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FEBRUARY 20,  2011

BAD VIBES FROM CAIRO – AT 10:37 P.M. ET:  Oh, do you remember the revolution in Egypt?  That was the one a few weeks ago, before Wisconsin.  Remember all the smiling Western reporters dancing in the streets over the "people's" revolution?  You know that reporters will be enthusiastic when the guy being overthrown is an American ally.  Take that, Yanks!

And now the details are emerging.  CBS reporter Lara Logan is beaten and raped by a mob of "the people."  A Pew poll shows that "the people" might just go for a gang of Iranian-style Islamic mullahs.  And a slick-talking fundamentalist preacher makes a triumphant return to Egypt, just like the Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran in 1979.  (It's not the same thing as MacArthur returning to the Philippines, believe me.)  Legal Insurrection, a great blog run by a sane Cornell law professor named William A. Jacobson, laments what we are now seeing: 

The television screens were filled with stories of relatively western figures such as Google employee Wael Ghonim, who became the face of the new Egypt -- educated, professional, and desirous of freedom as we know it.

Now that Mubarek is gone, the western media mostly has moved on to the next revolution, secure in the perception that Egypt is moving in the right direction.

But that is a false comfort. As I posted yesterday, over a million Egyptians turned out in Tahrir Square last Friday to cheer the vile anti-Semitic Sunni cleric Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who had been exiled by Mubarek, and who espouses the fundamentalist Islamic view that Jews must live as Dhimmis under Islamic control. Instead of accurately reporting the significance of this event, The New York Times whitewashed the cleric as someone who supports a "a pluralistic, multiparty, civil democracy."

And...

Where was the western hero Ghonim?

He tried to take the microphone to speak to the crowd, presumably to preach his western values, but he was kept off the stage by Sheik al-Qaradawi's security.

But you probably haven't heard that, because it was not widely reported, except by AFP:

Google executive Wael Ghonim, who emerged as a leading voice in Egypt's uprising, was barred from the stage in Tahrir Square on Friday by security guards, an AFP photographer said. Ghonim tried to take the stage in Tahrir, the epicentre of anti-regime protests that toppled President Hosni Mubarak, but men who appeared to be guarding influential Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi barred him from doing so.

Ghonim, who was angered by the episode, then left the square with his face hidden by an Egyptian flag.

This is the problem with those, like Roger Cohen in The New York Times, who glorify the "Arab Street." Ghonim was not the face of the "Arab Street," he merely was a face to which western media could relate.

Will the western media be as vigorous in exposing what is going on now in Egypt as it was in exposing the wrongs of Mubarek? I think not, because the truth -- that the western media acted as willing dupes once again -- hits too close to home.

COMMENT:  That is exactly right.  Once again, some reporters are becoming Lenin's useful idiots.  Add to Roger Cohen that most useful idiot of them all, The New York Times's Nicholas Kristof, who feels the pulse of the Egyptian people inside his Rhodes Scholar head, and who is scheduled to hear the pulse of some other people once he uses his frequent-flyer miles and checks into a new hotel. 

Fasten your seat belts, as Bette once said, it's going to be a bumpy two years.

February 20, 2011       Permalink

WILL CHRISTIE JUMP IN? – AT 9:40 P.M. ET:  No governor has gotten more press in recent months than Chris Christie, the, uh, heavily set Republican governor of New Jersey.  He has become something of a folk hero, leading to the inevitable questions about a presidential run.  Christie has said no, but we see a bit of an opening.  From The Politico:

One of Chris Christie's top political advisers revealed that he is considering formation of a federal political action committee because of the extraordinary interest in the New Jersey governor.

Bill Palatucci, often described as Christie's "political godfather," said that not forming such a fundraising committee would be "leaving money on the table."

In other words, the pols see a chance to seize the moment.

Palatucci, Christie's former law partner, made the remarks even as he tried throwing cold water on the notion that the governor — who's gotten acclaim from national Republicans — is taking steps designed toward a presidential run.

"If reporters would look for a second below the surface, they'd see I've never been to Iowa," Palatucci said, adding that another adviser, Mike DuHaime, "has not been to New Hampshire. There have been no lawyers hired to advise or investigate a presidential run."

