Women in sunglasses and headscarves, speaking through megaphones, brandishing cameras, carrying signs: When they first appeared, the photographs of the 2005 Tehran University women’s rights protests were a powerful reminder of the true potential of Iranian women. The images were uplifting; they featured women of many ages; and they went on circulating long after the protests themselves died down. Now they have been replaced by a far more brutal and already infamous set of images: The photographs and video taken this past weekend of a young Iranian woman, allegedly shot by a government sniper, dying on the streets of Tehran.

As Ms. Applebaum notes, the murdered young woman, Neda, may be destined to become the symbolic martyr of this revolution. Listening to CNN early this morning, Kyra Phillips and a fellow anchor were interviewing another 19 year old woman by phone, withholding her name for obvious safety reasons. She was asked if she had any reason for optimism that their protests would do any good. After sharing that she had been beaten with a club by security forces on Saturday, she bravely answered that ‘of course she was optimistic. History tells her that all revolution begins this way.’

Her voice full of emotion, this young woman recounted many of the events unfolding around her. She said, “We are all Neda.” It reminded me how spoiled we are in this country and take so many of our hard earned freedoms for granted. The CNN anchor noted he had attended protests staged by Iranian women in years past and was astounded by their incredible bravery, staring down security forces, shouting right in their faces.

Interesting now that public pressure has mounted and people all over the world viewed the tragic death of Neda, President Obama is choosing to give a press conference today. The latest White House spin, that his Cairo speech was somehow a motivator to the Iranian people seems particularly cruel as well as irresponsible, disregarding the incredible sacrifices on the ground of the protesters over a long period of time. I am not suggesting the President should have strongly inserted himself into this situation from day one. However, after his usual practice of keeping a low profile while he sees which way the political wind is blowing, to then swoop in to try to take the credit, acting as thought it never occurred to the people of Iran to protest the current regime before hearing Obama’s words or even seeing him elected is preposterous.

Ms. Applebaum further states:

In the United States, the most America-centric commentators have somberly attributed the strength of recent demonstrations to the election of Barack Obama. Others want to give credit to the democracy rhetoric of the Bush administration. Still others want to call this a “Twitter revolution” or a “Facebook revolution,” as if zippy new technology alone had inspired the protests. But the truth is that the high turnout has been the result of many years of organizational work, carried out by small groups of civil rights activists and above all women’s groups, working largely unnoticed and without much outside help.

I am grateful to Ms. Applebaum for drawing attention to the efforts of women, which, once again, would otherwise be largely ignored. At least someone is willing to acknowledge that half the world, the female half, is not silent in the fight for human rights.

Since 2006, the One Million Signatures Campaign has been circulating a petition, online and in print, that calls for an end to laws that discriminate against women and the enactment of laws that provide equal rights for women in marriage, equal rights to divorce, equal inheritance rights and equal testimony rights for men and women in court. Though based outside the country, the Abdorrahman Boroumand Foundation, founded by a pair of sisters, translates and publishes online fundamental human rights documents; it maintains an online database of the names of thousands of victims of the Islamic Republic as well. In the past decade, Iranian women have participated in student strikes as well as teachers’ strikes, and in organizations of Bahai, Christian and other religious groups whose members are deemed “heretics” by the regime.

Not Obama, not Bush and not Twitter, in other words, but years of work and effort lie behind the public display of defiance and, in particular, the number of women on the streets — and their presence matters. Their presence could strike the deepest blow against the regime.
(snip)
The Iranian clerics know that women pose a profound threat to their authority, too: As the activist Ladan Boroumand has written, the regime would not bother to brutally repress dissidents unless it feared them deeply. Nobody would have murdered a peaceful, unarmed young woman in blue jeans — unless her mere presence on the street presented a dire threat.

The regime may succeed. Violence usually succeeds, at least in the short term, in intimidating people. In the long term, however, the links, structures, organizations and groups set up by Iranian women, not to mention the photographs of the past week, will continue to gnaw away at the Iranian regime’s legitimacy — and we should take note. I cannot count how many times I’ve been told in recent years that “women’s issues” in the Islamic world are a secondary subject: Whether the discussion is of the Afghan constitution or the Saudi government, the standard line among most commentators has always been that other things — stability, security, oil — matter more. But regimes that repress the civil and human rights of half their population are inherently unstable. Sooner or later, there has to be a backlash. In Iran, we’re watching one unfold.

I am likewise reminded of the words of Secretary of State Clinton when she addressed the 1995 UN World Conference on Women in Beijing as First Lady, in defiance of the US State Dept and Chinese Government:

“For too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words.

“It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls. It is a violation of human rights when woman and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution. It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small. It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war. It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide along women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes. It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.

“Women’s rights are human rights. Among those rights are the right to speak freely—and the right to be heard.”

Secretary Clinton once again echoed her deeply held sentiments while addressing the Barnard graduating class on May 21, 2009:

“Although not always acknowledged by governments, businesses, or society overall, women and girls bear a disproportionate burden of most of the problems we face today. In the midst of this global economic crisis, women who are already the majority of the world’s poor are driven deeper into poverty. In places where food is scarce, women and girls are often the last to eat, and eat the least. In regions torn apart by war and conflict, women are more likely to be refugees or targets of sexual violence. . .

And women’s progress is more than a matter of morality. It is a political, economic, social and security imperative for the United States and for every nation represented in this graduating class. If you want to know how stable, healthy, and democratic a country is, look at its women, look at its girls.”

And yet the marginalization of women and girls goes on. It is one of humankind’s oldest problems. But what is different today is that we have 21st century tools to combat it. . . Today, women are finding their voices, and those voices are being heard far beyond their own narrow circumstances.”

