Soccer Dad

Submitted 05/28/08

The Watcher's Council submissions have been posted.

First I'd like to welcome the newest member of the council, The Razor to the weekly vote. His inaugural submission is Memorial Day 2008 in which he pays tribute to Arden Yoder.

In Which It Gets Worse
Done With Mirrors expresses his disdain for what passes for education in his son's high school: analyzing Billy Joel's "We didn't start the fire."
Cowbama Diplomacy and Iran
Wolf Howling makes the case against engaging Iran diplomatically. He sums it up:

The bottom line, after years of meetings with Iran, after years of their continuous and on-going attempts to foment instability and spread their revolution, there appears nothing that we can offer as a carrot to the theocracy that could possibly both stop their deadly expansionism and their rush towards nuclear arms. That indeed is also the conclusion of Sec. of Defense Robert Gates, who called for low level talks with Iran in 2004 but who now sees no carrot with any chance of changing the theocracy’s actions. Thus, the questions McCain must be asking are not whether to hold Presidential level talks with Iran, but far more fundamentally, what Obama intends to offer Iran and what he proposes to do differently than previous administrations that would change the inherent nature of the theocracy and move them from their current course?

An Honest Assesment of the MSM's Problem
Rhymes With Right highlights a fascinating article from the Politico analyzing Sen. Clinton's Robert Kennedy remarks and finds them unobjectionable. He concludes correctly that this one of the failings of the media. My only concern is that I'd suspect that those same reporters would feel that a number of issues that concern me (for example Sen. Obama's ties to Rev. Wright) are similarly overblown.
Reflections on the State of the Republic
Hillbilly White Trash airs his views of the second amendment.
Why Jews Are Right To Suspect Obama's Advisers
Bookworm Room boils down the concerns advocates for Israel have with Sen. Obama's advisers:

In a normal situation, the Obamanites might have a point. Ordinarily, if the world were focusing like a laser on a dispute between two small, bordering countries about riparian rights (or trade agreements, or power plants, or any of the ordinary disputes that might rile adjoining nations), it would be fatal to a peaceful conclusion if the external mediators entered with a preconceived bias in favor of one of the countries. But what Obama and his fellow travelers fail to understand is that the relationship between Israel and her neighbors is not a garden-variety dispute about concrete matters such as borders and water. Instead, it is a binary, existential dispute that demands the answer to a single question: Does Israel have the right to exist?

When someone who is sympathetic to Sen. Obama like Jeffrey Goldberg says that Israel is responsible for creating a Palestinian state or it will become an apartheid state, he is saying that he would delegitimize Israel in order to save it. It's an untenable position.
Will History Redeem President Bush?
The Colossus of Rhodey argues that history won't redeem President Bush because invading Iraq sidetracked the war on terror. However, now Strategy Page is reporting (via memeorandum)

Al Qaeda web sites are making a lot of noise about "why we lost in Iraq." Western intelligence agencies are fascinated by the statistics being posted in several of these Arab language sites. Not the kind of stuff you read about in the Western media. According to al Qaeda, their collapse in Iraq was steep and catastrophic. According to their stats, in late 2006, al Qaeda was responsible for 60 percent of the terrorist attacks, and nearly all the ones that involved killing a lot of civilians. The rest of the violence was carried out by Iraqi Sunni Arab groups, who were trying in vain to scare the Americans out of the country.

Is it possible, then, that attacking Iraq had the positive - though possibly unintended - consequence of getting Al Qaeda to fight the United States on the terms of the United States?
Strange Device
The Glittering Eye reviews Walter Russell Mead's "God and Gold." I can't describe the ideas of the book adequately, so please read the review yourself.
Peacekeepers Raping Children... Again
Cheat Seeking Missiles writes about the ongoing, underreported scourge of UN Peacekeeping.
Say Goodnight, Hillary
The Education Wonks sees Sen. Clinton's mention of Robert Kennedy's assassination as the final straw that breaks her campaign. He agrees with Don Surber. In this case, I agree with Rhymes with Right.
Looking At The Last Full Measure Of Devotion
Joshuapundit reflects on those who gave their lives for something bigger than themselves:

I've been inside before, and I've never once passed by without reflecting on the young men and women buried there. They had faith in something bigger than themselves, though many of them probably didn't articulate in quite that way. All of them wanted to live, but they were willing to die,if necessary so that the rest of us could.

Dear Mr Hoyt
In my entry I send an open letter to the public editor of the NY Times asking if the Karsenty/Enderlin decision will encourage his paper to engage in some much needed introspection. Unsurprisingly, I have received nothing more than an automated response assuring me that my concern has been given "serious consideration."

My non-council submission was Iowahawk's Return to Sender. (h/t Instapundit), which was a riot.

I'd also like to acknowledge last week's non-council winner The Whited Sepulchre for his gracious tribute to the Watcher's Council!

Read, Enjoy. Be Informed.

watcher's council.

Posted by SoccerDad at May 28, 2008 6:07 AM | TrackBack