This issue is a little old, but with all of the leaks that have been emerging about Operation Orchard it's not the worst time to revisit it. We don't support term limits for politicians in Washington. There's such a thing as institutional memory, and it's critical that the people who are actually elected to run the country have access to it. Being a brilliant maverick policy wonk isn't good enough. You have to understand an issue, sure - but once you make a decision, you also have to know where there's a particular office with a particular bureaucrat who plays a particular role. The joke is that in academia you ell you're getting to someone important because they have a back office buried somewhere in an obscure building. Washington is the same way. It's got its fiefdoms and its powerful career civil servants. Listen to Thompson on this issue:

Mr. Thompson says that while a senator he was long concerned with U.S. intelligence failures. "The CIA has better politicians than it has spies," he says, referring to the internecine turf wars that have been a feature of the Bush administration. A key problem, Mr. Thompson notes, is a general lack of accountability in government, where no one pays any price for failure. When asked about President Bush's awarding the Medal of Freedom to outgoing CIA Director George Tenet after U.S. intelligence failures in Iraq became apparent, he shakes his head: "I just didn't understand that."

The next president, according to Mr. Thompson, needs to exercise strong leadership "and get down in the weeds and fix a civil-service system that makes it too hard to hire good employees and too hard to fire bad ones." He doesn't offer specifics on what to do, but notes the "insanity" of the new Congress pushing for the unionization of homeland security employees only five years after it rejected the notion in the wake of 9/11. "Should we tie ourselves up in bureaucratic knots with the challenges we may have to face?" he asks in wonderment.

So for instance - both Obama and Fred have very big brains. You need experience not just in an abstract sense - "you understand how Washington works" - but in the very specific sense of knowing how bureaucracies relate to each other and how to approach different agencies. Otherwise, you may wind up with someone like Dick Armitage leaking the name of a CIA desk jockey and then having the scandal erode your Presidency for years. Hypothetically.

References:
* Lights, Camera... Candidacy? [WSJ]

Previously:
* Psst... We Think the Press Might Have Helped the Democrats Win
* It's Official: You Can't Be Too Much Of A Genocidal Jew-Hating Maniac For Europeans Or Democrats
* Why Can't Democrats Be More Like This?

This is getting both too easy and quite depressing:

Hey, remember the time when about 75percent of American Jews voted for Democrats, and then the Democrats turned around and gave high profile visits and credibility to people dedicated to wiping out Israel? Or that time that Assad threatened to murder the Lebanese Parliament Speaker and then a month later Democrats offered to meet with him? Oh wait, that was right now.

This is just like the time that they held unofficial talks with the Hamas terrorist regime. Except this is worse because they're, you know, official.

Oh, but it's not any of the candidates. Except for the time that Obama promised to negotiate with Assad if he was elected.

References:
* Speaker Pelosi Traveling to Middle East
* Assad Threatened To Murder Lebanese Parliament Speaker. Plus: Obama Promises To Negotiate With Assad. [MR]
* More Leaks Point To Democrats Holding Talks With Hamas Terrorists [MR]

Previously:
* Sen. Clinton Takes Temporary Hardline Stance Against Iran... At AIPAC Meeting
* Instead Of Saying Anything Substantive About the Palestinian Unity Government, We're Going To Take A Cheap Shot At Terrorist Appeasing Democrats
* Democrats' Response: We Have Given The Iraqis Enough / Too Much

You might not notice, but most frames in this video include some sort of alcoholic beverage. We recommend that to your attention.

Not that there's no alcohol stateside, of course. In fact, on that note, we're off to get the weekend started.

Shabbat shalom everyone.

References:
* Smack my bitch up [YouTube/tasha]

Previously:
* MR Soccer Video Mania
* Video: Tasha and Dishka Fridays - Valentine's Day
* [Video] Tasha and Dishka Fridays - Flagged For Inappropriate Content

James "I get to decide who's Christian and who's not" Dobson doesn't think much of Senator Thompson's potential candidacy. The Freepers react with something between a stifled yawn and righteous indignation:.

One of our crazy liberal friends - not like "he's a liberal so he's crazy", but "he's crazy even for a liberal" - described the Freeper reaction as "eerily sane-ish." Our conclusion: Fred Thompson brings out the best in everybody. Except, apparently, in James Dobson.

In other news, a reader who's deeply plugged into California conservative politics wrote in about the quiet groundswell of Fred support that's been building:

He goes on to say that the speaker wasn't particularly enthused about Thompson - and that this skepticism did not sit well with the crowd at all. A true grassroots conservative who's also deeply ethical and thoughtful? Sign. Us. Up.

References:
* Heart-ache: James Dobson says Fred! isn’t a Christian [Hot Air]
* Dobson Offers Insight on 2008 Republican Hopefuls [Freeper HQ]

Previously:
* More Leaks Point To Democrats Holding Talks With Hamas Terrorists
* Republicans Defeat Fascist Democrats (Seriously!!)
* Fred Thompson For President

This is to both sides. Security minded experts and viral marketing hippies.

Knock it off.

