Sunday, January 4, 2009

The day’s top political news:

Obama stirs fears in Israel

Israelis fear Obama could halt their efforts to administer a death blow to Hamas terrorists.

Fearing a stab in the back from the incoming Obama administration, Israel's leaders are asking themselves if the cost of sending sufficient ground forces into Gaza just too high?

Israel would be hard pressed to fight on without American support.   Liberal Democrats as a whole have been increasingly anti Israel in recent years.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01012009/news/columnists/bam_stirs_fears_in_israel_146762.htm

The NATIONAL ENQUIRER exclusively reports a "sex pervert" was Sen. Barack Obama's longtime mentor and "father figure".

For seven years, the presidential candidate had a "father-son" relationship with Frank Marshall Davis, who has confessed to having sex with children, sadomasochism, bondage and practicing a wide array of deviant sexual activities.

In his 1995 memoir Dreams from My Father, Obama identifies his childhood mentor only as "Frank," but Obama insiders later confirmed he was referring to Davis, a journalist and poet who was a pal of Obama's maternal grandfather, Stanley Dunham.

Frank Marshall Davis admitted in his private papers that he had secretly authored a hard-core pornographic autobiography called Sex Rebel: Black, published in 1968. The author of the book - a copy of which was been obtained by The ENQUIRER - is listed as "Bob Greene."  Davis later confessed to its authorship after a reader noticed similarities in style and phraseology between that book and Davis' poetry.

Davis was also a Communist party member dispatched to Hawaii by the party with a mission of recruiting and organizing a communist cell there.

http://www.nationalenquirer.com/obama_sex_perv_scandal/celebrity/65575

Charity homes built by Jimmy Carter start to crumble
 
RESIDENTS of a model housing estate bankrolled by Hollywood celebrities and hand-built by Jimmy Carter, the former US president, are complaining that it is falling apart.

Fairway Oaks was built on northern Florida wasteland by 10,000 volunteers, including Carter, in a record 17-day “blitz” organized by the charity Habitat for Humanity.

Eight years later it is better known for cockroaches, mildew and mysterious skin rashes.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/art

Opinion:
Will Israel’s assault on the terrorists of Hamas impact American politics?

Obviously it will - -the question is in what manner.

All intelligent Americans support any efforts that reduces the threat to civilization of Islamic terror.  Radical Islam has, after all, declared war on civilization and made clear its intentions of slaughtering all who do not embrace their extremist view of religion.

Liberal Democrats have worked hard to follow the Bill Clinton strategy of ignoring terror.  They have interdicted efforts to obtain information that might save US lives.  Liberals oppose our interrogation of terrorists, even though attacks that would have killed Americans have been prevented through such efforts.

Despite denials, the actual history shows Obama had intimate connections with Islam in his early days.  Both his father and step father were Muslim.  He attended early education in schools in which he was cordoned off with Muslim kids in school activities.

Even his long time spiritual mentor, the Rev Jeremiah Wright, has Muslim roots.

So it is normal for many Israelis to wonder how secure they might be in a world in which their most important ally may not have that firm a personal commitment to their cause.

That question is about to be raised in an undeniable sense.  As Israel troops pour across the border in an attempt to take out Hamas terrorist rocket launching sites and other terrorist infrastructure, concern about what Obama might do is of major concern.

The pending inaugural may be prompting the attack.  “Get it done before Obama takes power” may be the credo of Israeli planners.  Who can blame them?

After all, in increasing numbers, liberal Democrats have been more and more opposed to Israel interests and to Israel itself.  Liberals side with the terrorists in fact, no matter how they scurry for cover when the matter is raised in discussioins.

Incredibly, despite this anti Israeli sentiment among Democrats, Jewish voters continue to vote overwhelmingly Democrat.  It’s a puzzling a question as why Black voters vote over 90% Democrat when Democrats have been the party with policies denying Blacks the right to vote, supported Segregation and Jim Crow laws, and has the KKK as a strictly Democrat organization – one initial designed to frighten Blacks from going to the polls.

