Brace Yourselves!!!

You are about to be reminded by President Obama that Islam is a Religion of Peace.

By the end of the day his spin doctors will try to turn this into just another abject lesson on the "scourge of gun violence" and the need to curtail 2nd Amendment rights.

Anyone who will dare to say anything else is a racist and an Islamophobe.

Please note that this fact is not up for discussion.

My 2 cents: A society that cannot appreciate its contributions nor identify the threats that it faces is doomed to disappear. A phobia is an irrational fear. I have nothing against Muslims per se, but Islamism i.e. political Islam is a dangerous death cult and a tangible threat to humanity. There is nothing irrational about this fear. Complacency is irrational and primarily harms those Muslims that liberals and progressives think they are protecting.

UPDATE 1: That didn't take long:

"Obama also noted that the worst mass shooting in U.S. history is a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get a weapon that allows them to shoot people in a school, in a house of worship, a movie theater or a gay nightclub."

UPDATE 2: From President Obama's statement:

"We are still learning all the facts. This is an open investigation. We’ve reached no definitive judgment on the precise motivations of the killer. The FBI is appropriately investigating this as an act of terrorism. And I’ve directed that we must spare no effort to determine what -- if any -- inspiration or association this killer may have had with terrorist groups. What is clear is that he was a person filled with hatred."

This is clearly an out and out lie. Mateen declared his allegiance to the Islamic State while on the phone with 911. There is no way that Obama did not know this. Hence his willingness to classify this as a terrorist act. Clearly, he did not say this because he does not want to single out a certain religious group that is implicated in this attack.

The last statement is completely delusional. "What is clear is that he was a person filled with hatred." Really? That's it? Just a bad seed, a misanthrope and sociopath who was off his meds tonight? Perhaps the shooter was ideologically motivated? Perhaps Omar honestly and truly believed that what they were doing was Allah's will and hence an act of Love based on their understanding of what God really wants? I am certainly not justifying this barbarism, but it is consistent with a certain weltanshchauung.

Friends don't Let Friends ...

Starting with this election cycle, I have noticed a recurring trope in the left wing's discourse surrounding Israel - the assertion that the Bush administration has hardly been a true friend of the Jewish state. As Jeremy Ben-Ami, the director of the new anti-AIPAC lobby J-Street recently stated in the pages of the Washington Post, the notion that Bush has been the best friend Israel has ever had is no less than a "myth". According to this political savant, this is:

Not even close. The president has acted as Israel's exclusive corner man when he should have been refereeing the fight. That choice weakened Israel's long-term security. Israel needs U.S. help to maintain its military edge over its foes, but it also needs the United States to contain Arab-Israeli crises and broker peace. Israel's existing peace pacts owe much to Washington's ability to bridge the mistrust among parties in the Middle East. So when the United States abandons the role of effective broker and acts only as Israel's amen choir, as it has throughout Bush's tenure, the United States dims Israel's prospects of winning security through diplomacy.

So, Israeli military strength is its diplomatic weakness? No matter that Ben-Ami's interesting algebra has no historical precedent in the Middle East world of realpolitik, he truly believes that a strong Israel is the root of the problem. Worse, he accuses Israel - the only country in the world that would show such restraint when its civilian population is being bombarded on a daily basis - of a diplomatic DUI in its dealings with the Palestinians:

Would a true friend not only let you drive home drunk but offer you their Porsche and a shot of tequila for the road? Israel needs real friends, not enablers. And forging a healthy friendship with Israel requires bursting some myths about what it means to be pro-Israel.

So apparently it is Israeli recklessness and not Palestinian or Arab intransigence that is preventing peace from gushing forth in the Middle East.

It does not take much to see this as none other than a brazen and self-serving attempt to stop the hemorhaging of Jews from the Democratic to the Republican party. As recent polling clearly shows, this is a real concern and may actually be the first time that the Republican party could get as much as 40% of the Jewish vote.

In practice this could mean that Obama's nomination could cost the Democrats "180,000 votes in the state of Florida if we drop 20 percent. It means 35,000 votes in Ohio. God forbid New Jersey's in play, 130,000 votes in New Jersey; 16,000 votes in the small state of Nevada; 25,000 votes in Colorado; 70,000 votes in Pennsylvania"

Yet, the oddest thing about Ben-Ami's argument (aside from the "false consciousness" angle) is that none of the respective parties seem to think that what he is saying has any basis in fact.