In the United States, the fight for women’s suffrage back in 1920 was horrid, ugly, even violent. In the end, Congress granted us this right by one vote. One. I am reminded that a violent act is committed against a woman in this country every few seconds, and women in more oppressive societies have had to endure unspeakable horrors. I cannot imagine the courage of Iranian women in the streets today, and applaud all those who have been working quietly for years to stand against these injustices.

I hope we can ensure that women are not ignored as valiant and courageous leaders in this cause.

WASHINGTON — As tens of thousands of Iranian protesters take to the streets in defiance of the government in Tehran, officials in Washington are debating whether President Obama’s response to Iran’s disputed election has been too muted. Mr. Obama is coming under increased pressure from Republicans and other conservatives who say he should take a more visible stance in support of the protesters.

Even while supporting the president’s approach, senior members of the administration, including Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, would like to strike a stronger tone in support of the protesters, administration officials said.

Other White House officials have counseled a more cautious approach, saying harsh criticism of the government or endorsement of the protests could have the paradoxical effect of discrediting the protesters and making them seem as if they were led by Americans. So far, Mr. Obama has largely followed that script, criticizing violence against the protesters, but saying that he does not want to be seen as meddling in Iranian domestic politics.

Even so, the Iranian government on Wednesday accused American officials of “interventionist” statements.

But several administration officials acknowledged that Mr. Obama might run the risk of coming across on the wrong side of history at a potentially transformative moment in Iran.

Clearly, if the President is taking a weak stand on this issue and the Iranian government is still criticizing us, President Obama’s laissez faire posture is not buying us much. I am curious why the objections of the VP and SoS would be voiced in this article? Political cover for the president should he say something and if it doesn’t go his way, he has someone to blame. Or do Clinton and Biden want to get their opposition on the record somehow…

Last night, Bret Baier’s FOX news panel, Juan Williams, Charles Krauthammer and Fred Barnes weighed in with a most interesting discussion. Certainly, President Obama’s comments at the top of this video sound tepid to the point of being clueless. Update to FOX’s discussion: Moussavi has not asked the protest to disband but has called for another day of protests with participants dressing in black to declare a day of mourning for those killed:

More from the Times:

The administration’s concern over how to calibrate the response to the protests in Iran reflects the competing goals Mr. Obama is trying to balance: keeping faith with democracy advocates in Iran while not staking out a position that is so tough that it kills any chance of engagement with the Iranian government on America’s national security interests, including the Iranian nuclear program and Iran’s support for militant Islamist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Some criticism of the Obama administration’s cautious posture may be politically opportunistic, coming from rivals who are eager to draw distinctions between Republicans and Democrats, to portray the administration as generally weak when it comes to international confrontation.

But Mr. Obama also drew criticism from politically neutral observers when he said in an interview on Tuesday with The New York Times and CNBC that from an American national security perspective, there was not much difference between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Mir Hussein Moussavi, his closest competitor in the election.
(snip)
Many Iran experts lauded Mr. Obama’s measured stance just after the election. But some of that support evaporated on Tuesday when he said there was not much difference between Mr. Ahmadinejad and Mr. Moussavi.

Obviously, Iranian protesters don’t agree, otherwise they would not have taken to the streets.

“For Barack Obama, this was a serious misstep,” said Steven Clemons, director of the American strategy program at the New America Foundation. “It’s right for the administration to be cautious, but it’s extremely bad for him to narrow the peephole into an area in which we’re looking at what’s happening just through the lens of the nuclear program.”

Mr. Obama’s comments deflated Mr. Moussavi, who is rapidly becoming a political icon in Iran, even supporters of Mr. Obama’s Iran policy say.

“Up until now, the president had very thoughtfully calibrated his remarks on Iran, but this was an uncharacteristic and egregious error,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “People are risking their lives and being slaughtered in the streets because they want fundamental change in the way Iran is governed. Our message to them shouldn’t be that it doesn’t make much difference to the United States.”

Certainly we do have to exercise caution when remarking about the electoral process of other countries. It just strikes me that if we are proclaiming to be the beacon of democracy and tout free and fair elections, at the very least, it would be a good idea to speak out against slaughter.

What say you?

I have returned from my most fabulous, awesome Mediterranean cruise. I was met by three of the puppies (Lucky, Lani, and Leila), who are BIG now, running up and down the stairs to go outside, running all over the yard, playing, playing, playing. So cute. Hopefully, we’ll find homes soon that will work out (a few fell through). In the meantime, romping around and cuddling on them is fine by me!

So, this cruise was amazing - we left from Barcelona, and went to Rome, Athens, Izmir (Ephesus), Alexandria, Cairo, and Malta. Just in case you were wondering, yes, I do have a photo of me on a camel in front of the Pyramids (the wind was blowing like crazy - hence my hair all over my head, as we say down South):

While a cliche, it is absolutely true that this was a trip of a lifetime - the sights we saw, the people we met, the history we learned all combined for an incredible time.

And we did meet some very interesting people on the cruise. I want to tell you about two sets of them, one funny as all get out, and the other definitely more serious. So, the first was a Canadian couple we met while eating in the French restaurant on board ship. They were sitting at a window, and we were at the table next to them. We’d done the nod and smile thing already, when my partner just started cracking up. The man had his dessert plate tilted up with a spoon in his hand, trying to get every last drop of his dessert. He said, “What? Ice cream and booze - what more could you want?” They ended up joining us for our chocolate fondue, and much hilarity ensued.

The second couple was Iranian, living in Canada to escape their current regime. The wife was a lovely, affectionate woman (I thought we Southerners were touchy - not even close - it was so dear the way she would gently grasp my arm while telling me something important). She told us that they had to flee from their homeland after her father-in-law was executed for being a “spy for Israel.” She said that was the charge they always used - being a spy for Israel. Her father-in-law had never stepped foot outside of Iran. Ever.

