Thomas Friedman, "Impossible Missions": Yes, Wisconsin (Not Virginia), There Is a Santa Claus

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Yes, Virginia Wisconsin, there is a Santa Claus. Could it be that Donald and Hillary, i.e. Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees, will not be battling it out in November? Thank you, badgers! It had been pretty bleak until last night.

On the subject of bleak (and dull-witted), Thomas Friedman, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Impossible Missions," discusses Professor Michael Mandelbaum's new book called “Mission Failure: America and the World in the Post-Cold War Era.” Warmly recommending the book, Friedman writes:

"In earlier historical epochs the world relied on imperial powers to come in and control zones of weak governance, as the Ottomans did for 500 years in the Middle East. Then it relied on colonial powers. Then it relied on homegrown kings, colonels and dictators to maintain order.

But what if we’re now in a post-imperial, post-colonial and post-authoritarian age? The kings, colonels and dictators of old did not have to deal with amplified citizens deeply connected to one another and the world with smartphones. The old autocrats also had vast oil resources or aid from superpowers in the Cold War to buy off their people. What if they now have bulging populations, dwindling oil revenues and can’t buy off their people or shut them up?

The only option is more consensual government and social contracts among equal citizens."

Ah yes, Arab Spring II and another Green Revolution in Iran! I can assure you that Morsi and Khamenei know of other options. Go back to sleep, Tom.

Meanwhile, on the subject of Iran, Congressman Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expresses concern in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "The United States must not aid and abet Iranian money laundering," that the Obama administration intends to provide Iran with access to the American financial system in exchange for . . . nothing. Royce writes:

"Last summer, in testimony to Congress, Lew vowed, 'Iranian banks will not be able to clear U.S. dollars through New York, hold correspondent account relationships with U.S. financial institutions, or enter into financing arrangements with U.S. banks.' As the secretary made clear, 'Iran, in other words, will continue to be denied access to the world’s largest financial and commercial market.'

Yet when I questioned Lew just two weeks ago about whether he stood by this testimony, he refused to give a direct answer. And so this appears to be just the latest in a long pattern of concessions to protect the president’s 'legacy' deal. In recent months, the administration gutted a new law to strengthen the visa waiver program to please the Iranians and has imposed only minimal sanctions on Iran’s missile program — even as Iran launches missiles stamped with the words 'Israel must be wiped off the face of the earth.'"

You mean to say that the Obama administration, which promised Americans that if they liked their doctors and healthcare plans, they could keep them, in order to sell Obama's "legacy" Affordable Care Act, also lied to Congress to sell his "legacy" nuclear deal with Iran? Yes, I know: Obama's omniscient ends justify his unscrupulous means.

And so we had John Kerry telling us that Iran "absolutely" deserved access to US dollars, although none other than Obama recently acknowledged that Iran is not abiding by the "spirit" of the nuclear deal, and notwithstanding Iran's test launches of ballistic missiles.

The ballistic missiles? As reported by Adam Kredo in a Washington Free Beacon article entitled "Congress Investigating Obama Admin Deception on Iran Nuke Deal":

"[C]ongressional leaders are concerned that the administration no longer considers recent Iranian ballistic missile tests a 'violation' of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, which codifies the nuclear deal.

Top administration officials including Secretary of State John Kerry vowed to Congress that Iran would be legally prohibited from carrying out ballistic missile tests under the resolution.

Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., shifted course last week, refusing to call recent Iranian launches a 'violation' in a letter she signed criticizing those launches."

Repercussions in the Middle East owing to Obama's duplicity? Read what Yousef Al Otaiba, the ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to the US, has to say in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece entitled "One Year After the Iran Nuclear Deal" about Obama's promise that the nuclear deal with Iran would "make the world safer":

"Sadly, behind all the talk of change, the Iran we have long known—hostile, expansionist, violent—is alive and well, and as dangerous as ever. We wish it were otherwise. In the United Arab Emirates, we are seeking ways to coexist with Iran. Perhaps no country has more to gain from normalized relations with Tehran. Reducing tensions across the less than 100-mile-wide Arabian Gulf could help restore full trade ties, energy cooperation and cultural exchanges, and start a process to resolve a 45-year territorial dispute.