First there was that idiotic stunt in Boston. Hey kids, let's strap wires and batteries to bridges. Then let's get all snarky when middle-aged Boston police don't laugh heartily at the obvious allusion to late night Cartoon Network programming watched exclusively by geeks and stoners. Douchebags.

Then there where the the CD players strapped to the to the bottom of church pews. Some insufferable little brat, infused with the kind of disaffection and smugness that only our best liberal arts colleges can infuse, hid obsenity-spewing CD players in a New Mexico church on Ash Wednesday. Then other snarky "the highest form of patriotism is dissent" geeks rushed to mock the police who called in the bomb squad to blow up the CD players. Maybe the cops over-reacted - but then again, maybe these cute little "pranksters" shouldn't have hidden what could have been bombs in a church on a major holiday. Because that's the kind of thing that, you know, terrorists might do.

Bonus frustration: if these CD players had been hidden in a mosque and not a church, this story would have (a) been in the New York Times not just tech blogs and (b) been about a "hate crime", not about a "prank"

And now we've got security officials leaving visibly leaving fake bombs out in the middle of malls:

The idea is to get people to be more aware of potential bombs. Except what it actually does is get people to ignore really obvious bombs. Now run a little thought experiment: what would happen if those bombs had been real bombs? Umm... nothing, because people would have thought that it's an asinine public safety stunt.

So here's our modest proposal: don't leave things that could be mistaken for bombs in public. Don't strap things with wires and batteries to bridges. Don't use hidden electronic devices to show your displeasure with religions that liberals are allowed to hate (hint: not Islam). And don't leave things with wires and timers in the middle of malls. That way people will be really suspicious every time they see anything with wires, battiers, or timers - which, we remind you, will be a good thing.

References:
* Roads closed amid Boston bomb probe [Breitbart]
* When Your Only Tool Is A Bomb Squad, Everything Looks Like A Bomb [Techdirt]
* RMall: It's this obvious if you are alert [Scary Ideas]

Previously:
* Los Angeles Times Dishonest about Pentagon-Funded Report, Recommends Israel Disarm
* Jihadists Hiding Bombs Among Pets, Children
* One Jerusalem Conference Call: Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Time for a logic puzzle:

(1) The world seems to agree that Hamas is too extreme to be accepted on its own

(2) The world is trending towards declaring that adding Fatah to the Hamas government means that the Palestinians are now moderate enough to be accepted

So presumably, Fatah is more moderate than Hamas. Except Fatah troops are the ones who are firing rockets at Israeli schools and hospitals. Apparently you can do that now without giving up your "moderate" halo.

We've discussed the Palestinian division of labor - where the party that's out of power does all the brutal genocidal violence so the party in power can continue to get international support - here and here.

References:
* Air force hits Qassam launchers for first time in five months
* Palestinian Terrorist Division of Labor - It's Not About Who's Moderate, It's About Who's In Power
* More Evidence of New Palestinian Strategy - Blame Only the Terrorists That Are Out of Power

Previously:
* Updates About That Other Group of Genocidal Lunatics Currently Shooting, Bombing Israelis
* Jimmy Carter: Hamas Made Up of "So-Called Terrorists"
* Uhh... When Did the Washington Post Start Letting Terrorists Publish Propaganda?

W. T. F.

Really?

Over seventy percent of American Jews regularly vote for this party, which can't bring itself to take even the most measured stand against Muslim thugs. Keep it up - it's not like those same Muslim thugs are targeting America or Israel. Probably nothing to worry about.

References:
* Pelosi Refusing to Support British on Iran?

Previously:
* Reuters Misleads Readers About Hamas's Treaty Obligations, Misses Everything That's Important About Israeli-Palestinian Peacemaking
* Memo To Democratic Jews: "US Engagement In The Peace Process" Is Bad For Israel, Barack Obama Edition
* MR Has A Question For Democratic Jews: Are You Fucking Retarded?

We're renaming it the "Saudi Suicide Pact". Except it's not really a pact, since only one side has to commit suicide. Remember how the Saudi Foreign Minister talked about dropping the Right of Return from the Saudi Suicide Pact? The idea was to back Israel into a corner by getting it to agree in advance to promise consideration for the plan. Consideration just "in principle" of course - that's how it always works, right:

Israel's enemies say "if we do X, would you do Y"
Israel says, "sure, if you do Y we'd strongly consider X"
Israel's enemies then refuse to do Y, and then scream incoherently about how "Israel already promised to do X"

This has been the pattern of Israeli-Arab negotiations at least as far back as the early 1990s. It's been so overwhelmingly consistent that even ever-naive Israeli negotiators have caught on to the trick. When the Saudi Foreign Minister did his little thought experiment about dropping the Right of Return last week, Israel basically said "first you do it, then we'll talk about concessions".

Turns out that was a smart move on Israel's part, since the Arab League obviously never had any intention of changing their demand for Israel to commit suicide:

How stupid do the Saudis think the Israelis are? This stupid:

"Accept that you don't have a right to exist, and then we'll negotiate about whether you have a right to exist". Only Israel's enemies - emboldened by overwhelming international hatred for the Jewish State - would dare to make such an offer to a country that was repeatedly victorious over them on the battlefield.