She then brought up the young reporter, Roxana Saberi, the American/Iranian who was sentenced to 8 years in prison for being an American spy, seen here:

Our Iranian friend said that Iranian prisons are absolutely deplorable, disgusting places, ones we could scarcely imagine, and in which life would be very hard on this 34 year old woman. Ahmadinejad has said that she can appeal. Yeah. I’m sure that’s going to go in her favor. Ahem.

She is not the only one, though. There has been far less press on this (at least that I have seen), but there is a Californian grad student, Esha Momeni, who is being detained in Iran. She was working on her Master’s thesis there and was picked up on a traffic violation (alleged). She also holds both American and Iranian citizenship. And, she, too, is being accused of going against national security. How? She was meeting with women’s advocate groups and filming them when her life took this turn. Her communication is being monitored, her video footage and computer confiscated. Wow.

That certainly coincides with what our new friend at dinner volunteered. She said that life for women in general in Iran has gotten much, much worse under the current regime. Before, women were much freer to study, travel, and work, but now, they have gone far, far back. These two recent cases seem to confirm her opinion. The treatment of women combined with what happened to her father-in-law, prompted them to leave the land of their birth. They are waiting, hoping, for a better time so they can return in safety.

That is but a quick glimpse of my adventures abroad. You know I’ll be writing more about it as time goes by, but I did want to pop in and say hey, I missed writing, for sure, and your comments. And it’s good to be home again.

From The John Batchelor Show blog pages.

Partial transcript:

“I would like to speak directly to the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nowruz is just one part of your great and celebrated culture. Over many centuries your art, your music, literature and innovation have made the world a better and more beautiful place.

Here in the United States our own communities have been enhanced by the contributions of Iranian Americans. We know that you are a great civilization, and your accomplishments have earned the respect of the United States and the world.

For nearly three decades relations between our nations have been strained. But at this holiday we are reminded of the common humanity that binds us together. Indeed, you will be celebrating your New Year in much the same way that we Americans mark our holidays — by gathering with friends and family, exchanging gifts and stories, and looking to the future with a renewed sense of hope.

Within these celebrations lies the promise of a new day, the promise of opportunity for our children, security for our families, progress for our communities, and peace between nations. Those are shared hopes, those are common dreams.

So in this season of new beginnings I would like to speak clearly to Iran’s leaders….

With the coming of a new season, we’re reminded of this precious humanity that we all share. And we can once again call upon this spirit as we seek the promise of a new beginning.”

How did Iran respond?

“We welcome the wish of the president of the United States to put away past differences,” Ali Akbar Javanfekr, Mr Ahmadinejad’s press advisor was quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.

“But the way to do that is not by Iran forgetting the previous hostile and aggressive attitude of the United States. The American administration has to recognise its past mistakes and repair them as a way to put away the differences.”

He said Iran would not forget the role the US played when Mohammad Mossadeq, the former prime minister, was overthrown in a coup in 1953. Nor would it forget the 1988 shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane by a US warship in which all 290 people aboard were killed.

He added that Tehran would also remember America’s support for Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, the sanctions it levied against Iran and its support for Iran’s main militant opposition group, the People’s Mujahideen of Iran.

“But this attitude of the United States did not weaken us and now the Islamic Republic of Iran is very strong in the world,” he said. “The only source of instability in the region is the American military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

And:

In an almost simultaneous announcement, from Iran’s energy minister, Parviz Fattah, said that the country would “finish and operate” its controversial Russian-built Bushehr nuclear plant by the end of the year.

“Iran has chosen a direction for achieving peaceful nuclear energy. We have mainly reached this aim,” he said at the World Water Forum in Istanbul.

“Exactly 20 days from now we will have another celebration for celebrating the achievements we have gained for peaceful nuclear energy. You will hear about the news,” he said.

“Iran will finish and operate the Bushehr nuclear plant by the end of this year.”

Iran’s supreme leader rebuffed President Barack Obama’s latest outreach on Saturday, saying Tehran was still waiting to see concrete changes in U.S. policy.

In his most direct assessment of Obama and prospects for better ties, Khamenei said there will be no change between the two countries unless the American president puts an end to U.S. hostility toward Iran and brings ”real changes” in foreign policy.

”They chant the slogan of change but no change is seen in practice. We haven’t seen any change,” Khamenei said in a speech before a crowd of tens of thousands in the northeastern holy city of Mashhad.

Khamenei asked how Obama could congratulate Iranians on the new year and accuse the country of supporting terrorism and seeking nuclear weapons in the same message.

Khamenei said there has been no change even in Obama’s language compared to that of his predecessor.

”He (Obama) insulted the Islamic Republic of Iran from the first day. If you are right that change has come, where is that change? What is the sign of that change? Make it clear for us what has changed.”

Maybe they’re Pepsi drinkers?

You can view the real video message here. I was just having a little fun.

This vid was passed on to me. I enjoyed it and thought that some NQ readers might enjoy it too.

BTW Have you ever seen Sean Penn in an interview? If so, have you ever come across anyone who gives a more boring, humorless interview? i find it hard to think of anyone even coming close.

That said, I hear his portrayal of Harvey Milk in the movie “Milk” is terrific, so I guess he can’t be all bad. But I get so tired of these Hollywood pseudo-liberals and their political associates pontificating and running down America.

UPDATE: The Chicago Tribune (understandably busy with the Blagojevich blow-up) has the “first ever” newspaper interview with the official PEBO. As we said several days ago, PEBO has stated he wants to make a major speech from a muslim capital. Fine.

Barack Obama says his presidency is an opportunity for the U.S. to renovate its relations with the Muslim world, starting the day of his inauguration and continuing with a speech he plans to deliver in an Islamic capital.

And when he takes the oath of office Jan. 20, he plans to be sworn in like every other president, using his full name: Barack Hussein Obama.