Since the nuclear deal, however, Iran has only doubled down on its posturing and provocations. In October, November and again in early March, Iran conducted ballistic-missile tests in violation of United Nations Security Council resolutions.
In December, Iran fired rockets dangerously close to a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Strait of Hormuz, just weeks before it detained a group of American sailors. In February, Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan visited Moscow for talks to purchase more than $8 billion in Russian fighter jets, planes and helicopters.

In Yemen, where peace talks now hold some real promise, Iran’s disruptive interference only grows worse. Last week, the French navy seized a large cache of weapons on its way from Iran to support the Houthis in their rebellion against the U.N.-backed legitimate Yemeni government. In late February, the Australian navy intercepted a ship off the coast of Oman with thousands of AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades. And last month, a senior Iranian military official said Tehran was ready to send military 'advisers' to assist the Houthis.

The interference doesn’t stop there. Since the beginning of the year, Tehran and its proxies have increased their efforts to provide armor-piercing explosive devices to Shiite cells in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. A former Iranian general and close adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called for Iran to annex all of Bahrain. And in Syria, Iran continues to deploy Hezbollah militias and its own Iranian Revolutionary Guard to prop up Syria’s Bashar Assad.

. . . .

If the carrots of engagement aren’t working, we must not be afraid to bring back the sticks. Recent half measures against Iran’s violations of the ballistic-missile ban are not enough. If the aggression continues, the U.S. and the global community should make clear that Iran will face the full range of sanctions and other steps still available under U.N. resolutions and in the nuclear deal itself."

"Bring back the sticks"? Reinstate the sanctions? Sorry, but not if it means that a narcissistic Obama must acknowledge that he was dead wrong.

Obama's Secret Negotiations With Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei

The Wall Street Journal's recent revelation that Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei sent a secret "respectful" but noncommittal letter to Obama in response to the American president's overtures seeking cooperation in the fight against ISIS should come as no surprise. In 2013, secret meetings were held in Oman between ranking Obama administration personnel and Iranian officials in an effort to jump-start the P5+1's negotiations with Tehran over the Iranian nuclear weapons development program. These stealthy communications and discussions are just further proof of Obama's willy-nilly determination to reach agreement with Khamenei no matter what the price.

The most recent communications between Obama and Khamenei come at a time when Iranian-backed Houthis have taken control over much of Yemen, a country which had been viewed by Obama as a successful cornerstone in his fight against ISIS.

Iranian-backed militias are indeed battling ISIS in Iraq; however, they do not want American bombing assistance. Moreover, these militias are also committing atrocities against Sunni Muslims in Iraq.

But most troublesome is Obama's insistence upon reaching agreement with a regime that stones to death women accused of adultery, hangs homosexuals, persecutes Baha'is, oppresses Kurds, abuses Sunni Muslims, and brutally quashes political opposition, while threatening to annihilate Israel. Is the Khamenei regime any better than ISIS? Answer: No.

We can only hope that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu in his March 3 speech before Congress will expose Obama's furtive negotiating channels and obscene concessions, e.g., 6,500 centrifuges spinning enriched uranium, intended to facilitate detente with the Islamic Republic of Iran without consideration of the long-term consequences.

Is the IRS Scandal Worse Than Watergate?

Is the IRS scandal worse than Watergate? Of course, the question presupposes that there is indeed a scandal, and as Obama's new press secretary, Josh Earnest, informed us on Friday:

"The fact of the matter is after 13 months of multiple congressional investigations, including 14 congressional hearings, 30 interviews with I.R.S. employees, 50 written congressional requests and, as I mentioned, 750,000 pages of documents, there is zero evidence to support Republican claims."

"Zero evidence to support Republican claims"? Oh really? As observed by Michael Gerson today in a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "An arrogant and lawless IRS" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/michael-gerson-an-arrogant-and-lawless-irs/2014/06/23/8d6802d8-fb03-11e3-8176-f2c941cf35f1_story.html?hpid=z2):

"After President Obama blamed 'two Dilberts in Cincinnati,' an inspector general’s report found that high-level IRS officials in Washington were involved in directing additional scrutiny toward tea party groups seeking tax exemptions. [Lois] Lerner admitted as much, before taking the Fifth Amendment to avoid testifying before the House oversight committee."

Or in a nutshell, when a high ranking IRS official takes the Fifth before the House, only a raving partisan, intent upon obfuscation of the facts, would claim that there was no misconduct. How to respond to this misconduct? Gerson calls for the appointment of a special counsel:

"Because evidence of political influence is both plausible and circumstantial, a special counsel is needed to sort out the truth.