But on the possibility of forming a federal committee, the newspaper quoted Palatucci as saying: 'I might frankly contemplate that. There's so much interest out there; it's leaving money on the table by not having one."

COMMENT:  This doesn't come as a complete surprise, but it's a long way from here to there.   Christie has become famous for taking on special interests in New Jersey.  You have to cheer the guy and his guts.  However, he's a relatively new governor, with no foreign-policy experience, and his confrontational manner, effective at the local level, might not click when the office sought is the presidency.  We still have months to observe him before a decision about 2012 is called for.  And observe we should. 

By the way, Christie's sheer physical size is not a joke, although we can hear the late-night jokes already.  If he runs, his medical condition will be an issue, whether it's fair or not.  I am not a physician – we have many physicians among our readership – and I don't know how an honest evaluation of his physical situation can be made.  Comments are welcome. 

February 20, 2011        Permalink

FROM THE FRONT IN WISCONSIN – AT 10:31 A.M. ET:  "A note from your doctor" takes on an entirely new meaning in the state that gave us, we say with thanks, the Green Pay Packers.  From Fox:

As thousands of protesters on both sides of an epic budget standoff in Wisconsin faced off Saturday at the Capitol, alleged doctors were handing out "fake" sick notes to protesters -- allowing them to call in sick while the budget impasse continues.

Protesters told Fox News they obtained the notes from alleged doctors standing on street corners handing them out to whomever asked. The protesters said doctors did not examine or inquire about their current health condition before passing the notes out.

In other words, don't ask, don't tell.  Wasn't the progressive left against something like that?

One note obtained by Fox News asked for the recipient's full name, birth date and estimated dates that they would be missing work. A request for identification to receive the document appeared only optional.

On the note, the doctor's name linked back to the University of Wisconsin Family Medical Program, although the doctor was only one of many distributing the paperwork.

I am rushing to Wisconsin.  I want a note saying that I am pregnant with triplets.  I've always wanted to be the center of conversation.

Stay tuned for more news from the front.

February 20, 2011      Permalink

SCHOLARS AT WORK – AT 10:11 A.M. ET:  There are many fine people at Columbia University in New York, but there are some who aren't so fine.  This story will enrage you, but it is typical of what goes on at some of our houses of learning.  From the New York Post:

Columbia University students heckled a war hero during a town-hall meeting on whether ROTC should be allowed back on campus.

"Racist!" some students yelled at Anthony Maschek, a Columbia freshman and former Army staff sergeant awarded the Purple Heart after being shot 11 times in a firefight in northern Iraq in February 2008. Others hissed and booed the veteran.

The cry of "racist" is the standard left-wing merchandise.  No matter who you are, or what you stand for, you're a racist if they don't like you. 

Maschek, 28, had bravely stepped up to the mike Tuesday at the meeting to issue an impassioned challenge to fellow students on their perceptions of the military.

"It doesn't matter how you feel about the war. It doesn't matter how you feel about fighting," said Maschek. "There are bad men out there plotting to kill you."

Several students laughed and jeered the Idaho native, a 10th Mountain Division infantryman who spent two years at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington recovering from grievous wounds.

Imagine laughing at a man who was in a wheelchair from wounds suffered in the service of his country.  I wonder how many Columbia "scholars" will express outrage.  I'm not holding my breath.

The party line in the Ivy League, of which Columbia is a part, is that ROTC has been kept out because of the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward gays.  Now that the policy has been reversed, we have a moral right to expect that ROTC would be welcomed back.  Not in your life.  The left will simply come up with more excuses, wallowing in its traditional deception and dishonesty.

As I said, there are also fine people at Columbia:

A group of 34 faculty colleagues, including historian Kenneth Jackson and former Bloomberg adviser Esther Fuchs, plan to announce their support of ROTC tomorrow.

Two very solid, traditional faculty members.  Jackson is a military historian.

We hope this New York Post story will result in some Columbia alumni heating up the lines to the office of President Lee Bollinger, and demanding that he apologize, on behalf of the university, for the treatment of war hero Maschek.

