The Left's Highest Card Is the Joker

The Left’s increasing desperation is showing, and it’s ugly.

It was one thing when attacks on criticsof Obama’s health-care agenda focused on prominent individuals like Sarah Palin. Only people who strongly support Palin were bothered by the way she was ridiculed and slandered.

Now this is personal.

This isn’t about Rep. Joe Wilson or Sarah Palin. It’s about you. It’s not about Glenn Beck, or Rush Limbaugh, or even the KKK, or the Nazi Party.

It’s about you.

The president, and his pledged mouthpieces, have fanned out across the media to condemn you, any and all of you who dare disagree with his health-care agenda, as hate-filled racists.

Those cries of "racism" and aren't aimed at somebody else this time. Somebody out there who might be controversial, or “fringe” or goes too far. Somebody on TV you don't really know.

Now they're saying those things about you.

If you oppose Obama and/or his health-care plan, you are a racist; there is no other conceivable explanation for your opposition.

It’s quite simple really, as they explain it.

You only question Obama and the Democrat plan because you’re wallowing in the “inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president.” (Jimmy Carter).

It’s because you are one of the people who “just can’t believe a black man is president and will never accept it.” (Maureen Dowd).

Your opinion that the president has made false statements about his plan makes you one of those “people with white hoods running through the countryside again.” (Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson)

It’s because you’re part of “element in this country that doesn’t want to accept him as the president,” and you’re frustrated because “Nobody can use the N-word in public anymore.”(Mitch Albom)

The Left went all in when they threw this the race card. There's only one way this can work for them, that's only if they can convince:

all the Americans who don’t find Obama a truth-telling man;

and all the Americans who don’t believe the health-care package Obama & Co. have tried to railroad through Congress since July is the best thing for all of us;

and all the American independents who simply want a full discussion of the details and consequences of a radical re-fashioning of our health-care system before we burn every health-care bridge in the country--

—they have to convince all of these Americans, all of us, that the only reason we think that and feel that and say that is because we hate black people, and for no other reason.

It's not enough for them to convince each other. It doesn't matter that Clyburn and Carter and Olbermann and Albom are convinced.

They have to convince us.

Would you bet on that?

'Today Everyone Is an Iranian'

Today Everyone is an Iranian

By Amil Imani

"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." John F. Kennedy

Today, all Iranian expatriates are united in solidarity with the Iranian people in Iran. Today, we are all standing tall to let the world hear our continuous aspiration for a free and democratic Iran. Today, we pledge ourselves, under the divine inspiration, to stand beside the Iranians in Iran and echo their voices around the globe. Today, we make history, yet again.

It is critical that freedom-loving people, governments and media, rally behind the Iranian people and end the tyrannical mullahcracy that is a scourge on Iran as well as the world. The Iranian people themselves are fully capable and are determined to remove the cancer of Islamism from their country. The United States and Israel and other democracies have a huge stake in the success of the Iranian people to rid themselves of the Islamic oppression and tyranny.

The situation in Iran is dire indeed. Anyone who believes that sane rational people on both sides are engaged in brinkmanship to secure the best advantage, but would eventually work out a compromise, is deluding himself. In some cases, time works as a healer and even as a solution of thorny problems. Yet, this problem will not go away, and time would only make the cataclysmic clash more likely and deadly. The best chance for resolving the impasse is regime change in Iran.

For the past thirty years, the intrepid Iranians have been paying with their blood for liberty, independence and human dignity while the world looked the other way and did business with the Islamist rulers in Iran. Thirty years ago, a fanatic Shi'a Muslim by the name of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, with the assistance of western governments (with Jimmy Carter on top of the list), succeeded in overthrowing the Shah of Iran during Iran's 1979 revolution.

Khomeini promised Iranians heaven, but he created hell on earth, turning Iran into a bastion of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism. Ever since, tens of thousands of political activists have been killed or imprisoned. Tens of thousands of opposition groups, women, ethnic and religious minorities, have been subjected to inhumane treatment and tens of thousands of political prisoners are spending their precious lives, in the medieval barbaric Islamic Republic dungeons.

Since 1979, this illegitimate government of the Islamic Republic has been waging a brutal war against the entire population of Iran who has been fighting for individual and religious freedom. In spite of tens of thousands of political executions, other brutal practices and years of a reign of terror, the Islamists have not succeeded in uprooting the nationwide movement for democracy in Iran.

We honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. for proclaiming from a Birmingham jail, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." To demand justice for others, he risked his life, left his native Georgia, and ended up in jail in the-then-bigoted south, Birmingham, Alabama. We "Iranians" must do no less. We must demand justice for our compatriots who are suffering under the yoke of Islamofascism in Iran.

We also do well to recall the example of an Irish-American President-John F. Kennedy-looking at the Communists' Wall of Shame in Berlin, proclaiming, "Ich bin ein Berliner"-"I am a Berliner." By so claiming, he helped rally free people of the world that brought down the wall and created a momentum that eventually swept the totalitarian Communist wall-builders into the dustbin of history.

Another great American President, Ronald Reagan, took a stand on freedom with the Polish people.

"The Polish nation, speaking through Solidarity, has provided one of the brightest, bravest moments of modern history. The people of Poland are giving us an imperishable example of courage and devotion to the values of freedom in the face of relentless opposition. Left to themselves, the Polish people would enjoy a new birth of freedom. But there are those who oppose the idea of freedom, who are intolerant of national independence, and hostile to the European values of democracy and the rule of law."

History records that Reagan's decision to take a strong stand for Polish freedom -- and bringing down the Communist system itself -- was the right one." Reagan led and inspired the Poles to continue the struggle which resulted in half of Europe being freed from iron-fisted domination, by then, the Soviet Union.

