Soccer Dad

Calame calamity

We're a little late on this as it came out nearly three weeks ago but the NY Times "public editor" explained why it was OK for the Times to distort the news from the Middle East

While fairness can’t be determined solely by the numbers of pictures in a situation like this, there is one statistic worth keeping in mind: the death toll. Nearly 1,150 Lebanese died, most of them civilians. This is more than seven times as many as the roughly 150 Israelis, mostly soldiers, who died, according to The Times’s latest estimates. (One factor, of course, was that Israel’s population apparently had more access to shelters that offered greater protection from Hezbollah’s bombs.)

After panning the column, Mediacrity zeroed in on Calame's offensive conclusion

A final thought on morality. Some supporters of Israel, who contend that Hezbollah wants to destroy that country and invaded to trigger the latest fighting, have asserted that morality should be considered by The Times in deciding what pictures to publish. But I can’t accept their questioning — on the basis of the goals and motives they attribute to Hezbollah — of the validity of a photograph that could arouse sympathy for the Lebanese. The obligation of The Times is to provide a fair and accurate perspective on the fighting and its impact in both pictures and words — presenting both the good and evil that armed conflict can bring.

To which Mediacrity responded succinctly

Terrorists and victims, in other words, are two peas in a pod. Morally equivalent.

A few days ago, The Volokh Conspiracy.David Bernstein. About Calame's rations Bernstein writes

What an odd way to justify the "fairness" of media coverage! For one thing, it suggests that the Times' coverage of the Iraq war has been grossly unfair to the Iraqis, or, if you prefer, the Iraqi "resistance."

For that matter, consider the "unfairness" of the Times' coverage of 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan. We certainly got more pictures of "American suffering" because of 9/11 than of suffering in Afghanistan because of NATO military action.

Sure, the Times is an American paper, and thus gives the U.S. a "home field advantage," but that just raises the question of why Israel, a close American ally, fighting Hizbollah, a sworn American enemy, doesn't get at least a less extreme version of the same sort of advantage.

Similarly you could take the tack that Netanyahu took a few weeks ago when responding to a hostile commentator.

Or one could turn to William Arkin's excellent (if imperfect) entries on comparing Israel to its enemies

But the fact that one can drive a short distance from Dresden-like south Beirut and return to modern life itself should signal that this is something very different: Israeli bombers did not fly over Beirut and unleash loads of bombs. Each individual building was the quarry; the intent was there, and the technology existed, to spare the rest.

or his other analysis in which he states plainly

The problem is the massacre itself. We have grown exaggerated in describing war. The words "massacre," "genocide" and "war crimes" flow too freely.

I didn’t see any massacres, period. I didn’t see any wholesale killing of civilians. There was no genocide.

Calame judges Israel because that's what he wants to do. It's not an issue of balance. One who simply counts isn't being balanced.

Technorati tags: Media Bias, Byron Calame.

2 questions & 2 simple answers

A) What country founded in the first half of the 20th century:
1) took territory from its neighbor
2) expelled thousands of refugees, stealing their wealth and denying them compensation
3) and two years ago was building a fence along the disputed and unrecognized border with that neighbor to keep terrorists out?

The answer is, of course, Saudi Arabia, that at its founding conquered the province of Najran and one other province from Yemen. The Jews living in those provinces were escorted to the border with none of their wealth. The conquest of those territories was codified in a treaty signed by the two countries, but the border area was still not settled. Earlier this decade, against the protests of the Yemeni government Saudi Arabia started building a security fence between the two countries to keep terrorists out. Eventually the two countries did come to an agreement and the Saudis stopped building their fence.

But hasn't stopped Saudi Arabia from building a second fence, this time on its border with Iraq as a number of bloggers have noted.

B) When, in 2000, a leader of one religious group asserted his religion's right to the temple mount and provocatively took up near the most sacred shrine of another religion how many people of the second religion engaged in violent rioting against the perceived violation of their shrine?

The answer is none. No Jews engaged in violent protests in the summer of 2000 when the Mufti Sheikh Ikrima Sabri moved his office to opposite the Kotel Ha-katan, seemingly as a demonstration of his contempt for Jewish historical claims to the Temple Mount area.

Again this came to mind when Arutz-7 and a number of bloggers commented that a Jew was removed from the Kotel Hakatan plaza for blowing a shofar there on Rosh Hashannah.

BTW, if you think you know all the answers, here's a fascinating post that also gives a nice swift kick to the conventional wisdom.

Technorati tags: Israel, Saudi Arabia, Mufti.

Are you cirrus?

No just a couple of cumuli.

Technorati tags: Photography, Clouds, Weather.

Watchers of weasels 9/27/06

Council nominations are in, voting is taking place. Here are the entries for the other members of the watcher's council.

AbbaGav explains that it's not actually Holocaust denial that President Ahmadinejad suffers from but Holocaust envy. And of course there's an irony to that

The irony in the Iranian President's competing positions is almost too much to bear. He simultaneously claims there wasn't a Holocaust -- not that there's anything wrong with Jewish Holocausts, mind you -- and that he'd also like the chance at pulling off one of those Holocaust things himself, if the world would kindly just stand back and give him the chance.

Done with Mirrors in Ouch follows up on the story of his contractor friend, Kat who seems to survive just fine without all the protection that NY Times reporters require in Iraq.

Gods, it looks like I could have hired somebody to carry my gun, as I see it. I never realized that could be done. I guess it doesn't matter, since I'm still here. Apparently the terrorists were frightened by my steely black eyes and 5ft tall, 89lb muscular body. They must have known when the saw us that "hell is coming with me." (giggles to self)

The Education Wonks report that the teacher who burned flags in class won't be facing criminal charges, but wonder

Given the time and place where Holden pulled his stunt, it's quite possible that he might just lose his job over this one.

Gates of Vienna considers humor as an appropriate tonic for what ails the world, and makes a serious observation about Pope Benedict's chosen coat of arms

Benedict XVI’s coat of arms has an image of a miter instead of the usual papal tiara, much to the disgust of traditional heraldists. And he also has a picture of a Moor (a Muslim), whose identity is in question. If icons are your bag — they fascinate me — Wikipedia has a wonderfully detailed description of Benedict’s choices for his coat of arms.

The Glittering Eye considers the big picture of the war on terror and what larger consequences terror could have on the global economy

Globalization and proselytization take place on different tracks. Globalization is not a law of physics or some sort of irresistible historical movement. Globalization proceeds as a series of economic decisions. People in Bangalore aren’t manning help desks and customer support lines for U. S. companies because those companies want the people in India to be happier or more enlightened or more prosperous or because of a law of physics or historic inevitability. They do so because it makes economic sense and they’ll stop when it stops making economic sense. That can happen in the flash of an eye.

Joshua Pundit presents his own Middle East Peace Plan. Among other things it would require a level (painful) candor that has been missing from "peace" proposals until now as his would require PM Olmert to say

Jerusalem is the ancient capitol of Israel. It is the single most holy site of our religion, and the spiritual center of our nation and our people. Dividing it would be the equivalent of asking you to divide Mecca with non-Muslims. Yet, for the first 20 years of Israel's rebirth, we were faced with exactly that situation. After 1948, Jews were ethnically cleansed from East Jerusalem, old and historic synagogues were desecrated and destroyed and Jews were forbidden to access their holiest sites.

Rhymes with Right takes issue with the NY Times objection to demanding ID's in order to vote

I'm the local election judge. I run the polling places here in my precinct. I remembeer when folks could walk in with virtually anything to vote -- and remember one guy who had to check the name on the phone bill before signing the voter registry. I remember how much better things got after Texas tightened it voter identification requirements. Now I 'll concede that I think the current bill before Congress is problematic -- because of its potential for establishing a national ID card and database -- but I think that meeting the same requirement for voting that is required to buy groceries witha check at Krogers four blocks away is not an unreasonable step.

Right Wing Nuthouse considers a number of possible October Surprises but concludes (hopefully)

The only “Surprise” we’re likely to see in October is a further erosion of the gigantic lead built up by Democrats over the summer as the American people realize the party has nothing to offer except deranged Bush hatred. And while they may despise Bush as much as the Democrats, they would prefer to vote for somebody or something rather than mindlessly oppose the President based on the prognostications of people who have yet to be right about predicting anything.

Shrinkwrapped considers ex-President Clinton's response to Chris Wallace a Missed Opportunity

Bill Clinton could have taken a stance that the weight of responsibility now rests on George Bush's shoulders and that even if we disagree with his policies, we need to support our President in time of crisis. He could even have defused the moment by pointing out that he knows how difficult it is to perform the duties of the Presidency when under unrelenting political attack. Toning down the rhetoric would have been a wonderful service that this ex-President could have performed. Instead he leaves us wondering if he was even more culpable than we thought.

Socratic Rhythm Method looks at the Stifling of dissent when it comes to a pharmacist's freedom to choose

A federal judge has decided not to dismiss Illinois pharmacists' civil rights lawsuit against Gov. Rod Blagojevich. A new state law requiring pharmacists who object to birth control to quit being so icky around normal people has been sort of hamfistedly enforced by the Gov: he got himself emergency powers to enforce the law before its born-on date, and used them to make Illinois pharmacies hang posters proclaiming that "no one should stand between a woman and her doctor," for one example. You may wonder whether Illinois also now requires doctors who object to birth control to write the prescriptions in the first place; Illinois would prefer you don't ask.

The Sundries Shack wonders if the West's weakness in confronting Islamism is No Commitment

We have forgotten how to finish the jobs we start, whether we voluntarily started them or not. That is the source of our fear. Hollywood, the MSM, a goodly number of our politicians, none of them can look Islam directly in the eyes because they know, deep in their hearts, that Islam has the will to fight for what it wants and they simply do not. They lost that about the time they, in a marijuana-addled counterculture haze decided that fighting for our high morals was no longer somthing we should actually do but something we could talk about and still reap rewards. They decided that they could simply reward themselves for talking tough about freedom and liberty and peace without actually having to commit to them. They then turned the word “commitment” itself into a jingoistic slogan trotted out to fool the rubes. They replaced courage and conviction with cynicism and “cool” mockery of the very things we need to remain free.

Please check out the many wonderful non-council nominations this week too. This week's most blogged about issue is the Pope's speech and the reaction to it.

Bloggers: Like what you see? Do you wish to participate? Follow the instructions here to get your post added to the non-council nominations next week.

Technorati tag:Watcher's Council

In absentia

I got the phone call last night from Governor Ehrlich. Ehrlich is sending out pre-recorded phone calls recommending that supporters vote by absentee ballot to ensure that their votes are tabulated accurately. It is a clear vote of no-confidence in the new voting machines.

Perhaps the Governor's been reading Instapundit

On the hardware front, I think that it's important that the hardware not only be secure, but also that it be secure in an understandable way. A system using biometrics and fancy encryption -- even it it's truly secure -- is a "black box" to most voters. They can't understand its workings, and must thus take the word of, well, somebody. That's not trust-inspiring, meaning that even if the underlying system actually is trustworthy, it won't be trusted as it should.

It's for this reason that I've previously recommended paper ballots -- they're pretty secure, especially compared to electronic voting machines, and their workings are easily understandable. Paper ballots aren't the only way to achieve this end, but they're certainly a good one, and any alternative method needs to share these characteristics.

Governor Ehrlich's call for the liberal use of absentee ballots has struck some as hypocritical, after all he vetoed a bill calling for the extension of absentee voting last year. (Of course those calling him a hypocrite overrode the veto and are now telling us to rely on the electronic voting machines. Hypocrisy can cut both ways.)

Faced with intense opposition to his proposal to switch from electronic voting machines to paper ballots, Maryland Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) yesterday urged voters to stay away from polling places during the November general election and instead cast paper absentee ballots.

Ehrlich's suggestions -- which he made through a senior administration official -- came after last week's primary, when voters experienced widespread problems at the polls.

"It's the most rational solution to the primary election dysfunction," said Joseph M. Getty, Ehrlich's policy director.

The plan was denounced by some Democrats who said it was another attempt by the governor, who is up for reelection, to boost his candidacy by suppressing voter turnout and sowing doubts about the state's electronic voting system.

And they said it was highly hypocritical, given that Ehrlich vetoed a bill last year that would allow voters to cast absentee ballots without giving a reason for doing so, saying it was "an invitation for greater voter fraud in the state."

But if you read the text of the Governor's veto message you can see

While I believe that “no-excuse” absentee voting may be an appropriate election technique in Maryland, it should only be implemented after a thorough study and with full support of Maryland's election leaders. Please be assured that the Administration is committed to instilling public confidence in elections and ensuring that all Marylanders have the opportunity to cast a ballot and have their ballot counted. To this end, I will appoint a commission to examine and evaluate the election law bills passed this session and make recommendations concerning our State's election process. I am confident such a commission will develop policies and procedures assuring that fair and accurate elections take place within the State.

Ehrlich isn't unconditionally opposed to expanding the use of absentee ballots, he just felt that the General Assembly's plan didn't have enough safeguards built in to be implemented properly. His advocacy of more liberal usage of absentee voting speaks to his lack of confidence in the electronic machines. Clearly in this case he views it as the lesser of two evils.

And while there's been a lot blame going around, Blair Lee cuts through the muck and tells us what was responsible for the election snafus in Maryland two weeks ago.

Smooth elections depend on experienced help using familiar technology and familiar procedures. That didn’t happen on Sept. 12. Instead, the people who planned the event, the feds and the state, kept changing their minds, kept missing deadlines and kept springing surprises on the locals.

For instance, the new federal Help America Vote Act required states to have statewide voter registration lists and uniform voting machines in place by 2006. So Maryland elected (no pun intended) to go with hi-tech Diebold AccuVote — TS touch screen machines previously used at some polling places in 2004.

But the statewide voter registration technology was brand new in 2006, untested anywhere in the nation. These electronic e-poll books list every registered voter and keep a real time record of who’s voted. They replaced those boxes of paper registration cards used to check-in voters in the past. But the e-poll books require special assemblage (wires must be connected in specific order, etc.) and special training, which never happened. In many counties, the e-poll books weren’t delivered until five days before Election Day. In other cases, training was haphazard or beyond older workers’ comprehension.

So Governor Ehrlich thinks it best to resort to the one voting system that's tried and true: absentee ballots.

Technorati tags: Bob Ehrlich, 2006 Election, Maryland Politics, Absentee Ballots.

Is the pope jewish?

Caption for this picture.

Demonstrators burn an Israeli flag during a protest against Pope Benedict's remarks on Islam after Friday prayers in Tehran September 22, 2006. Some 300 people chanted 'Death to America' and 'Death to Israel' as they burned U.S., British and Israeli flags, witnesses said. REUTERS/Caren Firouz (IRAN)

Why would that be?

The daily Jomhuri Islami said Israel and the United States -- the Islamic republic's two arch-enemies -- could have dictated the comments to distract attention from the resistance of the Shiite militant group Hezbollah to Israel's offensive on Lebanon.

Now I understand.

Accepting a flawed premise

David Ignatius talks about the Big question the Democrats are ducking regarding the National Intelligence Estimate.

Here's a reality check for the Democrats: There is not a single government in the Middle East, with the possible exceptions of Iran and Syria, that favors a rapid U.S. pullout from Iraq. Why? The consensus in the region is that a retreat now would have disastrous consequences for America and its allies. Yet withdrawal is the Iraq strategy you hear from most congressional Democrats, whether they call it "strategic redeployment" or something else.

The problem is that Ignatius's premise is that the information in the NIE says exactly what the NY Times reported that it meant. Well as Robert Kagan pointed out yesterday

It's too bad we won't get to see the full National Intelligence Estimate on "Trends in Global Terrorism" selectively leaked to The Post and the New York Times last week. The Times headline read "Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat." But there were no quotations from the NIE itself, so all we have are journalists' characterizations of anonymous comments by government officials, whose motives and reliability we can't judge, about intelligence assessments whose logic and argument, as well as factual basis, we have no way of knowing or gauging. Based on the press coverage alone, the NIE's judgment seems both impressionistic and imprecise. On such an important topic, it would be nice to have answers to a few questions.

While I give Ignatius a little credit for being more serious about Iraq than most Democrats, he is too credulous of the Times's (and Post's) reporting about the NIE. As Kagan observed

For instance, what specifically does it mean to say that the Iraq war has worsened the "terrorism threat"? Presumably, the NIE's authors would admit that this is speculation rather than a statement of fact, since the facts suggest otherwise. Before the Iraq war, the United States suffered a series of terrorist attacks: the bombing and destruction of two American embassies in East Africa in 1998, the terrorist attack on the USS Cole in 2000, and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Since the Iraq war started, there have not been any successful terrorist attacks against the United States. That doesn't mean the threat has diminished because of the Iraq war, but it does place the burden of proof on those who argue that it has increased.

And Jack Kelly has argued

One can believe (as I do) that Iraq "has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism" without believing the Iraq war has been, on balance, a liability in the war on terror. Those foreign jihadists who go to Iraq, survive and return home pose a greater threat than they otherwise would have. But Iraq also has been the graveyard of thousands of jihadists, among them some of al Qaida's best.