Why does this matter deserve heightened scrutiny from the rest of us? Because crimes against democracy are particularly insidious. Representative government involves a type of trade. As citizens, we cede power to public officials for important purposes that require centralized power: defending the country, imposing order, collecting taxes to promote the common good. In exchange, we expect public institutions to be evenhanded and disinterested. When the stewards of power — biased judges or corrupt policemen or politically motivated IRS officials — act unfairly, it undermines trust in the whole system."

A special counsel? In May 1973, Nixon's attorney general, Elliot Richardson, appointed Archibald Cox to the position of special counsel to investigate Watergate. Is the IRS scandal sufficiently momentous to demand the same treatment? Daniel Henninger of The Wall Street Journal writes in an opinion piece entitled "The High Price of Obama Fatigue" (http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-high-price-of-obama-fatigue-1403139022):

"The IRS tea-party audit story isn't Watergate; it's worse than Watergate.

The Watergate break-in was the professionals of the party in power going after the party professionals of the party out of power. The IRS scandal is the party in power going after the most average Americans imaginable."

However, the IRS scandal goes far beyond the "mere" targeting of average Americans. As Warren L. Dean Jr. states in a Washington Times opinion piece entitled "A scandal worse than Watergate" (http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/7/a-scandal-worse-than-watergate/):

"[T]he Watergate burglars were not government employees. No government agency was implicated in the initial break-in. This time around, the misconduct is taking place in what may be the most powerful — and feared — government agency in the country. To ordinary Americans, it looks like the IRS spent taxpayer money to conduct a potentially criminal enterprise directed at the Americans who pay their salary. It was not only wrong, it was a betrayal of the public's trust in government. At this stage, the IRS scandal is far more serious than the initial Watergate break-in."

I agree with Mr. Dean that the IRS scandal is potentially far more heinous than Watergate. Moreover, there can be no avoiding the comparison between the missing minutes from the Watergate tapes and the alleged crash of Lois Lerner's hard drive, preventing access to her emails (the commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, John Koskinen, testified on Friday that the IRS destroyed Lerner's hard drive in 2011), but will Obama appoint a special counsel to investigate the IRS scandal and put the matter to rest? Not a chance. In January 2009, Obama promised:

"Let me say it as simply as I can: Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency."

Transparency in the Obama administration? Obama himself must rely on newspaper reports to learn of wrongdoing involving his presidency, and it remains to be seen what will remain of American government credibility at home and overseas by the time he finishes his second term.

Obama Foreign Policy: Naive and Dangerous

Those who read this blog were informed almost immediately that the deadly attacks on the American consulate in Benghazi and embassy in Cairo were anything but spontaneous. On September 12 I wrote (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2012/09/gail-collins-mitts-major-meltdown.html):

"Make no mistake about it: The movie 'Innocence of Muslims' was a disinformation exercise, timed around 9/11, intended to exacerbate Arab rioting that had been scheduled in advance. Worse still, the global media, hungry for a story, quickly cooperated by publicizing all of the story's false threads."

Nevertheless, the Obama administration chose to pretend that the attacks had been "spontaneous" in respose to this silly excuse for a film.

Well, yesterday the US Director of National Intelligence finally got around to acknowledging that the attacks had indeed been "deliberate and organized" (see: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444712904578024684208469470.html).

Concerning the attack on the US embassy in Cairo, Egypt's new Muslim Brotherhood president, Mohamed Morsi, stated to The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/23/world/middleeast/egyptian-leader-mohamed-morsi-spells-out-terms-for-us-arab-ties.html?pagewanted=all):

"'We took our time' in responding to avoid an explosive backlash, he said, but then dealt 'decisively' with the small, violent element among the demonstrators.

'We can never condone this kind of violence, but we need to deal with the situation wisely,' he said, noting that the embassy employees were never in danger."

The US embassy employees were "never in danger"? Yeah, right.

So how is the Obama administration handling this affront? Simple. Obama and friends are now seeking to provide Egypt with an emergency cash grant of $450 million. As reported by The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/29/world/middleeast/white-house-move-to-give-egypt-450-million-in-aid-meets-resistance.html):

"In recent weeks, negotiations over the assistance picked up pace, and the administration decided to provide $450 million instead, including $190 million immediately, because the country’s economic crisis has become acute, with an estimated budget shortfall of $12 billion.

