Ross Douthat, "From Obama to Trump": Obama's Frankenstein?

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In a New York Times op-ed entitled "From Obama to Trump," Ross Douthat makes the case that "Obama-era trends in liberal politics have helped feed the Trump phenomenon." Labeling Trump "a reality TV demagogue leading a populist, nationalist revolt," Douthat writes:

"[T]he reality TV element in Trump’s campaign is a kind of fun-house-mirror version of the celebrity-saturated Obama effort in 2008.

. . . .

He’s also proving, in his bullying, overpromising style, that voters are increasingly habituated to the idea of an ever more imperial presidency — which is also a trend that Obama’s choices have accelerated. Having once campaigned against his predecessor’s power grabs, the current president has expanded executive authority along almost every dimension: launching wars without congressional approval, claiming the power to assassinate American citizens, and using every available end-around to make domestic policy without any support from Congress.

Obama is to blame for Trump's ascendancy? I don't think so. Rather, we live in an age of narcissism, and Americans apparently hunger for the opportunity to call one another stupid, boring, dumb, a total lightweight, a clown, and/or a fool, while cutting others off on the highway.

The real problem is that if Trump wins the nomination, and if the FBI recommends that Hillary be indicted, he just might find his way into the White House. That's when I stop writing this blog and build my underground bunker.

Ross Douthat, "Germany on the Brink": Was Gaddafi Right?

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"We have 50 million Muslims in Europe. There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe — without swords, without guns, without conquest — will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades."

- Muammar Gadaffi, speech, April 10, 2006

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Germany on the Brink," Ross Douthat does not mince his words concerning the influx of Muslim immigrants into Germany. Pointing his finger at violent acts perpetrated against women on New Year's Eve in Cologne and noting that with regard to Germany "71 percent of all asylum applicants in 2015 were men," Douthat goes on to say regarding this influx of newcomers upon German demographics and culture:

"[I]f you add a million (or millions) of people, most of them young men, in one short period, you get a very different kind of shift.

In the German case the important number here isn’t the country’s total population, currently 82 million. It’s the twentysomething population, which was less than 10 million in 2013 (and of course already included many immigrants). In that cohort and every cohort afterward, the current influx could have a transformative effect.

. . . .

If you believe that an aging, secularized, heretofore-mostly-homogeneous society is likely to peacefully absorb a migration of that size and scale of cultural difference, then you have a bright future as a spokesman for the current German government.

You’re also a fool. Such a transformation promises increasing polarization among natives and new arrivals alike. It threatens not just a spike in terrorism but a rebirth of 1930s-style political violence."

Douthat's politically incorrect conclusion: "Angela Merkel must go."

So, will the swelling Muslim population of Europe contribute to the continent's science and industry and adopt its culture and democracy, or will Europe be contending with higher unemployment, swollen welfare rolls, gang violence and honor killings?

My belief is that Gaddafi was right and that Europe has signed its own death warrant. Germany? Will it return to the early Conan the Barbarian era, wedged between the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods? Stay tuned . . .

Ross Douthat, "Spain Yesterday, Syria Today": Awaiting a Putin Cost-Benefit Analysis

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Ross Douthat, in an interesting New York Times op-ed entitled "Spain Yesterday, Syria Today," compares the current conflict in Syria with the 1936-1939 Spanish Civil War. Douthat's conclusions:

"If the war in Spain previewed an era of totalitarian aggrandizement, the war in Syria has exposed the essential hollowness of so-called nation-states, the ease with which ethnic and religious furies can take over when they crack.

If the war in Spain was a proving ground for eastern front-style total war, the war in Syria is a training ground for Paris-style terrorists.

If the war in Spain ushered in a decade of vast militaries on the march, the war in Syria is giving us civilians on the march — the movement of refugees as a geopolitical crisis.

If the war in Spain demonstrated that Hitler and Stalin were happy to step in when a liberal center failed to hold, the war in Syria demonstrates that the Pax Americana is cracking and no power or alliance is remotely prepared to take its place.

If the war in Spain was a dress rehearsal for World War II — well, the truth about Syria is that it’s probably not a rehearsal for anything. It’s the main event, and nobody can foresee when it will end."

Well, I think his list is incomplete.