Read the rest ->

“I think we’ve got a unique opportunity to reboot America’s image around the world and also in the Muslim world in particular,” Obama said Tuesday, promising an “unrelenting” desire to “create a relationship of mutual respect and partnership in countries and with peoples of good will who want their citizens and ours to prosper together.”

The world, he said, “is ready for that message.”

BO seems to think the world is breathlessly anticipating his speech on the matter. Somehow I doubt it will have THAT big an impact, but it’s worth a try. Meanwhile, the UN is planning an “anti-racism” conference in February, 2009. Earlier this month, Forbes magazine did some research on the 2009 conference and the 2001 that spawned it.

From the original NQ post:

Forbes has an interesting article about a new UN “anti-racism” conference. This new conference will be held in Geneva, April 2009, hard on the heels of the last “anti-racism” conference, held in 2001.

The writer says she studied the now notorious 2001 conference while doing background on the upcoming one.

. . . a notoriously anti-Semitic United Nations conference held in 2001 in Durban, South Africa. Billed as an effort to fight racism, that Durban conclave focused instead on vilifying Israel–whipping up hatred to such an extreme that then- Secretary of State Colin Powell ordered the U.S. delegation to walk out.

The new “anti-racism” conference, called Durban Review Conference, is being organized by some people with serious anti-racism chops. Or not.

The 20-member preparatory committee, operating out of Geneva, is chaired by a Libyan ambassador, Najat Al-Hajjaji. Back in 2003, she chaired the U.N.’s former Human Rights Commission, which discredited itself not only by picking Al-Hajjaji, envoy of Libya’s despotic regime, to run the show, but also by slamming Israel 27 times from 2001 to 2006. As the State Department anti-Semitism report notes, this was more than twice the number of UNHRC criticisms leveled during that same period at North Korea, Burma and Sudan combined.

In 2006, as part of a package of U.N. “reforms,” that farce of a Human Rights Commission was dissolved. It was replaced by the current sham of a Human Rights Council, which in its first 16 months spent most of its time issuing 15 criticisms of Israel, and then singled out Israel to become a permanent item on its agenda.

This same Human Rights Council is now providing the official umbrella and support staff for the Durban Review Conference. Among the vice-chairs of the preparatory committee are emissaries of such unfree countries as Iran, Russia, Pakistan and Cameroon (which, according to New York-based Freedom House, still tolerates slavery in its northern reaches). Cuba–where wholesale repression includes the additional frill of job discrimination against Afro-Cubans–fills two seats at this Durban II table, which features both a Cuban vice-chair and Cuba as Rapporteur.

——————-

As for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon, he was quick to express horror over the hate that fueled the terrorist assault on Mumbai. But he has done nothing to defuse the ticking bomb of Durban II. Instead, Ban’s office has been dutifully processing the multi-million dollar funding requests of the Durban organizers. The U.S., which contributes an out-sized 22% to Ban’s budget, is planning to withhold a small portion of that money in hope of pressuring the U.N. into better behavior. Good luck. The U.N. dodge has been to re-frame the total conference tab, now estimated at about $5.1 million, as coming mainly from resources already available, plus donations. China has committed $20,000, Russia $600,000 and a number of as-yet-unnamed member states are expected to pony up.

All of which begs the larger point, that U.S. taxpayers are the chief sugar daddies for the entire U.N. system, which–with its logo, premises and diplomatic perquisites–will give this conference a world stage and stamp of authority it would not otherwise enjoy.

The author ends with this.

Among the U.N.’s 192 member states, only two have had the backbone to announce that they will boycott the Durban Review: Canada, and for obvious reasons, Israel. In the U.S., President Bush has deferred any final decision to the next administration. President-elect Obama, what will you do about Durban II?

She asks a veeerrrrryyy interesting question. What will Obama do? He spent lots of campaign time race-baiting and allowed campaign operatives to use sexism and gender attacks. The LGBT and Hispanic communities are now finding BO’s implied anti-discrimination promise somewhat underwhelming. (Not that this should have come as any surprise to anyone paying the smallest amount of attention to the campaign, but I digress.)

Here’s the thing though. Early in his administration, BO will have to contend with organized anti-Semitism from an institution funded largely by the US. He’ll have to take a stand on racism - something he says is deeply important in his life. The idea of racism is so important to Obama he wrote books about it, centered his religious life around it, selected his home community because of it and built his Presidential campaign around it. Now he’ll have to take a stand when the issue does not directly address only himself or AAs. Given the players in this conference, I don’t see how BO can “finesse” this situation. He will either be against what Forbes called “a mob move against Israel,” or he will permit it. He may try to say the issues are complicated and complex, but the last “anti-racism” conference and the players in this one don’t deserve such hair-splitting from the “post-racial” US President who is, after all, supposed to heal the world.

Making this a little more interesting is the fact that Obama has already said as US President he wants to make a major speech from an Islamic country. The NYT thinks BO will go to Egypt.

President-elect Barack Obama’s aides say he is considering making a major foreign policy speech from an Islamic capital during his first 100 days in office.
————
It’s got to be Cairo. Egypt is perfect. It’s certainly Muslim enough, populous enough and relevant enough. It’s an American ally, but there are enough tensions in the relationship that the choice will feel bold. The country has plenty of democracy problems, so Mr. Obama can speak directly to the need for a better democratic model there. It has got the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist organization that has been embraced by a wide spectrum of the Islamic world, including the disenfranchised and the disaffected.

Politico seems to think it will be Jakarta.

The Obama donor, Los Angeles real estate executive Ted Leary, recalled that Obama spoke of his plan to donors at a February 20, 2007 breakfast fundraiser at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, soon after announcing his run for president.

“Obama told the 20 or so of us at breakfast that ‘his first trip as President would be to Indonesia - the world’s most populous Muslim country,’” Leary recalled.

Commentary weighed in, not with a pick for the site, but with a comment on the potential speech itself.

The global problems generating from within the Muslim world today are so odious and so obviously self-inflicted that any honest speech on the matter would offend and enrage Muslims the world over. At the same time, because of these very problems, a softball speech about Islam’s current role in global affairs would look like cowardly capitulation. If Obama splits the difference and mixes lukewarm praise with lukewarm condemnation, the stunt will be seen rightly as meaningless.

Obama clearly wants closer ties to Islamic countries, for both foreign policy reasons and personal ones. But how will he handle further Islamic extremism? Does he think once he’s sworn in and speechifies from a carefully chosen Muslim capital that all will be sweetness and light? What, exactly, will it accomplish? But then, what will he do about the rampant anti-Semitism so clearly visible and so acceptable that the UN will sponsor another “notorious” anti-racism event like Durban? This isn’t “genteel” racism, done in code words or through suggestion. This is the real deal, where people regularly say in “polite society” that others do not have a right to live and are the source of all a region’s ills.

What will this post-racial President do? According to the writer at Forbes, another AA had a few words about this. Maybe he should lead the way.

When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You are talking anti-Semitism. –The Rev. Martin Luther King, 1968

One wonders how Barack Obama will solidify relations of trust with our allies abroad when Nicolas Sarzoky, the French President who presided over a joint press conference with Barack Obama on the subject of Iran in July, characterized Obama’s foreign policy stances and formulations to Isreali foreign officials as “utterly immature,” “empty of content,” “very problematic,” “arrogantly” ignorant and “not crystallized.” Certainly he will not have the power to mobilize the support required to stabilize the Middle East if European leaders dismiss him as a hopeless and hapless naïf of foreign policy, and certainly he will exacerbate our already strained relations with France and other countries if the leaders of those states regard Obama, the American naïf, as not only vague but also recklessly supercilious.

Prompting Sarkozy’s scathing assessment of Obama’s foreign policy is Obama’s desire to engage with Iran without preconditions. This stance is of concern to Sarkozy and other European powers, for Germany and the countries representing the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, or the United Kingdom, the United States, the Russian Federation, China and France, presently comprise a united front whose goal is to prevent the development of nuclear arms in Iran. Unilateral action by Obama can and probably will compromise the power these countries wield over Iran, and it will certainly give Iran the impression that the sanctions already imposed by the Security Council can be flouted. This explains why Sarkozy uses the adjectives “problematic” and “immature” when he discusses Obama’s foreign policy.

Also not to be ignored is Sarkozy’s use of the adverb “arrogantly.” The United States, we recall, already ignored the United Nations once this decade with its illegal and unwarranted invasion of Iraq. Will not another unilateral act outside the agreement forged by the permanent members of United Nations Security Council and Germany rekindle all the resentment that has weakened our power and influence abroad? Obama should understand this. After all, he is the Chair of the Subcommittee of European Affairs of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. But because he chose not to convene any policy hearings as Chair of the Subcommittee of European Affairs, he fails to comprehend the importance of maintaining amicable relations with our European allies now that the United States is economically and politically vulnerable on the international stage.

According to French intelligence, Iran is already in possession of 40 percent of the enriched uranium required to create a nuclear bomb. Any breakdown of negotiations between the Big 5, Germany and Iran will have dire consequences for the Middle East, especially for the country of Isreal, a country Ahmadinejad hopes to “wipe off the map.” What if unilateral negotiations with Iran without preconditions fail? How will Obama respond? How will he seize control over a country that is well on its way to building the next nuclear bomb? Because Obama has not even entertained this possibility, Sarkozy dismisses the American naïf’s various pronouncements as “not crystallized.” And the only explanation Sarkozy can probably muster for the American naïf who believes one can contemptuously disregard the Big 5 and Germany and negotiate willy nilly with Iran is that his mind is “empty of content.” For once I agree with Nicolas Sarkozy.

Sarkozy is not the only person abroad who has concerns about Obama’s proposed foreign policy stance with Iran. According to Ynetnews, 52.5% of Isrealis believe McCain possesses the requisite skills to deal with the security threat Iran poses to Israel. Compare this number to the paltry 27.6% of Israelis who are confident that Obama is prepared.

I guess Joe Biden is correct when he warns:

Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking.

Yes, the world is looking: France and Israel are gazing at us with worried eyes, while Iran is monitoring us with the hope that we will fumble and elect the utterly immature and naïve Barack Obama.

People go bankrupt all the time. Companies do, too. But countries?
Iceland was on the verge of doing exactly that on Thursday as the government shut down the stock market and seized control of its last major independent bank. That brought trading in the country’s currency to a halt, with foreign banks no longer willing to take Icelandic krona, even at fire-sale rates.

As the meltdown in the Icelandic financial system quickened, with the government seemingly powerless to do anything about it, analysts said there was probably only one realistic option left: for Iceland to be bailed out by the International Monetary Fund.

“Iceland is bankrupt,” said Arsaell Valfells, a professor at the University of Iceland. “The Icelandic krona is history. The IMF has to come and rescue us.”

Read the rest ->
The Guardian (UK) had this to add:

Gordon Brown has told the Icelandic prime minister that he is considering legal action against the country over the collapse of its national banks.

The prime minister said tonight that Iceland’s decision not to recompense those with savings in the bank was “completely unacceptable” and the British government would do “whatever is necessary to recover the money”.

“I’ve spoken to the Icelandic prime minister, I have told him this is effectively an illegal action that they have taken. We are freezing the assets of Icelandic companies in the UK where we can. We will take further action against the Icelandic authorities where necessary to recover the money.

While Britain, like the US, insures individual depositors up to a point, large depositors don’t necessarily have the same protections.