. . . .

In addition to the $1 billion in assistance, the administration is working with Egypt to provide $375 million in financing and loan guarantees for American financiers who invest in Egypt and a $60 million investment fund for Egyptian businesses. All of that comes on top of $1.3 billion in military aid that the United States provides Egypt each year."

Although Obama recently acknowledged that Egypt is not an American ally (see: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gwEQ3WzDMvnIDbKF5ZQGAyA59Qfw), and notwithstanding America's current economic crisis, the president feels compelled to shower Morsi with money?

In which fantasy world are Obama and Hillary living?

Wall Street Journal: "U.S. Warns Israel on Strike"

As reported by Reuters yesterday (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/01/13/us-israel-iran-netanyahu-idUSTRE80C1ZE20120113), Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has noted Iran's anxiety over US and European sanctions intended to thwart its thinly veiled program to acquire nuclear weapons:

"In an interview in Saturday's 'The Australian' newspaper, Netanyahu said: 'For the first time I see Iran wobble ... under the sanctions that have been adopted and especially under the threat of strong sanctions on their central bank.'

An official in Netanyahu's office confirmed to Reuters the accuracy of the quotes in the interview that was conducted on Tuesday."

However, Obama is now also wobbling, notwithstanding recent tough talk from US Secretary of Defense Panetta (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/12/us-secretary-of-defense-reverses-course.html). As reported by The Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204409004577159202556087074.html?mod=googlenews_wsj):

"President Barack Obama, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and other top officials have delivered a string of private messages to Israeli leaders warning about the dire consequences of a strike. The U.S. wants Israel to give more time for the effects of sanctions and other measures intended to force Iran to abandon its perceived efforts to build nuclear weapons.

Stepping up the pressure, Mr. Obama spoke by telephone on Thursday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and U.S. Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will meet with Israeli military officials in Tel Aviv next week."

Remarkably, the article in The Wall Street Journal concludes by observing that "Israel represents a blind spot in U.S. intelligence" and that some US intelligence officials believe that "the U.S. should devote more resources to divining Israel's true intentions."

"Israel's true intentions"? Apparently the US intelligence community is unfamiliar with the truism cited in the past by Israel's first prime minister, David Ben Gurion: "For every two Jews, there are three opinions," which doubtless adds to their confusion.

Nevertheless, allow me to assist my friends in Arlington: Israel, which is facing a replenished arsenal of Qassam rockets and Grad missiles in Gaza, is now reportedly also being threatened with Fajr-5 missiles (see: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2523488/posts), supplied by Iran to Hamas, which can strike Tel Aviv (see: http://www.haaretz.com/news/sources-iran-gave-hamas-missile-that-can-hit-tel-aviv-1.4868). In addition, some 50,000 Katyushas, Fajrs and Scuds are being pointed by Hezbollah, Iran's proxy in Lebanon, at Israel. Assad, who has been receiving arms from Iran to suppress the year-long rebellion in Syria (see: http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/report-iran-sending-forces-to-assist-in-syria-crackdowns-1.364543), also possesses an arsenal of Scuds and short-range ballistic missiles which could be used against Israel. Finally, Iran itself is armed with medium-range Shahab-3 ballistic missiles, which carry a payload of between 750 and 1,200 kilograms.

Yes, Israel is currently facing an existential threat from Iran, which is still a year away from developing nuclear weaponry, and yes, Israel cannot afford to allow Iran to acquire a nuclear warhead.

Incidentally, yesterday's editorial in The New York Times, the official mouthpiece of the Obama administration, calling for negotiations with Iran (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2012/01/new-york-times-dangerous-tension-with.html), came as no surprise.

Thomas Friedman, "Two Peas in a Pod": Occupy Wall Street Akin to the Civil Rights Movement?

Thomas Friedman has made me angry this morning. Correction, livid.

In a New York Times op-ed entitled "Two Peas in a Pod" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/09/opinion/friedman-india-and-america-two-peas-in-a-pod.html?_r=1&ref=opinion), Friedman compares the India Against Corruption Movement with Occupy Wall Street. Exercising his vivid imagination, Friedman writes:

"The difference is that Indians are protesting what is illegal — a system requiring bribes at every level of governance to get anything done. And Americans are protesting what is legal — a system of Supreme Court-sanctioned bribery in the form of campaign donations that have enabled the financial-services industry to effectively buy the U.S. Congress, and both political parties, and thereby resist curbs on risk-taking."