References:
* Arab League refuses to change plan

Previously:
* Debate On Saudi Peace Plan I - Arab States Still Committed To The Slow Destruction Of Israel
* AQ Complains That Hamas Is Not Insane Enough
* The Saudi Peace Iniative: A Discrete Way to Destroy Israel, Based on an Ethical Lie

We don't have any larger post to throw this into, but honestly - they just suck:

One 6-ounce bottle of shampoo bad, but two 3-ounce bottles of the same shampoo OK. Because you could never, ever just mix them once you get through security (as if the regulation made any sense in the first place...)

It's not just that a couple lines of computer code can get any terrorist on any flight in the US, probably with a weapon. It's not even that the entire TSA redundancy scheme seems specifically designed to make us less safe.

It's that in the process of not protecting us and making us less safe, they also implement inconceivably stupid regulations to harass and inconvenience travelers.

References:
* Stupid TSA Tricks
* Airport Security in This Country is a Bad Joke [MR]
* Q: Could Airport Security Suck Worse? [MR]

Previously:
* TSA Web Site Hacked and Hijacked. Of Course It Was.
* Are These Union Jobs?
* Pelosi To Take Stance On The Side Of Airline Imams?

Most of the academic blogs that we follow are really, really pissed about Indoctrination U (ok, all of the academic blogs that we follow...) FrontPage has an extensive transcript of a roundtable that David Horowitz participated in:

He might have added a few lines about the even more pervasive day to day dynamics of liberal academic groupthink - casual one-liners about President Bush's intelligence, knowing smirks about Christians, faux outrage about imagined Israeli atrocities, and a general disregard for any human rights violations not committed by US troops. For instance, we get at least one email a week about some dark Rovian plot to invade Pakistan and enslave its sweet and innocent natives. These sweet and innocent natives:

Charming.

References:
* Political Indoctrination and Harassment on Campus: Is there a Problem? [FrontPage]
* Pakistani tribal elders demand girl as payment for poker debt [Hot Air]

Previously:
* Hey Gals, Check It Out - You're Destroying Indonesia With Your Skimpy Clothing and Your Premarital Sex
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Bikini Rally Outside Australian Mosques
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Ahmadinejad Secretly A Pervert?

There was a time when this garbage would have gotten a country invaded, colonized, and instilled with a proper appreciation for good manners and afternoon tea. Alas:

Cravenness breeds contempt. Half a decade of "engagement" and "negotiation" has taught Iran that no insult toward Europe - no matter how spectacular - will go punished. Lie to them, kick them, spit on them - they'll turn the other cheek in a way that reflects not so much a Christian heritage as a breathtaking spinelessness. The multilateral treaty fetish of the Europeans doesn't seem to be so important when its their own citizens who are being violated. At least not so important that they'd actually fight to defend it.

Honestly, we're a little surprised that the Iranians haven't forced her to convert. Yet.

References:
* Faye's humiliation
* NYT: Just Because You Were Forced at Gunpoint to Convert To Islam Doesn't Mean You Were Harmed In Any Way [MR]

Previously:
* EU to Iran: We're Still Thinking of Sanctions. Don't Think We're Not.
* Iran Baffles World By Refusing To Give Up Nuclear Ambitions
* Fetishistic Disavowal

Did you know that TIME has a Middle East blog? Did you know that it sucks:

Yeah. That's what's going to stand in the way of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. Because if there were no Jewish settlers in Homesh, the Palestinians would stop trying to kill Jews.

What's that you say? Homesh has been abandoned for two years and the Palestinians have still been killing Jews? Well fuck.

References:
* The Middle East
Olmert's Hilltop Heachache

Previously:
* US, EU Stand Firm On Boycott. Except They Don't. And Except There Is No Boycott.
* So This Is What Hamas Means By "Respecting Past Agreements" (Bonus: AP's Ibrahim Barzak Whitewashing Palestinian Terrorism Again?)
* What Do Meryl Yourish and A Genocidal Iranian Lunatic Have In Common? [Video]

You would be shocked about how hard it is to find SFW videos of this woman on YouTube. Or maybe you wouldn't:

Gulp.

References:
* מורן אטיאס | Moran Atias | Kozim.Net [YouTube/trash2all]

Previously:
* Video: Walking Table
* Video: Neat - Blueprint For The 21st Century
* Photos: Israeli Model Bar Refaeli In SI Swimsuit Edition

Does anybody know about this? We were doing some work on the internal political situation of a Middle Eastern country that we'll allow to remain nameless for now, and starting getting all of these hits for Atlas Shrugs. Some quick checks show that they're also tagging Jawa, Volokh, Joust The Facts, and Cobb. Off the political radar, they've got Gridskipper and the science blog Thoughts from Kansas.