And the "overall threat of terrorist attacks" likely would have grown after Sept. 11 even if there had been no war in Iraq; arguably more so, because the jihadists engaged in Baghdad and Ramadi could not simultaneously be in New York or Chicago.

Attacking our enemies does tend to make them angrier. But they were angry enough to start with, and failing to respond to their attacks can have worse consequences than defeating them in battle.

It is an article of faith among Democrats and the MSM that the war in Iraq was a mistake. While it's pretty clear that mistakes were made in the execution of the war it doesn't mean that the war was wrong.

It also doesn't mean that every criticism of the war is correct.

But for most Democrats the war is an issue and that means accepting every criticism at face value because it damages the Republicans politically.

Had Ignatius been more careful in what he accepted of the reporting of the NIE he would have been on more solid ground in criticizing the Democrats. His lack of skepticism costs him a lot in terms of credibility.

Technorati tags: National Intelligence Estimate, Iraq, War on Terror.

Dogging steele

Michael Steele's "I love puppies" ad has inspired a Democratic response and laid the groundwork for a response by the candidate.

The Washington Times reports Democrats snarl at Steele in TV ad but he bites back

The ad by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) says Mr. Steele "likes puppies, but he loves President Bush," showing a picture of Mr. Steele and Mr. Bush in a heart-shaped frame.
...
The DSCC ad features playful music to criticize Mr. Steele for supporting the war in Iraq, backing the president's veto of embryonic stem-cell research and opposing abortion.

It is a good ad, keeping the tongue in cheek spirit of Steele's ad, yet hitting back hard. However Steele's objection to abortion and embryonic stem cell research isn't due to his support of President Bush, but due to his Catholic faith. Though potential voters don't have to know that.(The ad is not yet up at the DSCC website.)

It's telling that it's the national Democratic party that is running these ads and that they've committed to running six weeks of ads, not just two as originally planned.

There have been two competing polls recently. One (Surveys USA) showing Steele with a one point advantage (and within the margin of error) and the other (Potomac) showing Cardin with a significant 11 point lead. Though the latter poll used a larger sample of likely voters, I wonder if internal Democratic polls are getting results more similar to the former.

However, Steele was ready for the ad with another puppy ad.

In his response ad, Mr. Steele says, "You knew they were coming, nasty ads from the Washington crowd." He says that one of the "real differences" between himself and Mr. Cardin is that he supports "cheaper medicine from Canada."
"Congressman Cardin took money from drug companies and voted against cheaper medicine," Mr. Steele says.

I wish this wasn't the first issue that Steele was running on, as I'm not certain that it's a good idea. (But then Cardin who claims to take on the big drug companies also claims that he'll cure cancer in 15 years; I don't know how he can accomplish that without encouraging the pharmaceutical industry.) Still Steele seems to strike the right note.

Steele comes accross as personable with a sense of humor. Clearly he's hoping that his engaging personality will win over people who don't necessarily agree with him on the issues.

UPDATE: The Hedgehog Report wasn't as impressed with this ad.

Technorati tags: Michael Steele,Ben Cardin, Maryland Politics.

Triple-a carousel

Growing up, I thought that relationships between major league teams and their farm teams were pretty set. Of course that was because the Orioles and Rochester Red Wings had a long term relationship. (The name Red Wings should have clued me that these things weren't written in stone; they were once a farm team of the St. Louis Cardinals.)

Four years ago I heard that the Orioles were losing their relationship with Rochester. Rochester was tired of getting no and little talent teams from the parent club and opted to a development deal with the Minnesota Twins, a team that actually had a player development plan.

Left out by the lapse of their deal with Rochester, the Orioles were forced to a player development deal with the Ottawa Lynx. Not an ideal location. (I'd guess that the two least desirable locations for a AAA team were Ottawa and Edmonton.)

So I was happy when I heard on the news this morning that the Orioles had reached a player development deal with Norfolk. Norfolk (formerly called Tidewater) had been the Mets' AAA team for 34 years. Frankly I was amazed. Now the AAA team won't be so far away.

Though this article was written before the deal was finalized it gives a reason why Norfolk was no longer interested in working with the Mets

The Tides chose to put a 38-year relationship with the Mets on hold at the conclusion of this past season, citing a series of communication breakdowns on the Mets’ part.

From what's been written the Orioles haven't exactly been an easy team to do business with recently. So I'm wondering if this is the main reason or just a pretext. There was a positive reason for Norfolk to affiliate with the Orioles though

Over the summer, Tides owner Young formed a new ownership group that purchased three minor-league teams in Maryland, all with affiliations to the Orioles. The three teams – the Delmarva Shorebirds, Frederick Keys and Bowie Baysox – were all owned previously, by an arm group of Comcast SportsNet. Comcast, which can be seen locally on Cox Communications, broadcasts Orioles games.

And I have to wonder if perhaps Norfolk maybe had positive experiences with Jim Duquette who had been in the Mets front office and is now with the Orioles.

But the Orioles moving their AAA team to Norfolk is one of several moves going on. In a move to bring its AAA team closer to the major league team the Yankees have allowed their player development contract with Columbus to lapse after 28 years.

It is believed that Yankees general manager Brian Cashman wants his triple-A team closer to New York. Scranton, Pa., approximately 120 miles west of New York City, is available since the Philadelphia Phillies allowed their contract to lapse. The team currently known as the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barrons will play in Allentown in 2008, and Philadelphia is rumored to be planning to play its top minor-league team in Ottawa for the 2007 season.

It is not known whether or not the team will keep the nickname Red Barons, but a poll is against keeping the name.

And the early results show that this was an excellent business decision.

Yes, the news Thursday that the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Red Barons had signed a two-year affiliation agreement with New York set off a torrent of emotions innumerable times greater than the relative disinterest in Columbus when the Yankees decided last week to end their 28-year partnership with the Clippers.

How big a deal is it in northeast Pennsylvania?

The Red Barons sold more than 47,000 tickets on Thursday and the phones rang nonstop Friday. The staff’s e-mail boxes were stuffed, too, and the team suggested fans go to the stadium to get order forms.

A Red Barons official said it is conceivable they could sell out every game this season in 11,000-seat Lackawanna County Stadium in Moosic, Pa.

That’s despite a 52 percent increase in the cost of a season ticket to $648 from $425 (a Clippers season ticket cost $395 in 2006, but the Red Barons have free parking).

The Red Barons sold 2,075 season tickets this year when they averaged 5,533 as a Philadelphia farm team compared with 7,519 for the Clippers.

Meanwhile someone wanted Ottawa for a farm team. The Phillies. But they plan to move the team to Allentown.

That leaves the Mets and Nationals without affiliates.

Well maybe not. The Nationals have concluded a deal with the Clippers (who will keep their nickname) for a 2 year player development contract. Columbus does not want a longer contract (according to reports standard player development contracts run 2 or 4 years) so after the 2008 season it would have the possibility of snagging the Reds' or Indians' farm teams. (The interest in a AAA affiliate of one of the Ohio teams is likely to be extremely popular. I'd guess that the Pirates could also be a good candidate; before the Yankees the Clippers had been a Pirates' affiliate for two years.)

That means that it appears that the Mets will end up with the New Orleans Zephyrs.

Wow. Things are really changing.

UPDATE: This made it to Ballbug. (That's Memeorandum for baseball.) Thanks to Maryland Conservatarian's kind mention and check out his memories of Norfolk's old stadium.

I hadn't seen this before, but it has excellent background information on the Orioles deal with Norfolk, and mentions clustering that's becoming popular among baseball farm systems.

A commenter at Baseball Crank asked about the value of minor league franchises may be interested in this article about the sale of 3 of the Orioles Maryland based farm teams to Ken Young the owner of the Norfolk Tides.

Philadelphia-based Comcast-Spectacor, the sports and entertainment arm of cable giant Comcast, is in final negotiations to sell the Baysox to Ken Young, owner of the Norfolk Tides, according to two sources close to the deal. Comcast and Young are waiting on the approval of major and minor league baseball officials before the deal can be announced.
...
The (Norfolk) Virginian-Pilot reported earlier this month that Young is close to completing a deal for the three teams.

The sales price is thought to be close to the $29 million fee Comcast-Spectacor paid for the three teams in 2000, according to a source familiar with the deal.

The pending sale comes 17 months after Comcast-Spectacor's deal to sell controlling interest in the teams to a Massachusetts investment group fell through.

Minor League Baseball has been a hot market for new owners in recent years, driven by the low operating costs -- player salaries are tiny compared with their major league counterparts -- and rising attendance nationwide. The league, comprising 176 teams, has set attendance records in each of the last three seasons.

Technorati tags: AAA Baseball, Baltimore Orioles, Norfolk Tides.

Media myopia

In When the Camera Lies Richard Cohen uses a now famous picture of 9/11 to discusss the CNN effect.

The complaints of the people in the photo struck me as similar to what I heard from Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, twice in the past week. Both at a briefing in Washington and a dinner in New York, she mentioned how stunned she and her colleagues in the Israeli cabinet had been at how fast world opinion turned on Israel after it recently invaded Lebanon. At first the world understood that Israel's borders had been violated, three soldiers killed and two more kidnapped. Everyone agreed: Retaliation was in order.

A day later, Israel did just that. It began a bombing campaign designed to cripple the Lebanese infrastructure -- bridges, roads, the Beirut airport -- so that Hezbollah could not be rearmed. At the same time, it hit residential areas of Beirut where Hezbollah ran the show, supposedly targeting the leadership but inevitably killing civilians, including children. It was these pictures that horrified world opinion. For some reason, Israel expected that the accidental killing of children would be seen in context. But there is no context for the death of a child. The eye does not permit it -- never mind what the mind knows.

But that's not the whole story. When NATO bombed Serbia there was plenty of collateral damage. But since Miolosevic and the Serbs were the bad guys there was little concern for their losses. As Cohen does, the media doesn't give a full accounting of the evil of Hezbollah. If the world understood Hezbollah as a terror organization devoted to the destruction of Israel, there'd be a lot less sympathy for the collateral damage caused by Israel. If Israel was portrayed as striking back against an organization that had been violating the international border for six years despite having no cause for those violations (Israel withdrew from southern Lebanon in 2000). But the media's not interested in the big picture. It's interested in romanticizing terrorists and questioning democracies. The reaction to Israel's invasion of Lebanon is a function of that kind of media perversity.

Technorati tags: Richard Cohen, CNN Effect, Israel.

Unhinged or calculated

I was surprised when I saw last week that President Clinton was set to appear on Fox News Sunday for an exclusive one on one interview. With Fox's reputation as a right wing mouthpiece in some circles, it made no sense that Clinton would agree to appear on that network.

It made no sense until I saw the transcript of the interview.

CLINTON: OK, let's talk about it. Now, I will answer all those things on the merits, but first I want to talk about the context in which this arises.

I'm being asked this on the Fox network. ABC just had a right- wing conservative run in their little "Pathway to 9/11," falsely claiming it was based on the 9/11 Commission report, with three things asserted against me directly contradicted by the 9/11 Commission report.

And I think it's very interesting that all the conservative Republicans, who now say I didn't do enough, claimed that I was too obsessed with bin Laden. All of President Bush's neo-cons thought I was too obsessed with bin Laden. They had no meetings on bin Laden for nine months after I left office. All the right-wingers who now say I didn't do enough said I did too much -- same people.

They were all trying to get me to withdraw from Somalia in 1993 the next day after we were involved in "Black Hawk down," and I refused to do it and stayed six months and had an orderly transfer to the United Nations.

OK, now let's look at all the criticisms: Black Hawk down, Somalia. There is not a living soul in the world who thought that Osama bin Laden had anything to do with Black Hawk down or was paying any attention to it or even knew Al Qaida was a growing concern in October of '93.

This was not a response to Chris Wallace's question. It was a premeditated attack on Wallace's integrity - accusing him of partisanship - and the integrity of his network. (Not to mention an attack on ABC too.) It was a Clinton attempt at innoculating himself against charges that he didn't take the terrorist threat seriously enough as president and, as standard bearer of the Democratic Party, to pin the lack of success in fighting terror on President Bush. (As if on cue reports on the National Intelligence Estimate that allegedly claims that the Iraq war has increased the terrorist threat appeared Sunday.)

Nor am I alone in viewing Clintion's attack on Wallace as premeditated.

JoshuaPundit gives the short version

. . . nothing this our ex-president does is by accident. This screed by Clinton was designed to counteract the very real perception by many Americans that the Democratic party is `weak on Islamic terrorism' and energize the base in the run up to the November midterms.

William Kristol sums it up nicely with a few more details.

In this interview, Clinton rallied Democrats. He reminded them of their talking points on Bush's alleged passivity in his first eight months in office (remember Richard Clarke!), and on the alleged distraction posed by Iraq from the more worthwhile war in Afghanistan. He nicely laid the predicate for the leaked portions of the National Intelligence Estimate that appeared in the press the next day. If the Bush-Rove war-on-terror offensive stalls out this week (and much of the media is committed to making this happen), and Democrats do well in November, Bill Clinton can take credit, at a crucial moment, for discrediting the terror issue as a mere political ploy, and showing Democrats how "to fight back" and how "to stand up to the right-wing propaganda machine" (in the words of Howard Dean).

Though Right Wing Nuthouse discusses the goal of Clinton's diatribe, he sees it as a sign of the ex-President's character

Indeed, whether the show has a political impact is beside the point; it certainly angered the ex-President who seemed eager to tee off on the bemused Wallace. The Fox reporter sat in his seat dumbfounded as the former most powerful man in the world wagged a beefy finger in his face and accused him of a “conservative hit job,” a remarkable accusation given that Wallace had only asked one question about Bin Laden. Coupled with the off the wall suggestion that Fox was only doing the interview with him to assuage the supposed anger of their viewership who might be upset by Rupert Murdochs support of his climate initiative, and you have a portrait of someone so self-obsessed that one can only shake their head in disbelief that someone that enthralled with himself could ever have achieved high office.

John Dickerson had similar thoughts

Bill Clinton wasn't sandbagged, because he is a smart politician. He just spent several weeks fighting ABC over its interpretation of his administration's hunt for Bin Laden. He knew the question was coming and he took advantage of it. Forty-three days before the election, he has provided a moment to rally party activists and attack the GOP at the heart of its perceived strength on handling terrorism.

He also offers a comprehensive list of objectives that Clinton likely achieved.

InstaPundit has a nice roundup of reactions including why ex-President might not want to bring up Richard Clarke. He even sees the Clinton's reaction as backfiring. I don't know. I don't see it changing anyone's mind. Those of us who think that Clinton blew it won't be convinced otherwise; and those who think that the war in Iraq was a mistake and that Bush has mismanaged every aspect of the war on terror will look approvingly on Clinton's outburst. It was for the latter group that Clinton was performing. (BTW, if there had been a President Dole from 1997-2001, I don't things would have been much different. No one in the foreign policy establishment understood the growing terror threat prior to 9/11.)

UPDATE: Austin Bay disagrees. Other opinions here and here. Q and O almost buys the calculating Clinton, but then points to Dick Morris saying that what Chris Wallace and viewers saw, was the real Clinton.

Technorati tags: Bill Clinton, Iraq, War on Terror, Chris Wallace.

Residue of persecution

A few years ago the Jerusalem Post had an article about Tony Fossas the Major League pitcher. Fossas born in Cuba, and in the later years of his career, had come to Israel to help start a baseball clinic. While in Israel, Fossas went to the Diaspora Museum and did a search. It turned out the his mother's family name was the name of a prominent Jewish family in Spain at the time of the inquisition. He questioned some relatives and discovered that his grandmother would secretly light candles on Friday night.

At the time of the article Fossas said that he was going to investigate his apparent Jewish heritage. He had apparently been in contact with a Rabbi at that point. How much more he investigated, I have no idea.

But the Judaism of his family was hidden for 500 years due to persecution.

Now once again we're hearing of someone in the public eye discovering that he's Jewish. Last week it was Senator George Allen of Virginia.

The revelation about Allen made The Volokh Conspiracy.David Bernstein wonder

This makes me wonder about how many Americans there are who have at least one Jewish grandparent, but who aren't Jewish, and about how many of these Jewish parents or grandparents hid their origins from their families, as did Albright's parents, John Kerry's grandparents, and perhaps Allen's mom.

In the case of Allen's mother it appears that it was a combination of fear of persecution and fear of acceptance. Albright's father apparently hid his origins due to fear of persecution. (Of all the people who've turned out to have Jewish roots, I've the least sympathetic of Albright. When I first read of her father's escape from Czechoslovakia, I thought that he was Jewish. I find it beyond belief that the possibility never seemed to cross her mind.) And in the case of Kerry's grandfather, it appears that he hid his Jewish roots in order to get ahead.

Allen's revelation has led to Charles Krauthammer's observation, or law. (also here.)

