acceptance in Oslo of the Nobel Peace Prize.

In Berlin in 2008, Obama cast himself as a "citizen of the world". He has dismissed the bedrock notion of American exceptionalism by describing it, also in Strasbourg, as little more than narrow patriotism. Elite opinion among liberal Ivy League types - of which Obama is the embodiment - holds that we are already living in a post-American world.

Translated:  A Ronald Reagan he ain't.

Obama is the first black American president, an established author, multi-millionaire and acclaimed figure beyond American shores.

It seems highly unlikely that Obama will decide not to run in 2012. But he might well be calculating that embarking on a post-presidential role as the leading global thinker in the post-American world, as a Republican successor enters office, is more attractive than being sullied by the political compromises and manoeuvrings necessary to win.

COMMENT:  Well said.  Obama may decide not to run because 1) he doesn't like the job; 2) he may feel he'll lose, and he doesn't want to be tossed out; 3) the White House kitchen wasn't up to expectation; or 4) he believes he's accomplished all that he ever will as president, and doesn't want to run downhill.

His not running can, in certain respects, be more dangerous than his seeking a second term.  If he doesn't have to present himself to the people again, he can go wild in his fourth year in office and do very damaging things, especially in foreign policy, where there is very little congressional check.

August 23, 2010      Permalink

FOLLOWING THE SCRIPT – AT 8:31 A.M. ET:  This was bound to happen.  How we react will be the story.  From The Wall Street Journal:

Islamic radicals are seizing on protests against a planned Islamic community center near Manhattan's Ground Zero and anti-Muslim rhetoric elsewhere as a propaganda opportunity and are stepping up anti-U.S. chatter and threats on their websites.

One jihadist site vowed to conduct suicide bombings in Florida to avenge a threatened Koran burning, while others predicted an increase in terrorist recruits as a result of such actions.

"By Allah, the wars are heated and you Americans are the ones who…enflamed it," says one such posting. "By Allah you will be the first to taste its flames."

White House homeland security adviser John Brennan told reporters Friday that he had seen no evidence that the debate over the proposed Islamic center in Lower Manhattan, other mosque protests or the planned Koran burning had affected U.S. counterterrorism efforts.

COMMENT:  We may not be at war with Islam, but part of Islam is definitely at war with us.  Readers will undoubtedly recall the Danish cartoon mess, when the publication in Denmark of cartoons deemed offensive by some Muslims resulted in rioting around the world, and some deaths.  The religion of peace has odd ways of showing it.

Don't be shocked if there are some unseemly incidents at American embassies in Muslim countries because of the Ground Zero mosque debate in the United States.  And how should we react?  Firmly and courageously.  We have freedom of speech in America, and we have the right to debate issues.  We will not have that freedom controlled by threats, foreign or domestic.

I'd love to see how some of the pro-mosque liberals react if we're threatened abroad because of our domestic debate.  These liberals recently discovered freedom of religion, something they hadn't noticed before, and I'd hope they'd stand with us in defending freedom of speech.  However, many of them were "educated" in universities that have adopted that most un-American of thought-control techniques, speech codes, which codify what students can or cannot say, the better to avoid "offending" this group or that. 

The mosque controversy may well become a good test of our freedom of speech traditions, and whether they've been compromised.  I have faith in the American people.  I don't think they'll back down in the face of threats.  But don't expect too much backbone from the Ivy League.

August 23, 2010      Permalink

THIS TIME OF YEAR – AT 8:08 A.M. ET:  We always know when it's the last two weeks of August.  The journalism gets even sloppier than normal, and we read articles that we're sure we've read before.  We have. 

A lot of old stuff gets reworked during this period, as reporters and editors take time off or slow down, anticipating the election-year madness ahead.  Audiences are also smaller, although in some cases, like CNN or The New York Times, audiences have been smaller for so long that it's hard to notice just one more dive.  In the case of MSNBC, who cares about a decline from eight viewers to seven.  Maybe the guy went for a snack.

What I've noticed, though, is that the internet hasn't slowed down.  I think that has a great deal to do with the fact that bloggers are never really on vacation, are in closer contact with their readers than are the mainstream boys, and are part of a new, growing industry, where enthusiasm is greater.  Having been in older, fading industries, like Hollywood and book publishing, I've seen the difference.  I've never read any political blogger say that the highlight of his or her day is lunch.  In Hollywood, lunch is like going to Mecca, as long as you can get there in a Mercedes. 

I think the internet is driving the mosque story, and keeping mainstream up to date on other issues that don't take a holiday in late August – like the burgeoning Iranian military program.  One of the qualities of the internet is that it is always there, and it is relentless.  It is 12-month, 24/7 journalism.  Some of it is good, some of it definitely isn't.  But it is changing journalism.  On balance, I think it's a change for the better. 

August 23, 2010     Permalink

SUNDAY, AUGUST 22, 2010

HEY, MORE GOOD NEWS...NOT – AT 6:55 P.M. ET:  We can't say we weren't warned.  Sane experts on the Mideast have warned for years that if Iran's nuclear program progressed, other countries in the region would want one too.  Now the proof:

Sudan plans to build a nuclear reactor for peaceful purposes by 2020, the SUNA state news agency said Sunday.

Sudan has noted economic and political ties with Iran, which has been facing increasing sanctions and international pressure over its nuclear program. Like Iran, Sudan is under US sanctions, and has been since 1997.

Notice how effective these "sanctions" actually are.  Sudan is genocidal, and is going right ahead with its own program.