Even the European Union called on Islamic authorities to investigate allegations of vote-rigging during Iran's presidential election on Friday, expressing concern at Tehran's crackdown on protesters. Germany's Angela Merkel took a much tougher stand than President Obama did, calling the oppression "totally unacceptable," while all Obama could say was that it's "deeply troubling" (video here).

President Obama's halting comments only made clear his fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of the Islamic regime. It appears President Obama is going to betray the Iranian people as Jimmy Carter did 3 decades earlier. Senator John McCain, President Obama's rival in last year's US election, described the president's response as "tepid," and blasted him for abandoning the "fundamental principles" of the United States. Iranian people don't expect the Americans to come to Iran and fight for them. Every decent and freedom-loving nation knows that the Iranian people have the right and the duty to change their form of government. What Americans can do for the Iranian people is to lend them their support; not to fight on their behalf, but to rally to their side and to cheer their struggle.

We Iranians in spirit-free people of the world--greatly cherish liberty, where the mind is imbued with enlightenment, and every individual, by the virtue of being born human, is afforded freedom. It is within the open expanse of liberty that each and every person can be at his or her best. And when the individual person is at his best, humanity is at its best.

Today, we are reaching outside of ourselves. Today, we are raising our own standard. Today, we are standing tall and declaring our perpetual commitment to the liberation of Iran and her citizens. Today, we are marching for the support of the brave and courageous people of Iran. Today, our demonstration is inspired by demonstrations of the Iranian people inside Iran against the dictatorship and barbarity of the Islamic Republic. We shall all demonstrate until every Iranian is free. Today, everyone is an Iranian.

Carter's Little Livid Pills

Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s personal effort to make Hamas a peace partner has set off alarm bells in the White House. "[We] won't have more to say about this,” a government official said after being asked about reports that Carter will propose to U.S. President Barack Obama that the United States take Hamas off the list of illegal terrorist organizations.

He made the comment shortly after he narrowly escaped an assassination attempt by terrorists who had planted a huge bomb near the path where he was traveling.

The White House is livid with Carter, according to an experienced Middle East expert who was quoted on the website of the widely respected Foreign Policy magazine. “They are very pissed,” he said. "Just like with President Clinton, Carter is becoming a huge problem and a growing concern for Obama.” (“Carter-Hamas Friendship May Stalemate Obama”).

Distraction on the High Seas

It occurred to me today that Carter’s hostage crisis, the enduring symbol of failure that marked his administration for the failure that it was, came near the end of his four years. Obama’s hostage crisis is coming early.

James Lewis at American Thinker discusses how the rest of the world sees this as a test for Obama: “And so, far Obama is flunking.”

For helping to bring to light the predicament of the free world having this badly outmatched man as leader, Lewis thinks gratitude toward the Somali pirates is in order.

Read what he has to say here.

When A=A, You've Solved It

In logic, and I believe algebra, which I had to take over, they call this the principle of identity. A being is what it is. A = A.

A committed jihadist, whatever else he may be, is not a moderate.

Twice in only a few weeks two of America’s bitterest Islamic enemies have rebuffed President Barack Obama’s highly illogical offers to sit down and treat with the "moderate" members of our enemies’ camp.

First there was Obama's offer to make friends with Iran. Ahmadinejad responded with a "not so fast," outlining a few conditions:

Other than "apologizing for the U.S. crimes" against his country "in the past 60 years," Ahmadinejad said the United States should withdraw all its troops from around the world and put them back inside the U.S. borders "to serve their own people."

He insisted the United States should also "stop interfering in other people's affairs," accusing it of having caused wars due to its military presence. He also suggested that advocates of change "must stop supporting the Zionists, outlaws and criminals."

For what it's worth, Democrat "moderates" Jack Murtha, Chas Freeman, and Jimmy Carter all thought these Iranian terms were very balanced and reasonable.

Then President Obama said he would reach out to the Taliban "moderates." That's when the Taliban had to get all Mr. Spock on the President and explain that the word "Taliban" translates into English as "incapable of being moderate":

Taliban say Obama's call on moderates "illogical"
Tue Mar 10,
7:17 am ET

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghanistan's Taliban on Tuesday turned down as illogical U.S. President Barack Obama's bid to reach out to moderate elements of the insurgents, saying the exit of foreign troops was the only solution for ending the war.

Obama, in an interview with the New York Times, expressed an openness to adapting tactics in Afghanistan that had been used in Iraq to reach out to moderate elements there.

"This does not require any response or reaction for this is illogical," Qari Mohammad Yousuf, a purported spokesman for the insurgent group, told Reuters when asked if its top leader Mullah Mohammad Omar would make any comment about Obama's proposal.

"The Taliban are united, have one leader, one aim, one policy...I do not know why they are talking about moderate Taliban and what it means?"

"If it means those who are not fighting and are sitting in their homes, then talking to them is meaningless. This really is surprising the Taliban."

It's not surprising to us. We've been saying this for years. We agree it's illogical. The idea of a moderate Taliban is about as illogical as, well, the idea of a moderate Barack Obama. The idea of negotiating with an opponent whose sine qua non is your subjection or, failing that, your destruction, is not rational.

Mr. President, how about restoring some of that "scientific integrity to government decision making" when it comes to real issues, like defending the nation from her enemies?

Tough Stuff

Daniel Pearl and the Normalization of Evil

When will our luminaries stop making excuses for terror?

By JUDEA PEARL

This week marks the seventh anniversary of the murder of our son, former Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. My wife Ruth and I wonder: Would Danny have believed that today's world emerged after his tragedy?

The answer does not come easily. Danny was an optimist, a true believer in the goodness of mankind. Yet he was also a realist, and would not let idealism bend the harshness of facts.