Krauthammer's Law: Everyone is Jewish until proven otherwise. I've had a fairly good run with this one. First, it turns out that John Kerry -- windsurfing, French-speaking, Beacon Hill aristocrat -- had two Jewish grandparents. Then Hillary Clinton -- methodical Methodist -- unearths a Jewish stepgrandfather in time for her run as New York senator.

A less jaunty case was that of Madeleine Albright, three of whose Czech grandparents had perished in the Holocaust and who most improbably contended that she had no idea they were Jewish. To which we can add the leading French presidential contender (Nicolas Sarkozy), a former supreme allied commander of NATO (Wesley Clark) and Russia's leading anti-Semite (Vladimir Zhirinovsky). One must have a sense of humor about these things. Even Fidel Castro claims he is from a family of Marranos.

In fishing for an explanation of this phenomenon, Krauthammer finds a good and a not so good reason ...

There are 13 million Jews in the world, one-fifth of 1 percent of the world's population. Yet 20 percent of Nobel Prize winners are Jewish, a staggering hundredfold surplus of renown and genius. This is similarly true for a myriad of other "everyones" -- the household names in music, literature, mathematics, physics, finance, industry, design, comedy, film and, as the doors opened, even politics.

But it is not just Jewish excellence at work here. There is a dark side to these past centuries of Jewish emancipation and achievement -- an unrelenting history of persecution. The result is the other more somber and poignant reason for the Jewishness of public figures being discovered late and with surprise: concealment.

Though I prefer to be positive, I tend toward the latter, darker explanation.

But it's hardly a new phenomenon. In the wake of the revelations about Madeleine Albright's origins Barbara Kessel wrote a book, Suddenly Jewish about a number of prominent people who discovered mid-life that they were Jewish or had Jewish roots.

I guess that when You're in Love the whole world's Jewish. That show featured entertainment's most famous non-Jewish Jew, Valerie Harper.

Technorati tags: Judaism, Suddenly Jewish.

Crossposted at Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Eying little countries with good intent

Gene Simmons honored a soldier injured in combat by making a video tribute.

Steve Tyler of Aerosmith dedicated a performance of Dream On in honor of kidnapped soldier Ehud Goldwasser.

Let's give some credit to Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull too, Hotshot with a flute. (h/t Saba Yeshayah.)

Reminded of his last performance in Israel almost exactly two years ago, Ian Anderson chuckles and says, "Quite right. I don't suppose you've had many foreign visitors lately."

The flute-playing mastermind behind platinum-selling rock band Jethro Tull, Anderson has been a regular in Israel even during some of the country's most difficult years, adding an extra show to a tour stop here barely two months after the outbreak of the second intifada. He returned again in the late summer of 2004.

So he didn't stay away from Israel. But here's something else that impressed me.

How does your tour work from a logistical standpoint? When do you have time to rehearse with each new orchestra in each city?
It takes about six hours of rehearsal to prepare for a two-hour show. In Israel, we'll only have time the day before the concert to rehearse because of the Sabbath, so we'll have to have another two hours before show time. I don't particularly enjoy that - it's like doing two full concerts in the same day - but that's the case here.

The orchestra receives the music ahead of time, and hopefully the musicians will have sneaked a peek at it. On some occasions, however, the orchestra doesn't see the music till [its members] sit down in the chair, which can create some additional problems in the sense that the musicians haven't had the chance to look at the music and figure out certain passages that could be a bit tricky.

Though he complains about the restriction Shabbos places on his schedule it appears that he respects the norm in Israel.

Apparently not all musicians are Roger Waters.

Technorati Tags: Gene Simmons, Steve Tyler, Ian Anderson, Roger Waters.

The difference of islam

There've been some excellent articles about the reaction to Pope's speech last week. Jonah Goldberg gets right to the point of what's bothered me so much in Jihad's Enablers

No, this is about us. The best book for illuminating what's going on in the Muslim "street" isn't some weighty treatise on Islam; it's a short little tract called "White Guilt" by Shelby Steele. The book isn't even about Islam. Steele focuses on white liberals and the black radicals who've been gaming them ever since the 1960s. Whites, he argues, have internalized their own demonization. Deep down they fear that maybe they are imperialistic, racist bastards, and they are desperate to prove otherwise. In America, black radicals figured this out a while ago and have been dunning liberal whites ever since.

The West is caught in a similarly dysfunctional cycle of extortion and intimidation with Islam, but on a grander and far more violent scale. Whether it's the pope's comments or some Danish cartoons, self-appointed spokesmen for the Islamic street say, "You have offended a billion Muslims," which really means, "There are so many of us, you should watch out." And if you didn't get the message, just look around for the burning embassies and murdered infidels. They're not hard to find.

In response, the West apologizes and apologizes. Radical Muslims, who are not stupid, take note and become emboldened by these displays of weakness and capitulation. And the next time, they demand two pounds of flesh. Meanwhile, the entire global conversation starts from the assumption that the West is doing something wrong by tolerating freedom of speech, among other things.

Austin Bay diagnoses the condition

The ambush technique coordinates blood-spilling violence with sensational imagery and rhetoric using a dispersed network of media operatives, guerrillas and terrorists. Networked, Coordinated Blood-spilling plus Sensationalism -- hence the technique's acronym: the CBS ambush.

Since May 2005, we've seen the CBS ambush employed effectively on three notable occasions, the latest being Pope Benedict's remarks at Regensburg University.

In May 2005, Newsweek ran its phony Guantanamo Bay prison "Koran flushing" story. Violent riots broke out in several predominantly Muslim countries. The riots in Afghanistan attracted particular attention. Indian military analyst Bahukutumbi Raman wrote that those riots were incited by "well-organized agents of the Hizb ut-Tahrir terror gang."

The Newsweek story gave the terrorists an emotion-laden "grievance trigger." The ambush consisted of violent riots and a prepared deluge of anti-American propaganda. The vicious riots not only attracted further global media coverage, but also intimidated Muslims who oppose terrorist organizations and their violent interpretation of Islam.

In September 2005, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published a series of editorial cartoons featuring the Prophet Muhammad. The cartoons attracted political protests and several violent threats, but the cartoons were no international cause celebre. In fact, an Egyptian newspaper published several of the cartoons in an article condemning the Jyllands-Posten.

But in January 2006, waves of orchestrated, coordinated violence broke out in predominantly Muslim nations and in Muslim neighborhoods. The terrorists and political operatives promoted a "clash of civilizations" propaganda line, with the cartoons as the "grievance trigger."

Pope Benedict's Regensburg ruminations provided another CBS ambush trigger.

Anne Applebaum has a prescription

Clearly, a handful of apologies and some random public debate -- should the pope have said X, should the Danish prime minister have done Y -- are ineffective and irrelevant: None of the radical clerics accepts Western apologies, and none of their radical followers reads the Western press. Instead, Western politicians, writers, thinkers and speakers should stop apologizing -- and start uniting.

By this, I don't mean that we all need to rush to defend or to analyze this particular sermon; I leave that to experts on Byzantine theology. But we can all unite in our support for freedom of speech -- surely the pope is allowed to quote from medieval texts -- and of the press. And we can also unite, loudly, in our condemnation of violent, unprovoked attacks on churches, embassies and elderly nuns. By "we" I mean here the White House, the Vatican, the German Greens, the French Foreign Ministry, NATO, Greenpeace, Le Monde and Fox News -- Western institutions of the left, the right and everything in between. True, these principles sound pretty elementary -- "we're pro-free speech and anti-gratuitous violence" -- but in the days since the pope's sermon, I don't feel that I've heard them defended in anything like a unanimous chorus. A lot more time has been spent analyzing what the pontiff meant to say, or should have said, or might have said if he had been given better advice.

And Charles Krauthammer strings together a number of pithy obsevations into an excellent column (or here ) Krauthammer writes

"How dare you say Islam is a violent religion? I'll kill you for it'' is not exactly the best way to go about refuting the charge. But of course, refuting is not the point here. The point is intimidation.

Of course they're protesting to us. And for us. So we will feel guilty. Surely the killings of scores of Muslims in Iraq is a greater affront to the religion than a statement by the Pope. But to protest scores of murders won't affect the murderers; protesting to the West, well there will be those who are receptive to the message.

And regardless of the bloody past of other religions Krauthammer continues

However, the inconvenient truth is that after centuries of religious wars, Christendom long ago gave it up. It is a simple and undeniable fact that the violent purveyors of monotheistic religion today are self-proclaimed warriors for Islam who shout "God is Great'' as they slit the throats of infidels -- such as those of the flight crews on 9/11 -- and are then celebrated as heroes and martyrs.

Finally he notes

The pope gives offense and the Mujaheddin Shura Council in Iraq declares that it "will break up the cross, spill the liquor and impose the 'jizya' (head) tax, then the only thing acceptable is conversion or the sword.'' This to protest the accusation that Islam might be spread by the sword.

As I said. No sense of irony

.

The difference nowadays is, Islam still seeks to spread its word by the sword. And there are many who are willing to do the job.

Man bites ... whatever

I don't know if this qualifies as a man bites dog story:
Man bites panda

An intoxicated Chinese man who tried to give a panda a hug at Beijing Zoo found himself biting it in self defence after his clumsy attempt at affection was savagely rejected, local media reported on Thursday.

Technorati tag: Man Bites Dog.

Blogging notes

Last week, guest blogging at SerAndEz I asked "What kind of blogger are you?"

A new blog Chazzarah, asked the question, and determined that he would be a linker. Lots of links; not much commentary. Check it out.

Joel Achenbach, BTW, has decided that he'd rather a linker be. (He still does quite a bit of writing.)

Speaking of new blogs, a regular reader e-mailed me that he was participating in a new blog Campus Newspaper Confab. Their blurb reads

Dissecting -- and making fun -- of the news and opinions of American college newspapers. 'Cuz it's just so easy to do!

If you've ever read the self-important, pseudo-intellectual, sloppy stuff that runs in college newspapers - on the level of Walt and Mearsheimer (h/t Meryl Yourish ) - you'll know that there's plenty of fodder out there.

A couple of regular reads are doing guest stints at Protein Wisdom: Pillage Idiot and Sundries Shack. Nice going guys!

Technorati tag: Blogging.

Watchers of weasels 9/21/06

Council nominations are in, voting is taking place. Here are the entries for the other members of the watcher's council.

AbbaGav looks at how Muslim anger grows over Pope’s remarks :

But, aside from the fact that the statement is basically true -- Muhammad did spread the faith by sword, but apologists speaking to modern Western listeners hasten to obscure the interpretation of the Koran's positon on such jihad == Perhaps none of the quoted spokesmen wanted to come out and object to this phrase explicitly right now, trying to somehow claim Islam does no such thing, because they recognize it would be a pretty hard sell. Aside from the growing worldwide popularity of the Jihad brand right now, and public claims of Islam fighting to create a global Islamic world under a single ruling Caliphate, they would also have to compete with the recent forced videotaped conversion of two kidnapped Fox reporters in Gaza; although, technically, in the case of the Fox reporters Islam was spread at gunpoint not by sword.

Done with Mirrors tells the stories of contractors and rebuilding in Iraq but 'You'll Never Know What We Did':

In the U.S., because of the nature of the news business, chances are you only see a story about, say, Lithuania, if something goes catastrophically wrong there. A plane crashes, people die, an epidemic breaks out, whatever. Most of us realize it doesn't mean Lithuania is a land of perpetual tragedy. We understand there is probably pretty much like here on most days, with nothing big to report.

But Iraq in 2006 is not Lithuania or Nepal or Argentina. Its condition and progress are essential features of our national political landscape. Its future is bound up with ours. We need to know more about it than we've been told, and the media is more than a passive observer. The Lithuania rules shouldn't apply in Iraq. But they did.

The Education Wonks quotes from an article recounting the way that a school district stifled expression:

The 17-year-old Lincoln Park resident put the shirt on Monday morning and headed to school -- where he was quickly sent to the office and suspended for three days for violating the school's dress code.

He was one of at least seven students sent home for wearing shirts featuring patriotic images and messages. It comes less than a week after three siblings were suspended for wearing shirts emblazoned with the First Amendment, despite warnings, and a week after more than 200 students were sent home on the first day of school for violating the district's dress code -- which bans apparel with writing or pictures.

Gates of Vienna tells us That Was Not a “Blunder.” It’s Just An Excuse to Kill Infidels
:

The MSM pontificating is also boringly predictable. Does any sane person care what The New York Times has to say on this issue? The tropes trotted out by the usual suspects have become so familiar by now that we can recite the jabber right along with these talking/writing heads. They have all the depth and breadth of a Gilligan’s Island episode, and none of these “journalists” ever step out of character, or say anything surprising. Like teenagers who have seen every episode of Gilligan umpteen times, we can recite the MSM litany right along with them — though perhaps with less evident glee than they evince when some event generates orchestrated crises, giving them the opportunity to…to pontificate. In fact, if the ability to pontificate were the only requirement for the job, we’d have been saying “Pope Dan Rather” a long, long time ago.

The Glittering Eye continues his investigation of American policy towards the Middle East and finds that it's Not arbitrary or inconsistent:

I understand that this sketch is a gross oversimplification of a very complicated history. There are scores of vital considerations I haven’t addressed: the domestic political considerations that have influenced our policy with respect to Israel since before the country existed and the Soviet Union’s thorough infiltration of governments in the region (read the Mitrokhin archives), just to name two. But my main point is that our policy with respect to the region is not arbitrary or inconsistent, it’s completely understandable,and that we’ve arrived at the point at which we are now as the result of a process that began with a predisposition to isolationism and has become progressively more involved as less intrusive approaches have failed.

Joshua Pundit presents President Bush's and President Ahamadinejad's UN speeches as competing playlists. , A sample:

`Love and Happiness' `........................`Psychotic Reaction'

(guess which is which.) Thanks also to JoshuaPundit for his very kind words about me.

Rhymes with Right recounts that Benedict Quotes Fourteenth Century Emperor -- Muslims Enraged:

Jihad, for all the recent attempts of Muslims to deny and disguise the truth, is a part of Islam and has been since the days of Muhammad. Furhtermore, it is not merely a peaceful internal struggle for conformity with the will Allah. Jihad is and always has been the use of warfare to defend and spread Islam. If you doubt that, read the Quran and scholarly histories of the Islamic world. Indeed, jihad was the method used to wipe out the historically Christian cultures of much of what is today considered to be "the Muslim World" -- places like Israel, Syria, Egypt, Turkey, and North Africa. They became Muslim through the use of the sword -- jihad.

Right Wing Nuthouse confronts THE POPE’S DILEMMA:

Why then did the Pontiff break with the past and throw down the gauntlet at radical Isamists? The dilemma for the Pope as well as the West has always been a question of whether or not to engage the fanatics by challenging them or try and address their grievances and appease them. Has the Pope finally decided to cast his lot with those who seek to challenge the extremists? It would appear that the Pope has done so and on a plane that he seems uniquely suited to occupy; bringing his considerable intellectual gifts and moral authority to bear in an effort to encourage moderates to step forward and work with him to marginalize the terrorists.

Shrinkwrapped writes of Pope Benedict, Islam, and Reason:

Pope Benedict's remarks, an invitation to reasoned discourse with Islam, very much involved the Christian struggle to bring faith and reason into a synthesis. Without faith, irrationality will find its expression through the most intellectualized and rationalized avenues. Yet faith devoid of rationality can be an even more effective avenue for the expression of the irrational. The history of the Church and the persecution of infidels throughout history has not been denied by Pope Benedict but used as an illustrative model for bringing rationality and faith into accord.

Socratic Rhythm Method considers Where the New York Times is coming from:

The Vatican criticized Israel for attacking Hezbollah, and supported the non-publication of the Mohammed cartoons, but it also stubbornly refuses to come to its senses on abortion and gay marriage, won't let Africans use condoms, urges objectively moral behavior and sorts people into those who get an eternal reward and those who don't. If it had a bumbling crony heading up its emergency management arm and Satan as its attorney general, it would be nearly as bad as the Bush White House. As quickly as the Times is likely to take the side of insulted Muslims, the offense being committed by the Church calls for an editorial.

The Sundries Shack writes A Letter to Eugene Robinson. :

That’s the advantage you have when you choose to change the question in the debate. Unfortunately, that’s not the debate that’s going on between Congress and the White House. There is no question whatsoever that torture is wrong - make no mistake about that. There is, however, an enormous question about how we will choose to define torture. That is where the root of the entire debate over what you so ominously label “the program” lies. Quite simply, the President wants Congress to tell us, decisively, what torture is, isntead of leaving it hidden in subjective terms like “cruel” and “inhumane”. See, we all believe we know what those things mean, but I bet that if you took a quick walk through your newsroom there and ask folks what those words mean, you’d get as many definitions of those words as you have people.

Please check out the many wonderful non-council nominations this week too. This week's most blogged about issue is the Pope's speech and the reaction to it.

Technorati tag:Watcher's Council

Why we have editors

From a blurb for this article
(in the dead tree edition of the newspaper)

GRAPHIC 9/11 REPORT DOES THE JOB 131 PAGE COMIC BOOK IS PRAISED BY EXPERTS FOR IT'S ACCURACY

But apparently not for its grammar.