Columbia was, during World War II, a great center for the training of naval officers.  Read "The Caine Mutiny," by Columbia graduate Herman Wouk.

February 20, 2011     Permalink

MASSACRE – Things are getting obscene in Libya.  This is the country whose regime the Obamans whitewashed when they came to office.  Our relations were upgraded, the commercial contracts are flowing.  From WaPo:

CAIRO -- Libyan forces fired machine-guns at mourners marching in a funeral for anti-government protesters in the eastern city of Benghazi Sunday, a day after commandos and foreign mercenaries loyal to longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi pummeled demonstrators with assault rifles and other heavy weaponry.

A doctor at one city hospital said his morgue had received at least 200 dead from six days of unrest.

The doctor said his hospital, one of two in Libya's second-largest city, is out of supplies and cannot treat more than 70 wounded in similar attacks on mourners Saturday and other clashes.

The other sound you hear, when the machine guns die down, is the sound of silence on the part of "progressives," too busy in Wisconsin to notice the massacres going on in the Mideast. 

And, of course, notice the silence of the European "human rights" protesters. 

But the left, being the left, will go back to its usual posturing once the massacres are over, as if nothing had happened.  Did the Cambodian genocide stop them?  No.  Did 9-11 change them?  No. 

And the Obama administration?  Do you recall a time, other than the administration of Jimmah Carter, when America seemed so pathetic, so weak, so lacking in influence? 

Sometimes I wish we had a parliamentary system, where a government can be brought down by a vote of "no confidence."  We'd have a good shot with Barack Hussein Obama.

February 20, 2011     Permalink

FEBRUARY 19,  2011

WORRIES IN THE GREAT PUMPER – AT 7:30 P.M. ET:  I was wondering when the media would get around to this.  Saudi Arabia is the Mideast's great pumper, the big enchilada, the name above the title.  And it's all because of the oil in the ground under the royal palace. 

I can't think of any other reason, can you?  I mean, we don't rush to our theaters to see Saudi movies.  Their new one,  "The Imam of Oz," did only so-so business.

But the Saudis are starting to shake over the revolts all around them.  And a shakin' Saudi is a thing to behold.  Given prices at the pump, we might take notice.  From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — As pro-democracy uprisings spread across the Middle East, the rulers of Saudi Arabia — the region’s great bulwark of religious and political conservatism — are feeling increasingly isolated and concerned that the United States may no longer be a reliable backer, officials and diplomats say.

Saudi Arabia is far less vulnerable to democracy movements than other countries in the region, thanks to its vast oil wealth, its powerful religious establishment and the popularity of its king.

But the country’s rulers were shaken by the forced departure of the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak, a close and valued ally. They are anxiously monitoring the continuing protests in neighboring Bahrain and in Yemen, with which Saudi Arabia shares a porous 1,100-mile border. Those concerns come on top of long-festering worries about the situation in Iraq, where the toppling of Saddam Hussein has empowered Iran, Saudi Arabia’s great rival and nemesis.

And...

The Saudis tend to see any threat to the established order in the region as a gain for their nemesis Iran, and its allies Syria and Hezbollah. They have grown increasingly worried that the Obama administration is drifting away from this perspective and supporting movements for change whose outcome cannot be guaranteed. Those worries were heightened by the crisis in Egypt, where the Saudis felt that Mr. Mubarak should have been allowed to stay on and make a more “dignified” exit, Saudi officials say.

King Abdullah had at least two phone conversations with President Obama to convey his concerns in the weeks before Mr. Mubarak’s ouster, and the last conversation ended in sharp disagreement, according to officials familiar with the calls.

I have no brief for the Saudis, their regime, or their historic support for Islamic extremism, but they're learning the hard way that Barack Obama has no friends, just temporary helpers.  There's a big bus parked outside the White House, fueled with Saudi petroleum, and old King Abdullah might soon find himself under it.  Your Majesty, meet Reverend Wright.  He's the guy under the rear axle.

the Saudis are closely watching American diplomatic gestures toward Bahrain. Any wavering of American support for Bahrain’s Sunni monarchy, analysts say, would provoke a deep sense of betrayal, and could create an unprecedented rift in a partnership with the United States that has been a pillar of Saudi policy since 1945.