For starters, President Bush stated during his recent visit to Israel that, "America is proud to be Israel's best friend in the world." and Israel's President Shimon Peres, someone who would hardly fit the picture of a hawk, "lamented the coming end to Bush's presidency in January, calling Bush's tenure a "moving" eight years."

Even Palestinian President Abbas asserted that Bush is "biased" towards Israel while Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri used less diplomatic language and stated that, Bush was "the leader of evil in the world".

So basically everyone agrees that Bush has been a true friend to Israel. In fact, even Ben-Ami implicitly agrees that Bush is a staunch supporter of Israel, though from his perspective this as a negative and Israel, the only country that to this day has made any concessions for peace, needs to be forcibly pushed into making peace with its neighbors. It should come as no surprise then that Ben-Ami and his organization openly endorse Obama and has gone on record to state that "From our pro-Israel point of view (!), he's right on the money."

This obviously begs the question - Who would you rather have as a friend - a person like President Bush who is committed to Israel's survival and opposed to all Arab attempts to delegitimize Israel or paint it as the source of all problems in the Middle East or those "pro-Israel" types like Ben-Ami and Obama?

The former believes that Israel is drunk on power and that it's strength and success are the root of the problem while Senator Obama has termed Israel a "constant sore" to the Arab world. Do I really need to point out that friends don't call friends "constant sores"?

The Obama Nation's Playbook

The recent Clinton RFK flap reminds me of the Vilnai comment on Gaza that used the Hebrew word "shoah". Aside from the fact that the meaning of "shoah" as Holocaust is always "Ha Shoah", or THE Holocaust, like most words in any language, "shoah" has several meanings including "catastrophe" and "disaster".

No matter. The Arab reporters of Reuters (Adam Entous and Joseph Nasr) who broke the story took it upon themselves to translate this in the most negative way they could and the world press swallowed it up. Of course no one stopped to consider the chutzpah inherent in appropriating a Hebrew word and then telling the speakers of Hebrew what it really means. Hamas not only lapped it up, but declared this as incontrovertible proof of Israel's Nazi intentions. (e.g. see the Electronic Intifada article on this.)

It does not matter what Clinton meant, the liberal media are doing their part for the cause and the Obaminators have borrowed a play from the Hamas playbook while also doing their best to emulate Soviet-era thought police. Any statement that could remotely have anything to do with their candidate (e.g. Bush's remarks on appeasement) or could somehow be twisted to imply racism is latched onto as paranoid "proof" of the nefarious forces out there.

Unfortunately for Obama, this approach will certainly backfire, as there are few things that cause resentment as being constantly told you must be a racist (e.g. 1, 2, 3) just because you do not support his candidacy. After all, it is possible that someone simply disagrees with his positions. Of course that would just prove that they are "bitter".

Multiculturalism & Dueling Discriminations

You gotta love Mark Steyn - not only does he get it, he writes in an inimitable verve and style that is hilarious and smart. Here is an excerpt from an article about the competing guilts surrounding Clinton and Obama's campaigns:

Surveying the Hillary-Barack death match, Maureen Dowd wrote: “People will have to choose which of America’s sins are greater, and which stain will have to be removed first. Is misogyny worse than racism, or is racism worse than misogyny? Do even Democrats really talk like this? Apparently so. As Ali Gallagher, a white female (sorry, this identity-politics labeling is contagious) from Texas, told the Washington Post: “A friend of mine, a black man, said to me, ‘My ancestors came to this country in chains; I’m voting for Barack.’ I told him, ‘Well, my sisters came here in chains and on their periods; I’m voting for Hillary.’ ” When everybody’s a victim, nobody’s a victim.

Poor Ms. Gallagher can’t appreciate the distinction between purely metaphorical chains and real ones, or even how offensive it might be to assume blithely that there’s no difference whatsoever. But, if her sisters really came here in chains, it must have been Bondage Night at the Mayflower’s Swingers’ Club.

On the other hand, Barack’s ancestors didn’t come here in chains either: his mother was a white Kansan, so was presumably undergoing menstrual hell with the Gallagher gals, and his dad was a black man a long way away in colonial Kenya. Indeed, Senator Obama would be the first son of a British subject to serve as president since those slaveholding types elected in the early days of the republic. As some aggrieved black activist sniffed snootily on TV, Barack isn’t really an “African-American” — unless by “African-American,” you mean somebody whose parentage is half-American and half-African, and let’s face it, no one would come up with so
cockamamie a definition as that.