Thanks, Tom, for explaining to us what Occupy Wall Street is all about. Needless to say, Friedman's assessment is entirely contrary to the findings of Democratic pollster Douglas Schoen, who, in an article in The Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204479504576637082965745362.html), determined:

"[T]he Occupy Wall Street movement reflects values that are dangerously out of touch with the broad mass of the American people—and particularly with swing voters who are largely independent and have been trending away from the president since the debate over health-care reform.

The protesters have a distinct ideology and are bound by a deep commitment to radical left-wing policies. On Oct. 10 and 11, Arielle Alter Confino, a senior researcher at my polling firm, interviewed nearly 200 protesters in New York's Zuccotti Park. Our findings probably represent the first systematic random sample of Occupy Wall Street opinion.

Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn't represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, virtually all (98%) say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda."

Friedman concludes:

"I think that repairing our respective dysfunctional democracies — so they are truly enablers for the 21st century and not inhibitors in India’s case or 'the sum of all lobbies' in America’s case — is for our generation what the independence movement in India and the civil rights movement in America were for our parents’ generation. Here’s hoping we’re as successful."

Friedman would compare OWS with the non-violent Civil Rights Movement, headed by one of my personal heroes, Dr. Martin Luther King? Consider recent activity of OWS in Oakland as reported by MSNBC (http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45144941/ns/us_news-life/):

"Police in riot gear arrested more than 80 protesters in downtown Oakland, where bands of masked protesters took over a vacant building, erected roadblocks and threw chunks of concrete and firebombs. Five people and several officers were injured."

Yes, Tom, here's hoping OWS is successful, particularly when it occupies your Maryland mansion. "Two Peas in a Pod"? Yeah, right. As long as we're talking about peas, my concluding early morning, garden-fresh vegetable response to Friedman in Yiddish:

"Du kannst nicht auf meinem rucken pishen unt mir sagen class es regen ist!"

Translation: "Don't go peeing on my back and telling me that it's raining!"

Nicholas Kristof, "Crony Capitalism Comes Home": His Worst Opinion Piece Ever

Nicholas Kristof has written many fatuous New York Times op-eds. In one 2010 opinion piece entitled "New Alarm Bells About Chemicals and Cancer" (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/06/opinion/06kristof.html), Kristof began by stating:

"The President’s Cancer Panel is the Mount Everest of the medical mainstream, so it is astonishing to learn that it is poised to join ranks with the organic food movement and declare: chemicals threaten our bodies."

Apparently, Kristof was blithely unaware that our bodies consist of chemicals, but ignorance has never prevented him from foisting twaddle upon the The Times's readership.

Kristof today introduces the readership of The New York Times to a new bugaboo, crony capitalism, in his latest op-ed, "Crony Capitalism Comes Home" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/opinion/kristof-crony-capitalism-comes-homes.html?hp). However, Kristof begins with a defense of the Occupy Wall Street movement:

"Whenever I write about Occupy Wall Street, some readers ask me if the protesters really are half-naked Communists aiming to bring down the American economic system when they’re not doing drugs or having sex in public.

The answer is no. That alarmist view of the movement is a credit to the (prurient) imagination of its critics, and voyeurs of Occupy Wall Street will be disappointed."

Is it remotely possible that Kristof is unaware of the findings of pollster Douglas Schoen (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204479504576637082965745362.html) concerning the views of OWS protesters? Schoen determined:

"Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn't represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, virtually all (98%) say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda."

Nicholas can deride the critics of OWS with inapposite sexual innuendo, but these statistics are indeed frightening.

Before going further astray along the fuzzy directions of this op-ed, let's return to its purported subject, i.e. crony capitalism. Although Kristof tells us that Lawrence Summers once opined that crony capitalism was to blame for the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, and he would have us believe that crony capitalism is to blame for America's current economic ills, he never troubles to define this term.

Allow me to assist Kristof. Crony capitalism involves a system whereby governments extend permits, grants, loans, tax credits, and other favors to connected persons in the business community.