We came up with these by doing a really quick check. In addition to some targeted searches, we basically we searched on "Allahpundit" to filter out all the nonblog sources (because you know that his name isn't getting into most MSM papers... his name, if it appears, probably reads "a writer for the weblog Hot Air"). And obviously, we're missing the left side of the blogosphere completely. But even with this really hackneyed search, the list of blogs they're tagging seems really random (it looks like no Insta or LGF, but maybe we missed them). Also, they're not tagging all posts - there are wide gaps for sure in the Gskip archives, and what we could get from Jawa seemed thin.

At first we thought that the selections were so random because Lexis had contacted individual bloggers to opt in or something. But Pamela says she has no idea when or how this happened, so that's not what's going on. Someone should follow up on this, given that it's a major jump for the blogosphere into a domain that used to be exclusively reserved for MSM.

UPDATED - Drs. Shackleford and Volokh have both confirmed that they were contacted before their content was syndicated. Which means that Pamela is going to have to kill some people. Which is obviously going to be awesome.

Previously:
* A Neoconservative Manifesto?
* The Kerry Hack Job
* OneJerusalem.org Conference Call: Dick Morris - (1) Introduction

Super:

(1) If the Palestinians are so opposed to Israel that it's impossible to get them into talks, then isn't rewarding them with talks and concessions a recipe for failure?

(2) Isn't their something insulting - not to mention absurd - about promising the Palestinians concessions from Israel in talks that Israel isn't even invited to?

Or maybe it makes sense to have the US promise Israeli security concessions to people who are so bent on murdering Israelis that they won't even meet them. No seriously - it might make sense. What do we know?

References:
* Rice sets out new approach to reviving peace efforts

Previously:
* Secretary Rice: Sure, Abbas Is Allied With Genocidal Maniacs. That Doesn't Mean We Shouldn't Help Him.
* Condi NYT Quote Fabricated? Not So Fast
* US Public Diplomacy, Tact Don't Extend To Israel

A couple of people have asked why we're in Dallas through Pesach - and, more pointedly, what the hell we were doing in Norman, Oklahoma last week. This should explain everything:

Everything clear now?

References:
* National Collegiate Debate Championship (2006)

Previously:
* Liberal Academic Middle East Experts Seem To Know Nothing About The Middle East
* Liberal Academic Middle East Experts Seem To Know Nothing About The Middle East
* Liberal Academic Middle East Experts Seem To Know Nothing About The Middle East

Only Israel could be offered these terms and be expected to go along with them:

This is a lie. This is how it always works - Israel is asked to accept something "in principle" with the promise of further negotiations. Then when those negotiations break down, whatever was promised is taken off the table - but Israel is still expected to give the concessions they offered "in principle" as if they were actually agreed. The "in principle" concessions because the new starting point for negotiations, and now Israel is pressured to offer something else for what they were originally supposed to get. It's not so much a bait and switch as open dishonesty backed by international pressure.

Even if this wasn't a lie, it would still be an outrage so surreal that it could only happen against Israel. What's at stake, of course, is the Saudi plan's inclusion of the so-called Right of Return, where three million of the world's most violent, anti-Semitic lunatics would have the right to literally invade and conquer the Jewish state. That's what the Saudis are offering to change if Israel agrees "in principle" to make a bunch of concessions that it has no reason to believe will ever be reciprocated.

We're going to say this once:

Accepting Israel's right to exist is a prerequisite to negotiations, not a point to be haggled over.

Countries that won their war don't negotiate over their right to exist. Only Israel could be attacked, successfully defend itself over and over again, and still be expected to play the loser in some kind of nudge-nudge wink-wink game with the Arab world. They can have a peace deal when they approach Israel with something a little more reasonable than "if you undermine your security and treat the Palestinians as if they defeated you in a war, we might consider recognizing your right to exist".

Who are we kidding? We're going to be futilely screaming this into the ether for at least the next year.

Holy shit:

"This council is turning that dream into a nightmare"

And the chair didn't have the good grace to thank him for his quite constructive criticism. You'll notice that the chair didn't actually rebut any of the accusations. He did the procedural equivalent of putting his hands over his ears and yelling "I can't hear you". How dignified. And how very typical of the United Nations.

Here's the YNet writeup on the righteous fire and brimstone that UN Watch brought down on the cesspool that is the HRC.

References:
* Banned UN Speech: "Human Rights Nightmare"
* 'UN is human rights nightmare' [YNet]

Previously:
* UN, LA Times Contributer Both Demand That the Jewish State Destroy Itself
* UN Building Hit in Lebanon. UN, AP blame Israel. Yawn.
* UN: Murder of Jews Not Really Our Problem

Saudi Arabia's Foreign Minister has threatened that Israel will face war and destruction unless it accepts the Arabs' ultimatum:

Hey, you know what's missing from this British Telegraph report about the Saudi ultimatum? The little detail about how the plan requires that Israel accept the Palestinian Right of Return, and thereby allow itself to be invaded and destroyed by three million of the most radical and anti-Semitic lunatics on the planet. Wonder how that didn't make it into the final cut of the report.