In politics, many strange things happen.

That may be played out in the immediate future as Israel struggles for survival against internal terrorists such as Hamas and Hexbollah, and faces the sponsor of these terrorist groups in Iran.

Iran is the bigger threat, given its dedicated drive to acquire nuclear arms and its obsessions with wiping Israel off the map.

Obama says he wants to meet with enemies such as Iran without pre conditions.  In the minds of many, this is a precursor to appeasement. 

Despite the crisis of the economy, Israel, Gaza, and Iran may be the more demanding crises the new president will face.  How he approaches each and all will bear close watching and evaluation. 

Surely Obama’s response will be far far better and more insightful than his campaign rhetoric suggests.  For once, we must pray a politician will go back on his pledges and announced commitments.

Buddy

The days top Blogs:

First the overview:

1.

Obama – bringing Chicago to all America – what does THAT mean?

Ewen MacAskill in Chicago
 
Barack Obama is back in Chicago after a 12-day holiday in Hawaii. But not for long. On Monday he begins his new life in Washington, temporarily housed in the Hay-Adams hotel until the White House becomes available on 20 January.
Even so, Chicago will never be too far away. Just as George Bush brought Texas to Washington and Bill Clinton brought Arkansas, so Obama too brings a blast of his home city.

2.

Both Iran and its Hamas proxy in Gaza have been busy this Christmas week showing Christendom just what they think of it. But no one seems to have noticed.
CAROLINE GLICK

On Tuesday, Hamas legislators marked the Christmas season by passing a Shari'a criminal code for the Palestinian Authority.

Among other things, it legalizes crucifixion.  

Hamas's endorsement of nailing enemies of Islam to crosses came at the same time it renewed its jihad. Here, too, Hamas wanted to make sure that Christians didn't feel neglected as its fighters launched missiles at Jewish day care centers and schools. So on Wednesday, Hamas lobbed a mortar shell at the Erez crossing point into Israel just as a group of Gazan Christians were standing on line waiting to travel to Bethlehem for Christmas.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230111707087&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

3.

LIMBAUGH: Bogus feud
David Limbaugh:

If Vice President-elect Joe Biden were slightly less enamored with his own voice, he might not confuse himself so often on issues that matter so much, such as his views of presidential and vice presidential authority.

We've all heard about Mr. Biden's feud with Vice President Dick Cheney over Mr. Cheney's supposed view of executive authority relative to the other branches of government and Mr. Cheney's view of the vice president's role.

These happen to be two separate issues. Whether the president encroaches on the constitutional authority of the other branches is a different issue from whether the vice president oversteps his bounds inside the executive branch, or in his limited role in the legislative branch.

The problem is that Mr. Biden conflates these issues. He can't seem to keep straight whether he is exercised about an overreaching executive branch or an overreaching vice president mostly inside that branch.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/03/bogus-feud/

Now the full stories:

1.

Obama – bringing Chicago to all America – what does THAT mean?

Ewen MacAskill in Chicago 
 
Barack Obama is back in Chicago after a 12-day holiday in Hawaii. But not for long. On Monday he begins his new life in Washington, temporarily housed in the Hay-Adams hotel until the White House becomes available on 20 January.

Even so, Chicago will never be too far away. Just as George Bush brought Texas to Washington and Bill Clinton brought Arkansas, so Obama too brings a blast of his home city.

The inner circle in the White House will be overwhelmingly Chicagoan. His two chief advisers, David Axelrod and Valerie Jarrett, are both long-time associates from the city, and his White House chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is another.

But more than that, Obama brings with him the baggage of Chicago's political culture - the roughest in the US. The small-scale bribes that older Chicagoans remember from visits to City Hall are a thing of the past but the sharp suits, naked ambition and political trading are much the same. So too is the large-scale corruption that has seen 50 elected officials from Illinois jailed over the past 30 years.