Hey, doesn't that remind you of what happened with respect to Solyndra? Needless to say, Kristof doesn't go down that path.

Instead, Kristof provides a laundry list of distinguished persons who call for "structural change," recommend "broad-based job creation," and warn against "too much inequality" in a capitalist economy. But none of these persons are saying that the US is a banana republic suffering from crony capitalism.

Anyone familiar with this blog knows that I have long derided past excesses of America's financial institutions. I favor reenactment of Glass-Steagall; I favor reinstatement of the Uptick Rule. However, unlike Kristof, I do not perceive the United States as a banana republic.

Kristof concludes:

"So, yes, we face a threat to our capitalist system. But it’s not coming from half-naked anarchists manning the barricades at Occupy Wall Street protests. Rather, it comes from pinstriped apologists for a financial system that glides along without enough of the discipline of failure and that produces soaring inequality, socialist bank bailouts and unaccountable executives.

It’s time to take the crony out of capitalism, right here at home."

I am no apologist for the financial system, and I don't wear pinstripes. (As I type this blog entry, I am wearing sweat-stained gym shorts and a t-shirt covered in dog hair.) I do believe in correcting excesses without crashing the system. And unpleasant as it may have been, had Citibank and AIG not been rescued by the federal government, we would probably be back in the days of barter, with cow manure, for use as fertilizer to grow your own food, one of the world's most precious commodities.

Winston Churchill once said:

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”

I think the same is true of capitalism as it pertains to systems of economics.

Charles Blow, "Occupy-apalooza Strikes a Chord": A Pickled Lenin Winks from His Red Square Mausoleum

How low can Blow go? Certainly today he is testing new depths.

In a New York Times op-ed entitled "Occupy-apalooza Strikes a Chord" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/22/opinion/blow-occupy-apalooza-strikes-a-chord.html?_r=1&hp), Charles Blow begins by describing a meeting with a young woman, who, after a morning "boot camp" workout at the Y.M.C.A. and evening drinks with friends, intends to participate in the Zucotti Park Occupy Wall Street protests. When asked by Blow why she is going, she responds:

"I don't know. It's just cool"

"Cool"? That is a reason to participate in a demonstration?

This young woman went on to tell Blow that she wanted to be a part of OWS "in the same way that people from previous generations were part of the civil rights, women’s liberation and antiwar movements." Well, back 40 years ago, I was protesting the Vietnam War on the streets of Chicago, but it wasn't because it was "cool" or because I needed to belong to something, but rather, because I was passionately opposed to the war.

Given this young woman's inability to articulate a rational reason for participating in the OWS protest, Blow provides one:

"Needless to say, that doesn’t cover everyone. The protests have a Lollapalooza-like eccentricity and diversity to the crowds. Some come to revel in the moment. Others come to rage against the machine. But they are all drawn together by the excitement of animating a muscle that many thought had atrophied: demonstration and disobedience in the name of equality."

Blow proceeds to cite three polls showing that many Americans are in agreement with the "disparate ideas" of the OWS protesters, and concludes:

"If nothing else, the movement has established itself as a cultural phenomenon with surprising staying power, and as someone who wasn’t sure that it would catch hold, I must echo the young woman in the restaurant: that’s just cool."

However, one of the "disparate ideas" of the OWS protesters is anti-Semitism in its basest forms, but of course no mention by Blow of this unpleasant phenomenon (see, for example: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/10/11/occupy-wall-street-has-an-anti-semitism-problem/). I am confident that if the N-word was being freely tossed around by these radicals, Blow would lose much of his enthusiasm for the movement, but these days, anti-Semitism has even weaved its way into The New York Times (see, for example: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2010/08/charles-blows-obama-and-jews-part-2.html) and has become mainstay in leftist circles.

Blow also doesn't trouble themselves to observe that 34% of the Occupy Wall Street protesters polled by New York Magazine believe that the US is no better than al-Qaeda, 37% believe that capitalism is inherently immoral and cannot be saved, and 55% didn't vote in the 2010 midterm elections (see: http://nymag.com/news/intelligencer/topic/occupy-wall-street-2011-10/).

Needless to say, Blow doesn't bother to relate to the findings of pollster Douglas Schoen, who, in an article in The Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204479504576637082965745362.html), wrote:

"[T]he Occupy Wall Street movement reflects values that are dangerously out of touch with the broad mass of the American people—and particularly with swing voters who are largely independent and have been trending away from the president since the debate over health-care reform.