Incidentally, if Israel threatened the Palestinians with war if they didn't accept Israeli terms, the United Nations would be sitting in emergency session right now to condemn the Jewish State. But a "moderate" Arab state that's issuing ultimatums about wars that it wasn't involved in and territory that it has nothing to do with? Nothing to see here folks.

References:
* Accept peace plan or face war, Israel told

Previously:
* Saudi Arabia to Build Apartheid Wall
* Debate On Saudi Peace Plan II - Iran Won't Even Accept Slow Extermination of Israel
* Israelis Are Victims Of Global Apartheid

There appears to be something of a double standard here, no?

"Dear Israel - we know that Hamas won't accept you, but won't you please consider crawling to them anyway?"

References:
* UN Chief Urges Israel to Reconsider Rejection of New Palestinian Government

Previously:
* This is How It Happens
* How Badly Does the UN Draft Screw Israel? Part IV: UNIFIL Will Not Get a Chapter 7 Mandate
* The UN Should Stay the Hell Out of Israel's Way

They can't do anything right:

And then the Israelis had the nerve to offer assistance so that less elderly people and babies would have to die. But the Palestinians are too smart to fall for such a patently obvious Zionist plot:

This is like the time that Iran wouldn't accept Israeli disaster aid because it was too Jewish. Or that other time, when the State Department wouldn't accept Israeli disaster aid because they were afraid that other Muslim countries would think that it was too Jewish. Or even like that other other time, when the Pakistanis accepted Israeli aid on the condition that it go through the UN.

Israeli help is consistently and sometimes literally spit upon, but they keep offering anyway.

References:
* 6 killed, many missing in Gaza sewage flood [YNet]
* Figures. [MR]
* State Department Anti-Israel Ideology Gets Silly, Kills Americans [MR]
* Who's Afraid of Israeli Aid? [MR]
* Pakistan accepts Israeli earthquake aid [JPost]

Previously:
* Palestinian Civil Society Not Doing Well
* Palestinian Civil Society Watch I - We're Not Sure About This 'Election' Thing
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Islamists Want To Set Your Wardrobe. This is Because They Are Fascists (Bonus Ahmadinejad Material Inside)

Arabs head to Saudi summit to endorse Mideast peace:

Except that "just solution" is the full embrace of the Right of Return, which means allowing Israel to be invaded by three million of the most radicalized and anti-Semitic lunatics on the planet. Of course, you wouldn't know that from Wafa Amr's article since the actual details of the "just solution" that the Arab world is proposing is mysteriously left out.

Funny, that.

References:
* Arabs head to Saudi summit to endorse Mideast peace

Previously:
* Reuters Anti-Israel Demonization Now Just Silly: Israeli Jews Persecuting Palestinian Christians. Muslim Palestinians, On the Other Hand, Have Persecuted Nobody and Burned No Churches
* Reuters Publishes State Department Leak: US Attack On Iran Would Be All-Out War
* Reuters Anti-Israel Absurdity Watch - "Being A Human Shield" Is A "Protest"

The video has been getting passed around the blogosphere like a joint at a Dead concert (almost 100,000 views), but we haven't had it up yet. So here it is:

Fox picked it up a couple nights ago, so here's the video for that. The commentary is probably more important than the video itself, since the video isn't telling you anything that you don't already know. Look out for Bridget Gabriel's explanation about why the dialect of the video is so important. It's at about 1:20:

"We are watching the making of an Islamofascist army"

Feel free to refer this to any "both sides are equally responsible" bleeding heart friends. Not that it'll help.

References:
* Daughter of suicide terrorist sings to her mother
* Bred For Death
* Kids Being Brainwashed To Hate Jews In Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Gaza, Egypt, Iran, Etc Etc [Videos] [MR]

Previously:
* Dumbest Quote About International Diplomacy. Ever.
* Video: Disney Cartoon Shows Nazi Brainwashing Of Children
* Hey Gals, Check This Out - Sheik Talks About the Horrors Of Female Masturbation

A little while ago we penned a not very respectful post about a group of idiot academic musicologists trying to prevent the US from playing loud music at terrorists (because it hurts their ears... aww). Now the actual musicians are getting into the act of trying to prevent the US from winning being patriotic dissenters:

Do you get the feeling that, far from being anti-war, some musicians are actually on the other side? Shouldn't they be spending their time punishing grandmothers and toddlers for downloading copies of Coldplay?

References:
* Liberal Academics: Making Terrorists Listen To Bad Music Is Off-Limits [MR]
* Fighting torture with copyright [The Register]

Previously:
* Petition To Support Ambassador Mazel
* What's Good For the Goose...
* Equal Opportunity Terrorists

There's really no point to this video, except maybe to show that you don't have to scratch the "peace movement" very deep before you find some pretty ugly thuggishness. Although the open boasting about how they're intimidating the media might qualify as blogworthy:

Because the problem with Lebanon II is that the global media wasn't representing Hezbollah's side of the conflict fairly. Obviously.