Neither he, nor the millions who were shocked by his murder, could have possibly predicted that seven years later his abductor, Omar Saeed Sheikh, according to several South Asian reports, would be planning terror acts from the safety of a Pakistani jail. Or that his murderer, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, now in Guantanamo, would proudly boast of his murder in a military tribunal in March 2007 to the cheers of sympathetic jihadi supporters. Or that this ideology of barbarism would be celebrated in European and American universities, fueling rally after rally for Hamas, Hezbollah and other heroes of "the resistance." Or that another kidnapped young man, Israeli Gilad Shalit, would spend his 950th day of captivity with no Red Cross visitation while world leaders seriously debate whether his kidnappers deserve international recognition.

No. Those around the world who mourned for Danny in 2002 genuinely hoped that Danny's murder would be a turning point in the history of man's inhumanity to man, and that the targeting of innocents to transmit political messages would quickly become, like slavery and human sacrifice, an embarrassing relic of a bygone era.

But somehow, barbarism, often cloaked in the language of "resistance," has gained acceptance in the most elite circles of our society. The words "war on terror" cannot be uttered today without fear of offense. Civilized society, so it seems, is so numbed by violence that it has lost its gift to be disgusted by evil.

I believe it all started with well-meaning analysts, who in their zeal to find creative solutions to terror decided that terror is not a real enemy, but a tactic. Thus the basic engine that propels acts of terrorism -- the ideological license to elevate one's grievances above the norms of civilized society -- was wished away in favor of seemingly more manageable "tactical" considerations.

This mentality of surrender then worked its way through politicians like the former mayor of London, Ken Livingstone. In July 2005 he told Sky News that suicide bombing is almost man's second nature. "In an unfair balance, that's what people use," explained Mr. Livingstone.

But the clearest endorsement of terror as a legitimate instrument of political bargaining came from former President Jimmy Carter. In his book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," Mr. Carter appeals to the sponsors of suicide bombing. "It is imperative that the general Arab community and all significant Palestinian groups make it clear that they will end the suicide bombings and other acts of terrorism when international laws and the ultimate goals of the Road-map for Peace are accepted by Israel." Acts of terror, according to Mr. Carter, are no longer taboo, but effective tools for terrorists to address perceived injustices.

Mr. Carter's logic has become the dominant paradigm in rationalizing terror. When asked what Israel should do to stop Hamas's rockets aimed at innocent civilians, the Syrian first lady, Asma Al-Assad, did not hesitate for a moment in her response: "They should end the occupation." In other words, terror must earn a dividend before it is stopped.

The media have played a major role in handing terrorism this victory of acceptability. Qatari-based Al Jazeera television, for example, is still providing Sheikh Yusuf Al-Qaradawi hours of free air time each week to spew his hateful interpretation of the Koran, authorize suicide bombing, and call for jihad against Jews and Americans.

Then came the August 2008 birthday of Samir Kuntar, the unrepentant killer who, in 1979, smashed the head of a four-year-old Israeli girl with his rifle after killing her father before her eyes. Al Jazeera elevated Kuntar to heroic heights with orchestras, fireworks and sword dances, presenting him to 50 million viewers as Arab society's role model. No mainstream Western media outlet dared to expose Al Jazeera efforts to warp its young viewers into the likes of Kuntar. Al Jazeera's management continues to receive royal treatment in all major press clubs.

Some American pundits and TV anchors didn't seem much different from Al Jazeera in their analysis of the recent war in Gaza. Bill Moyers was quick to lend Hamas legitimacy as a "resistance" movement, together with honorary membership in PBS's imaginary "cycle of violence." In his Jan. 9 TV show, Mr. Moyers explained to his viewers that "each [side] greases the cycle of violence, as one man's terrorism becomes another's resistance to oppression." He then stated -- without blushing -- that for readers of the Hebrew Bible "God-soaked violence became genetically coded." The "cycle of violence" platitude allows analysts to empower terror with the guise of reciprocity, and, amazingly, indict terror's victims for violence as immutable as DNA.

When we ask ourselves what it is about the American psyche that enables genocidal organizations like Hamas -- the charter of which would offend every neuron in our brains -- to become tolerated in public discourse, we should take a hard look at our universities and the way they are currently being manipulated by terrorist sympathizers.

At my own university, UCLA, a symposium last week on human rights turned into a Hamas recruitment rally by a clever academic gimmick. The director of the Center for Near East Studies carefully selected only Israel bashers for the panel, each of whom concluded that the Jewish state is the greatest criminal in human history.

The primary purpose of the event was evident the morning after, when unsuspecting, uninvolved students read an article in the campus newspaper titled, "Scholars say: Israel is in violation of human rights in Gaza," to which the good name of the University of California was attached. This is where Hamas scored its main triumph -- another inch of academic respectability, another inroad into Western minds.

Danny's picture is hanging just in front of me, his warm smile as reassuring as ever. But I find it hard to look him straight in the eyes and say: You did not die in vain.

Mr. Pearl, a professor of computer science at UCLA, is president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation, founded in memory of his son to promote cross-cultural understanding.

Jimmy Carter to Hamas: 'Be like Gandhi'

Spotted this at American Thinker:

Jimmy Carter to Hamas: 'Be like Gandhi'

Rick Moran

Not that we need any more proof that Jimmy Carter is a hopelessly naive, ignorant man. But Ed Lasky just sent this gem along that proves Carter to be not only a ridiculous romantic about Hamas but dangerous to the cause of peace as well.

Jimmy Carter from his book "We can have Peace in the Holy Land: A Plan that will Work:"

"...We pursued the concept of nonviolent resistance with Hamas leaders and gave them documents and video presentations on the successful experiences of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther king, Jr. and others..."