How did you spend talk like a pirate day?

Well I'll be keelhauled (which apparently isn't as pleasant as being drawn and quartered), I had no idea how popular Talk like a Pirate Day was. Nor did I know how it came to be

You don't need a pet parrot or a peg leg to talk like a pirate. On Sept. 19, everyone -- eye patch or not -- can celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day (http://www.talklikeapirate.com) and channel Long John Silver. The event was started in 1995 by two Oregon friends who, in the midst of playing racquetball, let an "Arrr!" slip out. They then spent the rest of the day, and every Sept. 19 thereafter, speaking pirate.

For that and more idea of what you could have done yesterday check out the Washington Post.

And did you know that there were Jewish pirates? Well shiver me tzimmes.

Technorati tag: Talk like a Pirate Day.

Democrats accuse steele of blending puppies

Well not really. Well as the Hedgehog Report reports

No, this is not the latest attack ad from the Democrats against Michael Steele. It is actually a scene in the next great ad from the Michael Steele campaign telling Marylanders what they can expect from the Democrats this year. One thing that has struck me so far in this campaign is number of people who don’t follow politics that have mentioned to me, knowing that I do follow politics, is how much they like Steele’s ads. When compared to Cardin’s string of standard anti-Bush ads, which is all he seems to be doing thus far, Steele’s ads seem to be standing out and making an impression on the people I come across.

I'll admit, though I'm a Republican I'm not 100% sold on Steele. His distancing himself from President Bush was extremely ham-handed. Still these commercials have the aim of painting a guy who headed a political party and served four years as Lt. Governor as an outsider. And he does them with panache.

The Fix at the Washington Post also likes the ads

As The Fix has said before, we are fans of Steele's unconventional ad campaign, which seeks to break through the clutter of typical campaign ads. Steele's newest ad is an attempt to further his "outsider" image while insulating himself against the Cardin campaign ads -- call them comparative, call them negative -- sure to come.

"Soon your TV will be jammed with negative ads from the Washington crowd," says Steele directly to camera. "Grainy pics and spooky music saying Steele hates puppies and worse. For the record, I love puppies." He adds that he would ban all gifts from lobbyists to members of Congress and eliminate last-minute amendments to spending bills to reduce pork-barrel spending -- burnishing his reform credentials.

Still the Fix points out the biggest handicap facing Steele are the numbers.

Since this post kicked off with raw numbers, let's finish it that way too. The most recent count of Maryland's registered voters showed Democrats at roughly 1.7 million, Republicans at 900,000 and independent/unaffilated voters at 430,000.

Do the math. If Steele wins every Republican and unaffiliated vote, he still is 400,000 votes short of the total number of registered Democrats in the state. Of course, not every registered voter (Democrat, Republican or independent) will cast a ballot on Nov. 7, but the numbers show the immensity of Steele's challenge.

4 years ago, running with Ehrlich, Steele was part of a team that won against a candidate lacking both in charisma and a strong record. Steele wins the charisma battle with Cardin easily, but Cardin has the advantage in terms of his record.

Will the charisma be enough?

UPDATE: I see that I started a conversation on Memeorandum. It comes full circle with IMAO claiming that he could come up with a better smear of Steele than blending puppies.

Technorati tags: Michael Steele,Ben Cardin, Maryland Politics.

Between the canary and the alligator

More than four years ago Jeff Jacoby sounded an alarm

Jews, it is often said, are the canary in the coal mine of civilization. When they become the objects of savagery and hate, it means the air has been poisoned and an explosion is soon to come. If Europeans don't rise up and turn against the Jew-haters, it is only a matter of time until the Jew-haters rise up and turn against them.

In the subsequent four years the blossoming of "respectable" antisemitism in the West has been noticeable.

As Manfred Gerstenfield wrote in early 2004

Another major aspect, related to the subject of the total war, concerns the significance to others of what happens to Jews and Israel. The de facto function of the Jews and Israel has been compared to that of a canary in an underground mine. Common mining practice was to send canaries into mines in order to access environmental hazards. When the bird stopped singing the miners knew they were in danger.

From what happens to Jews, others can often learn what is awaiting them. Anti-Semitism is a construct that takes aim at the Jews initially. The aggressor first looks for what seems an easy target; thereafter he grades up to more difficult ones. This has often been described regarding authoritarian societies, but it exists in democracies as well. The perpetrator's aggression subsequently extends to others and endangers them as well. In the 1930s the Jews were a prime target for Hitler and his adherents. Later tens of millions of others would perish or suffer as well.

Last year Ilan Berman wrote

Academia has made Jews the canary in the coal mine in the sense that if universities are indicators of social trends, and anti-Semitism is becoming more acceptable there in the guise of anti-Zionism, then there is a problem society-wide. Our students must recognize that there is never justice in terrorism. It is unacceptable that some should even speak of eliminating a living and breathing state like Israel. But you'd be surprised how common such statements are on campus. These advocates are the ones that should be on the defensive.

And just a few weeks ago Warren Kozak wrote

Years ago, before modern devices could register poisonous gas levels in mines, miners would take canaries into the shafts with them. The birds, which are more susceptible to toxins, served a very useful purpose. If the canary fell over, it was time for the miners to get out quickly. It was a sad miner who failed to pay attention to the canary in the cage.

Throughout time, whenever tyrants arose and preached a mixture of world domination and complete intolerance for most other human beings, their first targets were often a small group of people noted for giving the world monotheism, the bible and a set of basic laws that have been followed for thousands of years. From the ancient Babylonians to German Nazis to today's Islamic fascists, tyrannical regimes always seem to have one common link — their deep hatred for Jews. At the same time there has been another continuum throughout the ages — a small fringe in every society that blames not the tyrants, but instead, blames their victims. That would be tantamount to a miner not just ignoring his early warning device, but blaming the canary for the problem. That's not just ill advised, it's downright stupid

JoshuaPundit loooked at the recent record in Europe and concluded It is time for Jews to think about leaving Western Europe.

JoshuaPundit has a point. The center of the Jewish world has been shifting to Israel in recent years. The only diaspora community that's growing is the American Jewish communtiy, but still for the first time this year Israel's Jewish population exceeded that of America making Israel the country with the largest population of Jews. It would appear that many European Jews have seen the writing on the wall and are leaving.

It would seem the idea of Israel being a Jewish state would be uncontroversial. But it isn't (uncontroversial.) Earlier this summer columnist Richard Cohen of the Washington Post wrote an essay calling Israel a historical mistake.

The Cohen article was pretty bad, but now Richard Reeves has revived it. This past week columnist Richard Reeves picks up on Cohen's theme and quotes another author, Peter Osnos

"The optimistic view is that Arab pragmatists emboldened (and simultaneously intimidated) by their radical brethren's sense of victory may now be willing again to negotiate broader peace. The pessimists say that Israel is running out of time to secure long-term peace. ... Israel will mark its 60th anniversary in 2008. But it remains surrounded by countries and movements that at worst are sworn to its destruction and at best merely despise it. Nations are not immutable. The Soviet empire marked its 60th anniversary in 1977. Fourteen years later, it was gone, a parenthesis of time in Russian history. ...

"Much of the Western world seems no longer to believe, more than a half-century removed from the Holocaust in Europe, that civilization owes the Jews a homeland anymore. ... The image of Israel has gradually been corroded by the consequences of 40 years of occupation on the West Bank and Gaza. The country is a vibrant democracy with a deeply imbeddded dream of peaceful co-existence with its neighbors. Yet when security and dominance of its borders are at stake, Israel suspends the pleasantries. The image of Israel in the rest of the world focuses on that ferocity."

Reeves concludes

The bottom line is that, sadly, the survival of Israel depends not on its own valor and might or justice of cause, but on the friendship and support of one friend, the United States. And its friend has made all of these things worse by invading Iraq, spreading ever more chaos and hatred throughout the Muslim world.

Ironically, some of the American planners thought our weapons of shock and awe would make Israel more secure. In fact, our quick-strike aggression has done the opposite, and in many ways. As Osnos pointed out, Israel is richer and stronger, but in terms of security it is no better off than it was in 1948.

Rather than consider that Israel is a canary to the threat facing the West, Reeves believes that Israel can't be defended, effectively choosing appeasement that Churchill once characterized as feeding the alligator so that the alligator may eat him last. (Yes Reeves dismisses the comparison earlier in his essay.)

Osnos's article is here and it is more understanding of Israel than Reeves lets on. Osnos, for example, noted

For the American-based media, coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian story represents an excruciating problem. In the rest of the world, the image of Israel has gradually been corroded by the consequences of forty years of occupation on the West Bank and Gaza. The country is a vibrant democracy with a deeply imbedded dream of peaceful co-existence with its neighbors. Yet, when security and dominance of its borders are at stake, Israel suspends the pleasantries. The image of Israel for the rest of the world focuses on that ferocity. There are now hundreds of satellite channels in Arabic that provide nonstop, live coverage of Israeli bombardments. The indignities Israel has imposed on the Palestinians are a permanent undertone in the European press, where Palestinian corruption and self-destructiveness tend to be excused.

He understands that there's a double standard going on. No I don't agree with everything he wrote, but it's not what the unsympathetic Reeves describes.

However the mistake that Cohen, Reeves and Osnos all makes is apparent from the beginning of the Osnos article

Any editor will tell you that no international issue attracts more critical scrutiny than coverage of Israel and the Palestinians. Supporters make an impassioned case that Israel—a democratic state, a creation of the Holocaust, and a refuge from anti-Semitism—cannot be faulted for responding with force and even brutality to relentless siege.

Israel isn't just a refuge from the Holocaust. That might be the way to view it in modern terms. Israel is the homeland of the Jewish people. Cohen would have been correct in terming Israel a historical anamoly instead of historical mistake. Has any other nation returned to its homeland after 2000 of exile?

The elites the dominant diplomatic culture have allowed the Palestinian narrative of an indigenous people supplanted by Europeans to govern current discourse. But the Palestinian narrative uses Western concepts of freedom and self determination to justify a very non-Western societies goal of replacing Israel. The degree to which the Palestinian narrative has taken hold is a function of those who give it credence.

The degree to which the peace processing has collapsed is not a reason to abandon Israel. When Reeves writes

As Osnos pointed out, Israel is richer and stronger, but in terms of security it is no better off than it was in 1948.

he touches on the real problem that he's ignoring. Why isn't Israel's security any better than it was in 1948? It's not because America (or Israel) has done anything to foment Arab rage. It's because in the West there are many who tolerate and even celebrate that rage conferring onto it a legitimacy that it doesn't deserve.

To a large degree the protesters against Pope Benedict are not protesting against the Pope, rather they are protesting for the cameras, for the academics for the pundits who will, in the name of liberal understanding, empathize with decidedly illiberal beliefs of parts of the Muslim world that wish to shut down debate and criticism.

There is little difference between those who are more offended by the Pope's words than by the killing of the nun and those who claim understaning of the Palestinians' humiliation even at the cost of largely ignoring the terror directed against Israel. Has understanding of the Palestinians' earned the West more respect in the Muslim world? Or does that understanding simply translate into acceptance of terror as a way winning freedom?

When Cohen and Reeves question if Israel's a mistake they are acting as appeasers. They are handing a justification to Israel's most ardent foes and strengthening them. One thing that Israel needs is strong rhetorical support.

The question that Reeves, Cohen and Osnos don't address is that if Israel cannot be defended and Jews are losing their safe haven in Europe, where are Jews to go? There is nothing noble in ignoring Jews as canaries while simultaneously feeding them to the alligators. Standing up for Jewish survival should be an imperative the West. Else it will serve to embolden our enemies.

Technorati tag: Israel.

The first action hero - military monday 12

I heard an interview with Sergeant Gerald Wolford yesterday morning on Dave Durian's Morning Show.

Sgt. Wolford won a Silver Star for his actions when he encountered insurgents as he and his men attempted to secure bridges crossing the Euphrates. During a 4 hour firefight, two of his men were injured - but returned to battle - earning Bronze stars.

At one point in the fighting Sgt. Wolford noticed that rifles weren't stopping the enemy so he improvised

As his unit came under machinegun fire, Wolford recognized that the American rifle fire was having no impact on enemy forces in their reinforced positions. Therefore, he decided to bring heavier firepower to bear. Wolford recalls
We had AT-4s, which are 74mm anti-tank missiles that are shoulder-fired. This was a good tactical opportunity to shoot a missile. So I fired one of those into the house and the whole hut just collapsed.

Read the whole story. (Other accounts are here and here.

Apart from his Silver Star Gerald Wolford is going to be honored in unique fashion. He is one of the first soldiers to be chosen by America's Army as a Real Hero.

In an effort to give proper due to our soldiers the Army will be making these soldiers into action figures. On the radio Sgt. Wolford said that his 10 year old son is excited that his father will now be an action figure. (The action figure will be holding an M4 rifle not a rocket launcher.)

Technorati tag: Military Monday,

Firestorm indeed

From FOX news

In the West Bank town of Tulkarem, a stone church built 170 years ago was torched before dawn and its entire inside was destroyed, local Christian officials said. In the village of Tubas, a small church was attacked with firebombs and partially burned, Christians said. Neither church is Catholic, the officials said.

On Saturday, Muslims hurled firebombs and opened fire at five churches in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to protest the pope's comments, sparking concerns of a rift between Palestinian Muslims and Christians.

The story goes on to report the cause of all this

The pope last week, in a talk rejecting any religious motivation for violence, cited the words of a Byzantine emperor who characterized some of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad as "evil and inhuman," particularly "his command to spread by the sword the faith."

Or spread by the Molotov cocktail.

The problem with the new report is that it has this paragraph

Christians are believed to number about 50,000 people in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, about 2 percent of the total Palestinian population. Relations are generally good and the Palestinian Authority has made considerable efforts to ensure their political representation, though tensions periodically flare up.

Generally good?

Like threatening the owner of a Christian TV station? And attacking his home with fire bombs?

Oh that must be one of the "flare ups".

Firestorm? Flare ups? I think I see a pattern here.

(And what's the cause of these "flare ups?" Anything the Christians do? I mean the Pope didn't say anything controversial before the owner of the TV station wa attacked. Can you say intolerance?)

And those efforts to "ensure their political representation?"

There are limits to that tolerance. It may be soon that the only Christians who'll be tolerated are the ones who pay a tax in gratitude to their beneficient Muslim betters.

Makes that State Department report on Israel's failings in the area of religious freedom seem even more surreal. Doesn't it?

Technorati tags: Religion of Peace, Islam.

Of the council and carnivals 09/17/06

Last week I was unable to record Watcher's councils results for September 8, 2006. They are available in their entirety at the Watcher of Weasels.

The result was a 3-way tie and the Watcher himself had to settle the tie and chose It's not a war it's a trendy buzzword at Sundries Shack, a careful defense of President Bush's use of the term "Islamic fascism."

Second place, then, was tied between Josuhua Pundit's alarming It Is Time for Jews to Think About Leaving Western Europe and Right Wing Nuthouse's 9/11 Tin Foil Hats Are Melting debunking of 9/11 myths.

The juxtaposition of those articles are worthwhile reminders that real dangers are often ignored at the cost of creating fake ones.

Though I was shut out of the Council's voting, I got some relief because my nominee for non-council post Hezbollah Probably Lost the War, But They May Never Have Been In It To Win, which demonstrates how (well meaning) folks actually end up enabling Israel's enemies.

The September 15 edition was won by Socratic Rhythm Method's Your Chance of Dying in a Terrorist Attack, which asks if what's important is the chance of someone dying in terror attacks, or what those attacks represent.

Second place was a tie between ShrinkWrapped's 9/11 Ambiguities about the problems Democrats and Republicans have articulating America's challenge and my Three strands not easily broken.

In four weeks on the council I'm grateful to my council colleagues for having twice voted me to second place in competition with some of the best blogging anywhere.

During the past two weeks I've had entries in the Carnival of the Insanities. Last week and this week.

Two last notes about carnivals.

Apparently due to the threat of abuse Conservative Cat no longer has his Carnival Submit form. I'm sorry to see that he no longer offers this service. I'm going to have to change my template. Now your only options are direct e-mail and Blog Carnival.

Two weeks ago Meryl Yourish wrote

You know, if you’ve never hosted a carnival, you cannot comprehend how much work it is. If you’re a conscientious host, you read every single entry and then write a snippet or a summary about it. That’s why I generally don’t do it anymore. It’s too much work. So hats off to the people who do it multiple times, like the two bloggers mentioned above.

On the other hand when Jack's Shack reviews his most popular posts, several of them are editions of Haveil Havalim. Whether the return is worth the effort depends on the individual blogger.

It is a lot of work. So for all of you who host carnivals, especially Haveil Havalim, I just want to let you know that I appreciate it tremendously.

Technorati tags: Watcher's Council, Blog Carnivals.

Haveil Havalim #87 is UP!