The war in Syria is illustrating the hollowness of the artificial boundaries fixed in 1916 by France and Britain pursuant the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916, albeit a century after this agreement was signed. It is also letting us know that 30 million stateless and oppressed Kurds, residing in Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran, can no longer be ignored.

The war in Syria is highlighting the decline of American credibility and deterrent power under a narcissistic president who is convinced that he is smarter than his advisors. Can US credibility and deterrent power be restored beginning in January 2017, or, like Humpty Dumpty, are the pieces irretrievably shattered and scattered?

The war in Syria is demonstrating to Iran that its forces, even with the backing of Russia from above, are anything but omnipotent. The battle for Aleppo has dealt Iran one heck of a bloody nose.

The war in Syria is also proving to everyone (with the exception of Sweden's moronic foreign minister, Margot Wallström, who linked the Paris attacks to Palestinian despair) that Sunni-Shiite enmity trumps Islamic hatred of Israel.

Nobody can foresee when the war in Syria will end? In this instance, I disagree with Douthat. The war will end when Putin realizes, after shoving his enormous ego aside and engaging in a painful cost-benefit analysis, that it does not serve his best interests to continue to prop up the Assad regime and remain allied with Iran and Hezbollah. His involvement in the Syrian conflict went unopposed by Obama, who naïvely believed that Putin intended to attack the Islamic State and not Western-backed rebels, and a new, tougher American president could help Russia's president realize the error in his ways that much sooner. After all, Vladimir has not forgotten the First and Second Chechen Wars, or, for that matter, Russian involvement in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, Putin is currently incensed with Turkey and is in no mood to backtrack or compromise.

Ross Douthat, "Who Failed Aylan Kurdi?"; Nicholas Kristof, "Refugees Who Could Be Us": The Kurds Must Have Their Own Country

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Both Ross Douthat and Nicholas Kristof address the drowning of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi in their latest New York Times columns. Douthat, in a Times op-ed entitled "Who Failed Aylan Kurdi?," writes:

"[M]ilitary intervention is not the only way that the Kurdis might have been protected. They could also have been granted the opportunity so many Syrians are desperately seeking, to be airlifted to another country, and welcomed as refugees."

Kristof, in a Times op-ed entitled "Refugees Who Could Be Us," takes a different view of the toddler's death:

"WATCHING the horrific images of Syrian refugees struggling toward safety — or in the case of Aylan Kurdi, 3, drowning on that journey — I think of other refugees. Albert Einstein. Madeleine Albright. The Dalai Lama.

And my dad.

. . . .

We Americans may be tempted to pat ourselves on the back. But the U.S. has accepted only about 1,500 Syrian refugees since the war began, and the Obama administration has dropped the ball on Syria — whether doing something hard like using the threat of missiles to create a safe zone, or something easy like supporting more schools for Syrian refugee children in neighboring countries."

Both Douthat and Kristof fail to mention that Aylan Kurdi and his dead brother and mother were Syrian Kurds. There are 30 million Kurds living in Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria, all persecuted, all desperate for independence. Although the Kurds in Iraq today have some measure of autonomy, Turkish President Erdogan is again bombing the Kurds in that country in a calculated effort to gain votes from Turkish nationalists.

Needless to say, Erdogan is unmoved by the fact that the Kurds are fighting tooth and nail against the Islamic State.

Yes, it's time to grant the Kurds their own country. However, whereas Obama is determined to allow Iran to create an arsenal of nuclear-tipped ICBMs within a maximum of 15 years, thereby establishing Iran as a "successful regional power," he also couldn't care less about the long-oppressed Kurds.

Jackson Diehl, "Obama’s next earthquake": As Part of His Legacy, Is Obama Seeking to Break Israel?

I have always believed that Obama is a radical in moderate's clothing. A moderate doesn't "hang around" with the likes of Rashid Khalidi, the Reverend Wright, and former Weatherman Bill Ayers. How the American electorate chose to ignore this "baggage," which would sink any other candidate, is a testimony to David Axelrod's public relations wizardry. Now, as we edge toward the end of Obama's second term, he is beginning to cast away some of his "moderate" disguise, particularly as he undertakes measures to ensure the enfeeblement of Israel.