The protesters have a distinct ideology and are bound by a deep commitment to radical left-wing policies. On Oct. 10 and 11, Arielle Alter Confino, a senior researcher at my polling firm, interviewed nearly 200 protesters in New York's Zuccotti Park. Our findings probably represent the first systematic random sample of Occupy Wall Street opinion.

Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn't represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, virtually all (98%) say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda."

Sorry, Charles, but there is nothing "disparate" about the ideas of these protesters, and there is certainly nothing "cool" about them, notwithstanding your best efforts to provide them with a positive spin. Shame on you!

Joe Nocera's "The Journal Becomes Fox-ified": And The New York Times Needs to Be Detox-ified

In his New York Times op-ed entitled "The Journal Becomes Fox-ified" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/16/opinion/16nocera.html?_r=1&hp), Joe Nocera contends that Rupert Murdoch has destroyed the journalistic quality of The Wall Street Journal. Nocera writes:

"It’s official. The Wall Street Journal has been Fox-ified.

It took Rupert Murdoch only three and a half years to get there, starting with the moment he acquired the paper from the dysfunctional Bancroft family in December 2007, a purchase that was completed after he vowed to protect The Journal’s editorial integrity and agreed to a (toothless) board that was supposed to make sure he kept that promise.

. . . .

The political articles grew more and more slanted toward the Republican party line."

I'm certain Nocera has heard the adage, "Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones." However, he is apparently unwilling to recognize the political leanings of his own newspaper, which in the past were acknowledged by Clark Hoyt, the former public editor of the Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/opinion/13pubed.html?ref=thepubliceditor):

"There is no question that the editorial page is liberal and the regular columnists on the Op-Ed page are heavily weighted in that direction. There is also no question that The Times, though a national newspaper, shares the prevailing sensibilities of the city and region where it is published."

However, quite apart from the political leanings of The New York Times, manifested by its coverage and its editorial content, there is something far more insidious that has found its way into Nocera's newspaper.

Yesterday, my online comment in response to Roger Cohen's op-ed was censored by the "moderators" of The New York Times (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/07/roger-cohens-year-of-waste.html). It didn't come as a surprise. The chances of being censored if you disagree with the leftist leanings of many of the Times's op-ed writers are high.

Also, strident anti-Semitic readers' comments have often been published by the Times, despite its purported policy to refuse posting of comments if they are "abusive." This phenomenon got so bad that one of its most senior editors was forced to intervene and personally remove many of these comments following correspondence that I had with him.

Do you recall the Roger Cohen op-ed entitled "Obama in Netanyahu's Web". I complained to the Times that the imagery evoked by this title was apt to enflame anti-Semitism, and one of the Times's most senior editors responded that the op-ed had already been published by the International Herald Tribune, and it should have been changed (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2009/10/further-insensitivity-of-new-york-times.html).

Cohen wrote another op-ed entitled "What Iran's Jews Say," which sought to demonstrate that the life of Iran's remaining Jews was not so bad, but subsequently acknowledged - not in his column (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2009/06/was-roger-cohens-what-irans-jews-say-in_17.html) - that his interviews were conducted with the assistance of a government appointed translator. Was there nothing ethically wrong with this?

And then there was the instance where the Times's "moderators" permitted a post calling for the murder of a high ranking Republican government official. Again, one of the Times's most senior editors was forced to intervene.

By the way, what ever happened to Maureen Dowd after she was caught plagiarizing a blog? Was there even a slap on the wrist, beyond the criticism of the public editor at the time?

In short, a columnist for The New York Times, which arguably needs to be "detox-ified," is hardly in a position to be criticizing The Wall Street Journal.

[I sent Mr. Nocera an e-mail, asking that he "swallow the red pill" and read this blog entry. Let's see if he has the courage.]

The Wall Street Journal's "Hamas Leader Nods to New Partners": Et tu, Brute?

In a Wall Street Journal article entitled "Hamas Leader Nods to New Partners" (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704810504576307510480968584.html), Charles Levinson and Matt Bradley write:

"Hamas has scaled back its use of violence in recent years, halting suicide bombings and reining in the firing of rockets at Israel. Still, Hamas militants in the West Bank were responsible for a number of shootings of Israeli settlers in the West Bank last year. Last month, Hamas militants in Gaza fired an antitank missile at an Israeli school bus, killing one child."