Shanah Tova Greetings from Greetings from French Hill who is hosting the final Haveil Havalim #87 - Chicken Soup for the Brain for the Jewish year. She's done a wonderful job and hasn't let her Yom Tov (holiday) preparrations slide either!

Thank you to all the hosts and bloggers who have contributed to Haveil Havalim over the past year and please continue sending us your thoughts and suggestions. (Volunteering is also welcomed!)

Upcoming editions:

Sept 24 - No Haveil Havalim due to Rosh haShannah, the Jewish new year. Shanna Tova to everyone!

Oct 1 - #88 - Hosted by AbbaGav. Email him at gavriel.raanan at gmail dot com.

Oct 8 - No Haveil Havalim due to the holiday of Sukkot.

Oct 16 - #89 - Hosted by SoccerDad.

If you would like to submit one or two of your best Israel or Judaism related posts send me an e-mail at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com. Also if you'd like to host an upcoming edition e-mail me at the above address.

In addition to e-mail you may submit entries to Haveil Havalim using either Conservative Cat's handy dandy submission form or the submission form over at BlogCarnival. Or feel free to e-mail me at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com.

(Note the change in the operation of Conservative Cat's submission form. It takes you directly to Haveil Havalim.)

Remember, that while the hosts and hostesses of Haveil Havalim do a wonderful job of editing and searching for interesting posts, they can't see everything. If you want a better chance of being included in Haveil Havalim please submit one or two posts for inclusion.

Listed at the Truth Laid Bear Ubercarnival.

Technorati Tags: Blog carnivals, haveil havalim, Israel, Judaism.

Most recent editions of Haveil Havalim at Blog Carnival
#22 Mystical Paths
#21 Rabbinical Authority Consortium of HACKers
#20 Shiloh Musings
#19 Devarim
#18 Soccer Dad
#17 Mystical Paths
#16 Critical Mastiff
#15 Soccer Dad
#14 Multiple Mentality
#13 IsraPundit
#12 DovBear
#11 Kesher Talk
#10 Biur Chametz
#9 Soccer Dad
#8 It's Almost Supernatural
#7 Bloghead
#6 Willow Tree.
#5 Crossing the Rubicon2
#4 Dov Bear
#3 Biur Chametz

Election tidbits

If you disparage women you must be a Republican (h/t Pillage Idiot)

According to the AP recently defeated Maryland Comptroller William Donald Schaeffer is a Republican (For when the picture and caption disappear.)

Franchot defeated the longtime Republican comptroller and former Gov. William Donald Schaefer.

Of course the AP might just have been aping Franchot's commercial, which tagged Schaeffer as Gov Ehrlich's biggest fan.

No good deed goes unpunished

Back in March, State Senator John Gianetti saw someone choking in a restaurant.

When Jim Rosapepe, the former delegate from Prince George's, stumbled out of the dining room clutching his throat, Giannetti says he knew full well who it was that was gasping for help. And, he says without a trace of irony, he saved him anyway.

Rosapepe defeated Gianetti last Tuesday. But it's good to know that Mr. Gianetti has his priorities straight.

Technorati tags: Maryland Politics.

Defending cardin

I do not intend to vote for Ben Cardin to be my Senator. I do not agree with much of anything he believes in politically. But it's unfair to tar him with the comments made by a staffer on her (now defunct) blog.

This has been blogged about at Wizbang! (h/t PostWatch ) HotAir Hedgehog Report CrabLaw The Sun Lies and Town Hall.

I wish Steele's response had been more along the lines of "I'm pleased to see that my opponent wouldn't tolerate this kind of behavior."

FWIW, neither the Baltimore Sun nor Washington Post seem to have done any original reporting on the topic. The Sun relied on an AP item.

To my mind the only comment made by Ms. Gruber that should be heeded is

I love my job. I love the people I work with. I like my candidate and I adore his wife.

I wish to see Michael Steele win this eleciton on the merits; not due to the antics of some low level staffer.

Technorati tags: Urusla Gruber, Ben Cardin, Michael Steele.

Surreal state

In many parts of the world worshipping the wrong religion can a person ostracized, or worse. So it's good to know that the State Department won't let anything slide. In its recent report on religious freedom, the state department's report noted

Eight countries, including Iran, were cited for particularly severe violations of religious freedom. The others were Burma, China, Eritrea, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Vietnam.

I have no idea how comprehensive the report is, but it's good to know that

Israel's response to terrorist attacks in Palestinian-held territories has severely curtailed access by Palestinians to their places of worship, the report said, although it said the Jewish state for the most part respects religious freedom.

Well thanks for that. Good to know that State won't simply let Israel get away with defending its citizenry. It must be done in a way that doesn't prevent people from worshipping.

What's in the water at State anyway?

Technorati tag: Religious Freedom

The overlooked

I'm no fan of Robert Novak, but there's a very important line in his recent broadside directed towards Richard Armitage

Zealous foes of George W. Bush transformed me improbably into the president's lapdog.

In order for the "Karl Rove tried to destroy my wife to get at me" scenario to be true, it would have helped if the columnist (or reporter) who was fed the information to have been on board with the President's intention to invade Iraq. But Novak, a realist - or shill for Saudi Arabia if I'm not being charitable - was hardly an advocate for the war. He was against it from the start.

It doesn't mean that Novak couldn't have been a part of a Rovian attack, it just means that it wasn't likely.

Wilson, outdid himself in response to the Washington Post's editorial "End of an Affair." He cancelled his subscription to the Post. Why?

So I don’t know what the Washington Post editorial page is about. My conclusion about their editorial was that the editorial board cannot be bothered to read the news pages of its own newspaper -- so why, then, should I subscribe to the newspaper? I cancelled my subscription. I’ll get my news from somewhere else, and I would encourage others to do so.

That's after claiming that the Senate Select Subcommittee on Intelligence backed up his claim.

Um. Not exactly.

Wilson's assertions -- both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information -- were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.

The panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address.

And where was that reported? Why the Washington Post. I think that perhaps it was Amb. Wilson who didn't do a very good job of reading the news there.

Technorati tags: Richard Armitage, Robert Novak, PlameGate, Joseph Wilson, Washington Post.

Alarmist?

Last week Charles Krauthammer argued that the United States must stay the course in Iraq and even increase its troop strength.

Now, parsing a statement by President Bush, Krauthammer writes about what the United States plans to do to Iraq's neighbor, Iran, in the Tehran calculus (here as well) as wells as the possible, economic, military and diplomatic costs.

Krauthammer also gives a deadline for America taking action against the Iranian bomb: one year.

I have to admit, I'm not totally convinced by this column.

For one thing the economic costs that Krauthammer predicts include $100 a barrel oil that leads to a severe economic downturn. The economy recently absorbed an approximate $20 a barrel increase in oil prices. It inflicted hardship, to be sure, but the economy kept chugging along. $100 a barrel is more than the highest levels of this past July. It will necessarily be a burden, if it reaches that level, but will it lead to a severe recession? Maybe. But I hardly see the price of oil, nor a consequential recession to be inevitable.

Second, while considering the possible military actions of an American strike on Iranian nuclear capabilities, Krauthammer suggests

Iran will activate its proxies in Iraq, most notably, Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army. Sadr is already wreaking havoc with sectarian attacks on Sunni civilians. Iran could order the Mahdi Army and its other agents within the police and armed forces to take up arms against the institutions of the central government itself, threatening the very anchor of the new Iraq. Many Mahdi will die, but they live to die. Many Iraqis and coalition soldiers are likely to die as well.

If that's the case, why isn't the U.S. doing more to fight the Mahdi Army now? Being prepared is essential to any reasonable strategy. If the Mahdi army isn't degraded, I don't think we'll se an attack on Iran.

And of course, if one believes that the U.S. must step up its involvement in Iraq, I don't see how taking on Iran's nuclear facilities will be possible. I may think that such an action is necessary, I just don't see the United States as having the political or military capacity right now for carrying out such an action, especially if the consequences are likely to be as terrilbe as Krauthammer suggests.

Technorati tag: Iran

Hollow victory II

An article that's getting a lot of attention Asher Susser's Lebanon a Re-assessment

Even a cursory perusal of the Arab press, will reveal that Hizbullah's status in Lebanon has changed for the worse, as many Lebanese come to the rather shocking realization that the south of their country, unknown to them, had in fact been transformed into an Iranian and Syrian launching pad against Israel posing an existential threat to their own livelihoods and to their entire country. Hizbullah is now on the defensive, trying to protect its political assets against a more assertive Lebanese domestic majority, that seems more determined than ever to contain Hizbullah's "state within a state," so that they are not drawn again into a destructive war with Israel, without as much as a word of consultation.

Many in Lebanon, especially non-Shi'ites, but also some important Shi'ite spokespersons, are calling for an end to the armed phase of Hizbullah's development and its integration into the Lebanese political system, like all other political parties, lest further provocation of Israel will expose Lebanon to even greater devastation in the future. In other words, they are demanding the disarming of Hizbullah.

And, in other words, though it was argued that Israel's poor political execution of the war helped to undermine Israeli deterrence; Israel may have re-established a level of deterrence, not with Hezbollah, but with those who may be in a position to restrain Hezbollah.

But the idea that Hezbollah lost the war has started gaining currency. Two weeks ago Charles Krauthammer made the point.

The two pundits who predicted this turn of events (as I noted two weeks ago) were Thomas Friedman and Bradley Burston.

Still Simply Jews is noting now that according to one report Hezbollah's shredding what little meaning 1701 ever had.

Time will tell how much Hezbollah lost. More discussion here.

Technorati tag: Hezbollah, Israel.

Nothing Something new under the stars

Guess what?
Star Trek's returning to the TV.
Not a new series but the original.

Star Trek journeys to the 21st century as the Original Series returns to broadcast syndication for the first time in 16 years with brand-new digitally remastered episodes to celebrate its 40th anniversary.

CBS Paramount Domestic Television has officially announced that they are releasing digitally remastered episodes of Star Trek, with all new special effects and music, to celebrate the groundbreaking series' 40th anniversary, according to John Nogawski, president of CBS Paramount Domestic Television.

(h/t Crossing the Rubicon2 )

During the 70's one of the things that kept Trek alive was its fandom. A number of fan stories were collected into a book called the New Voyages. (One story had Kirk going mad after being subjected to the Klingon mind ripper and heading off to the past using the Guardian of Forever to try and find his true love Edith Keeler.)

Well given the technology of today, The New Voyages isn't relegated to print on paper; there are Trekkies who are actually filming "New Voyages." In To Boldly Go where No Fan has Gone Before Chris Suellentrop writes

James Cawley, who plays Kirk, and director Jack Marshall are the cocreators of Star Trek: New Voyages. They are repairing a rift in the space-time continuum, fixing the most glaring flaw in the history of science fiction. As every geek in the galaxy knows, Captain Kirk and the crew of the USS Enterprise set out on a five-year mission to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life and civilizations. To boldly go where no man has gone before. But NBC canceled the show in 1969 after only three seasons. New Voyages aims to fill fans in on what they missed. In September, Cawley and Marshall assembled more than 50 Trek lovers from across the US (and the UK and Canada) to shoot the third episode of what should've been season four. At their current pace of one episode a year, they'll finish the five-year mission in 2054.

It's an amazing story of dedication obsession.

And finally while we're talking about refurbishing one "Star' franchise, another one is getting back to basics. Elie's Expositions writes

This was an exciting day for us aficionados of the classic Star Wars trilogy. Today, the original, unaltered versions of those movies, as seen in theaters, were released on DVD for the first time in galactic history.

For fans of my generation who saw these movies in their pristine form, and then had to endure the crass distortions of their so-called "special editions" - vile corruptions that George Lucas had the gall to pass off as "improvements" - this is a day of both glee and vindication. The former self-evident, the latter because as recently as two or three years ago, Lucas was quoted as saying that the original versions "no longer exist", and smugly suggested that the die-hard fans should just "forget about them". Well, even the king of all pompous geniuses can have a change of heart, it seems. And perhaps even learn a little something from us patient, stubborn fanboy geeks.

(If you want to see the changes go here. Not that I'd have noticed them.)

So as they say the more things change the more they change.

Technorati tags: Star Trek, STAR WARS, Nerd Nirvana, Glorious Geekdom.

Watchers of weasels 9/13/06

Council nominations are in, voting is taking place. Here are the entries for the other members of the watcher's council.

AbbaGav participated in the 2996 project and profiled Angel Pabon who challenged stereotypes to manage international equities at Cantor-Fitzgerald.

Done with Mirrors describes Pronoun Trouble in describing a transgendered man.

The Education Wonks cite at length from an article suggesting approaches to teaching about 9/11. At the end they sadly note the recommendation made by the principal at their school a few years ago.

Gates of Vienna reports on the Danish face in the NATO picture.

The Glittering Eye writes about some of America's history of diplomoacy with Saudi Arabia.

Joshua Pundit considers 9/11 five years later, the good, the bad and makes sure that we ask the right question.

Rhymes with Right writes about a little journalistic arrogance about being above the law.

Right Wing Nuthouse contemplates how we've changed during the past five years in The tears no longer come.

Shrinkwrapped explores 9/11 ambiguities including our politicians' inability to make their cases.

Socratic Rhythm Method discusses your chances of dying in a terror attack. And why it matters anyway. (The beginning reminds me of Robert Samuelson's The Economics of Fear.)

The Sundries Shack debunks the twisted logic Presidential critics use to claim that the President violated the law in ordering torture in Bush Only Confessed to a Crime, if You Don’t Actually Read the Law. Or a Calendar. (Interesting contrast with Rhymes with Right.)

Please check out the many wonderful non-council nominations this week too. Quite a few are 9/11 related and quite good.

Technorati tag:Watcher's Council

A timely tale of two oxen gored

On Tuesday the New York Times finally weighed in with its criticism of "The Path to 9/11," The Fictional Path to 9/11 It opens with

Perhaps the entertainment industry will come up with a few lasting lessons from the outcry over ABC’s “dramatization” of the events leading up to the terrorist attacks on 9/11. One suggestion: when attempting to recreate real events on screen, you do not show real people doing things they never did.

And it concludes

It was especially disturbing that Tom Kean, co-chairman of the 9/11 commission and a former Republican governor of New Jersey, was willing to lend his prestige to this ill-considered project. Mr. Kean served as a senior consultant to the miniseries and has repeatedly defended it in public, even as several Democratic members of the commission criticized its distortions. Mr. Kean has said he will give his payment to charity, but that does not undo the damage done to the aura of bipartisanship that has surrounded the commission’s work. And it has not defused concerns that Mr. Kean did it in part to help his son, who is the Republican candidate for Senate in a close race in New Jersey.

Maybe Mr. Kean wasn’t entirely kidding when he quipped that he had not apologized to President Bill Clinton for any inaccuracies because “he was out campaigning against my son yesterday, so I didn’t reach out to him at all.” Whatever his motives, he has tarnished his carefully nurtured image of a statesman above the political fray.

So what do we get from this? That the Times values accuracy. That the Times deplores fictionalized accounts that are designed to make someone look worse. That the Times deplores those who betray the truth for partisan gain.

Now consider a claim from 2004 by Michael Moore that the President and his brother pressured Disney not to distribute Farenheit 9/11. The Times responded in an editorial Disney's Craven Behavior

Mr. Moore's agent said that Michael Eisner, Disney's chief executive, had expressed concern that the film might jeopardize tax breaks granted to Disney for its theme park, hotels and other ventures in Florida, where Jeb Bush is governor. If that is the reason for Disney's move, it would underscore the dangers of allowing huge conglomerates to gobble up diverse media companies.

A short time later Moore admitted that there was no pressure and that Disney never had a distribution deal for the film. In our current controversy, though, the Times expressed no concern that Disney/ABC had caved to a political threat from the Democratic legislative leadership. Truth now is important; it wasn't when Moore was the center of controversy. Political bullying (that didn't place two years ago) was a problem then but not a concern now.

Disney's Craven Behavior concludes

It is hard to say which rationale for blocking distribution is more depressing. But it is clear that Disney loves its bottom line more than the freedom of political discourse.

Now that ABC has trimmed some of the more controversial aspects of the 9/11 film, the Times is unconcerned that freedom has been compromised. Only that Governor Kean's integrity had been compromised.

Integrity, of course, was no concern when Michael Moore made false charges against the Bush brothers. Here's Edward Jay Epstein

On May 5, 2004, the New York Times ran a front-page article headlined "Disney Is Blocking Distribution of Film That Criticizes Bush." The story included the sensational charge that Eisner "expressed particular concern that [choosing to distribute Fahrenheit 9/11] would endanger tax breaks Disney receives for its theme park, hotels and other ventures in Florida, where Mr. Bush's brother, Jeb, is governor." The source for this allegation was Moore's agent, Ari Emanuel. Two days later, Moore claimed on his Web site that Disney's board of directors rejected Fahrenheit 9/11 "last week." In fact, the Disney board had not made such a decision in 2004—the project had been vetoed in 2003.