"...The premise of real peace and security in exchange for Palestinian territory has long been acceptable to a substantial majority of Israelis but not to a minority of the more conservative leaders who are unfortunately supported by most of the vocal American Jewish Leadership.."

Can't you just see schoolmarm Carter trying to give lessons on non-violence to the dirty necked thugs of Hamas? It isn't likely they would have found it funny. More like, puzzling. "Doesn't this guy know who we are? What planet is this guy from?"

While it is true that land for peace is widely supported in Israel, it is indicative of Carter's ignorance that Hamas themselves could care less about "land for peace" and wish simply "the land" part of that equation.

Empty of Jews, of course...
#

The More You Talk About Change, the More We Stay the Same

“Looks like I picked the wrong week to quit smoking.”

--Lloyd Bridges, as MCrosky in Airplane!

This photo depicts Iranian demonstrators chanting "Death to Obama!" outside the Swiss embassy in Tehran. They're doing this at the Swiss embassy because the U.S. doesn't have an embassy in Tehran any more, although we used to--10 points for anyone who remembers what happened to it!? They've also got Obama's picture plastered to the street so people can drive over it. Anyhow, the demonstrators are mad, or at least their Iranian Intelligence organizers want to make you think they're mad, because Obama isn't taking Hamas's side on Israel--so far.

Now what we in the good old USA happen to know is that the election of Barack Hussein Obama is the Most Historic Election since Linco--or no, Washing--oh, hell, it's the most important election since time began. And, in my view, this Iranian enthusiasm for burning The One helps proves that. You see, every other lesser American president the Iranians have burned in effigy--which so far includes Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, and Bush 43--was at least in office first. Obama is so far ahead of the curve he got himself burned before he's even been inaugurated.

It also proves eruptions of Iranian demonstrators are not a very good indicator of how we in America should choose our leaders.

Mr. President Elect, welcome to international relations, Muslim-style. Will that be smoking, or non?

Nobel Peace Winner Supported Deposing Saddam

The Wall Street Journal congratulates the Nobel Committee for awarding the Nobel peace prize based on real grown-up criteria this year. (“Nobel Finn; An instructive peace prize”).

Martti Ahtisaari's Nobel Peace Prize yesterday won't get European elites buzzing as in past years (See: Gore, Al and Carter, Jimmy). In his diplomatic and political career, the former Finnish President brokered peace on various continents -- yet also recognized clear limits to good intentions. . . .

The Nobel Committee highlighted his midwifing of Namibia's independence and peace in Indonesia's separatist province of Aceh. But Mr. Ahtisaari's failures are as notably instructive.

In the early 1990s, he ran the U.N. mission to Iraq after the first Gulf War, watching Saddam Hussein's repression up close. Twelve years of frustrated diplomacy later, and against the grain of conventional European opinion, Mr. Ahtisaari found himself defending the U.S. invasion, the absence of a nuclear or biological weapons program notwithstanding. "Since I know that about a million people have been killed by the government of Iraq, I do not need much those weapons of mass destruction," he said.

Does that make him as dumb as George W. Bush? Or George W. Bush as smart as this year's Nobel Prize winner?

I'm just asking.

Our American Imam Wants You to Know, 'I Am Not an Iranian Agent'

Detroit-area residents who can’t find copies of the Arab American News, or who’ve had their satellite link to Al Jazeera cut off, need go no further than the Op Ed page of the Detroit News to get a view of current affairs from the pro-Iranian side of the street.

That’s where editorial page editor Nolan Finley has given the Islamic House of Wisdom’s Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi a regular column, under the title, “Faith and Policy.”

The Imam’s faith happens to be Shia Islam, of the Hezbollah-are-freedom-fighters strain. Being a Muslim, of course, should not foreclose the Imam having a voice in a free press. And Finley explains his decision to give Elahi a megaphone by noting

that Elahi is considered a moderate in Dearborn's Muslim community.

"Extreme from our point of view and extreme from mainstream America's point of view? Perhaps." Finley said. "Extreme for that community? I'm not sure. I think he has a very large following--in fact, I know he has a very large following in that community, and speaks for a very large segment of that community.”

I’ll say. All the more reason to pay close attention, eh?

As to his policies, Imam Elahi is a big believer that while everything about the American foreign policy of George W. Bush since 9/11 is “a moral tragedy, ”the recent Iranian- and Syrian-backed sacking of the Lebanese parliament is a success story, as he described it in June 3rd column. (“Bush's Middle East foreign policy creates moral tragedies”).

He’s also stated in his column that,

Regarding Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent call to wipe Israel off the map . . .:

--"It is very clear that Mr. Ahmadinejad was not making an anti-Semitic statement."

--"The Iranian president's quip can best be understood in the context of the Declaration of Independence.”

--and, “Israel must stop instigating violent conflicts in the Muslim world."

Another Elahi column described Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin as a ‘Palestinian spiritual leader, (who) had a heart full of love for humanity.’ Yet another compared the Iranian constitution to that of the United States.

Imam Elahi, was at one time the spiritual leader of the Iranian navy. The self-evident benefits of an armed force having a spiritual leader can be seen in recent news about the Iranian navy, featuring stories about the navy threatening to attack and “explode” U.S. warships, (“Video of Iran ‘attack’ on three US warships released by Pentagon”), unlawfully taking British sailors hostage, (“Iranian Vessels Seize 15 British Navy Personnel in Iraqi Waters”), and how its Basiji Islamic Revolutionary Guard members brag that they’ve taken a suicide pledge. (“Iran navy in suicide attack pledge”):

“If necessary, we will use the element of martyrdom-seeking and we will become people of Ashura," Fars quoted Gen. Ali Fadavi as saying. Ashura refers to the day marking the death of Imam Hussein, Prophet Mohammed's grandson, who is revered by Shiite Muslims.