Regarding Iran, Obama doesn't care if Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei responds to chants of "Death to America" by declaring "Of course yes, death to America." Obama doesn't care if Khamenei continues to call for the annihilation of Israel. And Obama doesn't care if Iran has effectively achieved suzerainty over large swaths of Iraq, Syria and Yemen. After all, Obama has dedicated what is left of his presidency to establishing the Islamic Republic of Iran, which hangs homosexuals and stones to death women accused of adultery, as a "very successful regional power."

And even as Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, the former head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, describes Obama's Middle East policy as one of "willful ignorance," Obama persists in capitulating to all of Khamenei's terms in order to reach a Swiss cheese-like arrangement in Lausanne, purportedly reining in Iran's nuclear development program.

As reported today by The New York Times in an article entitled "Iran Backs Away From Key Detail in Nuclear Deal" by David E. Sanger and Michael R. Gordonmarch, Iran is now backing away from a requirement to ship their atomic fuel to Russia, two days away from the deadline for an interim agreement. Obviously, Khamenei knows that Obama is desperate to do this deal and that he will find some new means to appease him, so as to avoid new Congressional sanctions.

But making Iran into a regional power appears to be only one of the measures being pursued by Obama in order to bring Israel to its knees. In a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Obama’s next earthquake," Jackson Diehl today tells us:

"Now Obama is contemplating going forward with a [UN] resolution that was drafted last year by Secretary of State John Kerry and his Mideast negotiations team at the State Department. The language was drawn up in response to efforts by the Palestinians and France to win support for Security Council resolutions following the collapse of Kerry’s attempt to get Israeli and Palestinian assent to a 'framework agreement.'

. . . .

Why go forward with a text that both sides would spurn? Obama’s hope would be that his initiative could win unanimous support from the Security Council and thus set the terms of reference for a future settlement, presumably under different Israeli and Palestinian leaders. He could eventually become the grandfather of Middle East peace; at a minimum, diplomats who now talk of the 'Clinton parameters' from 2000 would henceforth speak of the 'Obama framework.'

There would be other effects, of course, among them an unprecedented breach in U.S.-Israeli relations and a vast acceleration of the global movement to boycott and sanction the Jewish state in the likely event it resisted the U.N. terms. But judging from Obama’s demeanor in assailing Netanyahu last week, the president might welcome that legacy, too."

With the entire Middle East embroiled in chaos, America's Narcissist-in-Chief, convinced of his own omniscience, wishes to add the "Obama framework" to this seething cauldron? Isn't there someone in his inner circle capable of telling him that he has already done enough damage in the region, bringing American credibility and deterrent power to a unfathomable nadir?

In a New York Times op-ed entitled "The Method to Obama’s Middle East Mess," Ross Douthat claims that Obama is shifting from a "Pax Americana Model" in the Middle East to an "offshore balancing system":

"In an offshore balancing system, our clients are fewer, and our commitments are reduced. Regional powers bear the primary responsibility for dealing with crises on the ground, our military strategy is oriented toward policing the sea lanes and the skies, and direct intervention is contemplated only when the balance of power is dramatically upset."

However, if sea lanes remain important pursuant to this offshore balancing system, the Strait of Hormuz, adjoining Iran and controlling shipment of much of the world's oil, is now under Khamenei's control. Moreover, with Shiite Houthi rebels under the patronage of Iran gaining control of Yemen, the Strait of Bab al-Mandab, controlling access to the Suez Canal from the Arabian Sea, could also fall under Iran's thumb.

Yes, Obama has made a muddle of the world, and it remains to be seen if future American presidents will be able to repair the damage. Israel? It is already counting the days until Obama leaves office.

Ross Douthat, "Grand Illusion in Syria": Or Grand Illusion in Obama's White House?

Why can't America's message to ISIS be simple: "If you threaten me or murder my citizens in cold blood, I'm going to destroy you!" The mission should not entail building a risible coalition of antipathetic allies or creating a credible Arab army intended to go toe-to-toe with the Islamic State's monsters on the ground. Meanwhile, however, ISIS is hearing a different message: "If you threaten me or murder my citizens in cold blood, I am going to slowly round up some reluctant friends, but meanwhile, pardon me as I play another round of golf."

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Grand Illusion in Syria," Ross Douthat declares:

"Either the American military will have to intervene in force (including with substantial ground troops) or we’ll have to ally, in a very un-American display of machtpolitik, with Bashar al-Assad. Both options may have supporters within the Republican Party. Many hawks seem ready to send in ground forces, and John McCain has explicitly argued that we should be willing to go to war with both Assad and the Islamists at once. From Rand Paul, meanwhile, you hear what sounds like a version of the ally-with-Assad approach, albeit couched in somewhat ambiguous terms.