The International Criminal Court charged Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir with three counts of genocide in Darfur last month, marking the first time the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal has issued genocide charges.

The International Atomic Energy Agency is planning to travel to Sudan on August 23 to discuss importing a nuclear reactor for "research purposes." SUNA said Sudan began plans to develop a nuclear program early this year.

COMMENT:  Impoverished, genocidal, its president under international charge for mass murder.  Why, why shouldn't they have a nuclear program?  Aren't all cultures equal?  Don't they have rights?

Our failure with Iran, which is playing out every day, is going to have grave consequences down the line.

August 22, 2010      Permalink

QUOTE OF THE DAY – AT 10:36 A.M. ET:  Andy McCarthy does some of the best work on exposing radical Islam.  He's been there.  A former federal prosector, he prosecuted the perpetrators of the first World Trade Center bombing, in 1993.  Today he asks, "Which Islam Will Prevail in America?"  Consider this:

Most of the mosques and Islamic centers in our country are controlled, to a greater or lesser degree, by the Muslim Brotherhood and its satellites. The North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) was established in the early Seventies to buy up property for the establishment of American mosques and “Islamic centers,” the latter being what the Brotherhood calls “the axis” of the Islamist movement in America. The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) supplies literature and vets imams. Both NAIT and ISNA, along with CAIR and other Brotherhood groups, were identified by the Justice Department as unindicted coconspirators in the recent Hamas-financing prosecution against the Holy Land Foundation. These Islamists owe their vision to the Brotherhood. Just as important, they owe their livelihood, influence, and power to moneyed Middle East patrons, particularly the Saudis. 

Oh dear, how politically incorrect.  We must not say things like that.  It could upset people, and that's why they attack us.

In fact, America has been remarkably generous toward Islam, despite some extraordinarily disturbing things that are taught in mosques in the United States. 

The Kingdom and the Brotherhood have combined for a half-century to put American Muslim communities in a stranglehold. They proselytize a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam — an amalgam of Saudi Wahhabism and Brotherhood Salafism — that is virulently anti-Western. Its instruction to Muslims in the United States, Canada, and Europe is voluntary apartheid: Immigrate but don’t integrate, infiltrate but don’t assimilate.

We were able to ask questions, present challenges, and even take legal action when it became clear that there were rogue priests inside the Catholic Church who were engaged in child molestation.  Religious freedom has survived in the United States, and the overwhelming majority of American Catholics have supported the right to ask questions and seek justice. 

Somehow, though, in some circles, it is considered "culturally offensive" to question anything that goes on in Islam.  We usually get something like, "Who are we to question another culture?"  We're thoughtful, informed citizens, that's who we are.  And we will continue to question, and to be informed by writers like Andy McCarthy.

August 22, 2010      Permalink

PROGRESS IN WASHINGTON STATE – AT 9:57 A.M. ET:  There's a hot Senate race in Washington state, pitting incumbent Patty Murray against GOP challenger Dino Rossi.  First poll is out:

The first KING 5 Senate poll for the 2010 general election shows Republican Dino Rossi is actually ahead of Democratic incumbent Patty Murray, 52% to 45%.

In most polls leading up to this week’s primary election and on primary night, Murray was in the lead. Primary election results placed Murray 13 points ahead of Rossi, but Rossi splitting the Republican vote with Clint Didier who got 12%, and Paul Akers, with 3%.

The new K5 poll of 618 likely voters, conducted by SurveyUSA, is the first look at a Murray-Rossi matchup in November. It suggests that even without an official endorsement from Didier, many of Didier’s supporters would choose Rossi over Murray. Akers has endorsed Rossi, but Didier is withholding his endorsement at this time.

"The race may tighten, which is what we might expect, but I do think that we can say going in as this first poll shows, is that this is not a layup for re-election and that there’s a real fight here," said Jay Leve, Editor of SurveyUSA.

COMMENT:  This is a must-win for Republicans if they want to have any chance of taking over the Senate, which is a statistical long shot.  Unity is the key for the GOP in Washington state.  There is still some dissension involving the demands of Tea Partiers.  Smart politicians should hold a meeting of the various factions in someone's basement, preferably one with a pistol range.

August 22, 2010      Permalink

IRANIAN PEACEFUL DEVELOPMENT NEWS – AT 9:44 A.M. ET:  One day after firing up a Russian-built nuclear reactor, Iran gives us more evidence of its peaceful intent:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Sunday inaugurated the country's first domestically built unmanned bomber aircraft, calling it an ''ambassador of death'' to Iran's enemies.

The 4-meter-long drone aircraft can carry up to four cruise missiles and will have a range of 620 miles (1,000 kilometers), according to a state TV report -- not far enough to reach archenemy Israel.

''The jet, as well as being an ambassador of death for the enemies of humanity, has a main message of peace and friendship,'' said Ahmadinejad at the inauguration ceremony, which fell on the country's national day for its defense industries.

Well, of course, all ambassadors of death bring messages of peace and friendship.

The goal of the aircraft, named Karrar or striker, is to ''keep the enemy paralyzed in its bases,'' he said, adding that the aircraft is for deterrence and defensive purposes.

The president championed the country's military self-sufficiency program, and said it will continue ''until the enemies of humanity lose hope of ever attacking the Iranian nation.''

News of this development undoubtedly came to President Obama on his sixth vacation of the year, and Martha's Vineyard.

August 22, 2010     Permalink