A busy 9/11 anniversary for Obama: stiffing Netanyahu and murderous attacks on two embassies. Have a nice day, Mr. O.
A Pivotal Week From Within and Without
The Supreme Court is set this week to decide the politically charged constitutional clashes between President Obama and Republicans over his healthcare law and his immigration enforcement policy.
The Spirit of Geert Wilders
When I was asked to write a foreword to Geert Wilders’ new book, my first reaction, to be honest, was to pass. Mr. Wilders lives under 24/7 armed guard because significant numbers of motivated people wish to kill him, and it seemed to me, as someone who’s attracted more than enough homicidal attention over the years, that sharing space in these pages was likely to lead to an uptick in my own death threats. Who needs it? Why not just plead too crowded a schedule and suggest the author try elsewhere? I would imagine Geert Wilders gets quite a lot of this.
Shut up, Egypt is Muslim
Supporters of Egypt’s various new political parties gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square on Friday for what was supposed to be a unity rally. In a portent of things to come, however, the gathering was hijacked by masses of Islamists who intimidated the members of liberal and secular parties out of the square. America’s most important Arab ally is hurtling toward an Islamist takeover and the Obama administration is egging on the transition.
The Islamist factions in Egypt, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and the more strident Salafists, have been cautiously and quietly building their political organizations ahead of November’s parliamentary elections. Earlier this year, they were circumspect about involvement in partisan politics, making statements that gave the impression they would serve more as spiritual guides than contenders for power. This was a ruse. The objective of the Islamist groups has always been to implement Sharia law in Egypt, and the downfall of the Hosni Mubarak government has presented them with their best and perhaps only opportunity to get it done. After all, it is a revolution; the time to impose radical change is now.
Leftism, the Religion
Many Americans find it difficult to understand why Jews on the left, including many who would call themselves “liberal” rather than “left,”continued to enthusiastically support President Obama after the revelations about the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish views of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, the president’s religious mentor and close friend. This confusion is all the greater now that President Obama has humiliated the Israeli prime minister and created the tensest moment in U.S.-Israel relations in memory.
Likewise, many Americans wonder how Democratic congressmen who claim to be faithful, pro-life Catholics could vote for a health-care bill that allows for federal funding of abortions after opposing it up to the last day.
Are Jews Permitted to Doubt The New York Times?
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Courage comes in many forms. But the rarest form of courage, it seems to me, is for a true addict to give up his (or her) New York Times. That seems to go double or triple for the NYT’s Jewish readers, who cling to its daily prophetic utterances with truly Biblical fervor: “absolute truth.”
My sample is biased, obviously, since I hang around with conservatives and such (yech!), but I can think of only one Jewish friend who has ever confessed to dumping All the News You Are Fit to Read.
The Chosen One
In our time, asking how a young man of scarce achievement got into position to win the Democratic Party’s nomination for president courts the contemporary synonyms for “impious”: “birther,” “conspiracy theorist,” and, of course, “racist.” Granted, to inquire into what formed a president is not as important as to understand what he does. Nevertheless, because fully to know where anyone is going requires grasping whence he comes, let us open ourselves to wonder how, minus miracles, a 10-year-old boy without obvious talent who had lived in Indonesia since age six ends up with an eight-year scholarship to Hawaii’s most exclusive school; a scholarship to Occidental College; a transfer into Columbia University; acceptance into Harvard Law School, and editorship of its law review; and how he goes from job to prestigious job without apparently mastering any of the previous ones. No wonder some of Barack Obama’s supporters treat him as if he were anointed by an extraterrestrial power.
What If Jews Had Followed the Palestinian Path?
It is doubtful that there has ever been a more miserable human refuse than Jewish survivors after World War II. Starving, emaciated, stateless—they were not welcomed back by countries where they had lived for generations as assimilated and educated citizens. Germany was no place to return to and in Kielce, Poland, 40 Jews who survived the Holocaust were killed in a pogrom one year after the war ended. The European Jew, circa 1945, quickly went from victim to international refugee disaster.
Yet within a very brief time, this epic calamity disappeared, so much so that few people today even remember the period. How did this happen in an era when Palestinian refugees have continued to be stateless for generations?
Killing Bin Laden: An Act of Absolute Moral Clarity…and then there’s “President Boring.”
On May 1, 2011, President Obama announced to the world that he had personally shot Osama bin Laden in the head.
Well, not exactly. But it was close.
“I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al-Qaida,” he said. “I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden … I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action … Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan …”