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George Will gives historical context to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In the intifada that began in 2000, Palestinian terrorism killed more than 1,000 Israelis. As a portion of U.S. population, that would be 42,000, approaching the toll of America’s eight years in Vietnam. During the onslaught, which began 10 Septembers ago, Israeli parents sending two children to a school would put them on separate buses to decrease the chance that neither would return for dinner. Surely most Americans can imagine, even if their tone-deaf leaders cannot, how grating it is when those leaders lecture Israel on the need to take “risks for peace.”
…The intifada was launched by the late Yasser Arafat — terrorist and Nobel Peace Prize winner — after the July 2000 Camp David meeting, during which then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered to cede control of all of Gaza and more than 90 percent of the West Bank, with small swaps of land to accommodate the growth of Jerusalem suburbs just across the 1949 armistice line. …
…In the 62 years since this homeland was founded on one-sixth of 1 percent of the land of what is carelessly and inaccurately called “the Arab world,” Israelis have never known an hour of real peace. Patronizing American lectures on the reality of risks and the desirableness of peace, which once were merely fatuous, are now obscene.
Caroline Glick destroys the president’s argument for the Ground Zero mosque in one concise paragraph. We highlight this below. Read the article to see how Glick exposes Obama’s “civil-rights” stance for what it really is.
Speaking during a Ramadan fast breaking meal at the White House to an audience of people affiliated with various Muslim Brotherhood- related groups in the US, Obama couched his support for the mosque at Ground Zero in constitutional terms.
In his words, “As a citizen, and as president, I believe that Muslims have the same right to practice their religion as everyone else in this country. And that includes the right to build a place of worship and a community center on private property in Lower Manhattan, in accordance with local laws and ordinances. This is America. Our commitment to religious freedom must be unshakable. The principle that people of all faiths are welcome in this country and that they will not be treated differently by their government is essential to who we are. The writ of the Founders must endure.”
Of course, none of those who have voiced opposition to the mosque project at Ground Zero have claimed that the Islamic group behind the mosque project is acting unlawfully in seeking to construct a mosque. The nearly 70 percent of Americans who oppose building a mosque at Ground Zero oppose the mosque because they believe it is wrong to build a mosque at the site where less than a decade ago Muslims acting in the name of Islam murdered nearly 3,000 people in an act of war against the US and an act of terror against the American people. …
David Harsanyi comments on the name-calling from the Left.
…There are those who continue to make the facile claim that any protest over Park51 is a display in un-American intolerance and contempt for the Constitution. This position treats criticism of faith — religious institutions and symbols included — as tantamount to “bigotry.” …
…You know, though only a fraction of Catholic priests are pedophiles, the entire church is routinely broad-brushed as corrupt and depraved. I’ve not heard those who make generalizations about Catholicism referred to as bigots in Time magazine.
Nor have I heard those who regularly disparage Evangelicals called intolerant. …
In the Daily Beast, Douglas Schoen says the Dems have been governing against the will of the people. It remains to be seen if the GOP can take advantage.
There is a fundamental problem with the way President Obama has governed.
Since taking office, he has systematically put forth policies the American people do not want. The net result is a crisis of confidence and legitimacy in the American political system and our institutions.
The president is now at record low levels of approval—close to 40 percent overall, and in the mid- to low 30s among swing voters.
The GOP now holds a six- to seven-point advantage in the generic vote for Congress—which, come November, almost certainly will give the Republicans control of the House and make control of the Senate a real possibility as well.
Put simply, we are looking at an unprecedented electoral blowout because the administration has made a systematic set of bad decisions that have had an adverse impact on public opinion.
Indeed, those closest to the president have made clear that he is pursuing policies that do not have the support of the American people….
Joel Kotkin, who is in these pages often, doesn’t think it is a good idea for Sarah Palin to be the GOP’s standard bearer in 2012.
Sarah Palin has emerged as the right’s sweetheart, a cross between a pin-up girl and Joan of Arc. For some activists, like the American Thinker’s Lloyd Marcus, she’s “my awesome conservative sister” who the mainstream media wants to “destroy at any cost.”
On a more serious note, leading right-wing pundit Roger Simon argues Palin’s is now the biggest name in Republicandom, which he admits is not too great an accomplishment. Armed with “something more than intellect,” he praises her unique ability to “connect with the base.” He also believes, citing some polls for 2012, that she could run a close race against President Obama.
These Republicans may grow to regret their embrace of Sarah Palin: She will likely prove less a gem than a poison pearl for conservatives. Sure, she can stir the base, but her crossover appeal remains limited. Recent Pew surveys show that she’s still toxic for the Independents and moderate Democrats who generally determine national elections.
Palin keeps building her brand, but she may also be diminishing the GOP’s. She has helped propel several potentially weak, marginal “Tea Party” candidates such as Rand Paul in Kentucky and Sharron Angle in Nevada into the general elections. These could end up losing seats that more earth-bound Republicans could have won.
But if conservatives really want evidence of Palin’s limitations, they only need to talk to people in her home state of Alaska. “She represents a constituency that is rural, but that’s it,” says Jim Egan, executive director of Commonwealth North, a local think tank. “What she says and does makes little sense in the urban environment that most Americans live in.” If it does not sell across the board in Anchorage, home to almost half of Alaskans, you wonder how well her message will play in Omaha or suburban Houston, much less New York or Los Angeles….
The WSJ editors think Patrick Fitzgerald, our modern day Inspector Javert, should resign.
…A more triumphant outcome might have been expected judging by Mr. Fitzgerald’s bravura press conference two years ago, which he held following a pre-dawn arrest at the Blagojevich home. Then, the U.S. Attorney spoke of “what we can only describe as a political corruption crime spree” and accused Blagojevich of “the most appalling conduct” that would have “Lincoln roll over in his grave.” It was “a truly new low,” Mr. Fitzgerald told the world.
As the former Justice Department lawyer Victoria Toensing noted in these pages at the time, Mr. Fitzgerald violated prosecutorial ethics by speaking “beyond the four corners of the complaint,” … thus possibly tainting the jury pool.
But then, this was merely one of Mr. Fitzgerald’s extrajudicial public declarations. Another notable episode occurred during his pursuit (as special prosecutor) of former Vice Presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby in the Valerie Plame affair. At a 2005 press conference, Mr. Fitzgerald implied that Mr. Libby had obstructed his investigation into who leaked the former CIA analyst’s name, even though he knew from the start that the real “leaker” was Richard Armitage. …
…This pattern points to a willful prosecutor who throws an exaggerated book at unpopular defendants and hopes at least one of the charges will stick, even as he flouts due process and the presumption of innocence when the political winds are high. If Mr. Fitzgerald doesn’t resign of his own accord, the Justice Department should remove him …
In Commentary, Jonathan Tobin puts Roger Clemens’ indictment in proper perspective. He was indicted for lying to congress. Guess they don’t like the competition.
…But what national peril did steroids pose to the republic and its citizens that made it necessary for both Congress and the Department of Justice to spend so much time and money chasing after Clemens and Bonds?
We are sometimes told that it is because children emulate sports idols and that there is a plague of teen steroid use throughout the land. It is true that there have been cases, prominently featured every time Congress has held hearings on the issue, in which high school athletes committed suicide after supposedly using these substances. But, as tragic as such instances are, it is far from apparent that more than a handful of lives have been lost due to steroid use. Compared with the most prevalent causes — such as domestic violence, the use of recreational drugs and alcohol, peer rejection, and mental illness — steroid use is a statistically insignificant factor in teen suicide in the United States. …