Moore's excursion from reality proved a boon at Cannes. On May 22, 2004, the Cannes jury defied putative efforts to censor Moore by awarding Fahrenheit 9/11 the prestigious Palme d'Or. Moore now had a golden palm in his hand and the media at his feet—with more free publicity than any Hollywood studio could afford to buy, Fahrenheit 9/11 now stood to rake in a fortune. And Disney, which still controlled the movie's rights through its subsidiary Miramax, now got to decide who was going to profit from it.

So Moore made a false charge trumpeted by his agent - the brother of a prominent Democrat - and the Times swallowed it hook, line and sinker. In addition to any dishonesty in his movie, Moore won an award under false pretenses. Nice trick.

Here it is in a nutshell at the Ethics Scoreboard

So this didn't happen "yesterday." "Yesterday" was just the day Moore decided he wanted to use the always vulnerable Disney and the hanging-on-by-his-fingernails Eisner to get some publicity before his movie opened at Cannes. Moreover, it now appears that, contrary to Moore's statements, Disney never contracted with Moore to distribute the film, and that Miramax had funded "Fahrenheit 9/11" but never committed to distribute it either. These facts did not stop Moore from denigrating everyone in sight, including by-standers like Jeb Bush, simply to create a "buzz."

And he's still sticking to his story. Yes, Moore admits in his follow-up piece on his website, Eisner did tell him a year ago that he wouldn't allow the movie to be released by Miramax, but Eisner allowed Miramax to keep funding it. But rather than taking his movie elsewhere and saying "Thank you!" Moore claims that the continued funding was some kind of dastardly trick to lead him on. Then, after that NASA centrifuge-worthy spin job, Moore goes on to accuse Disney of "spinning."

Ethics scoreboard concludes

The Times' evident detestation of All Things Bush is interfering with its analytical judgment and its ability to smell a rat. Moore, the rat the Times failed to smell, got everything he wanted: promotion for the movie, a chance for gratuitous Bush attacks, and publicity for himself. It shouldn't stop us from going and laughing at his movie, but a documentary maker who is so willing to lie and distort for his own ends has surrendered his credibility. In the long run, that will silence Moore far more effectively than anything Disney has done.

The Times never apologized for getting the Moore story wrong. It never apologized for smearing George and Jeb Bush.

One suggestion to the New York Times: When reporting and opining on the news don't accuse real people of doing something they never did. If you do you lose credibility except within the ideological cocoon you live in.

I previously blogged about the liberal hypcrisies here.

Technorati tags: Michael Moore, President Bush,New York Times, Path to 9/11

Maryland primary roundup

Members of the Maryland Bloggers Alliance have been on top of the results of yesterday's primary.
Check out updates at Crablaw, Kevin Dayhoff, Monoblogue and Maryland Conservatarian.

And though he's not a member of the MBA, the Hedgehog Report has comprehensive coverage too.

Not a good sign

I've noticed through sitemeter that a lot of people have been accessing a recent article of mine showing how the Washington Post's Edward Cody is still whitewashing terrorists. Or make that a terrorist, Samir Quntar.

The increased number of searches on Samir Quntar's name sugggest that there's some activity going between Israel and Hezbollah. I hope not ...

Technorati tag: Samir Quntar.

9/11 roundup

Notable posts on 9/11.

A number of my regular reads participated in the 2996 project.
Ocean Guy remembers a navy buddy Captain Gerald Deconto.
Crossing the Rubicon honors Christine Barbuto.
The Muqata honors Nancy Morgenstern.
West Bank Mama honors John Pocher.
Colossus of Rhodey honors Michael Hardy Edwards
Seawitch honors Stephen Poulos
Jewish Current Issues honors Ronald T. Kerwin.
Boker Tov Boulder honors Jerry Roger Nussbaum.
AbbaGav honors Angel M. Pabon.
Meryl Yourish honors Abe Zelmanowitz.
Rhyme with Right remembers a former classmate Robert Allan Schlegel.

The New York Times remembered all or most of the 9/11 victims in portraits of grief.

I didn't participate in the 2996 project. I'm not sure if it was out of laziness. Or if it was because my memory was of one who escaped. My brother in law Jonathan Pittinsky worked for TradeWeb located on the 51st floor of the north tower. He escaped.

I called my mother on my cell phone to let her know I was alive; I had her call my wife and the rest of the family. About two blocks from the Twin Towers I heard this horrible, loud noise. I turned around and I could see the South Tower coming down. My instinct was to run as quickly as I could---which I did … past the Brooklyn Bridge. I avoided the dust cloud. I walked north – everyone was walking north – up the east side, then crosstown at 36th, to the New York Waterway at 40th and 12th. The ferry to Hoboken was working; I was getting off the island; if I had to swim the Hudson River, I was going to do it.

Though it was reassuring to hear that Jon had gotten out of the building, it was still nervewracking because it was before the towers fell and we didn't know if he had been too close or not. And of course we were unable to reach him again for several hours.
The detail of Jon's escape that still amazes is that given the lack of ventilation and the number of people escaping the stairwells had gotten quite hot. So the emergency worker broke open soda machines and handed out drinks to the escapees. A fire fighter handed Jon a bottled water on the 21st floor. Jon realized that half and hour or 45 minutes later the man who had extended him such kindness was probably dead.

UPDATE: Pillage Idiot, Sundries Shack, A Blog for All and It's almost Supernatural all wonder if we're up to the fight. Shrinkwrapped does a nice job of pointing out the failure of our political class to frame the challenge adequately.

Daled Amos and Israeli Matzav remember the Arab reaction to 9/11.

Outside the Beltway catalogues the Left's approach to remembering 9/11. Very disillusioning.

Atlas Shrugs, IsraPundit Life of Rubin and Mazel 123 remember how it started.

The Volokh Conspiracy looks how law has changed in the past 5 years. Short story: not much.

Interesting assessments and a roundup at the Counterterrorism blog. A positive assessment from Strategy page.

More roundup later ...

Technorati tag: 9/11.

Slate on doug

From Doug Gansler's website:

During his four years in Montgomery County, Gansler has become one of Maryland's most promising and talked-about Democrats. Slate Nov 1, 2002

From the complete article:

Perhaps his ambition would be distasteful if it weren't so hilariously transparent, and if he weren't so honest about it. This summer, Gansler drove to Annapolis at 8:45 p.m. just in case the current Democratic attorney general in Maryland withdrew his re-election bid by the 9 p.m. deadline. Gansler would've entered the race. "I just wanted to make sure," he told the Washington Post. "And then, out of sheer laziness, I would have missed the opportunity to run for AG. … Now I know where it is for four years from now."

He things people won't look it up?

Technorati tag: Doug Gansler.

Cohen: notta atta?

In his screed against the Bush administration Bin Laden's Victory, Richard Cohen writes

We now know, the Weekly Standard notwithstanding, that Mohamed Atta did not meet in Prague with someone from Iraqi intelligence.

Actually it shows extreme ignorance on Cohen's part to assert this. This meeting did take place. There were some denials from the government but those denials were not credible. The source is not only the Weekly Standard, but Edward Jay Epstein writing in Slate.

I brought up this source and others in an earlier post.

Cohen is so wedded to the idea that the Bush administration is incapable of assimilating evidence against their deeply held beliefs he doesn't realize that he himself is guilty of that sort of denial.

No this isn't the false idea that Cohen asserts, but the one that bugs me the most.

Technorati tags: Mohammed Atta, 9/11.

The failure of independence

For as long as I can remember pundits have talked about the evil of occupation and how Israel suppressed the legitimate rights of the Palesitnians. (In 1994 or so, I remember reading a piece by Ron Pundak, one of the academics who thought up Oslo, writing how he was seeing the Palesitnian in Gaza thriving now that their economy was no longer under the thumb of Israeli occupation.)

Daled Amos blogged last week about an Efraim Karsh article from last year Who Ruined Gaza that the economic effect of ending the occupation has been devastating ...

This combination of corruption and terrorism proved catastrophic. When the declaration of principles was signed on the White House lawn in September, 1993, conditions in the territories were still better than those in most neighbouring Arab states — despite the economic decline caused by the first intifada of 1987-93. But within six months of Arafat’s arrival in Gaza, the standard of living in the strip fell by 25%, and more than half of the area’s residents claimed to have been happier under Israel.
Things got much worse in 2000. War is by its nature a destructive endeavour, and Arafat’s terror war was no exception, inflicting great damage on Israel but also eradicating the fragile fabric of civil society that had been developing in the territories during the decades prior to his arrival. Unemployment increased from 10% to an average of 41% during 2002, and the proportion of the population that was poor rose from 20% to over 50%. Private investment and trade fell dramatically.
According to a recent World Bank report, “the precipitator of this economic crisis has been the “restriction on the movement of goods and people” imposed by Israel to protect its citizens. But this analysis substitutes cause for effect. For it is not the closure of Palestinian areas that has precipitated the Palestinian economic malaise but rather the tidal wave of suicide bombers that made this closure inevitable.

(I linked to a number of relevant articles about Palestinian corruption two years ago in Pleading Poverty.)

Now Prof Karsh has dealt with the military implications of occupation and asks whether occupation hurt the Israel army? (Registration required. h/t Israelated)

It was actually the absence of occupation--that is, the withdrawal of close Israeli surveillance and supervision as part of the Oslo process--that allowed Arafat to transform the territories into a hotbed of terrorism and prompted the IDF to redirect its energies to counterinsurgency operations. If, in December 1992, Yitzhak Rabin's government could arrest some 400 Hamas militants without a single fatality to either side, Israel's withdrawal from populated Palestinian areas turned such simple police actions into hazardous military operations requiring large forces and involving substantial casualties and collateral damage. In fact--far from degrading its military capabilities--it was because of the occupation that Israel didn't do even worse in the Lebanon war.

(Karsh's military analysis was in response to a Ze'ev Schiff analysis that I commented on a few weeks ago.)

So Palestinian independence has brought neither prosperity to the Palestinians nor security to Israel. To those - including President Bush - whose vision of a peaceful Middle East requires those two conditions, the unfolding of the past 13 years stands as a refutation to that rose colored vision.

It was not the suppression of Palestinian national aspirations that caused the Palestinians to hate Israel; it was Israel's existence. If there is to be peace between Israel and the Arabs - the Palestinian issue is a smokescreen, allowing the Arab world to pose as champions of freedom while refusing to recognize the one free society in the Middle East - new thinking is required. Israeli concessions will not bring peace; a change of the Arab heart is necessary.

One of Gen Yaalon's beliefs is that education is essential to peace. Once Palestinians are no longer educated that Jews have stolen their land, according to the general, there will be peace. While it may not be as simple as that, surely a change in education will have to be a component of a peaceful future in the Middle East. I doubt, however, that, by itself education is sufficient.

I don't expect that the peace processors will acknowledge their mistakes despite the evidence against them. But if any do and try to excuse themselves, they have no response. The way Arafat and the PLO ran Lebanon presaged how they would run Gaza, Jericho and the other cities that came under their sway. There are no excuses for the failures of the past 13 years. And there are no excuses for allowing them to continue.

Haveil Havalim #86

Here is this week's Haveil Havalim. Due to the demands of a newborn - frankly her soft breathing is a lot more wonderful than the klackety klack of keyboard - I haven't been able to complete it yet. Please continue checking back over the course of the day for more updates ...

FINAL: Over the course of the day I've updated HH #86 3 times. The U# tells you which interation of HH the entry was added. Thanks to all the bloggers who participated!

As of 11:38 AM (more or less) I have one more set of updates to go...

Israel

The Israel Tikkun Blog illustrates how Israel stands alone.

The Haganah blog writes how Christians who adopt the name "Palestinian" ignore their religions and put their nationalism ahead of their religion.

The Ignoble Experiment speculates alliterively that Locke would have liked Israel.

U2 Why does Treppenwitz's post remind me of "Eats, shoots and leaves?"

U2 Jewish Current Issues highlights Christian support for Israel. Gotta love his conclusion.

U2 The Muqata tells you how to use Google for some really neat stuff.

U2 There are no shortage of those who talk about the cost of occupation. Daled Amos writes about what could be called the rewards of occupation and the costs of Arafat.

U2 Shiloh Musings considers who might be an effective (opposition) leader in leader.

Hezbollah and Islamic fascism

Gina Cobb observes that Hezbollah's working with journalists.

And, according to Backspin, with medical personnel too.

Simply Jews compares the treatment of a convicted child killer with that of Ron Arad. It's the asymmetric nature of things that the convicted child killer gets better treatment.

U2 Mere Rhetoric covers a different aspect of asymmetry.

U1 The Micah Report reports on an inversion of reality.

U1 Remember how the papers used to report which Israeli candidate was most popular with the President or with Arafat or with King Hussein? Israel Matzav tells us that PM Olmert got an endorsement he probably wish he hadn't.

U1 Israel Matzav reports on the recidivism rate of Israel's "political" prisoners.

U1 Israel Matzav has additional information on the complicity of UNIFIL in Hezbollah's war crime 6 years ago in kidnapping and killing three Israeli soldiers from the Israeli side of the international border. Daled Amos and The Volokh Conspiracy.David Kopel have the most detailed accounts of this UN sanctioned terrorism.

U2 Ocean Guy defines the issues necessary to fight Islamic fascism.

U2 I remember an NY Times article a few years ago that ran a title to the effect of "This isn't your father's Hezbollah" reporting on Hezbollah's efforts at PR. Of course that PR wouldn't work without a credulous media corps. Mensa Barbie helpfully steps us through the process of doing an extreme terror makeover.

U2 The Muqata writes about the human cost to the Israel's humanitarian gesture of lifting the blockade of Lebanon.

U2 Crossing the Rubicon2 reports on a speech by Winston Churchill (grandson of the great British PM.)

U2 Daniel Pipes has been invited to join Al Qaeda. Heh.

Life in General

Me-Ander's back at school.

And she reports that the first day was a success.

Bec's universe gets it, about Aliyah.

Life in Israel contemplates how living in Israel changes people's religious outlook, not always consistently.

The Ignoble Experiment thinks about how to apply in alternate realities. Or perhaps even in our own.

U3 AbbaGav spends some quality time with his daughter. Cooking. Hmm sounds like a good entry for the Kosher Cooking Carnival.

9/11

Greetings from French Hill has some excellent 9/11 posts. First is Countdown to 9/11 and the second is a memorial for fireman John Fischer. The latter is part of the 2996 project. And then there's the most affecting My days with the dead.

Iran

Simply Jews takes humor out of declarations emanating from Iran.

Judaism

Heichal Haneginah writes about R' Simcha Bunim of Pshischa.

A Simple Jew has a Q & A with Neil Harris of Modern Uberdox.

Jewish Blogmeister reviews the latest Avroham Fried album.

Letters of Thought thinks about Elul.

Beyond BT presents A case for Modern Orthodox Kiruv, the Nightingale and the choice.

The Volokh Conspiracy.David Kopel writes about Jews and self defense and society.

U2 The praying Jew who was escorted from his plane has elicited a number of reactions at A whispering Soul, Me-Ander and two at Cross Currents.

U3 Elder of Ziyon contemplates mixing work with religion.

Antisemitism

U1 Steyn Online comments on espying the Jew.

U1 The American Thinker writes about the Islamization of European antisemitism.

U2 NormBlog reports on the disbelief of a Rose.

U2 Apparently there's a campaign in England to Cancel Israel. (via LGF.)

U2 Daled Amos reacts sharply to the claim that Muslims are the new Jews (i.e. minority victims by the majority society.)

U3Meryl Yourish has been tracking antisemitism of the British variety and of the Australian variety.

Media Bias

U1 The Augean Stables reports on three trials having to do with the Al-Durah affair.

Comings and Goings

U3 Bare Dove has decided to call it quits. and he asks an important quesiton

I also don’t like what having an online persona does to me personally and the amount of time I need to put into the task of running a blog is considerable and pulls me away from the more important things in life. I would ask all bloggers to ask themselves whether they are allowing their own blog or the blogs of others to encroach upon their respective precious time.

U3 And welcome to Different is not necessarily painful.

Birth and Death

U3 Jack's Shack remembers a classmate.

U3 Presence both remembers and eulogizes his grandfather.

U3 Elie's Expositions attempts to answer an unanswerable question as a niece and nephew are born and he remember Aaron.

U3 Dot Co Dot Il contemplates fatherhood.

U3 And my wife and I just welcomed our second consecutive Labor day baby this week. Thank you all for your good wishes!

Upcoming editions:
Sept 17 - #87 - hosted by Greetings from French Hill. Email her at israelrulesblog at hotmail dot com.

Sept 24 - No Haveil Havalim due to Rosh haShannah, the Jewish new year.

Oct 1 - #88 - Hosted by Soccer Dad.

If you would like to submit one or two of your best Israel or Judaism related posts send me an e-mail at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com. Also if you'd like to host an upcoming edition e-mail me at the above address.

In addition to e-mail you may submit entries to Haveil Havalim using either Conservative Cat's handy dandy submission form or the submission form over at BlogCarnival. Or feel free to e-mail me at dhgerstman at hotmail dot com.