“Saudi Arabia has always had a fear of encirclement, whether with Communism or with Iranian influence,” said Rachel Bronson, an expert on Saudi Arabia at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. “Bahrain to me is the tipping point for when this becomes really unsettling.”

Stand by for betrayal.

February 19, 2011     Permalink

DOWN THE SAME TRAGIC PATH – AT 12:17 P.M. ET:  What is it about journalism?  Why is it that some of its "leading" practitioners never learn?  They make the same mistake over and over.  Or is it a mistake? 

When the Ayatollah Khomeini returned to Iran in 1979, after the fall of the Shah, many journalists went crazy.  You'd the Beatles had landed in Tehran.   He was wonderful, he was the savior.  Andrew Young, who'd been Carter's UN ambassador, called him "a saint." 

And then the truth started coming out.  The saint was an ignorant fascist wallowing in the tenth century.  He created the Islamic Republic of Iran, which shoots its own citizens in the streets.

The New York Times today runs a laudatory piece about another religious hottie who, in following the script, has just made a triumphant return to Egypt to address the masses.

Oh, and what kind of a noble chap is he!  Hear him speak about democracy!  Hear him speak about multiculturalism!  Why, why, the man is the very model of a modern moderate mullah.

At least that's what the article implies:

CAIRO — Sheik Yusuf al-Qaradawi, an influential Sunni cleric who is banned from the United States and Britain for supporting violence against Israel and American forces in Iraq, delivered his first public sermon here in 50 years on Friday, emerging as a powerful voice in the struggle to shape what kind of Egyptian state emerges from the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.

And...

On Friday, he struck themes of democracy and pluralism, long hallmarks of his writing and preaching. He began his sermon by saying that he was discarding the customary opening “Oh Muslims,” in favor of “Oh Muslims and Copts,” referring to Egypt’s Coptic Christian minority. He praised Muslims and Christians for standing together in Egypt’s revolution and even lauded the Coptic Christian “martyrs” who once fought the Romans and Byzantines. “I invite you to bow down in prayer together,” he said.

And...

As the uprising here intensified in recent weeks, Sheik Qaradawi had used his platform to urge Egyptians to rise up against Mr. Mubarak. His son, Abdul-Rahman Yusuf al-Qaradawi, is an Egyptian poet who supported the revolution, and, though Sheik Qaradawi is considered a religious traditionalist, three of his daughters hold doctoral degrees, including one in nuclear physics.

Scholars who have studied his work say Sheik Qaradawi has long argued that Islamic law supports the idea of a pluralistic, multiparty, civil democracy.

COMMENT:  In fairness, the reporter does refer to some of this chap's shadier views, but the clear impression is that, on balance, he's an okay guy.  Set up the beers!

But this is the same man who publicly weighed the benefits and shortcomings of beating wives.  And he is the same man who expressed public, clear approval of Hitler's destruction of the Jews. 

You may be sure that certain journalists will now rush to embrace this guy, who will be pictured as the "moderate" voice of the Muslim Brotherhood.  His horrible views will be ignored or simply downplayed.  ("Ancient history," Jimmah Carter will probably say, as he said about the Hamas charter.) 

There is a teaching in Islam about the importance and acceptability of deception in advancing the cause.  Modern dictators, Hitler included, have known how to speak to different audiences.   Islamic extremists are learning the techniques.  The question is whether journalists will be sharp enough, or even interested enough, to expose the men behind the words.

February 19, 2011       Permalink

KEEPING PROMISES – AT 10:43 A.M. ET:  It may only be a symbolic gesture, as Obama's veto pen is out and filled with ink, but Republicans in the House last night cut $60-billion from the federal budget. 

In a rare early morning weekend vote, the House approved an aggressive plan Saturday to eliminate dozens of federal programs and offices while slashing agency budgets by as much as 40 percent, drawing out more than $60 billion in deficit savings.