The White House would clearly prefer not to choose either path, either escalation. But its current approach seems likely to drift more in McCain’s direction, with a gradual ramping-up (today bombing, tomorrow special forces, the next day ... ?) in Syria that makes a clash with Assad and a multifront war steadily more plausible."

Rubbish! First, America already has friends on the ground willing to fight ISIS: some 30 million stateless Kurds, living in Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey. If the US was to assist the Kurds with coordinated air strikes, they would set the forces of ISIS reeling. On the other hand, this would be sure to displease Turkey, whose persecuted Kurdish minority (some 25 percent of Turkey's population) has long been seeking some measure of autonomy. In addition, the Turks apparently have a tacit agreement in place with ISIS, which enabled Ankara to obtain the release on Saturday of 49 Turkish hostages without a single beheading.

The White House is "likely to drift more in McCain's direction," or as Douthat describes it, toward "war with both Assad and the Islamists at once"? If so, why did John (Assad is "my dear friend") Kerry declare on Friday, "There is a role for nearly every country in the world to play, including Iran"? Think about it: This is the same Iran that has sent arms and Revolutionary Guard fighters to support Assad. This is the same Iran (together with Syria and Hezbollah) that was responsible for the bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people and injured another 250. This is the same Iran that hangs homosexuals, stones to death women, and persecutes Kurds, Baha'is, Sunnis and Christians.

Iran is the partner that the Obama administration so desperately wants in its coalition? Unfortunately for Kerry, Iran's purportedly "moderate" president, Hassan Rouhani, has denounced the coalition as "ridiculous."

America's president still doesn't have a strategy to combat ISIS, and he appears willing to do anything, no matter how detached from reality or devoid of substance, to boost his approval ratings.

January 20, 2017 cannot come soon enough for Obama.

Ross Douthat, "The Middle East’s Friendless Christians": Ignorance Is Bliss

"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts."

- Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Driving in central Israel this morning, I happened to notice a bumper sticker on a car in front of me. On the bumper sticker was a single word in English: "Coexist." The "C" consisted of a Muslim crescent moon, the "X" consisted of a Jewish Star of David, and the "T" consisted of a Christian cross. If you were to encounter this bumper sticker in the US, you might think nothing of it. On the other hand, try to name a country in the Middle East, other than Israel, where you can freely exhibit such a bumper sticker without being lynched. In fact, there is no other country.

In his latest New York Times op-entitled "The Middle East’s Friendless Christians," Ross Douthat seeks to explain why the Middle East's persecuted Christian minority has been largely ignored by Christians in the US. Douthat observes:

"[T]he Israel-Palestine question, with its colonial overtones, has been the left’s great obsession, whereas the less ideologically convenient plight of Christians under Islamic rule is often left untouched."

True enough. The left's hatred of the Jews supersedes all other considerations.

Next, Douthat states:

"To America’s strategic class, meanwhile, the Middle East’s Christians simply don’t have the kind of influence required to matter. A minority like the Kurds, geographically concentrated and well-armed, can be a player in the great game, a potential United States ally. But except in Lebanon, the region’s Christians are too scattered and impotent to offer much quid for the superpower’s quo. So whether we’re pursuing stability by backing the anti-Christian Saudis or pursuing transformation by toppling Saddam Hussein (and unleashing the furies on Iraq’s religious minorities), our policy makers have rarely given Christian interests any kind of due."

Here Douthat is wrong. There are some 30 million oppressed Kurds living in Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq, and for many decades they have been ignored by the West. Why? Because it was inconvenient to demand that the Kurds be granted independence, particularly when there are some 20 million of these Kurds living in the southeastern and eastern parts of Anatolia. The US government has consistently decided that it is better off not offending Turkey, a member of NATO, by demanding that the country's Kurds (some 25 percent of Turkey's population) be granted their fundamental rights as human beings.

Then, too, the Kurds have been ignored by the West because observing their plight in the past could have jeopardized lucrative oil drilling arrangements in Iran and Iraq.

Except in Lebanon, Christians are too scattered in the Middle East for Americans to take note? Again, not true. Copts comprise some 10 percent of Egypt's total population of some 82 million.