But up to 20 UK councils who banked with Icesave could lose millions of pounds because wholesale deposits are not protected. The Tories have estimated that up to £1bn may be at stake.

I expect the recriminations are just starting to fly and as governments try to protect themselves and their citizens, it’s going to get a lot uglier. I hope we elect someone strong enough and pragmatic enough to do what needs be done.

2) The NYT has an article on the financial crisis, saying Bush and other European leaders will meet this weekend to look at a more coordinated response to the global crisis.

The British and American plans, though far from identical, have two common elements according to officials: injection of government money into banks in return for ownership stakes and guarantees of repayment for various types of loans.

Both remedies will be center stage on Saturday, when President Bush meets with finance ministers from the world’s richest countries at an unusual White House meeting to swap ideas.

Mr. Bush’s invitation to finance ministers from Britain, Italy, Germany, France, Canada and Japan came on a day of phone calls and letters between European leaders and with Washington.

Adding to the urgency, the Japanese stock market plunged more than 10 percent Friday morning, after having dropped 9 percent on Wednesday.

Unfortunately, the NYT must feel that flogging the “troopergate” story is critical for national attention. It still devoted 3 (online) pages to that. With the global financial crisis and people starting to use the “d” word, this manufactured “scandal” is an indefensible waste of time.

3) Also in the NYT today is an article about Russia and Iran. There is some thought that a Russian scientist has been helping Iran develop nuclear weapons.

International nuclear inspectors are investigating whether a Russian scientist helped Iran conduct complex experiments on how to detonate a nuclear weapon, according to European and American officials. As part of the investigation, inspectors at the International Atomic Energy Agency are seeking information from the scientist, who they believe acted on his own as an adviser on experiments described in a lengthy document obtained by the agency, the officials said.
————————-
Asked about the potential contribution of the Russian scientist in detonator experimentation, a senior Russian official who has long followed Iran’s nuclear program said, “It is difficult for me to add anything.”

Ah, global financial crisis and Iranian nukes. And you thought today was going to be dull?

4) Charles Krauthammer writes today about the character question and Obama.

Convicted felon Tony Rezko. Unrepentant terrorist Bill Ayers. And the race-baiting Rev. Jeremiah Wright. It is hard to think of any presidential candidate before Barack Obama sporting associations with three more execrable characters. Yet let the McCain campaign raise the issue, and the mainstream media begin fulminating about dirty campaigning tinged with racism and McCarthyite guilt by association.

But associations are important. They provide a significant insight into character. They are particularly relevant in relation to a potential president as new, unknown, opaque and self-contained as Obama. With the economy overshadowing everything, it may be too late politically to be raising this issue. But that does not make it, as conventional wisdom holds, in any way illegitimate.
Krauthammer faults McCain for not going after the character issue much earlier. However, given all the vitriol at even the hint that Obama’s character and pals are less than absolute sterling, I’m not sure McCain could have reasonably done otherwise.

Why are these associations important? Do I think Obama is as corrupt as Rezko? Or shares Wright’s angry racism or Ayers’ unreconstructed 1960s radicalism?
No. But that does not make these associations irrelevant. They tell us two important things about Obama.

First, his cynicism and ruthlessness. He found these men useful, and use them he did. Would you attend a church whose pastor was spreading racial animosity from the pulpit? Would you even shake hands with — let alone serve on two boards with — an unrepentant terrorist, whether he bombed U.S. military installations or abortion clinics?

Most Americans would not, on the grounds of sheer indecency. Yet Obama did, if not out of conviction then out of expediency. He was a young man on the make, an unknown outsider working his way into Chicago politics. He played the game with everyone, without qualms and with obvious success.
————-
Second, and even more disturbing than the cynicism, is the window these associations give on Obama’s core beliefs. He doesn’t share Rev. Wright’s poisonous views of race nor Ayers’ views, past and present, about the evil that is American society. But Obama clearly did not consider these views beyond the pale. For many years he swam easily and without protest in that fetid pond.

Well, that IS the point some of us have been making for several months now. Before today’s news cycle is over, you’ll hear more screams of “racism.”

5) Today’s WSJ has a sarcasm-laced op-ed about the wonderful magic of Obama. Here’s a snippet:

We’re back now. And just watch the Great Obama perform a feat never yet managed in all history. He will create that enormous new government health program, spend billions to transform our energy economy, provide financial assistance to former Soviet satellites, invest in infrastructure, increase education spending, provide job training assistance, and give 95% of Americans a tax (ahem) cut — all without raising the deficit a single penny! And he’ll do it in the middle of a financial crisis. And with falling tax revenues! Voila!

Now will I be called a racist if I say that’s an Obama fairy tale??

6) Even the NYT now has a “fake donors for Obama” story. Who’d a thunk it?

It appears that campaign finance records for Senator John McCain, the Republican nominee, contain far fewer obviously false names, although he has taken in about $200 million in contributions, less than half Mr. Obama’s total. Mr. McCain did collect about $173,000 from donors who appear in campaign finance records with only a name and have no other identifying information. Mr. Obama collected about $314,000 from such donors.

Although campaigns have long wrestled with questionable donations, Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, said the record-setting number of new donors Mr. Obama has drawn, many of them online, presents new challenges to a compliance system that remains stuck in the past.

Ms. Krumholz pointed out, however, that it would take an extraordinary amount of coordination to pull off widespread fraud.

Yeah, but isn’t ACORN in trouble in several states now? Couldn’t one reasonably call that “widespread?”

But even a contributor who used the name “Jgtj Jfggjjfgj,” and listed an address of “thjtrj” in “gjtjtjtjtjtjr, AP,” was able to contribute $370 in a series of $10 donations in August.