Setting up a showdown early next month with President Obama and Senate Democrats, House Republicans pushed the legislation through after a marathon debate capped off by an all-night session Friday that spilled into Saturday morning. During the bleary-eyed final roll call at 4:35 a.m., 235 Republicans were joined by no Democrats in support of dramatic spending reductions that they said were needed to address a soaring annual deficit of $1.6 trillion; 189 Democrats -- as well as three Republicans -- opposed it, accusing Republicans of writing the bill with a "double meat ax."

The three Republicans voting against the measure were Reps. Jeff Flake (Ariz.), Walter Jones (N.C.) and John Campbell (Calif.).

Already this morning some reporters at CNN were spinning the action as a great threat to the Republic.  Apparently, we will all now starve, suffocate from bad air and die of strange diseases.

This is a first step in keeping the GOP promise to curtail the recklessness of federal spending.  Dems control the Senate, and they'll never go along.  Neither, as noted, will the liberal president. 

But there will be cuts.  They'll have to be negotiated in conference committees, but this budget, as submitted by the president, will not stand. 

I'm surprised Jeff Flake of Arizona voted against the GOP cuts.  He wants to run for the Senate from his state, and this will not help him with the party base.

February 19, 2011      Permalink

THE MIDEAST STILL BURNING – AT 10:26 A.M. ET:  While "progressives" in the United States and Europe show a marked indifference, the Mideast is in flames.  Most stunning, perhaps, are the revolts in Libya:

CAIRO – Libyan special forces stormed a two-day-old protest encampment in the country's second largest city, clearing the area early Saturday, said witnesses, as a human rights group estimated 84 people have died in the harsh crackdown on days of demonstrations.

Internet was also cut around 2 a.m. removing one of the few ways of Libyans can get out information about the waves of anti-government protests in one of the most isolated and repressive nations in North Africa.

Contrast please the silence of the elites with their deep anguish and pain over the inappropriate humiliation of some Iraq prisoners in an American military prison in Iraq.  No one died, no one was even badly injured, but that outraged the delicate political palate of the effete left.  The hypocrisy is sickening.

Thousands of protesters are calling for the removal Moammar Gadhafi, Libya's leader for the past 42 years, mainly in the cities of the country's impoverished east. Their demonstrations have been brutally suppressed with a combination of armed militias and elite forces.

Oh, by the way, one of Gadhafi's African pals over the years has been Nelson Mandela.  (You remember him, the "great moral voice of Nelson Mandela," don't you?)  Now, Mandela has been a great man in some respects, and one must respect his years of imprisonment at the hands of the apartheid South African regime.  But his devotion to human rights is, at best, spotty, and his anti-Americanism is sickening.  Another worthy to watch is Desmond Tutu ("the great moral voice of Desmond Tutu"), the hypocritical Nobel peace laureate who seems a bit silent these days as people are gunned down in the streets of the Mideast.  Tutu spends much of his time bashing Israel.  Maybe he's just too exhausted to denounce the Arab dictators.

The beat goes on:

Protesters in Bahrain fought past riot policemen who sprayed them with tear gas and shot at them with rubber bullets Saturday, retaking a central square and leading the country’s crown prince to say he had ordered the army out of the area. The announcement set off a wave of jubilation among the thousands of protesters in Pearl Square, the heart of the country’s uprising, and added new pressures for shaken governments in Libya, Algeria and Yemen as they made new moves to stifle protests.

And...

In Yemen, about 1,000 protesters demanding the ouster of President Saleh gathered for another day in Sana, the capital, squaring off against pro-government demonstrators, who held posters of Mr. Saleh The pro-government group moved closer, and the two sides began hurling bottles, shoes and rocks at each other, even as some antigovernment protesters called out, “Be peaceful!”

The pro-government demonstrators fell back, but then a larger group returned, firing automatic weapons, at first into the air, and then at the antigovernment marchers. One man fell into the street and was carried away by other demonstrators, his chest covered in blood.

COMMENT:  Yemen is headquarters to what some American observers consider the most dangerous of the Al Qaeda franchises.  The government is often described by the mushy voices in the State Department as our "ally" in the war on terror.  Yeah, right.

February 19, 2011      Permalink