The origins of Obama's run for the presidency can be traced to Manny's Deli, an old-fashioned Jewish delicatessen in a bleak neighbourhood. The clientele is mainly working-class but Obama and Axelrod, a former Chicago Tribune reporter and political consultant, were regulars, plotting Obama's run right up to the presidency.

The deli's owner, Ken Raskin, who has welcomed back Obama and Axelrod since the election on 4 November, said there had been euphoria among the shop's regulars after the victory but that had given way to a shaking of heads over the scandal that has engulfed the Illinois Democrat governor, Rod Blagojevich. Raskin summed up his clients: "It is not a case of a bunch of tough guys from Chicago coming to town. But they are aggressive and intelligent and I think they will shake up Washington."

Russell Lewis, chief historian at the Chicago History Museum, agrees. "He is surrounding himself with people who know how to work in an urban environment like Chicago. It has been a long time since we have had an urban president. Kennedy would be the last. I do not think Washington will engulf him."
During the presidential election Obama presented himself as a figure of hope, untainted by shoddy politics. The Republican party countered with adverts claiming he was a product of the "Chicago political machine". Though the ads never gained traction, there was some truth there. It would have been hard for Obama to have risen without engaging in the city's rough-house politics.

An example of this was in 1995 when he shoved aside the sitting Illinois state senator, Alice Palmer. One of the politicians who backed him in that, Toni Preckwinkle, a Democrat and a fixture at City Hall, acknowledged the scale of corruption in the city. "I think we have a special problem in Illinois. It is a corrupt political system that has ensnared Republicans and Democrats."

She has expressed a belief that Obama will not be tainted by Blagojevich or any other Chicago scandal. "Obama has managed to be above the fray on the local political scene. He has completely distanced himself," Preckwinkle said.

Axelrod and Emanuel are a different matter. Emanuel, in a tactic that Al Capone might have applauded, once sent a political opponent a rotting fish.

Dick Ciccone, former managing editor of the Chicago Tribune, said the pair were thoroughly connected to the city's political establishment, which was "the antithesis of liberalism - a closed shop, a Kremlin". Don Rose, a veteran Chicago-based political consultant, is sceptical about the chances of Chicago having much effect on Washington. "DC has its own culture and absorbs other cultures. When people try to behave differently, it bounces off, like Teflon. The Clintons were outcasts for trying to bring their culture to DC."

Echoing Rose, Stephen Hess, a former White House official, said: "This is a president-elect who has done a lot of reaching out beyond Chicago."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/03/obama-white-house-barackobama

2.

Both Iran and its Hamas proxy in Gaza have been busy this Christmas week showing Christendom just what they think of it. But no one seems to have noticed.
CAROLINE GLICK

On Tuesday, Hamas legislators marked the Christmas season by passing a Shari'a criminal code for the Palestinian Authority.

Among other things, it legalizes crucifixion.  

Hamas's endorsement of nailing enemies of Islam to crosses came at the same time it renewed its jihad. Here, too, Hamas wanted to make sure that Christians didn't feel neglected as its fighters launched missiles at Jewish day care centers and schools. So on Wednesday, Hamas lobbed a mortar shell at the Erez crossing point into Israel just as a group of Gazan Christians were standing on line waiting to travel to Bethlehem for Christmas.

While Hamas joyously renewed its jihad against Jews and Christians, its overlords in Iran also basked in jihadist triumphalism. The source of Teheran's sense of ascendancy this week was Britain's Channel 4 network's decision to request that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad give a special Christmas Day address to the British people. Ahmadinejad's speech was supposed to be a response to Queen Elizabeth II's traditional Christmas Day address to her subjects. That is, Channel 4 presented his message as a reasonable counterpoint to the Christmas greetings of the head of the Church of England.

Channel 4 justified its move by proclaiming that it was providing a public service. As a spokesman told The Jerusalem Post, "We're offering [Ahmadinejad] the chance to speak for himself, which people in the West don't often get the chance to see." While that sounds reasonable, the fact is that Westerners see Ahmadinejad speaking for himself all the time. They saw him at the UN two years in a row as he called for the countries of the world to submit to Islam; claimed that Iran's nuclear weapons program is divinely inspired; and castigated Jews as subhuman menaces to humanity.

They heard him speak in his own words when he called for Israel to be "wiped off the map."
And of course, over the years Ahmadinejad has often communicated directly to the British people. For instance, in 2007 he received unlimited airtime on UK television as he paraded kidnapped British sailors and marines in front of television cameras; forced them to make videotaped "confessions" of their "crime" of entering Iranian territorial waters; and compelled them to grovel at his knee and thank him for "forgiving" them.

The British people listened to Ahmadinejad as he condemned Britain as a warmongering nation after its leaders had surrendered Basra to Iranian proxies. They heard him - speaking in his own voice - when he announced that in a gesture of Islamic mercy, he was freeing their humiliated sailors and marines in honor of Muhammad's birthday and Easter, and then called on all Britons to convert to Islam.

Yet as far as Channel 4 is concerned, Ahmadinejad is still an unknown quantity for most Britons. So they asked him to address the nation on Christmas. And not surprisingly, in his address, he attacked their way of life and co-opted their Jewish savior, Jesus, saying, "If Christ was on earth today, undoubtedly he would stand with the people in opposition to bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers."

He then reiterated his call for non-Muslims to convert to Islam saying, "The solution to today's problems can be found in a return to the call of the divine prophets."

THE FACT of the matter is that Channel 4 is right. There is a great deal of ignorance in the West about what the likes of Ahmadinejad and his colleagues in Iran, Syria, Hizbullah and Hamas stand for. But this isn't their fault. They tell us every day that they seek the destruction of the Jews and the domination of the West in the name of Islam. And every day they take actions that they believe advance their goals.

The reason that the West remains ignorant of the views and goals of the likes of Hamas and Iran is not that the latter have hidden their views and goals. It is because the leading political leaders and foreign policy practitioners in the West refuse to listen to them and deny the significance of their actions.

As far as the West's leaders are concerned, Iran and its allies are unimportant. They are not actors, but objects. As far as the West's leading foreign policy "experts" and decision-makers are concerned, the only true actors on the global stage are Western powers. They alone have the power to shape reality and the world. Oddly enough, this dominant political philosophy, which is based on denying the existence of non-Western actors on the world stage, is referred to as political "realism."

The "realist" view was given clear expression this week by one of the "realist" clique's most prominent members. In an op-ed published Tuesday in Canada's Globe and Mail titled, "We must talk Iran out of the bomb," Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations, argued that given the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran and the dangers of a US or Israeli strike against Iran's nuclear installations, the incoming Obama administration must hold direct negotiations with the mullahs to convince them to end their nuclear weapons program.

In making this argument, Haass ignores the fact that this has been the Bush administration's policy for the past five years. He also ignores the fact that President George W. Bush adopted this policy at the urging of Haass's "realist" colleagues and at the urging of Haass himself.

Moreover, Haass bizarrely contends that in negotiating with the mullahs, the Obama administration should offer Iran the same package of economic and political payoffs that the Bush administration and the EU have been offering, and Teheran has been rejecting, since 2003.

Even more disturbingly, Haass ignores the fact that Teheran made its greatest leaps forward in its uranium enrichment capabilities while it was engaged in these talks with the West.

So in making his recommendation to the Obama administration - which has already announced its intention to negotiate with the mullahs - Haass has chosen to ignore Iran's statements, its actions, and known facts about the West's inability to steer it from its course of war by showering it with pay-offs.

Haass and his colleagues in the US, Europe and on the Israeli Left are similarly unwilling to pay attention to Hamas. In an article in the current edition of Foreign Affairs, Haass and his colleague Martin Indyk from the Brookings Institute call on the Obama administration to either ignore Hamas, or, if it abides by a cease-fire with Israel, they suggest that the Obama administration should support a joint Hamas-Fatah government and "authorize low-level contact between US officials and Hamas." The fact that Hamas itself is wholly dedicated to Israel's destruction and Islamic global domination is irrelevant.

Similarly, Haass and Indyk assume that Damascus can be appeased into abandoning its support for Hizbullah and Hamas, and its strategic alliance with Iran. Syrian President Bashar Assad's views of how his interests are best served are unimportant. Both Assad's statements of eternal friendship with Iran and his active involvement in Iran's war effort against the US and its allies in Israel, Iraq and Lebanon are meaningless. The "realists" know what he really wants.

MUSLIMS AREN'T the only ones whose views and actions are dismissed as irrelevant by these foreign policy wise men. The "realists" ignore just about every non-Western actor. Take Iran's principal Asian ally, North Korea, for example.

This week North Korea's official news agency threatened to destroy South Korea in a "sea of fire," and "reduce everything treacherous and anti-reunification to debris and build an independent, reunified country on it," if any country dares to attack its nuclear installations.

North Korea made its threat two weeks after Kim Jung Il's regime disengaged from its fraudulent disarmament talks with the Bush administration. Those talks - the brainchild of foreign policy "realists" Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Assistant Secretary Christopher Hill - were based on the "realist" belief that the US can appease North Korea into giving up its nuclear arsenal. (That would be the same nuclear arsenal that the North Koreans built while engaged in fraudulent disarmament talks with the Clinton administration.)

After Pyongyang agreed in February 2007 to eventually come clean on its plutonium installations (but not its uranium enrichment programs), and to account for its nuclear arsenal (but not for its proliferation activities), Rice convinced President Bush to remove North Korea from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terror and to end its subjection to the US's Trading with the Enemy Act this past October. And then, after securing those massive US concessions, on December 11 Pyongyang renounced its commitments, walked away from the table and now threatens to destroy South Korea if anyone takes any action against it.

North Korea's behavior is of no interest to the "realists," however. As far as they are concerned, the US has no option other than to continue the failed appeasement policy that has enabled North Korea to develop and proliferate nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. As the Council on Foreign Relations' Gary Samore said, "I think we're sort of condemned to that process, because we don't really have any alternative."

Samore and his colleagues believe there are no other options because all other options involve placing responsibility for contending with North Korea on non-Western powers like China, South Korea and Japan. More radically, they involve holding North Korea accountable for its actions and making it pay a price for its poor behavior.

As the "realists" claim that the US has no option other than their failed appeasement policies, back in the real world, this week military officials from the US's Pacific Command warned that North Korea may supply Iran with intercontinental ballistic missiles. These warnings are credible given that North Korea has been the primary supplier of ballistic missiles and missile technology to Iran and Syria and has played a major role in both countries' nuclear weapons programs.

Defending Channel 4's invitation to Ahmadinejad, Dorothy Byrne, the network's head of news and current affairs, said, "As the leader of one of the most powerful states in the Middle East, President Ahmadinejad's views are enormously influential. As we approach a critical time in international relations, we are offering our viewers an insight into an alternative world view."

When you think about it, broadcasting Ahmadinejad really would have been a public service if Byrne or any of the delusional "realists" calling the shots were remotely interested in listening to what he has to say. But they aren't. So far from a public service for Britain, it was a service for those who, unbeknownst to most Britons, are dedicated to destroying their country.
caroline@carolineglick.com

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1230111707087&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

3.

LIMBAUGH: Bogus feudL
David Limbaugh

COMMENTARY:

If Vice President-elect Joe Biden were slightly less enamored with his own voice, he might not confuse himself so often on issues that matter so much, such as his views of presidential and vice presidential authority.