Whether or not all this misdirected belligerence is made wors or better by having “spiritual leaders” of the stripe of Imam Elahi, I’ll leave for the Imam Elahis of the world to explain.

After bucking up the Iranian sea dogs Imam Elahi came to the USA around 1991 on a 4-month visa. According to one source, that visa “enabled him to inspect American branches of Hizbullah (Tehran's network of agents) and to reinforce Tehran's influence on Shi'ite communities (in Dearborn)."

Now he’s an American citizen, which, if nothing else, grants him the right to use first-person pronouns when attacking the United States. Such as when he said in his Tuesday column,

“Our country, once a beacon of hope and freedom for the world, has squandered our prosperity to create conflicts and instigate civil wars among other nations by funding one group against another”; or, “Our nation deserves truthful and trustworthy leaders who have enough courage and commitment to turn the anti-American resentment around the world into respect and love.”

I guess I shouldn’t knock him for it. Most Democrats are born here and still reflexively refer to most Americans as “them.”

Anyway, Elahi’s nostalgia for a period of respect and love for America that he’s never been around for is truly inspiring. I get dewy-eyed thinking back on those carefree days when it was Jimmy Carter that Ahmadinejad and his scruffy cohorts were burning in effigy as they brutalized our embassy staff.

But although he denies being an Iranian agent, Imam Elahi seems to have a one-track mind when it comes to the policies he preaches. They always seem to be pointed at benefits to Iran--or Iran’s creature, Hezbollah.

For example, to undo the “moral tragedy” of the Bush foreign policy, Elahi thinks we need “to stop these wars, fix the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan and don't start yet another war in the Persian Gulf.”

But who’s to benefit from us “stopping” the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? In other words, who's to benefit from our withdrawing and leaving both newly liberated nations to the depredations of their strongest neighbor--Iran. And who’s the only Persian Gulf nation in the region there’s even the remotest chance of us going to war with? Iran.

Elahi continues: “There is no evidence that Iran is building nuclear weapons.” For this, Elahi cites the much-maligned National Intelligence Estimate of November 2007, which he says “confirmed that Iran's nuclear program has no military aspect -- it is not pursuing nuclear weapons.”

Except the NIE didn’t. Instead, all 16 American spy agencies that contributed to the report stated “that Tehran is likely keeping its options open with respect to building a weapon, but that intelligence agencies do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons.’” (“U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work”).

But Elahi is particularly adamant that Iran is not nuke-bound, and he wishes Bush would quit taking the cautious route, (as if world peace depended on it, or something), pointing out how “United Nations atomic watchdog chief, Mohamed El-Baradei, accused the Bush administration of adding ‘fuel to the fire’ with bellicose rhetoric.”

But if there’s no fire, how can you add fuel to it? Besides, “watchdog” El-Baredei, even as he faces daily lies and obfuscation from Iranian authorities, has never been willing to admit there’s an Iranian bomb program, and probably won’t until he’s falling through space onto Tel Aviv straddling one Slim-Pickens style.

Imam Elahi does spare some concern for the nation he has adopted, instead of the one he's not an agent for. He cares deeply that America “deserves truthful and trustworthy leaders who have enough courage and commitment to turn the anti-American resentment around the world into respect and love.”

His advice is that the “United States should get on the right side of the struggle and be part of the triumph of peace.” He’s short on specifics, but I think this translates this way: “Dump Israel, and let Iran have the bomb.”

Imam Elahi does think there’s a way we can still be friends with Israel, but we should imitate Jimmy Carter in showing how true friendship really works. “Honestly, the best friends of Israel are those who say it like it is. Former President Jimmy Carter called the Israeli policy toward Gaza ‘one of the greatest human rights crimes on earth.’”

(What do you bet it's been a while since Rosalynn asked Jimmy, "Does this dress make me look fat?")

Now we're all waiting for Jimmy to give Hamas some of the same depth of constructive criticism, and show them some true friendship.

Carter Lies, Gazans Die

In the same Associated Press article where His Holiness, (I mean the other one), Jimmy Carter, explains his moral rectitude in honoring murderers of schoolchildren and ignoring the reasonable and lawful prohibitions of US citizens treating with terrorist organizations with an audacious claim that he is "immune from such restrictions," ("Carter slams Israeli actions in Gaza Strip"), the AP reports that

As Carter was meeting with Hamas officials, Israeli troops fended off Palestinian gunmen who assaulted a crossing on the Gaza Strip border Thursday, thwarting the third attempt by militants to infiltrate into Israel in a week.

One Palestinian was reported killed in the clash, which followed a day of fighting between Israeli forces and Gaza militants.

When the AP says "Palestinian gunmen," they mean "Hamas gunmen," that is, the people Carter went over their to cuddle with. Hamas is in complete control of Gaza, directs all its military operations against Israel launched from Gaza, and killed or otherwise removed from the equation any rival Fatah gunmen during their bloody coup last year.

Today, by way of divine confirmation of Carter's mission, Hamas staged a suicide bombing at a border crossing where food and humanitarian supplies come through from Israel, in order "to create a humanitarian crisis in Gaza that would lead to international pressure on Israel." The strategy will come at the direct expense of Gazans, of course. ("Palestinian Suicide Bombers Attack Gaza Crossing").

Carter has blamed all recent problems on the "apartheid" policies of Israel.

He is such a toad. Hamas hasn't blown up Egypt's humanitarian border crossing with Gaza, because Egypt shut their border with Gaza rather than let these creeps into their country, and they don't send humanitarian aid into Gaza! But will Jimmy accuse Egypt of gencoide and call them an apartheid state?