A pair of donors named “Derty West” and “Derty Poiiuy,” who listed “rewq, ME” as their addresses and “Qwertyyy” or “Qwerttyyu” as either their employer or occupation, contributed a combined $1,110 in July.

Hey!!! It’s Derty Poiiuy! I wrote about him in yesterday’s roundup. Didn’t know he had a brother, though. Derty West DEFINITELY sounds like a porn star. Maybe BO has the porn industry demographic locked up. Yeah, it’s part of Hollywood, so that makes sense.

The questionable donations to the Obama campaign, most of which appear to have been given in small increments online, are bolstering the contentions of some campaign finance groups that additional disclosure requirements are needed for contributions of $200 or less.

Federal candidates are not required to itemize such contributions to the F.E.C. unless the donor’s cumulative total adds up to more than $200. Roughly 70 percent of these contributions to Mr. Obama are not reported, compared with more than 75 percent of Mr. McCain’s.

“Mr. Obama” has an aversion to reporting and paperwork, as we know. And this is the third story I’ve done recently on fake donors.

Uh, remember what I snarked earlier about Obama potentially having the porn industry on his side? Well, ask and ye shall receive. . . .

From the NYPost:

ONE of the “bundlers” who has raised $50,000 to $100,000 for the Barack Obama presidential campaign is Terrence Bean, who once controlled the biggest producer of gay porn in America.

Bean, the first gay on Sen. Obama’s National Finance Committee, is the sole trustee of the Charles M. Holmes Foundation, which owned Falcon Studios, Jock Studios and Mustang Studios, the producers of about $10 million worth of all-male pornography a year

7) In “Your Daily Racism” Time has yet another version of the “it must be racism” theme.

Does that mean race doesn’t matter this year? Hardly. It just matters in a different way. In the past, Republicans often used race to make their opponents seem anti-white. In 2008, with their incessant talk about who loves their country and who doesn’t, McCain and Palin are doing something different: they’re using race to make Obama seem anti-American.

To grasp the difference, imagine if the Democrats had nominated Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. Republicans would have slammed them as profligate, divisive and militant but not as foreign. Even racists couldn’t deny that Jackson and Sharpton are fully American. In fact, because slavery ruptured ancestral ties of language and culture, African Americans often have fewer transnational connections than Americans whose forebears traveled voluntarily to these shores. Our national vernacular is filled with antiblack euphemisms, but cosmopolitan isn’t one of them.

Yet when critics attack Obama, that’s the word that keeps popping up. Rudy Giuliani mentioned it in his convention speech. So has Rush Limbaugh, along with several national conservative columnists. Ever since the primaries, Obama’s detractors have tried to depict him less as threatening to white America than as distant from America itself.

You see, it’s a subtle thing. Making Obama seem “anti-American” is strictly about race and not a fairly typical political gambit. Nah. Politics has NEVER BEFORE had candidates accused of being anti-American. Well, except for Ronald Reagan’s race against Jimmy Carter. And except for some of the ‘92 Clinton references to GWHB. Oh yeah, and the JFK race where people wondered if the Pope would be giving the US President orders. Nah, I guess BO is the first politician to EVER be attacked as “distant from America.” MUST BE RACISM.

8 ) The Washington Times encapsulates some of the recent BO stories.

Something odd is going on. The Obama campaign boasts of a landslide in the making even as his polling lead slips a point or two, and there’s anger bordering on rage when John McCain and Sarah Palin raise questions about Barack Obama’s judgment in his unexplored past in Chicago.

An investigation of ACORN, a cabal of “political activists” hired to register voters in the neighborhoods where few friends of John McCain abide has now spread to 10 states. Investigators discovered that the entire offensive line of the Dallas Cowboys had signed up to vote in Las Vegas, unless it turns out that someone forged their signatures to make a quota. The rules for this game were written in Chicago.

The senator’s campaign only wants to talk about the economy, and who can blame him? Wall Street is tanking to uncharted depths, banking is at a standstill and fear stalks Main Street and all the avenues and boulevards running across it. But Sen. Obama wants certain questions about the economy, and how it got this way, declared off-limits. Harry Reid, the leader of the Democratic majority in the U.S. Senate, declares questions about Franklin Raines, his stewardship of Fannie Mae and his relationship with the senator to be racist because both men “are African-American.”
————–
The unanswered questions are not about crimes, but about his judgment. Just as Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn have never repented for terrorism against their country, the senator has never expressed repentance for his association with them.

After all this time we still don’t know a lot about Sen. Obama’s murky Chicago past, and maybe we won’t until he’s in the White House for a while and the mainstream media looks to actual reporting for its orgasmic thrills.

Yep, yep, yep, and yep.

9) Also in the Times is another piece questioning what Obama said to Iraqi officials during his visit some months ago.

At the same time the Bush administration was negotiating a still elusive agreement to keep the U.S. military in Iraq, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama tried to convince Iraqi leaders in private conversations that the president shouldn’t be allowed to enact the deal without congressional approval.
Mr. Obama’s conversations with the Iraqi leaders, confirmed to The Washington Times by his campaign aides, began just two weeks after he clinched the Democratic presidential nomination in June and stirred controversy over the appropriateness of a White House candidate’s contacts with foreign governments while the sitting president is conducting a war.

Of course, the BO campaign says he was speaking strictly as a US Senator, while the Iraqi official (Mr. Zebari) with whom he spoke got a different impression. But it’s all “he said, he said.”

10) Now for your second helping of “Your Daily Racism.” The NY Post does a long piece on the race card. It claims Democrats have embraced using the race card as part of overall strategy.

It was bound to happen, and so it has: Democrats and their allies are playing the race card.

Big time.
—————-

As for the party itself, no less a luminary than Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid yesterday lit into a radio host who had the temerity to note that former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines has been an adviser to Barack Obama’s campaign.