Douthat goes on to blame the American right for failing to take note of the tragedy befalling the Middle East's Christians:

"And the great cause of many conservative Christians in the United States is the state of Israel, toward which many Arab Christians harbor feelings that range from the complicated to the hostile."

Arab Christians harbor feelings toward Israel that "range from the complicated to the hostile"? Indeed, there are Christians in Syria who are siding with Assad, given that the alternative - ISIS or the al-Nusra Front - spells death for their communities. On the other hand, consider what Egytian Copt blogger Maikel Nabil Sand wrote of Israel in 2010:

"In reality, my support to Israel isn't a support to Israel itself more than it's a support for the values which the state of Israel represents in the region… Because the case in my view is that this is democratic and that is tyrannical, this is liberal and that is totalitarian… Therefore my bias to Israel is a bias to the democratic and the modernist values which the state of Israel represents - whether we like it or not - in the region."

Nabil is not a supporter of the Netanyahu government, but then many Israelis also stridently object to Israel's prime minister. And then there is also the Nazareth priest, Father Gabriel Naddaf, who wants Israeli Christians to serve in the IDF and establish their own political party.

Douthat would blame Senator Ted Cruz for showing insensitivity to an "an embattled religious minority" by declaring last week at a inaugural event held by an organization called "In Defense of Christians":

"Today, Christians have no greater friend than the Jewish state."

As widely reported, Cruz was booed off the stage. Well, like it or lump it, there is no place in the Middle East other than Israel where Christians are free to live their lives and practice their faith in peace and dignity. Did Cruz do something wrong by alluding to this fact? I don't think so. If Christians are to live in peace and dignity elsewhere in the Middle East, Israel must serve as an example. 

Paul Krugman's "The President Surrenders"

Thank goodness, this time I was right: A compromise settlement involving the debt ceiling was indeed reached. However, many liberal commentators are enraged by this bargain and leveling scathing criticism on President Obama.

In his column in today's New York Times entitled "The President Surrenders" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/opinion/the-president-surrenders-on-debt-ceiling.html?hp), Paul Krugman intersperses venom directed at Republicans with bile aimed at the president. Krugman's anger at Republicans could be anticipated; however, his furor with the president is unprecedented:

"And then there are the reported terms of the deal, which amount to an abject surrender on the part of the president.

. . . .

In fact, Republicans will surely be emboldened by the way Mr. Obama keeps folding in the face of their threats.

. . . .

Did the president have any alternative this time around? Yes.

First of all, he could and should have demanded an increase in the debt ceiling back in December. When asked why he didn’t, he replied that he was sure that Republicans would act responsibly. Great call.

. . . .

But wouldn’t taking a tough stance have worried markets? Probably not. In fact, if I were an investor I would be reassured, not dismayed, by a demonstration that the president is willing and able to stand up to blackmail on the part of right-wing extremists. Instead, he has chosen to demonstrate the opposite."

Now consider what the New York Times's token conservative, bad boy columnist, Ross Douthat, has to say in his op-ed entitled "The Diminished President" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/01/opinion/the-diminished-president.html?src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fopinion%2Findex.jsonp):

"But winning a debate on points isn’t a substitute for looking like a leader. It’s one thing to bemoan politics-as-usual when you’re running for the White House. It’s quite another to publicly throw up your hands over our 'dysfunctional government' when you’re the man the voters put in charge of it.

. . . .

This leaves Americans to contemplate two possibilities more alarming than debt-ceiling brinkmanship. First, that we’re living through yet another failed presidency. And second, that there’s nobody waiting in the wings who’s up to the task either."

In essence, this is one of those rare instances where Krugman and Douthat are in agreement: Obama lacks the leadership skills to take the US forward.

Where have you previously heard someone bemoan this lack of leadership? Have another look at "Official: Obama Worst President in U.S. History" (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2010/08/official-obama-worst-president-in-us.html), written almost a year ago, in which I labeled an absence of leadership as the hallmark of the Obama administration. Sadly, nothing has occurred to make me change my opinion.