References:
* Muslim Peace Rally [GooTube]

Previously:
* Hezbollah Threatens Tel Aviv - MR Gives You Tomorrow’s Pro-Hezbollah Media Spin Today
* Here's the Thing About the Anti-Israel Media: They Lie - Visual Version
* Muslim Peace Rally

Stop rolling your eyes. Peres really is the best candidate. On the same day that Barak backs Colette Avital for President (because she's sooo well-known overseas, right?), Ami Ayalon comes out with an opinion demonstrating that he's not an idiot:

But hey, maybe everyone else is right. Maybe Peres is a "loser" and would just embarrass everybody when he goes overseas and advances Israel's cause.

Except, obviously, he wouldn't. Because he's a genius and a mench. When we say that they just don't make them like this any more, it's because they just don't make them like this any more.

References:
* Ehud Barak backs Avital for president [Ha'aretz]
* Peres now [YNet]

Previously:
* Oh God. Not the Peres Is a Traitor Debate Again.
* Peres For President
* The Next Time You Complain About Peres...

Very quickly:

So much for "the enemy doesn't care about our domestic politics". Nobody actually believes that, right? No one has ever believed that. That's why politics used to stop at the water's edge? Because everybody knows that of course the enemy monitors us for signs of weakness. That's why every modern enemy that the US has faced has engaged in propaganda to weaken the home front.

The only difference is that in the past, our news agencies didn't actively help them propagandize.

References:
* 'We Warned the United States' [Spiegel]
* Video: Ahmadinejad trying to find new ways to love [Hot Air]

Previously:
* Reuters Publishes State Department Leak: US Attack On Iran Would Be All-Out War
* Iran Funding All Sides Of Palestinian Non-Civil War
* Iran Enriches Uranium - Good Job Europe!

Can they just arrest the asshole already:

Admittedly, this isn't as bad as going to Syria. Instead of going to a country that's actively supplying Hezbollah with weapons to murder Israelis, he went to a country that's a massive hotbed for all kinds of terrorism. So it's not directly meant to demonstrate solidarity with regimes that want to wipe out the Jewish State that he is (a) elected to protect and (b) votes on the military budget of. So there's there.

References:
* Barakei makes unauthorized Yemen trip [JPost]
* Terrorism Havens: Yemen

Previously:
* Israeli-Arab Fifth Column Watch - If Israelis Support People Who Want To Wipe Out Israel, Is It Still Treason If Those Israelis Happen To Be Arab?
* Israeli-Arab Fifth Column Watch - AP Has Very Little Idea What's Going On In Israel, Still Manages To Convey That Lots Of Israeli-Arabs Are Holocaust Deniers
* Israeli-Arab Fifth Column Watch - Arab Knesset Member Calls For Uprising To Liberate Jerusalem

Of all the excuses to put on the blood libel known as I Am Rachel Corrie, pretending that you're educating somebody has to be the very dumbest:

Rachel Corrie was in no way extraordinary, nor was she particularly ethical. She was a soppy-eyed, droopy-faced terrorist enabler with a weak will and an identity crises temporarily solved by substituting her incoherent passion about the "plight of the Palestinians" for genuine thought. She was prone to outbursts of the worst kind of empty thuggish boasting, going half way across the world to burn American and Israeli flags because it made her fantasy of being a "resistance fighter" more "authentic". If she hadn't been accidentally killed, she would sitting in her parents' house fabricating tales of glorious anti-Israel battles on MySpace to impress other soppy-eyed, droopy-faced teenage girls who want to drop out of the system, stop shaving their legs because of the patriarchy, and march arm-in-arm with the disempowered in glorious revolution. So yeah, we suppose that her point of view has a right to be expressed - but with a billion blogs of pathetic activists writing poetry about how desperately awful the world is and how their parents just don't understand them, do we really need one more?

Who cares if it was an accident or not? She was guarding a terrorist tunnel. She had the opportunity to move. She counted on the Israeli army that she spit on to protect her in a way that no Palestinian terrorist would ever spare an Israeli. But having never really been told that the universe won't go out of its way to protect her from the consequences of her stupidity, she didn't bother to check whether the soldier could even see her. He couldn't. She died trying to help the Palestinians develop a terrorist infrastructure to blow up Israeli children. No pity. Sic semper ill-raised burnout hippies living out their half-formed, latently anti-Semitic fantasies of violence and martyrdom.

Anyway, this article is about how Seattle Jewish organizations are rising to the challenge of answering the artistic left's anti-Israel propaganda. Click through if you're interested...

References:
* Rachel Corrie, spotlighted yet again [JPost]

Previously:
* OK, Sure She's A Terrorist Enabler - But The Kids Love Her
* What You Get When You Vote For Democrats - Why Would John Edwards Say Something As Stupid As "Israel Is the Greatest Threat To World Peace"?
* American Liberal Activists Are So Cute, With Their Smugness And Their Superiorly And Their Not Being Very Smart

The UN isn't about diplomacy any more. For decades, even the most insipid anti-Western pipsqueeks could be counted on to at least make the same sounds that diplomats make, albeit in the interest of fracturing any coherent response to the machinations of dictators and tyrants. Now the cesspool is losing even that thin veneer of diplomatic nicity or rational deliberation.