Hamas "halted" suicide bombings? This is incorrect. The fence between the West Bank and Israel, closure of Israel's border with Gaza, and security cooperation between Israel and Fatah ended this horror.

Hamas "reined in" the firing of rockets? Over the course of a single weekend in April 2011, some 120 mortar shells, rockets and missiles were fired from Gaza at civilian targets in southern Israel. This barrage ceased only after Israel retaliated and Hamas discovered that the "Iron Dome" anti-rocket system was bringing down their Grad missiles.

On Tuesday, The Washington Post published Jimmy Carter's guest opinion piece entitled "Support the Palestinian unity government" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/support-the-palestinian-unity-government/2011/05/03/AFSbd6iF_print.html), in which he advised the United States to support a Palestinian unity government to be created by Hamas and Fatah. Ignoring recent outrages perpetrated by Hamas against civilians in southern Israel, Carter warned that if the Quartet did not support the unity government, Israel could face "a new round of violence" (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/05/jimmy-carters-support-palestinian-unity.html).

On Wednesday, The New York Times published a contributor op-ed entitled "Hurting Moderates, Helping Militants" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/05/opinion/05Thrall.html?ref=opinion) in which someone named Nathan Thrall tried to persuade us that if Israel doesn't negotiate with Hamas, something worse could come along (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/05/nathan-thralls-hurting-moderates.html).

Now The Wall Street Journal would also have us believe that Hamas has been reining in terror?

Et tu, Brute?

Will U.N. Indictment of Hezbollah for Hariri Murder Set the Middle East Ablaze?

According to a Wall Street Journal article entitled "U.N. Indictments Near in Lebanon Killing", written by Jay Solomon and Margaret Coker, the U.N. tribunal investigating the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri will soon be indicting various members of Hezbollah, and it is feared that the findings could result in renewed fighting among Lebanese Shiites, Sunnis, Christians and Druze:

"The United Nations-backed court investigating the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is moving to indict between two and six members of the militant group Hezbollah by year-end, according to people briefed on the tribunal's work, stoking fears of renewed sectarian strife in the Middle East country.

The U.S. has scrambled to bolster support for the tribunal and the pro-Western government of Lebanon in the face of threats of violence from Hezbollah if the indictments are handed down.

Among those being looked at in the U.N. probe, according to the people briefed on it, is Mustafa Badreddine, a senior Hezbollah military commander and brother-in-law of Imad Mugniyah, who was among the Federal Bureau of Investigation's most-wanted men before his death nearly three years ago.

Mr. Mugniyah is alleged by U.S. officials to have overseen a string of terrorist attacks against American interests in the 1980s, including the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut that killed 241 servicemen. Mr. Mugniyah, who was killed in a 2008 car bombing in Damascus, Syria, is also believed by U.N. investigators to have played a role, along with his brother-in-law, in the car bombing in downtown Beirut that killed Mr. Hariri and 22 others, according to the people briefed on the probe.

The rising tensions inside Lebanon have significantly undercut the Obama administration's efforts to mend relations with Syria, among the suspects in Mr. Hariri's murder. The U.S. has coveted better ties with Damascus, both to stabilize Lebanon and underpin the broader Arab-Israeli peace process. Washington has also hoped to weaken Syria's military alliance with Iran.

In recent months, however, Syrian officials have called for the ending of the U.N. tribunal. And U.S. officials have publicly charged Damascus with transferring increasingly sophisticated missiles to Hezbollah."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703665904575600374005892944.html

However, renewing sectarian fighting within Lebanon is only one possible scenario. In order to divert the attention of the Arab street from the murder, Hezbollah might well seek to inflame the Israeli-Lebanese border. Thus, it is no accident that Israel is attempting to eliminate any excuse for renewed violence by announcing this weekend its plans for the unilateral evacuation of the northern part of Ghajar village, population 2,200, which is bisected by the Israeli-Lebanese border. See: http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=194301

Also prepared, however, for any contingency, Israel has now decided that its new "Iron Dome" anti-rocket system will be kept in the center of the country and shipped to the south or the north in accordance with developments. See: http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=194423

Obama's courting of Damascus by way of John Kerry as his special emissary? Demonstrably bootless, impotent and embarrassing.