Ross Douthat's "Rand and Rubio": Make Way for China

Ross Douthat, the token conservative who writes a once-weekly New York Times column, today examines division within the Republican Party concerning U.S. foreign policy in an op-ed entitled "Rand and Rubio" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/20/opinion/20douthat.html?_r=1&ref=opinion). According to Douthat:

"But while this division shows up in the current presidential field, it’s distilled to its essence in two high-profile Republicans who aren’t running (not in 2012, at least): Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky.

. . . .

Rubio is the great neoconservative hope, the champion of a foreign policy that boldly goes abroad in search of monsters to destroy. In the Senate, he’s constantly pressed for a more hawkish line against the Mideast’s bad actors. His maiden Senate speech was a paean to national greatness, whose peroration invoked John F. Kennedy and insisted that America remain the 'watchman on the wall of world freedom.'

Paul, on the other hand, has smoothed the crankish edges off his famous father’s antiwar conservatism, reframing it in the language of constitutionalism, the national interest and the budget deficit."

Douthat tells us that the U.S. is tired of war, and unable to still share in Marco Rubio's vision, he concludes that Rand Paul is right.

First, as a minor aside, I believe that Marco Rubio will be running in 2012 -- as the Republican vice presidential candidate. He could well prove the key to garnering Hispanic votes, and, if a viable Republican presidential candidate is selected, Rubio could make the difference between victory and defeat.

But on a more substantive note, although Americans are indeed tired of the protracted involvements in Afghanistan (I have consistently opposed the U.S. ground presence in Afghanistan) and Iraq, why should this mean that the U.S. need to shift to the other extreme: isolationism. Submerged in a recession and with no signs of "change" promised by Obama, has the time come to throw in the towel and step aside for Communist China?

Indeed, the Chinese are preparing to assume this leadership role and have just revealed that they are launching their first aircraft carrier (see: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/chinese-aircraft-carrier-revealed/story?id=13800990), as they continue to terrorize Tibet and lead the world in executions (see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/30/china-leads-the-world-in_n_518719.html).

Maybe it's because I'm getting old and rigid, but I remain a firm believer in American exceptionalism. This is not going to change. Not now, not ever.

However, concerning U.S. involvement in future conflagrations, you have to choose your fights carefully, and when you do step into the ring, you need to move swiftly and decisively. Protracted involvements without realizable defined goals, e.g., Afghanistan, are a recipe for ruin.

Ross Douthat's "The Online Looking Glass": The Plague of Narcissism

Although I generally don't see eye to eye with Ross Douthat, or for that matter with any of the op-ed writers of The New York Times, Douthat has written what I believe to be a fascinating interpretation of the conduct of Anthony Weiner in his column entitled "The Online Looking Glass" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/13/opinion/13douthat.html?hp):

"In the sad case of Representative Anthony Weiner’s virtual adultery, the Internet era’s defining vice has been thrown into sharp relief. It isn’t lust or smut or infidelity, though online life encourages all three. It’s a desperate, adolescent narcissism.

. . . .

His 'partners' existed less to titillate him than to hold up mirrors to his own vanity: whether the congressman was tweeting photos of his upper body or bragging about what lurked below, his focus was always squarely on himself.”

Bravo, Mr. Douthat. As I stated in a prior blog entry (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2011/06/maureen-dowd-your-tweetin-heart-who.html):

"Will Weiner voluntarily resign? No way. Weiner is consumed with self-interest and is yet another poster boy for narcissism, the plague of the 21st century."

But what about the causes of narcissism and the damage that it does to those living with persons afflicted with the disease? I strongly recommend reading Dr. Richard Grossman's essay "Voicelessness: Narcissism" (http://www.voicelessness.com/narcissism.html), which states in part:

"Many people spend a lifetime aggressively trying to protect an injured or vulnerable 'self.' Traditionally, psychologists have termed such people 'narcissists,' but this is a misnomer. To the outside world it appears that these people love themselves. Yet, at their core they don't love themselves--in fact their self barely exists, and what part does exist is deemed worthless. All energy is devoted to inflating the self, like a persistent child trying to blow up a balloon with a hole.

Because they need continuous proof of the significance of their voice, narcissists must find people, particularly important people, to hear and value them. If they are not heard, their childhood wound opens, and they quickly begin to melt away like the Wicked Witch of the West. This terrifies them. Narcissists use everyone around them to keep themselves inflated. Often they find flaws in others and criticize them fiercely, for this further distinguishes them from those who are defective."