Hamas has also very publicly announced their refusal of Carter's pretty-pleases to stop firing rockets into Israel or to release Israeli soldier Cpl. Gilad Shalit, held hostage--or worse--since June 2006.

I shudder to think how, having tired of making a fool of Carter--for whom I can't imagine they have a sliver of respect--Hamas's thugs may feel inclined to turn to humiliating Carter's poor wife Rosalynn just to see if there is anything they can do to make that damned peanut farmer evince some semblance of manly self-respect.

Carter States the Obvious

As reported Friday in the AP ("Carter slams Israeli actions in Gaza Strip "):


CAIRO, Egypt -- Former President Carter told a university audience here Thursday that the treatment of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip by the Israeli military was "a crime" while adding that there are "officials in Israel quite willing to meet with Hamas" and that might happen "in the near future."

Carter spoke to students and faculty at the American University in Cairo after talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and a separate three-hour meeting with Hamas officials. The Bush administration and Israel have set rules not to talk to the militant Palestinian group that controls the Gaza Strip, but Carter said, "I consider myself immune" from such restrictions.

Didn't we already know that about JC?

The Gospel of Jimmah

According to Scroll Digest, an obscure biblical archeology monthly my doctor keeps in his waiting room, there’s lots of excitement about the discovery of still one more first-century gospel to compete with Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

Experts have dubbed it the Gospel of Jimmah.

Jimmah is the name of the narrative’s alternative Christ-figure. Unlike most Gospels, the document was also written by the character named Jimmah.

According to the Gospel of Jimmah, the true Messiah, rather than being a Nazarene carpenter, is a Georgia peanut farmer who, Moses-like, was elevated by an utter fluke to royal prominence as president of a major western democracy. But after four years in the seat of power Jimmah had to flee into the wilderness in disgrace, after many of the ungrateful countrymen he presumed to be ruler of spied him slaying what little was left of their national honor, and trying to hide it with sand.

Jimmah remained in the wilderness thirty years, all but forgotten, helping to build Habitat for Humanity houses, and occasionally making a self-directed sojourn into enemy nations to undermine the foreign policies of his successors.

Then, he heard God’s voice speaking to him from two burning towers. Jimmah resumed his mission to free the whole world by bringing his message of peace--the central theme of which was that Jimmah had been right all along. His ministry consisted primarily of roaming from town to town explaining how, when he was in office, his views were the most enlightened, and his actions the wisest. Multitudes and whole villages fled at the sight of him.

Similar to the other Gospels, this one has a temptation story. In it, when Satan comes to Jimmah to tempt him in the wilderness, he offers to give him all the glory he was robbed of during his one term in office in exchange for every last shred of his integrity. Jimmah immediately accepts.

The Gospel of Jimmah also has a wedding story, except in Jimmah when the host runs out of wine, Jimmah denounces the man for his alleged human rights failings, refuses him any assistance, and grins idiotically as the entire wedding party is taken captive and enslaved by a tribe of wicked Persians.

Experts say the Gospel of Jimmah has stylistic similarities to the other Gospels, but lacks practically every trait of the historical Christian documents.

Jimmah’s Messianic figure, for example, lacked humility, wise sayings, and a following. Nor could Jimmah work signs, wonders, or miracles. In fact, where the traditional Gospels often describe healings of the blind and the raising of the dead, the Jimmah narrative describes nothing so inspiring.

Instead, Jimmah describes how the crowds often were murmuring amongst themselves that the Farmer from Plains not only lacked miraculous powers, but did such a lousy job helping the poor and sick through ordinary means that he left them much worse off than before he came along. And yet, to the utter astonishment of Jimmah’s contemporaries, he continued to return to the Temple day after day expecting everyone to be entranced by his wild revisionism and insipid views on improving the human condition!

As one leader of the time was quoted in the Gospel of Jimmah: “Who could have imagined such a man!”

Biblical archeologist Professor Raymond Tittle says he’s puzzled at finding so little of religious value in the Gospel of Jimmah. He finds, at best, only a single supernatural doctrine in the whole ancient text, namely, an implicit teaching that, in one historical figure--Jimmah--there subsisted miraculously both a mortal human nature, and an impermeable smugness of a scale and scope theologians calculate could not be contained in an entity any smaller than the largest and most irritating Deity.

“It is unimaginable,” said Dr. Tittle, “that any sect embracing such a gospel could have survived for very long. I can’t think of any group of persons who would find Jimmah’s character something to be emulated, let alone admired.”

Unlike the historical Gospels, explained Tittle, the Gospel of Jimmah could never be the basis for any community of love, courage, mutual respect, and service to humanity, because “it emphasizes only self-loathing, dishonor, and self-delusion on an epic scale. It’s almost as if it were written by their enemies. Maybe that’s why we discovered it hidden where we did.”

Professor Tittle explained that the Gospel of Jimmah was unearthed accidentally, in Gaza, jammed into the bottom of what was the first century equivalent of a public toilet.

Jimmy Carter lays a wreath in honor of terrorist Yassir Arafat.

Former President Jimmy Carter: The Moral Equivalent of Whore

Not content with his first-place record as our most-failed U.S. president, (full disclosure: I voted for him--twice), Jimmy Carter is working hard to guarantee he's America's biggest failure as ex-president, too.

God has told Jimmy, (or I think it was the other way around--which reminds me of a joke, 'So what's the difference between Christ and Carter? Christ doesn't think He's Carter....')--anyway, one Deity told the Other that Jimmy shall go to Syria and meet with Hamas's leader, Khaled Mashaal, whose group has been designated a terrorist organization by the State Department. That's the American State Department. The country whose taxpayers have been paying Carter's salary for the last 32 years.