(Note the change in the operation of Conservative Cat's submission form. It takes you directly to Haveil Havalim.)

Remember, that while the hosts and hostesses of Haveil Havalim do a wonderful job of editing and searching for interesting posts, they can't see everything. If you want a better chance of being included in Haveil Havalim please submit one or two posts for inclusion. (And please don't submit everything or nearly everything you posted in a week. Winnowing out your best posts takes time.)

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Technorati Tags: Blog carnivals, haveil havalim, Israel, Judaism.

Most recent editions of Haveil Havalim at Blog Carnival
#22 Mystical Paths
#21 Rabbinical Authority Consortium of HACKers
#20 Shiloh Musings
#19 Devarim
#18 Soccer Dad
#17 Mystical Paths
#16 Critical Mastiff
#15 Soccer Dad
#14 Multiple Mentality
#13 IsraPundit
#12 DovBear
#11 Kesher Talk
#10 Biur Chametz
#9 Soccer Dad
#8 It's Almost Supernatural
#7 Bloghead
#6 Willow Tree.
#5 Crossing the Rubicon2
#4 Dov Bear
#3 Biur Chametz

The path to irrelevance

The question attending the upcoming movie "The path to 9/11" is how important is the accuracy of the movie? The Clinton administration and its defenders have gone on a crusade to stifle the movie because of its mistakes.

AmericaBLOG reproduced the letter the Senate Democratic leadership sent to ABC. And observes

The Senate Democratic leadership just threatened Disney's broadcast license. Not the use of the word "trustee" at the beginning of the letter and "trust" at the end. This is nothing less than an implicit threat that if Disney tries to meddle in the US elections on behalf of the Republicans, they will pay a very serious price when the Democrats get back in power, or even before.

The New York Times, of course, weighed in, objecting to this abuse of power and Disney's capitulation

Michael Eisner, Disney's chief executive, had expressed concern that the film might jeopardize Disney's broadcast license. If that is the reason for Disney's move, it would underscore the dangers of allowing huge conglomerates to gobble up diverse media companies.

On the other hand, a senior Disney executive says the real reason is that Disney caters to families of all political stripes and that many of them might be alienated by the film. Those families, of course, would not have to watch the documentary.

It is hard to say which rationale for blocking distribution is more depressing. But it is clear that Disney loves its bottom line more than the freedom of political discourse.

Oh whoops that's an adaptation of an editorial "Disney's Craven Behavior" from May 6, 2004 and it was responding to a charge - false as it turns out - that the Bush brothers had brought pressure to bear against Disney to prevent distribution of the phony "documentary" "Farenheit 9/11."

That charge - much like the charge that Rove avenged the President's honor by outing Valerie Plame - was false but it didn't much exercise the Times or many other media outlets who made issues out of the false charge. (I wrote to the Baltimore Sun's ombudsman who didn't respond to my e-mail.)

Given that it appears the "Path to 9/11" is deeply flawed as John Podhoretz notes (via memeorandum )

The one person who has no grounds for complaint is Bill Clinton himself.

"The Path to 9/11" gives the impression that, as president, Clinton never took bin Laden's declaration of war against the United States and the West seriously enough. And that is simply the unvarnished, undeniable truth.

Still, even here "The Path to 9/11" gets it wrong. The real truth about the failures of the U.S. government under both Clinton and Bush is not, as "The Path to 9/11" would have it, that the diabolical nature of the al Qaeda threat was obvious and unmistakable and that it was ignored by fools, charlatans and other downright unpleasant people who refused to listen to the Few Who Knew the Truth (meaning the late FBI official John O'Neill and that legend in his own mind, former counterterrorism official Richard Clarke).

The simple fact of the matter is that, with a million other things going on all at once - all of which seemed more pressing at the time, the threat went uncomprehended.

The 9/11 Commission rightly called this a "failure of imagination." It's the docudrama's failure to portray the False Peace accurately as a "failure of imagination" that makes "The Path to 9/11" entirely unworthy of your time on the fifth anniversary of the attacks.

(Why make up phony stories about Madeleine Albright when she advocated the coining of the term of "States of concern" to replace "rogue states?" I can think of no clearer demonstration of the "False Peace.")

But of course the hypocrisy surrounding "The Path to 9/11" is amazing. There are actually many more conservatives who actively criticize the inaccuracies of the movie than liberals who criticized Michael Moore's propaganda. (Oh right, it was a documentary, that means that it's true even when it isn't.)

More generally as Life of Rubin points out

The Left can dish it, but they can't take it.

The Left doesn’t want people to lay any blame or responsibility for 9-11 at their doorstep. They want people (and most importantly voters) to think that everything terror blame related should start with Bush. As if terrorism was invented Jan 20th, 2001 . 9-11 didn’t start on 9-11, it started decades earlier.

There is a double standard, in which the Left believes in "fake but accurate." It's how you get an entertainer like Katie Couric reading the news. Perceptions mean everything; facts are inconveniences.

Life-of-Rubin's conclusion is also worth remembering.

We are all to blame because no one, not the Right or the Left took Bin Laden serious enough. Bill Clinton needs to take some sort of responsibility for not realizing what was going on with Al Quada from 1992-2000. Al Queda, The Taliban and Osama were getting more organized, bigger and getting more prepared for wide scale attacks and war on us years before Bush took office.

So let’s not try to pretend, or worry more about Legacy then the truth. There is enough blame to go around on both sides of the political spectrum.

If President Dole had unseated President Clinton after one term, I believe there still would have been 9/11 as the bulk of the foreign policy establishment hadn't paid much mind to the growing threat.

What sets President Bush apart is that he said he was tired of America "swatting flies" and demanded a more comprehensive approach to fighting terror. His implementation may leave something to be desired, but he understood the nature of the threat better than most and has, for the most part, backed up his words with actions.

Unfortunately it does not appear that "The path to 9/11" will adequately illustrate the change in the nation's posture from pre to post 9/11.

UPDATE: See memeorandum.

UPDATE II: Conservative Cat makes the point about George Bush's contribution to the war on terror better than I did. (h/t Mensa Barbie.)

Responses to commenters:
Laura - the double standard I was referring to was the way the Democrats latched on to the phony Michael Moore documentary - members of the Democratic leadership attended the premiere, whereas there seem to be quite a few Republicans who criticize the path to 9/11 for its inaccuracies. The other double standard is that the Left, especially the media believed Michael Moore's bogus charge that the Bush brother's tried to intimidate Disney over F 9/11, but seem to have no problem with the actual bullying that Democrats are now engaged in regarding TPt 9/11.

No - Podhoretz criticized the film for inaccuracy. Read Podhoretz again. He only wrote that Clinton himself had nothing to complain about because he was as unserious as he was portrayed. Berger and Albright though, Podhoretz defends.

Bruce - Thanks.

UPDATE: The NY Times editorial did not concern itself with freedom of expression.

Perhaps the entertainment industry will come up with a few lasting lessons from the outcry over ABC’s “dramatization” of the events leading up to the terrorist attacks on 9/11. One suggestion: when attempting to recreate real events on screen, you do not show real people doing things they never did.

Since the damage done was to the Clinton administration the Times wasn't happy with the false fictionalization. Unlike the case of Michael Moore's phony charge, the Times now is interested in setting the records straight. Then the Times was all too willing to repeat Moore's false charges and failed to apologize to President and Governor Bush for accusing them falsely.

Technorati tag: The Path to 9/11.

Three strands not easily broken

While there are, no doubt, many more than three factors that led to 9/11; there are three that I'd like to highlight: 1) the ideology that drove Osama Bin Laden in his war against the West 2) the acceptance of some terror that likely convinced Osama Bin Laden that he could strike at the U.S. with impunity and 3) the failure of the West - the U.S. in particular - to use the tools at its disposal to fight terror.

IDEOLOGY OF ISLAMISM

Perhaps the best article describing the ideology that motivates Osama bin Laden and his band of merry jihadists is The Philosopher of Islamic Terror by Paul Berman. It is about Sayyid Qutb an Egyptian Islamist who agitated against Nasser until he was hanged in the mid-1960's. Still his ideas and writings live on as Berman describes.

Sitting in a wretched Egyptian prison, surrounded by criminals and composing his Koranic commentaries with Nasser's speeches blaring in the background on the infuriating tape recorder, Qutb knew whom to blame. He blamed the early Christians. He blamed Christianity's modern legacy, which was the liberal idea that religion should stay in one corner and secular life in another corner. He blamed the Jews. In his interpretation, the Jews had shown themselves to be eternally ungrateful to God. Early in their history, during their Egyptian captivity (Qutb thought he knew a thing or two about Egyptian captivity), the Jews acquired a slavish character, he believed. As a result they became craven and unprincipled when powerless, and vicious and arrogant when powerful. And these traits were eternal. The Jews occupy huge portions of Qutb's Koranic commentary -- their perfidy, greed, hatefulness, diabolical impulses, never-ending conspiracies and plots against Muhammad and Islam. Qutb was relentless on these themes. He looked on Zionism as part of the eternal campaign by the Jews to destroy Islam.

And Qutb blamed one other party. He blamed the Muslims who had gone along with Christianity's errors -- the treacherous Muslims who had inflicted Christianity's ''schizophrenia'' on the world of Islam. And, because he was willing to blame, Qutb was able to recommend a course of action too -- a revolutionary program that was going to relieve the psychological pressure of modern life and was going to put man at ease with the natural world and with God.

When the question, "Why do they hate us?" is asked, the assumption for some is that the answer is because of something we did. As Berman shows, though, it's clear that it's because of who we are and what we believe that we of the West are an anathema to the Islamists. We are a threat because the worldview we respect is exclusive to a world governed by sharia.

TOLERATING THE INTOLERABLE

"Occupation" isn't the reason they hate us. That's related to a point made by the late great Michael Kelly in When Innocents are the enemy (original title), the best column I read on Sept 12, 2001.

Yasser Arafat, who has championed the legitimacy of anti-Israeli terror his entire career, nonetheless was quick to express himself "completely shocked," at an attack he said he condemned, and he offered the American people condolences on behalf "of the Palestinian people."

I don't doubt Arafat's shock. And I don't think he had anything directly to do with the monstrous evil of Sept. 11. Indeed, it is possible that what happened yesterday had nothing to do with the Middle East. But this evil rose, with hideous logic, directly from the philosophy that the leaders and supporters of the Palestinian cause have long embraced and still embrace -- a philosophy that accepts the murder of innocents as a legitimate expression of a legitimate struggle.

If it is morally acceptable to murder, in the name of a necessary blow for freedom, a woman on a Tel Aviv street, or to blow up a disco full of teenagers, or to bomb a family restaurant -- then it must be morally acceptable to drive two jetliners into a place where 50,000 people work. In moral logic, what is the difference? If the murder of innocent people is for whatever reason excusable, it is excusable; if it is legitimate, it is legitimate. If acceptable on a small scale, so too on a grand.

The West's commiseration with the Arabs in their conflict with Israel and wtih the Palestinians in particular has made resolving that conflict even more difficult. The claim that the Palestinians had a just cause even if one didn't agree with their methods ignores the premise of Palestinian nationalism.

Palestinian nationalism isn't just about the independence for Palestinians, it is also about the destruction of Israel. The difference between Palesitnian nationalism and Zionism isn't one that can be split, as the former seeks to negate the latter.

If territory alone would solve the issue, there would have been peace in the Middle East in 2000 when Israel witdhrew from Lebanon and offered both Assad and Arafat over 90% of the territory that they demanded. Instead Hezbollah re-armed and prepared to fight Israel for the next 6 years and the latter two died without making peace. By understanding the plight of the Palestinian elites in government, academia and the media effectively justified or rationalized the terror war against Israel.

No doubt this rationalization led bin Laden to conclude that he could strike the United States with impunity. The United States struck back, but there is no denying that bin Laden was likely emboldened by the thought that he would not have to pay a price for his attack.

WHAT DID WE KNOW?

If the first two strands that led to 9/11 were ideological, there was a third that was practical. In an article that is remarkable for its prescience, Daniel Pipes and Steven Emerson wrote about the vast amounts of information that the government learned from the investgations into the embassy bombings and the resulting trial, Terrorism on Trial, three months before that fateful day.

Perhaps the most disconcerting revelations from the trial concern Al-Qaeda's entrenchment in the West. For example, its procurement network for such materiel as night vision goggles, construction equipment, cell phones, and satellite telephones was based mostly in the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Denmark, Bosnia and Croatia. The chemicals purchased for use in the manufacture of chemical weapons came from the Czech Republic.

In the often long waits between terrorist attacks, Al-Qaeda's member organizations maintained operational readiness by acting under the cover of front-company businesses and nonprofit, tax-deductible religious charities. These nongovernmental groups, many of them still operating, are based mainly in the U.S. and Britain, as well as in the Middle East. The Qatar Charitable Society, for example, has served as one of bin Laden's de facto banks for raising and transferring funds.

Osama bin Laden also set up a tightly organized system of cells in an array of American cities, including Brooklyn, N.Y.; Orlando, Fla.; Dallas; Santa Clara, Calif.; Columbia, Mo., and Herndon, Va.

If a complacent or naive ideology encouraged Osama bin Laden, the government's failure to use information it had allowed the plot to continue.

If the information that Pipes and Emerson wrote about were used by law enforcement officials, it is possible that the 9/11 plot could have been compromised or disrupted. If the media had followed up perhaps we would have a warning about what was going on.

The media surely dropped the ball. I suspect that law enforcement did too. I can't believe that Atta and company wouldn't have used assets already in place. I'm sure that those contacts would have been minimal, to reduce the chance of exposure, but I can't believe that the connections weren't there.

(It wouldn't be the first time. When authorities were investigating El Sayyid Nosair who was convicted for gun crimes in the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane, they ignored papers in his possession that would have tied him to those who were involved in the first plot to destroy the World Trade Center.)

Could 9/11 have been prevented? I suspect it could have. But it required a new way of looking at things. A failure to understand our enemies and how they operated made the attacks possible. I hope that in the past 5 years we'd have learned something as a society. When I see the partisan sniping directed at President Bush, I wonder if the lessons have been learned. This isn't to say that the president has been perfect, just that he's been out ahead of his opponents.

Part of the fault is that of the media that is opposed to Bush's worldview and either don't inform the public properly or mislead the public.

However the President bears at least some of the blame for the failure to understand what's at stake. For too long he has allowed his political and media opponents to define him; to portray him as pursuing failed policies and being ignorant and venal.

Now he's started making his case directly to the American people. It's about time. I hope that he will be able to change a significant number of minds.

Technorati tags: 9/11, President Bush, Sayyid Qutb, Al Qaeda.

Krauthammer: Commit

A few weeks ago the winning entry of the Watcher's Council was Right Wing Nuthouse's Iraq: Quit or Commit. The argument (in a nutshell) presented was that the war in Iraq is not going well and therefore the Bush administration is obligated to do one of two things: commit to winning the war or get out.

Now Charles Krauthammer, confronting the same evidence looks at America's options in Iraq: A Civil War We Can Still Win (also here.)

Krauthammer breaks down America's reasons for leaving Iraq, job unfinished, into two.

1) Decide that the war isn't worth fighting and bring home the troops. Krauthammer rejects this as unserious. First of all it's based on a false premise. Iraq under Saddam was intolerable. Secondly, this isn't the time to make this argument; the proper time was in late 2002 and early 2003. Given the vitory an American withdrawal would constitute for Iran, Syria and Al Qaeda this is a result that should be avoided.

2) The more serious reason for a withdrawal according to Krauthammer, is that this is a war that cannot now be won. There is no point sacrificing more soldiers in a lost cause. Krauthammer, though, doesn't believe that the war is unwinnable. Unlike Right Wing Nut House, Krauthammer sees the responsibility for success or failure dependent on the actions of the Iraqis. While the U.S. is needed in Iraq, it is the actions (or inacitons) of the Iraqi government that will determine the success of the war. The United States must be there as support for the nascent Iraqi government, but the determining factor in whether or not the war will be successful, is the Iraqi govenrment that so far seems to hesitating to do the right thing.

More at Buzztracker.

Technorati tags: Iraq, War on Terror, Charles Krauthammer.

Steelers baby

I heard about this on the Bruce Elliott show last night

A woman from Upper St. Clair owes a big thanks to two of her neighbors today.

Beth Gardner’s neighbors helped deliver her baby on the Parkway West.

State police got a call around 9:30 p.m. last night that a woman was in labor near the Green Tree exit.

Neighbors? Why yes.

Gardner’s neighbors were driving her to the hospital because her husband was watching the Steelers game last night.

Yikes.

She gave birth to a baby girl. Both are fine and resting today at Magee Women's Hospital.

The husband is currently on the lam; not planning on returning until the baby turns 5 in hopes that his wife will have forgotten by then. It appears that he was the only one he didn't know what his priorities were.

But while I looked up this story I found an even more disturbing one Pregnant Steelers Fan Makes Plans To Be Induced.

A pregnant Steelers fan is not letting the birth of her baby get in the way of the Super Bowl celebrations.