In my opinion, Weiner's refusal to resign as a congressman is just one more manifestation of his ailment, which causes him to place "self" at the epicenter at the expense of all around him.

Douthat's "Obama the Realist": Or Why I Am Not a Conservative

In an op-ed in today's New York Times entitled "Obama the Realist" (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/opinion/07douthat.html), Ross Douthat writes of the current unrest in Egypt:

"This is a situation that calls for great caution, rather than grand idealistic gestures. And it calls for a certain measure of relief, from the American public, that this liberal president’s foreign policy instincts have turned out to be so temperamentally conservative."

And so we learn that to do nothing is "temperamentally conservative":

• To ignore human rights abuses in China;
• To ignore human rights abuses in Myanmar;
• To cede a democratic Lebanon to Iran and Syria;
• To ignore North Korean aggression;
• To ignore suffering in Darfur;
• To ignore genocide in the Congo;
• To ignore Iranians who took to the streets, seeking freedom;
• To keep the U.S. military in Afghanistan.

This is not foreign policy. This is the absence of foreign policy. This is not realism. This is bumbling. This is the consequence of electing a very young senator without foreign policy experience of any kind, who ran a slick campaign, but who is unable to translate photogenic posturing before teleprompters into a leadership role on the world stage.

JG Caesarea Middle East IQ Test, Question No. 4: "What Do Maureen Dowd and Ross Douthat Have in Common?"

Are you more intelligent than Obama?

No, you still can't reply in the affirmative inasmuch as you tried answering Questions Nos. 2 and 3 of the patented JG Caesarea Middle East IQ Test (http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2010/04/jg-caesarea-middle-east-iq-test.html) and failed miserably. Well, here's your chance once again to redeem yourself. As in the past, I already asked Obama this question (in this instance, earlier today), and he came up with the wrong response, so if you answer correctly, you can shout to the entire world, "I am smarter than the president of the United States!"

Ready? Excited? Let's begin:

"What do Maureen Dowd, a dyed in the wool liberal, and Ross Douthat, an inveterate conservative, have in common?"

As in the past, you have 10 seconds to respond. Not enough time? You think I care? . . . . Finished writing? Pencils down!

What? You answered that they're both New York Times columnists? That's exactly the same answer I received from Obama. Did you also call him this morning and ask him for the question? Were you trying to cheat? I like that, but it still doesn't earn you points.

The correct answer to Question No. 4?

You will recall that Maureen Dowd earlier this year visited Saudi Arabia and in a series of New York Times op-eds never once mentioned the barbaric practice of "honor killings" perpetrated against women in that country. While in Riyadh, she also didn't ask the Saudi royal family why women who are gang raped are sentenced to prison and lashed, why death sentences are handed out for "witchcraft", why persons go to jail and are whipped for "practicing magic", why limbs are severed for alleged theft, and why persons guilty of "apostasy" are beheaded.

Today, in a NYT op-ed entitled "Not Even in South Park?" (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/26/opinion/26douthat.html), Ross Douthat claims that Western culture "has few taboos that can’t be violated," but depicting the Prophet Muhammad in "South Park" was met with cowardice and censorship. I like "South Park" and can appreciate Douthat's sentiments. However, he also wrote:

"Islam’s radical fringe is still a fringe, rather than an existential enemy."

Actually, Islam's radical fringe is in some instances a "friend". Recall Obama's bow to Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, whose kingdom, as noted above, possesses all the charms of Vlad the Impaler's 15th Century Wallachia.

Also remember Obama's outreach program to "not so friendly" Iran, where adulterers are stoned to death, homosexuals are hanged, women are subjected to "honor killings", and Baha'is and Kurds are brutalized and murdered. Iran will soon have nuclear weapons, thanks to the courage and forethought of Obama, and is developing ballistic missiles capable of hitting the U.S. in 2015. Iran is not an "existential enemy"?

Would Douthat have us believe that both Saudi Arabia and Iran represent the "fringe" of the Muslim world? Or to be more specific, "honor killings" are common throughout the Muslim world, and unfortunately there is nothing "fringe" or "radical fringe" about this abhorrent practice.

So by now, you probably know the correct answer to Question No. 4: Dowd and Douthat share a common desire not to share the fate of Theo van Gogh. Theo van Gogh, who was critical of Muslim treatment of women, was murdered in Amsterdam by Mohammed Bouyeri in 2004. Bouyeri shot van Gogh eight times, tried to decapitate him, and stabbed him several times in the chest.