Carter kissing the American blood stains on the hand of the Hamas leader makes perfect sense in view of Jimmy's ongoing mission of undermining all U.S. foreign policy goals that didn't originate in his own enlightened administration (e.g., all the ones where our side wins).

It also helps him prove they didn't give him the Nobel Prize just because he was a useful idiot for Euro-snots who wanted a weapon to get at Bush, but because he really deserved to reign in that pantheon of modern peacemakers that includes Yassir Arafat, Al Gore, and the U.N. (And wouldn't you know it, being Carter, he even failed his Nobel mission as a useful idiot!)

If Carter simply must keep drawing attention to himself, I don't see why he can't find ways that are less destructive to the nation, but just as effective.

He can go on The View, say, and do an impersonation of a drunk Danny DeVito doing an impersonation of a five-year-old doing an impersonation of a real President of the United States.

Or he could hire Britney Spears's unemployed mother as his manager, shave off his hair, or get stopped by the LAPD for DUI, or pose nude for Vanity Fair, or start a tabloid relationship with a wigger rap artist.

Or, since he's already supremely confident that when he dies he's going straight to Heaven, maybe he could use what little time he has left to salvage some dignity for himself on Earth.

Jimmy Carter Is Not Great, (With Apologies to Christopher Hitchens)

Former US President Jimmy Carter’s latest attack from foreign soil against the Bush administration was made this week in Ireland, where he proclaimed falsely, in addition to stupidly, that the Bush administration’s “refusal to accept the 2006 election victory of Hamas was ‘criminal.’” ("Carter: Stop favoring Fatah over Hamas").

Exercising the universal party perk enjoyed by all Democrats, Carter was free to make allegations of criminal wrongdoing without bothering about the customary meaning of the term “criminal,” which is that someone broke a law. Nowadays if you're a Democrat, anything you don't like in politics ipso facto qualifies as a “crime.” (You know how this works. AG Gonzales fires 8 at-will attorneys, so that’s a crime; Scooter Libby remembers a conversation with Tim Russert differently than Russert does, so that’s a crime; the US Congress authorizes the President to go to war in Iraq, and when he does so, that’s a crime.)

Strangely enough, Egypt has undertaken the exact same kind of isolating efforts against Hamas that the Bush administration did, to the point of calling a regional summit for next week (a summit to include Israel, no less), attempting to boost Mahmoud Abbas, and isolate Hamas, for substantially the same reasons:

“More than seeking peace with Israel, Egypt and other U.S. Arab allies are seeking to prevent the new power of Islamic radicals in Gaza from strengthening fundamentalists on their own soil. They also fear Gaza will become a stronghold for Iranian influence on their doorsteps." (“Egypt fights militancy at home with summit to isolate Hamas”),

We will wait to see if Carter extends his indictment of criminality to Egypt. Perhaps he can accuse Egypt, as he accused Tony Blair, of being "loyal, blind, apparently subservient" to the United States. ("Abominable. Blind. Subservient. Ex-President Carter lambasts Blair for support").

The US action that Carter denounces as “criminal” was that

“Far from encouraging Hamas's move into parliamentary politics…the US and Israel, with European Union acquiescence, has sought to subvert the outcome” of that election “by shunning Hamas and helping Abbas to keep the reins of political and military power.”

Carter’s comments ignore completely the intervening event that swung the US, Israel, the EU, and now even Egypt, into feverish efforts to prop up Fatah, namely, Hamas’s armed coup of last week, a coup that was followed immediately by Hamas’s cold-blooded executions of many of their political foes, and establishment of an Islamic state in Gaza. Even Carter, were he man enough to grapple with actual facts rather than his delusional worldview, should be able to recognize that shooting Fatah fighters in their legs is not a traditional parliamentary procedure--even in the Middle East.

Nor does Hamas's violence say much for the genuineness of Hamas’s desire to “move into parliamentary politics,” if they would exploit their superior arms, discipline, and cunning to vanquish their own partners in the now-dissolved unity government.

Carter conflates the US’s perfectly consistent foreign-policy decision after the 2006 elections--to deny support and aid to a known terrorist entity--with this week’s post-coup response to try to salvage Abbas’s government as the lesser of the two evils with whom, sooner or later, Israel and the rest of us are going to have to try to deal.

Only an act of (criminal?) obtuseness by Carter could prevent him betraying any awareness of Hamas’s own belligerent decision to violently seize one-party control and “subvert the outcome” of last year’s parliamentary election by means of a bloody coup. Carter has always been able to render invisible what he didn't want to see.

That, or he continues to show how he scorns mere earthly evidences in favor of the Inner Light that has always guided him.

Carter’s dangerousness is not that he holds a strict moral vision to which he always strives to measure up, but that he holds a strict moral vision that he thinks he reached long ago--reached it easily, in fact-- and has been impatiently missionizing the rest of us ever since.

Carter’s presidency was typified by this puritanical refusal to besmirch his immaculate self through any truckling with political uncleanness, preferring to scold the rest of the world from the high vantage point of his “absolute” commitment to “human rights.” To those who remember the Carter years, they weren't distinguished by any actual advance of human rights, and in fact saw them in serious retreat. But he was always true to the principles of his superior moral agenda, even if it was a disaster for the country and the world.

That’s what enabled him to sell out the Shah, (and along with him Iran, and what little was left of America’s post-Vietnam honor), and yet remain completely unable to understand the Ayatollah Khomenini and his fanatical Islamic revolution. He thought he could work with Muslims, sensing in the Iranian fanatics a similar 100% commitment to Higher Things.