She convinced her doctor to induce her early, so she'll be home in time to watch the Super Bowl with all of her friends.

Baby Alexandria is just a blurry image of a baby right now, but she'll enter the world with a wardrobe of Steelers clothes, her birth scheduled around the Super Bowl.

“The Super Bowl is like Christmas,” said Carrie Welling, of New Kensington. “The fact that the Steelers are going - that's what you live for.”

Welling is due the day before the Super Bowl, but when she screams through the game, she doesn't want it to be from labor pains.

Here there are 3 people who don't have their priorities straight - including the mother and doctor.

Then again this was the Super Bowl. Last week's story was about a pre-season game.

Technorati tags: Pittsburgh Steelers, Pittsburgh Steelers.

Telephone telepathy

I once had a roommate - in the days before caller ID was ubiquitous - who told me that if the phone rings, if you answer "Hello so and so ..." it was a no lose situation. If you're right, the person is impressed that you were correct. If not he or she will probably forget the mistake. So it's really a no lose situation.

Now there's a researcher who claims that people do have an intuitive feel for who's calling, even blindly. This researcher believes that Telephone Telepathy is a real phenomenon.

Rupert Sheldrake, whose research is funded by the respected Trinity College in Cambridge, England, said on Tuesday he has conducted experiments that proved such precognition exists for telephone calls and even e-mails.

Each person in the trials was asked to give researchers names and phone numbers of four relatives or friends. These were then called at random and told to ring the subject who had to identify the caller before answering the phone.

"The hit rate was 45 percent, well above the 25 percent you would have expected," he told the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. "The odds against this being a chance effect are 1,000 billion to one."

The article goes on to say that his sample sizes were small but that he believes that studies with more participants would prove his thesis.

Frankly this is a bunch of malarkey. Usually, what happens when you think that you anticipated someone's call is that you had confusion. When that person calls it gives you a feeling that you were thinking of him/her and you then confuse when you started to thing of that person and convince yourself that you were thinking of him/her prior to receiving the phone call.

Technorati tag: Telephone Telepathy.

Watchers of weasels 9/06/06

This week's nominations are in ...

AbbaGav moderates the moderate Ayatollah Khatami's moderate words so we don't have to. It makes it all the more understandable why moderate moonbat, former President Carter would honor moderate former President Khatami's with a meeting.

Done with Mirrors defends Sec of State Rice's assertion that attitudes in today's war on terrror reflect (imperfectly) the attitudes existing during the Civil War.

Education Wonks discusses the tolerance teachers are directed to display when students are being abusive. It's enough to make you swear!

Gates of Vienna write about the attitudes of a Saudi national who was just convicted of abusing his help. She believes him, that he really doesn't think he did anything wrong. That is frightening.

The Glittering Eye looks at New Orleans one year later. It would appear that delays in rebuilding have to do with the local will to do so. He also makes an astute observation about military base closings and the consequences for future disasters.

JoshuaPundit concludes that Jews living in many parts of Western Europe consider leaving, for their own good.

Rhymes with Right demolishes "Dishonorable Don" Richardson, a pretender to the seat once held by Tom DeLay.

Right Wing Nuthouse gives high marks to the NY Times's Jim Dwyer (not the former elite pinch hitter for the Orioles) for debunking 9/11 conspiracy "theorists." 9/11 studies? Sheesh. Though he acknowledges that sweet reason won't likely change the minds of anyone so delusional to embrace some of these "theories."

ShrinkWrapped continues his series on the Information War (against Islamism). For him Part IV presents reasons for optimisim the missteps of the West.

Socratic Rhythm Method considers a paper that wants the law to find bias in actions based on nothing more than results.

Sundries Shack is currently unavailable, hopefully I'll be able to review it later.

UPDATE: An obnoxious commenter points out that former President Khatami is not an Ayatollah. It was his father who was. Pardon my mistake.

Technorati tags: Watcher's Council.

Of the council and carnivals 09/06/06

First of all I'd like to thank Dr. Sanity for including my post in the most recent Carnival of the Insanities.

And regarding my Watcher's Council obligation ...

The council has spoken and the winners of the Watcher's Council vote for this week are Empire and Apocalypse by Gates of Vienna, and Check or Checkmate? Death by Cop on the Global Stage by Kobayashi Maru. (Full results of the vote are here. )

I was particularly pleased that my entry this week tied JoshuaPundit's excellent adventure into hypocrisy regarding Darfur for second place among council entries. Thanks to fellow watchers JoshuaPundit, The Glittering Eye, Gates of Vienna, AbbaGav, ShrinkWrapped, Rhymes with Right and non-council winnder Kobyashi Maru for the kind mention.

Technorati tags: Blog Carnivals, Watcher's Council.

News you probably can't use

Want to survive a fall from a great height?
Here's how to do it.
Hints: Avoid concrete, land feet first and protect your head on the bounce.

More here.

A little more on Urquahart's fall here and here.

Technorati tags: Free Fall, Parachute.

What do I have in common with?

Biur Chametz
Moving On
SerAndEz
A Simple Jew
House of Joy
Bloghead
Yesh Omrim
DotCoDotIl

This is a cheap way to get lots of comments. Isn't it?

Details to follow.

BTW Yasher Koach to SerAndEz and Elder of Ziyon for figuring it out 4 months ago.

Reporters blogger behaving badly?

In the little town of Candor in the last year of my youth
I learned the final lesson of the levels to the truth - Harry Chapin - The Mayor of Candor lied

Last week I posted about a media event in which a number of Israel based journalists participated, including Steven Erlanger of the NY Times. Most of my post consisted of quoting from other bloggers who were critical of the media performance. I concluded by citing an example demonstrating the media bias.

I would have stopped there but someone who claimed to be at the event left a comment claiming that the bias I condemned was not in evidence at the event and I was wrong for depending on an inaccurate account.

I wasn't sure how to proceed, but concluded that I would have to check out the source. So I contacted the editor(s) of The Media Line sponsors of the event. I received an e-mail in response from Felice Friedson one of the founders of the Media Line who wrote that she was very disappointed with the Ynet article I had blogged about and felt that the Jerusalem Post and espcecially Ha'aretz had done a better job of covering the event.

Here are the 3 accounts:
Ynet - Journalists blame Israel for war coverage
Jerusalem Post - Reporters tackle their own war coverage
Ha'aretz - 'Can the public ever get the real story?'

Though it would appear that the worst part of the Ynet article was the title "Journalists blame Israel for war coverage" there were enough issues with the article the Steven Erlanger felt the need to respond to several points. Ynet gave him the opportunity in Setting the record straight. Unfortunately, Mr. Erlanger's responses pretty much confirm - in my opinion - the attitude that was attributed to him by the Ynet article.

Let's take his responses one by one.

First, I did not lament the lack of proportionality in the war. I said that the charge of disproportionate use of force came from a variety of serious people, and that I was surprised that Israel and Israelis did not take the accusation more seriously. I said I was puzzled why the issue was not more debated in the Israeli press, and said that a least one columnist in Haaretz wondered the same. I did not utter a personal judgment about the proportionality of the war.

Except as NRO's Media Blog noted

You really must read the whole thing to appreciate the mindset of the people like the NYT's Steven Erlanger and the AP's Ravi Nessman who reported on this war for U.S. newspapers. I'll give you a hint, though: The word "proportionality" comes up a lot.

Bringing up the question of proportionality implicitly does reveal the questioner's motivation. Sure he was mentioning the views of others, but he could have also presented the view of most Israelis that six years of Hezbollah violations - not just the kidnapping of 2 soldiers - justified the response and ask why most of the world didn't accept that narrative. His choice of question is telling.

The Ynet reporter - Yaakov Lappin - who appears to be a media critic - responded

When Mr. Erlanger discussed what he described as a "big issue here, the issue of proportionality," mentioning "first the death toll, second, the visibility of destruction, the asymmetry of the war," and later adding that Israelis were "not interested in whether 1000 Lebanese civilians needed to die," it became apparent to me that a stance on the war's proportionality was on display. I was surprised by Mr. Erlanger's denial of putting forward a judgment on the war. Ultimately, it is up to readers to decide on the motivation of Mr. Erlanger's questions and comments on the war.

To be sure that's Mr. Lappin's judgment, but it hardly seems to be unfounded.

Second, I did not express surprise that Israel's view of the war was different from that of its critics. I did express surprise that the views of international critics of the war were not debated seriously and that no serious effort was made by the Israeli government or army to counter them.

See my response to the fourth item.

Third, and most egregiously, I did not maintain that the only threat faced by my own colleagues in Lebanon was posed by Israeli missiles. The response was about Gaza, not Lebanon at all, and is taken completely out of context.

Here Mr. Lappin acknowedges his mistake, though he still finds something to criticize here:

I accept Mr. Erlanger's correction regarding his comments on dangers posed by his colleagues – he was in fact referring to his colleagues in Gaza, not Lebanon. Mr. Erlanger said that Israeli missiles were the source of danger for his colleagues in the Gaza, a curious comment in light of the recent kidnapping at gunpoint of two Fox journalists in Gaza.

Back to Erlanger ...

Fourth, I did turn down an offer by the IDF to watch their desk that was supposed to be coordinating humanitarian aid. The Jerusalem Post had already run that precise story, and I used it as an example of the army's sometimes clumsy efforts at spin.

I don't understand how this meshes with Erlanger's second response. There he wrote that the IDF and government weren't making a serious response to counter Israel's critics. The problem is that he was given an opportunity to report on such an effort. He dismissed the effort as clumsy and claimed that there was no need to write about it because the Jerusalem Post had already reported the effort.

Why not report on something just because Jerusalem Post already did? It didn't stop Erlanger from reporting on Qana just because other news agencies had. (Although to his credit he noted that the number of dead was subject to some dipute, instead of accepting the toll of 56 uncritically.)

Ha'aretz, reported the following:

Erlanger said that he erred in taking the head of Military Intelligence too seriously and in not taking Lebanese politics seriously enough. He also regretted publishing a picture focusing on a damaged section of Beirut without showing the larger context of the city.

I believe Amos Yadlin to be serious. Not taking him seriously enough is, I think, problematic. But when Erlanger's citing his faults in covering the recent war, and mentions that he didn't provide the proper context in showing the destruction in Beirut. His most important failing hurt Israel.

I got into blogging in part out of frustration with the way the MSM reported on Israel. When I read the article in Ynet and the bloggers commenting on it, it confirmed my worst suspicions about the prejudices that reporters bring to their job. Perhaps I should have been suspicious with Ynet's over the top title "Journalists blame Israel for war coverage." But I don't find that outside of the title and Lappin's one clear mistake that the article misrepresented the views of the Erlanger. Perhaps other details will emerge from the recording that will show Lappin's approach to be excessively negative.

I'd have to agree, failing any further information, with NRO's Media Blog who concluded

Having read all three, it seems to me that Ynet just chose to emphasize different comments. Without the audio or video, it's hard to say which account comes closest to accurately describing the panel discussion.

Mere Rhetoric based on the same information isn't as generous to Ynet and ends his commentary with a bit of irony.

15 seconds of Googling this morning was enough to confirm that past Lappin articles about the international media have a very marked editorial tone. That's obviously not a reason not to trust him when he says that a fact is a fact, but it's retroactive confirmation that something may be amiss. Even in the worst case for him, there's nothing in this article that could get a journalist fired. But the number and kind of the tricks that he used (stringing together quotes, excluding context, etc) make things confusing enough that we feel uncomfortable basing a post on his quotes. What we might have is a biased reporter being dishonest in order to undermine a panel of media figures convened for the purpose of explaining media dishonesty. Very elegant.

It's worth Ynet's mistake is significant. In Context noticed that the section reporting that Erlanger had claimed that his colleagues in Lebanon were more at risk from Israeli rockets than from Hezbollah had been removed. That was because Erlanger's comments were about Gaza not Lebanon.

But there should have been a mention in the original article that the claim was wrong and that's why it was removed. If not that, then at least reporter Lappin should have mentioned explicitly that the section was deleted from the original article. Simply removing a mistake without acknowledging it is not right.

Hopefully the Media Line will post the audio as it has said and we'll get to hear how biased or not the journalists were at the symposium for ourselves. But until then I have to conclude that the Ynet article was guilty of little more than emphasizing the negative.

Thanks to fellow bloggers In Context, Mere Rhetoric and NRO's Media Blog for their input, encouragement and work on this story. And thank you to the Media Line for responding promptly to my inquiry. I'm sorry that I don't find the new information as exculpatory as they do. Erlanger''s response to Lappin made me less sympathetic than I otherwise would have been. I really don't think that his views were misrepresented as he more or less confirmed them.

Technorati tags: The Media Line, Steven Erlanger, Media Bias, Israel.

Hollow victory

In Hezbollah's "Victory" (or here) Charles Krauthammer doesn't go easy on the Israeli government.

True, under the inept and indecisive leadership of Ehud Olmert, Israel did miss the opportunity to militarily destroy Hezbollah and make it a non-factor in Israel's security, Lebanon's politics and Iran's foreign policy.

But he also concludes that Hezbollah did suffer quite a bit

Nonetheless, Hezbollah was seriously hurt. It lost hundreds of its best fighters. A deeply entrenched infrastructure on Israel's border is in ruins. The great hero has had to go so deep into hiding that Nasrallah has been called "the underground mullah.''

(BTW, Happy Birthday big guy. Too bad those candles on your cake weren't Hellfire missiles. I guess that's why you celebrated it underground.)

Furthermore Krauthammer points out

Most importantly, Hezbollah's political gains within Lebanon during the war have proved illusory. As the dust settles, the Lebanese are furious at Hezbollah for provoking a war that brought them nothing but devastation -- and then crowing about victory amid the ruins.

The Western press was once again taken in by the mystique of the "Arab street.'' The mob came out to cheer Hezbollah for raining rockets on Israel -- surprise! -- and the Arab governments that had initially criticized Hezbollah went conveniently silent. Now that the mob has gone home, Hezbollah is under renewed attack -- in newspapers in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Egypt, as well as by many Lebanese, including influential Shiite academics and clan leaders. The Arabs know where their interests lie. And they do not lie with a Shiite militia that fights for Iran.

Credit is due to a few observers who predicted this.

Simply Jews had called attention to Bradly Burston who called the war a war that Hezbollah couldn't lose, but still might.

Or as Thomas Friedman put it, this is "the morning after, the morning after"

On the morning after the morning after the ceasefire, Lebanese war refugees, who had real jobs and homes, will start streaming back by the hundreds of thousands, many of them Shiites. Tragically, they will find their homes or businesses badly damaged or obliterated. Yes, they will curse Israel. But they and other Arabs will also start asking Nasrallah publicly what many are already asking privately: "What was this war all about? What did we get from this and at what price? Israel has some roofs to repair and some dead to bury. But its economy and state are fully intact, and it will recover quickly. We Lebanese have been set back by a decade. Our economy and our democracy lie in ruins, like our homes. For what? For a one-week boost in 'Arab honor?' So that Iran could distract the world's attention from its nuclear program? You did all this to us for another country?" (New York Times, 11Aug06)

(Yes it galls me to credit Friedman, but he appears to be right on this count.)

So Krauthammer figures that Hezbollah's time has passed for now.

Which is why the expected Round Two will, in fact, not happen. Hezbollah is in no position, either militarily or politically, for another round. Nasrallah's admission that the war was a mistake is an implicit pledge not to repeat it, lest he be completely finished as a Lebanese political figure.

The Lebanese know that Israel bombed easy-to-repair airport runways when it could have destroyed the new airport terminal and set Lebanon back 10 years. The Lebanese know that Israel attacked the Hezbollah TV towers when it could have pulverized Beirut's power grid, a billion-dollar reconstruction. The Lebanese know that next time Israel's leadership will hardly be as hesitant and restrained. Hezbollah dares not risk that next time.

So Krauthammer thinks that the progress of the March 14 revolution could be restored.

It was just a year and a half ago that the democrats of the March 14 movement expelled Syria from Lebanon and rose to power, marking the apogee of the American democratization project in the region. Nasrallah's temporary rise during the just-finished war marked that project's nadir. Nasrallah's crowing added to the general despair in Washington about a rising "Shiite crescent'' stretching from Tehran to Beirut.

In fact, Hezbollah was seriously set back, as was Iran. In the Middle East, however, promising moments pass quickly. This one needs to be seized. We must pretend that Security Council Resolution 1701 was meant to be implemented, and exert unrelieved pressure on behalf of those Lebanese -- a large majority -- who want to do the implementing.

1701 though is an extremely flawed document. It puts Shebaa farms on the table and talks about Lebanese prisoners in Israel. And while the UN complains about Israeli violations it declares Hezbollah serious about keeping the peace.(when Israel strikes at Hezbollah positions it's considered a violation, but what if those members of Hezbollah were armed?)

If these gains are not to prove illusory, Israel and the United States will have to stand firm demanding real results. I'm not convinced that either is likely to do so.

Technorati tags: Nasrallah, Israel, hizbullah, Charles Krauthammer.