So now you have failed to answer correctly the first four questions of the patented JG Middle East IQ Test. Sorry, did I hear you correctly? Is there something else you can give me to earn a passing score? Sorry, the patented JG Middle East IQ Test is incorruptible, unless maybe . . .

You're obviously growing wise to the ways of the Middle East, and it shows initiative on your part, but let's not go down that route for now. Keep your head about you (something that poor Theo van Gogh could barely do), answer correctly Question No. 5 in the not too distant future, and you will be able to declare once and for all that you are smarter than Obama!

A "Minaret Moment" or Europe at a Crossroads?

In an op-ed in today's New York Times entitled "Europe’s Minaret Moment", Ross Douthat takes the position with respect to Europe's swelling Muslim population:

"The most likely scenario for Europe isn’t dhimmitude; it’s a long period of tension, punctuated by spasms of violence, that makes the Continent a more unpleasant place without fundamentally transforming it."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/07/opinion/07douthat.html

A mere "period of tension"? I would remind Mr. Douthat of the details of Theo Van Gogh's murder in Amsterdam in November 2004. Van Gogh, while bicycling to work, was shot eight times by Mohammed Bouyeri. Boyeri then slit Van Gogh's throat, nearly decapitating him. Two knives were thrust into Van Gogh's chest, one attaching a note to his body, threatening Western governments and Jews.

No "fundamental" transformation? This is not what Muammar al-Qaddafi, dictator of Libya, has in mind. In January 2009, The New York Times granted Qaddafi a pulpit on its op-ed page to espouse a seemingly newly discovered moderation in his essay, "The One-State Solution", in which, following Israel's Cast Lead Operation in Gaza, he claimed:

"It is vital not just to break this cycle of destruction and injustice, but also to deny the religious extremists in the region who feed on the conflict an excuse to advance their own causes."

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/opinion/22qaddafi.html

The comment that I submitted at that time in response to Qaddafi's op-ed was censored by The Times; however, in my opinion, it retains its relevance:

"The author of Lockerbie is provided an op-ed pulpit by The New York Times to proselytize his newly discovered moderation. A New York Times scoop? Not.

As already reported by Reuters, Muammar Qaddafi spoke yesterday via satellite with Georgetown University students, and in addition to recommending a conciliatory dialogue between President Obama and Osama bin Laden, Qaddafi called for the establishment of a single state to be called 'Isratine' to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. What does not appear in the NYT op-ed, however, is Qaddafi's recommendation to the students of Georgetown that if the Jews did not accept a one-state solution, they should move to Hawaii, Alaska or an island in the Pacific, where 'they could live peacefully in an isolated setting.'

What does Mr. Qaddafi have in mind? Much can be learned from his speech broadcast by Al Jazeera on April 10, 2006:

'Some people believe that Muhammad is the prophet of the Arabs or the Muslims alone. This is a mistake. Muhammad is the Prophet of all people. He superseded all previous religions. If Jesus were alive when Muhammad was sent, he would have followed him. All people must be Muslims. . . . We have 50 million Muslims in Europe. There are signs that Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe - without swords, without guns, without conquests. The 50 million Muslims of Europe will turn it into a Muslim continent within a few decades. . . Allah mobilizes the Muslim nation of Turkey and adds it to the European Union. That's another 50 million Muslims. There will be 100 million Muslims in Europe. Albania, which is a Muslim country, has already entered the EU. Fifty percent of its citizens are Muslims.'

In his January 14 op-ed, 'Magic and Realism', Roger Cohen wrote: "The world view shaped in the Middle East by Al Jazeera is not amenable to Western logic." My guess is that Mr. Cohen does not speak Arabic, but what is reported above by Al Jazeera is amenable to almost any one's logic, Eastern or Western, and leaves little question as to the future Qaddafi foresees for Europe and 'Isratine'."

"Allah will grant Islam victory in Europe - without swords, without guns, without conquests"? Given my age and the number of decades required to achieve Qadaffi's goal, I'll probably not be around to see it. Meanwhile, however, I will witness how far into his presidency it takes Obama to realize that "making nice" to Ahmadinejad, Qadaffi and their ilk only breeds contempt and whets their appetites.