Even couple of weeks, some top Iranian official or another threatens to wipe Israel off the map. Sometimes it's in the context of nuclear weapons, sometimes it's about unleashing Hezbollah, and sometimes it's all just put into Allah's hands. But the statements have the same thing in common: they threaten to annihilate a UN member state. But in the UN, Iran reasonably get up and accuse Israel of belligerence. In a world where no anti-Israel absurdity is too spectacular or shameless, this just kind of seems reasonable.

Israeli sensibilities count for nothing in the United Nations. The UN Secretary General had no problem this week going to Yasser Arafat's grave to honor a man who history has judged as an unrepentant mass murder. Step back from this for a second and you'll realize how surreal this is - Arafat died a proud and declared terrorist. And Ban Ki-Moon laid a wreath at his grave... why? To prove that the UN refuses to reject genocidal anti-Jewish lunatics? Was he afraid that his meetings with the proud parents of suicide bombers was too unclear? Like people weren't getting the message...?

And while the UN is treating Israel's enemies with the most delicate respect, Israeli sensibilities count for absolutely nothing. Israelis are openly denigrated and humiliated all the way down to the day to day workings of the organization:

Israelis are the globe's second-class citizens.

References:
* Teheran: US, Israel making threats [JPost]
* Ban Ki-Moon Honors Yasser Arafat [LGF]
* UN Sec-Gen Visits Arafat's Grave, Meets Parents of Terrorists [INN]
* Saudi Arabia Bars Israeli Journalist Traveling With U.N. Chief [NYT]

Previously:
* This is How It Happens
* UN, LA Times Contributer Both Demand That the Jewish State Destroy Itself
* The UN Has Been Screwing Israel For Decades

We're obviously in no position to add anything about the Iranian act of war that isn't being done better on Hot Air and NRO (also see NRO here and here).

Here's one of Ledeen's happier FYIs:

Isn't being informed fun?

The debate in the intelligence community seems to be between those who thinks the order came from the top and those who think that some lower-level guy committed an act of war and only then told the higher ups about it. We have a third theory:

And people wonder why we're losing the War on Terror. They've got Allah on their side (or, at a minimum, they've got violent fanaticism). We've got operating systems that function as training grounds for 9 year old hacker script kiddies.

References:

* Hostage update: British ambassador to Iran demands to see sailors; Update: U.S. commander says American sailors would have resisted [Hot Air]
* The Mullahs and Mario [NRO]
* Mario and the Mullahs (different article) [NRO]
* Iran News Round-Up [NRO]
* Windows Sank My Battleship! [G4TV]

Previously:
* Nasrallah Is More Honest About Iran Than The British Press
* IAEA: Maybe Iran Is Developing Nukes and Maybe They're Not
* Iran Now Blaming Sunni-Shia Split On Israel. No, Really.

Well, obviously it's because he was the source of the Plame leak, as Kos figured out way back in 2004:

We haven't seen logic that air-tight since we helped this kid in a sophomore year Intro To Metaphysics class. It's almost a shock that it turned out to be spectacularly wrong. And when you consider the intellectual maturity of the Kos comments section, the pieces really begin to fall into place, don't they?

One of the comments from that post talked about how Bush was going to do something crazy to appease the Jews. Firing Cheney was the specific suggestion, but honestly when you're that far gone do the details really matter any more? Regardless, logic on the march.

Anyway, Scooter Libby still hasn't been pardoned by the President, even though Libby was the victim of a politicized witch-hunt aimed at destroying... the President. This seems like a good plan, because the best way to get allies is to abandon them when the enemies they make in your name attack them.

References:
* It was Libby [DKos]

Previously:
* Does Kos Just Get to Make Things Up Now?
MR Has A Question For Democratic Jews: Are You Fucking Retarded?
The Democratic Base Is Proud Of Their Spineless Congresspeople Fighting Nonexistent - But Very Dark - Rovian Plots

We've been hearing a little bit about the belief gap again. The idea is that what seperates political groups groups today is not what the believe, but the degree to which they genuinely commit to their believes. We've talked about this before in the context of Pope Benedict. The reason he causes so much consternation - even though he's incredibly thoughtful and soft-spoken - is because multiculturalists in the West have a genuine problem wrapping their minds around really believing an ideology.

So you get gorgeous works of intellectual rigor like this:

Oh the horror! As if the leader of world Catholicism should doubt either the existence of divine truth or that Catholicism has some sort of special relationship to it. What - exactly - is the Catholic Pope supposed to believe? That Catholicism isn't somehow special? Would't that lack something in the way of, you know, Catholicism? (we'll pass on the the "capital T Truth" phrase, but suffice to say that it's an almost certain admission, albeit unintentional, of having spent too many hours in the echo chamber of humanities seminars)

The rest of the article is about how Pope Benedict's hatred of homosexuality has been not so much exaggerated as totally, totally. The Vatican's statements on homosexuality have been very carefully designed not to exclude homosexuals:

Here's where the author makes a critical mistake - one that's pretty clearly the result of sloppy pop academic theory. He thinks that this is evidence that Benedict is softening towards doctrine - that this somehow makes him less of a "strict" believe. Exactly the opposite is going on.