We've all heard about Mr. Biden's feud with Vice President Dick Cheney over Mr. Cheney's supposed view of executive authority relative to the other branches of government and Mr. Cheney's view of the vice president's role.

These happen to be two separate issues. Whether the president encroaches on the constitutional authority of the other branches is a different issue from whether the vice president oversteps his bounds inside the executive branch, or in his limited role in the legislative branch.

The problem is that Mr. Biden conflates these issues. He can't seem to keep straight whether he is exercised about an overreaching executive branch or an overreaching vice president mostly inside that branch.

My guess is that he confuses the two issues because, like other Democrats and liberals, he sees Mr. Cheney as the real villain in both cases. He blames Mr. Cheney, Mr. Bush's presumed puppet master, for Mr. Bush's alleged executive power grabs and he blames Mr. Cheney for overstepping his bounds as vice president.

Let's try to look at these issues separately, even though the players, in this case, overlap.

Reasonable people can disagree whether President Bush acted outside his scope of executive authority in various aspects of prosecuting the war on terror, such as in his handling of the National Security Agency terrorist surveillance program. I believe history will soundly vindicate him, showing he did consult and obtain the tacit approval of Congress on most of these matters. Moreover, the Constitution designates the president as commander in chief, never intending that wars be prosecuted by congressional committee.

How about Mr. Biden's claim that Mr. Cheney has arrogated too much power as VP?

In the vice presidential debate with Sarah Palin, Mr. Biden famously said, "Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history. The idea he doesn't realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that's the executive branch. He works in the executive branch. He should understand that."

Mr. Biden can be forgiven for misidentifying the correct Article - Article II covers the executive branch. But is there validity in his assertion that Mr. Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president?

In a recent interview with Larry King, Mr. Biden said Mr. Cheney believes the vice president is part of the legislative branch in order "to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive." Excuse me, Joe, but what has Mr. Cheney ever said - even in his responses to your ridiculous allegations - to support your charge that he believes the VP should leverage his limited role in the legislative branch to expand the power of the executive branch?

How about Biden's reference to a "unitary executive"? This is nothing new, but happens to be the recycling of a recurring, mythical Democrat talking point. During Judge Samuel Alito's Senate confirmation hearings, Democrats accused Judge Alito of supporting the notion of a "unitary executive," and that, if confirmed, he would vote to validate President Bush's alleged efforts to consolidate government authority in the executive branch.

If Judiciary Committee Democrats had been paying attention to Judge Alito's testimony instead of posturing for the TV cameras, they might have learned that the idea of a unitary executive has nothing to do with the scope of the executive power vis-a-vis the other two branches. It means only that the president shall be in ultimate control of the executive branch.

Isn't this precisely what the Democrats have been demanding? Haven't they been saying Vice President Cheney has had too much control over the executive branch and that the sole authority over that branch should reside with the president?

But in truth, their claim is absurd on its face, despite its mindless repetition by the liberal media. Mr. Cheney, by definition, could have no more authority than Mr. Bush delegated to him. As far as I'm aware, Democrats have cited no examples of President Bush delegating nondelegable powers to Mr. Cheney nor of Mr. Cheney exercising final authority over executive branch matters. In this administration, the buck always stopped with President Bush.

Democrats may not like it that Mr. Bush made Mr. Cheney a key policy adviser, but there's no constitutional violation there. Indeed, in the Larry King interview, Mr. Biden said that in exchange for accepting the VP nomination he told Mr. Obama, "I want to be there when you make every critical decision you make."

So there you have it. Mr. Biden not only favors a unitary executive, he insists on having a critical advisory role in the Obama administration.

If you believe Mr. Biden and his fellow Democrats really object to expansive executive power in principle - as opposed to just when Republicans occupy the White House - just wait for the Obama regime.

David Limbaugh is a nationally syndicated columnist, author and lawyer.

 http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/jan/03/bogus-feud/