In this article he makes an excellent point about multiculturalism and sharia creep:

In Minneapolis last year, the airport licensing authority, faced with a mainly Muslim crew of cab drivers refusing to carry the blind, persons with six-packs of Bud, slatternly women, etc, proposed instituting two types of taxis with differently colored lights, one of which would indicate the driver was prepared to carry members of identity groups that offend Islam. Forty years ago, advocating separate drinking fountains made you a racist. Today, advocating separate taxi cabs or separate swimming sessions makes you a multiculturalist.

By the way, if you are wondering why his hat says "No Gooks", check out this article.

He Stole the Election

It's funny how history repeats itself as irony and then as farce. I wonder what the Democrats would say if in the general election the Republican candidate won the election because it was decided not to count the votes of Florida and Michigan? What would they say or do if their candidate actually won those states? Well that is what is happening to the Clinton campaign in the primaries. From the New York Times:

Senator Clinton’s advisers were also discussing Wednesday how to add the delegates from Michigan and Florida to her column. The Democratic Party stripped the two states of their delegates after they moved their primaries to January. Mrs. Clinton remained on the ballot in each state (as did Mr. Obama in Florida); she won both.

While Clinton advisers have publicly opposed talk of a “do over” contest in either state, some of her advisers said Wednesday that they were now inclined to support such a vote. They believe that her strength with Hispanics, women and Jewish voters in Florida, and with union workers and women in Michigan, would be enough to overtake Mr. Obama’s advantage with black and young voters in both states.

Mrs. Clinton and her top aides continue to oppose such a do-over, which could deeply split the Democratic Party. The alternative is waiting until July for the party to consider allowing the Florida and Michigan delegates to count at the August convention. But the Clinton advisers who support a new vote said they expected conversations on the issue to intensify in her camp.

Frankly, if the Democrats are dumb enough to choose the candidate that LOST in: California, New York, New jersey, Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Arizona, Texas, Massachussetts and Tennessee (all states with ten or more delegates), then they deserve to lose.

Remember, the general election is based on the electoral college and a winner take all system. Based on my calculation, Clinton already has 253 of the 270 delegates necessary to become the President to Obama's 176. Of course, those states could go Republican, but why in the world would you choose the guy who could not even carry the big states in the primaries?

Manchurian or Mensch?

Paul Krugman and Roger Cohen fight it out over Obama on the pages of the New York Times.

In an article titled "Hate Springs Eternal", Krugman accuses the Obama camp of verging on a cult of personality and implies in the process that there is no substance there. Even worse, he compares Obama to President Bush, which in Obamaland (read the article) is probably the worst epithet that he could come up with short of comparing him to Mississippi's civil rights era Governor Wallace:

Why, then, is there so much venom out there?

I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. We’ve already had that from the Bush administration — remember Operation Flight Suit? We really don’t want to go there again.

Cohen, in his article, "No Manchurian Candidate" demonstrates once again that he is not only living in la-la-land, but that he can not help but be patronizing.

I believe Barack Obama is a strong but not uncritical supporter of Israel. That is what the Middle East needs from an American leader: the balance implicit in a two-state solution.

He implies that Israel does not know what's in its own interests and needs armchair intellectuals like Cohen or foreign policy (idealists? novices?) such as Barak Obama to sort it out and put it on the right path. Aside from the fact that this stinks of Marxist notions of "false consciousness" that permeate the "progressive" mindset, Israel has repeatedly demonstrated that if a peace partner emerges it can and will make difficult and painful concessions for the sake of peace. In both the Egyptian and Jordanian peace treaties Israel gave up hard-won territories for the sake of peace - even though it was clear from the start that it would be a cold peace.

What exactly did the Egyptians give up? Their claim to Gaza? Well they are most welcome to it. Israel withdrew over two years ago and Hamas seems interested in such an arrangement. For some reason the Egyptians have not been so keen.

Cohen is not only implying, but also saying that if only Israel were pressured a bit more by the United States to soften its stance and sign a peace with the Palestinians (at all costs) that the conflict could be brought to closure. This is not only naive, it is discriminatory because it holds Israel to a different standard than it holds its neghbor, and it is patently wrong because it is based on the false premise that Israel, by virtue of its unnatural existence, lacks legitimacy and is the root cause of the conflict. Otherwise, why should Israel be the one forced into making concessions? Worse than patronizing, Cohen's article is offensive.

If this is Obama's position and these are the people supporting him, then you can be certain that if he is elected President, there will be rejoicing in the Arab street the likes of which we have not seen since 9/11. Who knows, perhaps someone will even have the perspicacity to put up a sign that says, "Mission Accomplished"?