The very essence of healthy religious ideology is having people make very strict doctrinal statements livable through creative nudge-nudge wink-wink interpretation. Think of Judaism's elaborate laws for carrying on Shabbat, which are doctrinally and textually sound but seem to contradict plainer interpretations. The danger, here, is in believing too much - in not being able to establish a certain distance between you and your beliefs. Down that road lie honor killings, the destruction of ancient rock statues, and fanatical war.

So how are we to distinguish between the multicultural excess - not "really believing" - and the fanaticist problem - believing "too much". This is a tension that has to be handled on a case by case basis: what is the excess in any particular situation?

But that doesn't mean we can't describe or judge certain sensibilities. The attitude of chic disaffection is just pathetic. The sneering blue state disdain for "those people who fly flags" or "those saps who put up yellow ribbons" is a large reason why it will take Democrats a generation to make inroads into the South. Some things - patriotism, freedom, civilization - should be taken seriously.

But the nudge-nudge wink-wink of religious loopholes is a totally different dynamic. Religious Catholics who find ways not to implement the Vatican's understated anti-gay statements are doing so based on the strictest Catholic exegesis. Orthodox Jews who avail themselves of loopholes in Shabbat law do so based on the strictest Talmudic readings. This is not disbelief or irony - it happens totally within the highest standards of Orthodoxy (and is again totally different from reform Jews or liberal Catholics who just ignore doctrine, telling themselves it's the name of "higher" values like free thought or love). The reasons that people give themselves for their own beliefs and actions actually do matter.

References:
* Yes, the Pope Is Catholic - Confused? We'll Translate: He Believes in God [MR]
* BENEDICT THE ECUMENICAL. [TNR]

Previously:
* Yes, the Pope Is Catholic - So Catholic That He Actually Thinks Catholicism Is True
* Bankrupt in the marketplace of ideas?
* Yes, the Pope Is Catholic - The Imbecility of Interfaith Dialogue

Sometimes we get emails asking us for information about Tasha and Dishka. First of all, you people are kind of scary and we'd like you to stop doing that. Second - and we can't emphasize this enough - we don't know anything. It's the whole restraining order thing - we're not allowed to call or email. Bummer, we know.

But since we want to be helpful, here's a little guide to Tasha's life. For all of you amateur stalkers out there, now you know three or four things that you didn't know before:

It really is kind of an ugly shade of green.

Regardless, Shabbat shalom.

References:
* Just another sunday night [YouTube/tasha]

Previously:
* Video: Tasha Fridays, Two For One
* Aww... the Cute Lion Is Going To Kill That Woman [the link in this post is dead - here's a live version]
* Talking Animals - Not Just For Really Funny Movies Any More

You really have to ask yourself just how far off the reservation you've wandered when you're blasting MoveOn for being a tool of the war machine:

That's because the progressive ideas were totally batshit crazy. Like really insane batshit crazy stuff. Not even your normal batshit crazy. We kept expecting them to attach an amendment demanding full disclosure of Bush's complicity in 9/11. Alas, as in so many other things liberal, we were disappointed. But not disappointed enough to stop us from pointing you to this more extensive critique of Democratic populism.

References:
* Tell MoveOn & Progressive Caucus It's Time To Show Spine Send Pelosi Back to the Drawing Board... (and have Representatives Lee, Woolsey, and Waters help her.)
* Initial, Visceral Bitterness - (1) Progressives Had A Great Night. Really Fantastic. [MR]

Previously:
* WaPo Discovers Egyptian Anti-Israel Movements, Gets Story Wrong Anyway
* Bad Logic and Bad Ideology
* Some De-Facto Republican Acceptance of Gays: Not Ideal, But We'll Take It

Dig:

And now you know. The article links are in the references:

References:
* 15 British sailors detained by Iran
* White House says Iran visas approved

Previously:
* Iran Might Not be a Stabilizing Force in the Middle East After All
* IAEA: Maybe Iran Is Developing Nukes and Maybe They're Not
* Nasrallah Is More Honest About Iran Than The British Press

Seriously. Here's Neal Stephenson's mockery of the politically correct liberal kneejerk anti-300 reviewers:

It really does take somebody totally imbecilic to believe that there's still something to notions like duty, loyalty, sacrifice, and the preservation of Western civilization against enormous odds. It's a good thing for all of us - and we hate to use this phrase, but it's appropriate here - that elite Hollywood opinion-setters are here to calibrate the proper level of cynicism.

References:
* It’s All Geek to Me [NYT]

Previously:
* 300 Trailer
* Slate's Negative Review of 300 Provides Countless Reasons To See The Movie
* The Greek Deliberative Tradition

This afternoon's One Jerusalem conference call was with former House Majority Leader Tom Delay. On the call with us were Jim Hoft (Gateway Pundit), Pamela Geller Oshr (Atlas Shrugs), Anne Lieberman (Boker Tov, Boulder), and Daled Amos (Daled Amos). As always, Allen Roth was moderating the call and audio will be made availab