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Hadn’t planned anything for the anniversary, but daughter Liza, a reporter for the Tech paper sent me her latest. The most common thing you hear from students is how tired they are of the media. They’ve even come up with their own rump commemoration, knowledge of which, Liza tells me, has yet to be discovered by the press.
The University and the town of Blacksburg will be holding many events in commemoration of those lost on April 16, 2007. While some students are excited for all the things the campus has to offer, many are interested in making no plans at all.
“I think it’s great that there’s going to be so much to do,” said Sia Mallios, a junior finance major. “But I just don’t want to battle the crowds and the media. The last thing I want to do is be questioned more.”
Mallios said she remembers being pestered by news media last year, which tried to get her to answer questions at a time she wanted to least. She said she’s not sure what she’ll do tomorrow, but that she knows she won’t come to campus until the candlelight vigil planned for 8:15 p.m. on the Drillfield.
“It was sad enough that day,” Mallios said. “I don’t want to relive that.” …
Ed Koch must be feeling old since he wrote a short review of his political life. It’s a fun read. And some of it touch on one of today’s topics.
… I came to know Carter well.
When he ran for reelection, he asked me to campaign for him in 1980 – I was by then Mayor of New York City — and I said that I would vote for him, but not campaign for him because he was then engaging in hostile acts towards Israel. I was popular with the Jewish community and when I would not campaign for him unless he changed his position, he called me to his hotel in New York when attending a fundraiser and said, “You have done me more damage than any man in America.” I felt proud then, and even more today, since we now know what a miserable president he was then and the miserable human being he is now as he prepares to meet with Hamas.
Ronald Reagan defeated Jimmy Carter. On one of his visits to New York City, I drove with him from the helicopter pad to Reagan’s hotel. The streets were lined with tens of thousands of people and, as he looked out the car window while were crossing 42nd Street, he suddenly yelled, “Look at that guy – he gave me the finger!”
Sure enough, there was a guy with his middle finger extended upright. I said, “Mr. President, don’t be so upset. Thousands of people are cheering you and one guy is giving you the finger. So what?” He replied, “that’s what Nancy always says. She says I only see the guy with the finger.” I never voted for him, but I loved him. …
Frank Gaffney on Jimmy Carter, the man who never met a tyrant he didn’t like.
Jimmy Carter’s pathetic need for political rehabilitation following a presidency widely regarded as one of the worst in American history is once again making news. He reportedly will meet this week with Khaled Mashaal, the Syrian-based leader of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestinian arm, Hamas – an internationally recognized terrorist organization.
Mr. Carter maintains this is no big deal since he has met with Hamas officials before. Indeed, in keeping with his Carter Center’s self-appointed status as global election monitor, the former president did officiate in January 2006 when the Brotherhood’s terrorists defeated those of Fatah led by Yasser Arafat’s longtime crony, Mahmoud Abbas.
In point of fact, it seems there is scarcely a serious bad actor on the planet with whom Jimmy Carter has not met. He is a serial tyrant-enabler, the very personification of Rodney King’s risible appeal, “Can’t we all get along?†Mr. Carter has come to epitomize the notion that “dialogue†is always in order, no matter how odious or dangerous the interlocutor – or the extent to which they or their agendas will benefit from such interactions.
As Barak Obama (whom Carter has all but endorsed) is as wedded as the former President to the idea of condition-free dialogue with tyrants, it is worth reflecting on just a few of the many example’s of how this Carteresque practice has produced disastrous results: …
James Kirchick brings up the Logan Act for Carter.
… The station of ex-president carries a diplomatic heft, and no one has used it with more inelegance and opportunism than Jimmy Carter, whose sabotage of American foreign policy has not been limited to Republican presidents (see Bill Clinton and North Korea). By calling on the United States to include Hamas in peace talks, and by meeting with the leader of said terrorist group in the capital of a country with which the United States does not even maintain diplomatic relations, Carter undermines a crucial plank in America’s Middle East policy. …
Townhall’s Ben Shapiro with harsh works for Jimmy.
Jimmy Carter is an evil man. It is painful to label a past president of the United States as a force for darkness. But it is dangerous to let a man like Jimmy Carter stalk around the globe cloaked in the garb of American royalty, planting the seeds of Western civilization’s destruction.
On Tuesday, former President Carter met with leaders of the terrorist group Hamas. He embraced Nasser al-Shaer, the man who has run the Palestinian education system, brainwashing children into believing Jews are the descendants of pigs and dogs. He laid a wreath at the grave of Yasser Arafat, the most notorious terrorist thug of the 20th century. Then, he had the audacity to offer to act as a conduit between the Palestinian Arabs and the Israeli and U.S. governments. This is somewhat like Lord Haw-Haw offering to broker peace between the German and British governments during World War II.
Carter is a notorious anti-Semite and an even more notorious terrorism- enabler. In particular, he is a huge supporter of Palestinian violence. …
John Stossel answers a critic from the legal community.
“Stossel, who often touts his belief in ‘market magic,’ attacks lawyers who represent consumers and others harmed by corporations, and wants instead to let corporate America police itself. This is the same corporate America that today is making the dreams of millions of Americans ‘disappear’ in the form of home foreclosures and job losses. … “
That’s what a class-action lawyer (who boasts he recovered “more than $2 billion in cash for average everyday American consumers”) wrote to the Wall Street Journal in response to my op-ed about the parasite circus of class-action lawyers who practice legal extortion.
As I expect from litigators, his letter was aggressive, well written and convincing. And he was right about my belief in “market magic.” That’s the biggest lesson I’ve learned in 35 years of consumer reporting: The market performs miracles so routinely that we take it for granted. Supermarkets provide 30,000 choices at rock-bottom prices. We take it for granted that when we stick a piece of plastic in a wall, cash will come out; that when we give the same plastic to a stranger, he will rent us a car, and the next month, VISA will have the accounting correct to the penny. By contrast, “experts” in government can’t even count the vote accurately.
That’s why I talk about market magic.
But I digress. The class-action lawyer, like so many who go to law school, gets the big stuff wrong. …
Dartblog came up with the Eulogy for WFB delivered by his son Christopher.
… He was — inarguably — a great man. This is, from a son’s perspective, a mixed blessing, because it means having to share him with the wide world. It was often a very mixed blessing when you were out sailing with him. Great men always have too much canvas up. And great men set out from port in conditions that keep lesser men — such as myself — safe and snug on shore. …
Speaking of Buckley, Sam Tanenhaus did a send-off of him and Norman Mailer in last Sunday’s NY Times.
Every now and again, the jostling frenzy of intellectual life in New York City, with its relentless fixation on the newest, the hottest, the coolest, the ins and the outs, pauses for a moment and the speed slows to a stately, reflective pace.
A striking example of this occurred when, in the space of a week, two of the city’s cultural giants received tribute, each in one of Manhattan’s most hallowed venues. On April 4, a memorial mass was held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral for William F. Buckley Jr., who died in February at age 82. Five days later, last Wednesday at Carnegie Hall, homage was paid to Norman Mailer, who died in November at age 84.
One could easily imagine the two men, friendly combatants for nearly five decades, robustly arguing about who received the better send-off. Was it Mr. Buckley, whose A-list mourners included Henry Kissinger, George McGovern and Tom Wolfe? Or Mr. Mailer, who reeled in John Didion, Don DeLillo and Gay Talese? Best to call it a tie — not least since Charlie Rose and Tina Brown were on view at both events. …