In a 2004 article in the New York Post, ("America Can’t Do a Thing”), Amir Taheri described how even Khomeini couldn't believe Carter’s impotence in the wake of Iran's seizing of our embassy personnel:

According to his late son Ahmad, who had been asked to coordinate with the embassy-raiders, the ayatollah feared "thunder and lightning" from Washington. But what came, instead, was a series of bland statements by Carter and his aides pleading for the release of the hostages on humanitarian grounds.

Carter's envoy to the United Nations, a certain Andrew Young, described Khomeini as "a 20th-century saint," and begged the ayatollah to show "magnanimity and compassion."

Carter went further by sending a letter to Khomeini.

Written in longhand, it was an appeal from "one believer to a man of God."

Carter really thought he was on Khomeini’s wavelength, just one spiritual powerhouse to another.

Comments Taheri: “Carter's syrupy prose must have amused Khomeini, who preferred a minimalist style with such phrases as "we shall cut off America's hands."

And Carter's sense of his own rightness hasn't ever wavered from his last day in office until now. If anything, he has grown more certain of his message, of his absolute moral power, of his prophetic mission, even while growing more and more bitter at being outshined by such clear moral inferiors as Ronald Reagan and the hated George W. Bush.

It is this unteachable moral certainty, mixed with gall, that explains the petulant absurdities that come forth, as Christopher Hitchens has trenchantly observed, “Almost always, when former President Jimmy Carter opens his big, smug mouth.” (“Peanut envy”).

As a matter of fact, Hitchens’s recent attacks on religious belief makes use of Jimmy Carter as a handy exhibit--too handy, by far. To be sure I still have more in common with Carter’s religious views than Hitchens’s nasty atheism, but the latter really puts his finger on how Carter’s self-righteous certainties make him so shameless in his public comments. Describing how Carter not only messed things up in Iran, Iraq, and just about every place else in the ‘70s, while at the same time digging us into many of the same holes we're still in, Hitchens says:

If I had done such a thing, I would take very good care to be modest when discussions of Middle Eastern crises came up. But here's the thing about self-righteous, born-again demagogues: Nothing they ever do, or did, can be attributed to anything but the very highest motives.

Here is a man who, in his latest book on the Israel-Palestine crisis, has found the elusive key to the problem. The mistake of Israel, he tells us (and tells us that he told the Israeli leadership) is to have moved away from God and the prophets and toward secularism. If you ever feel like a good laugh, just tell yourself that things would improve if only the Israeli government would be more Orthodox. Jimmy Carter will then turn his vacantly pious glare on you, as if to say that you just don't understand what it is to have a personal savior.

If Hitchens had limited his infidel attacks to Carter and other similarly puffed-up jackasses, one could almost sympathize with his antipathy to any god who would send such sorry examples through the Earth as his prophets. Unfortunately, no doubt a bit carried away himself with the sound of his own English, Hitchens feels he has to attack even Mother Teresa.

At any rate, since Carter got himself de-selected by a fed-up electorate in 1980, he has continued pressing on the upward way to his personal Zion, in his own mind at any rate, achieving status as probably the second-holiest, and first most obnoxious, of the mystics of the Christian Left, following closely behind Bill Moyers. (Moyers’s wins out thanks to the miraculous gall he showed by going, practically straight from working as LBJ’s press secretary during Vietnam to permanent fixturedom at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, where he has been indoctrinating PBS viewers ever since. Salon.com calls him the “conscience of American journalism.” (“The Salon Interview: Bill Moyers”) Gag me!)

Bush is going to get a mountain of criticism for throwing support behind Abbas and Fatah as “moderates,” when Arafat’s Fatah has never been anything but a gang of terrorists and thieves. I expect Bush figured the only alternative was to wash our hands of the tatters of Palestinian government all together, and let Israel have civil wars across two borders, and refugees fleeing over from noth east and west.

But I long ago figured out that the mark of being grown up is not the ability always to choose the absolute good over the obviously evil, but to choose between evils when no good choice presents itself--and then live with the consequences. Bush has been proving his manhood that way for seven years. And whenever something doesn't work out, he doesn't accuse Americans of suffering from malaise, or wag his finger from a high horse.

Carter never had any such fetters against which to struggle. Carter never had to grow up. He always found the choices stark and obvious, and he could sleep nights as long as he selected the right one, consequences be damned.

Now, as he flies from one peace confab to another, we all get to hear how he grows more prophetic and outspoken as he ages (though not more correct, because that would suggest he had ever been wrong). His utter lack of capacity to be wrong is where his authority comes from, and his self-confidence.

For criticizing the retiring Tony Blair on the BBC, calling him "loyal, blind, apparently subservient," Hitchens addresses Carter thus:

Show us your peanut envy. Heap insults on a guest in Washington: a thrice-elected prime minister who was the first and strongest ally of the United States on the most awful day in its recent history. A man who was prepared to risk his own career to be counted as a friend. A man who was warning against the Taliban, against Slobodan Milosevic, and against Saddam Hussein when George Bush was only the governor of Texas. Leaders like that deserve a little respect even when they are wrong—but don't expect any generosity or courtesy from the purse-mouthed preacher man from Plains, who just purely knows he was right all along, and who, when that fails, can always point to the numberless godly victories that he won over the forces of evil.

I think it is going to be Carter's smallness that determines his legacy in the end. He'll need two libraries: one to document the dismal record of his years in the White House, and one to memorialize his insufferable prattling in the years after. Even the simple things of the office that he could have preserved at no cost he was unable to keep intact, like the custom that ex-presidents don't criticize sitting ones, or that prominent Americans don't attack US foreign policy from foreign soil.

Not enough that he failed as President, (a difficult job for much better men than him), why does he have to keep reminding us of why we were so glad to see him out of office? (Full disclosure, I voted for him, twice. But I was still glad to see him go. Every sinner has a past, as Bill Bennett likes to quote).