“The only connection that people could bring up about Raines and Barack Obama,” said Reid, “is that they both are African-American. Other than that there is nothing.”

Actually, The Washington Post has reported that the Obama campaign sought advice from Raines “on mortgage and housing policy matters.”

That may not be the end of the world, but it’s sure not “nothing.”

Then there’s Democratic luminary Barney Frank - a fellow most accomplished at diverting attention from his own sins by indulging in some old-fashioned demagogy.

Which is precisely what he did this week when he charged that GOP criticism of subprime mortgage loans being made to those who couldn’t afford them - a practice he most emphatically encouraged - is racially motivated.

Michelle Malkin(I know, I know) covers some of the same ground, listing some of the new definitions of racism. Here’s the first:

How many racial bogeymen have Obama operatives and sympathetic journalists discovered lurking in “coded language” and attire? Let us count the ways:

* During Tuesday’s presidential debate, John McCain referred to Obama as “that one.” Official Obama press agitator Bill Burton sent off an e-mail blast to reporters: “Did John McCain just refer to Obama as ‘that one’?” Horrors.

Taking their cue from Burton, spooked Obama supporters hyperventilated like teens on the film set of “The Blair Witch Project.” “The racial undertones were subtle but unmistakable,” declared Maya Wiley of the leftist Center for Social Inclusion. “McCain was tapping into a current of superiority among white voters. It was an attempt to ‘otherize’ Obama.”

“Otherize”? Sounds like something you do to your car tires to prepare for winter. UC Berkeley linguistics professor George Lakoff was also haunted by “That One”:

“The phrase was meant to say, ‘You and I are in the same area, but he’s the outsider.’ ”

Memo to McCain: Next time, call him “The One.”

Hey, watch your finances today and get an extra cup of coffee. You’re gonna need it.

Several news commentators pointed out they knew she had the debate in hand when she asked Gwen Ifill if “we could just return to Afghanistan” for a moment. If she was willing to tackle Biden on foreign policy, his supposed strong suit, I’d say the lady’s got a set of brass ones. Good for her. It was widely observed that she kept the veteran Senator on the defensive much of the night and even got under his skin a few times.

Yes, her answers could have been more specific on a couple of topics and she could have attacked Biden more, but then again what points Biden gained for specificity he more than lost because a number of his ‘specifics’ were lies.

Primarily, Biden mischaracterized McCain’s position on the war and surge. McCain has been proven right on the surge, which even Obama has had to admit. Biden denied that Obama said he would meet with Ahmedinajad without preconditions. Obama did famously and naively say this and was attacked for doing so by Biden. He also made false statements about McCain’s health care tax credit, which would more than offset any tax hike. He lied that McCain wanted less regulation when in fact it was John McCain years ago calling for more regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. News commentators cited many more.

I tried to get past the lies Biden told and simply review what appeals to me about McCain/Palin that Obama/Biden just haven’t got. The answer is simple:

Humility.
Gratitude.
Character.

Humility and dignity are not mutually exclusive. It is commendable to both understand the gravitas of the job and express gratitude to the American people for having the deep faith to bestow their ultimate trust upon two people. That is something clearly not lost on John McCain and Sarah Palin. I feel a confidence from them, without arrogance or hubris.

Why is this so important? We already had eight years of an arrogant blockhead in the White House, who thought he was God’s chosen one. Regardless of party, we don’t need another in there with the same ‘I am the Chosen’ attitude.

Most telling, Biden kept harping on the fact that McCain intended to continue Bush’s policies. This is the most egregious falsehood. Obama, in saying he wants to continue Blackwater and have a private security force, touting Bush’s faith based initiatives, reneging on FISA, backpedaling on ‘don’t ask don’t tell, and most recently, illegally trying to squelch dissent in Missouri, to name a few, makes him more like Bush3 than anyone.

I had occasion to be confronted by four sexists yesterday, three males and one female. The words they had for Palin were disgusting. The more the snobs out there choose to insult and rip into her, the more we are reminded of the horrid treatment Senator Clinton received. If you think that is driving anyone into Obama’s arms, you are sadly mistaken.

Whether the lefty elites like it or not, Governor Palin is a feminist, balancing career, marriage and family. Her choices may not be yours, but a woman’s right to choose means exactly that. Period. As Lou Dobbs has pointed out many times of late, Governor Palin lives her principles.

So does McCain. It becomes a little harder to argue with his Iraq policy going forward when both he and Palin have sons actively serving in the military. These are not neo cons or chicken-hawks. John McCain the POW, more than anyone, knows the cost of war. It is also hard to argue with the character of a man who has taken huge risks politically in the name of his principles — something Senator Obama has never done.

Interesting for a conservative, McCain has also stood by openly gay politicians who are friends over the years. Can you imagine Obama doing this?

Both McCain and Palin have repeatedly demonstrated not only willingness, but a track record of working across the aisle, a much needed quality since they will most likely be working with a Democratic congress. From a place of dignity and humility, a President can engage and be engaged by others. This bespeaks a willingness to listen and respect the views of colleagues without belittling the ways of those who are ‘other’ than you.

Palin made very clear last night, and has the record as Governor to back this up, that while she may not agree with certain views, she will respect the law of the land and not legislate or veto away the rights of others.

As Stephen Covey famously wrote, “seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Unfortunately, Senator Obama showed he is sorely lacking in such skills when he made his infamous “bitter voter” comments to his rich San Francisco campaign contributors.

I always wondered why Gore or Kerry didn’t connect with people at their debates and I realized it is in a nutshell why so many Democrats lose – the condescension factor: talking with their noses in the air.

Obama shares this with his unsuccessful predecessor-candidates. No matter what nonsense Donna Brazile wants to spew about the new Democratic Party being more ‘urbane’ and not needing rural voters to win, that is a crock. And everyone knows it. If you can’t speak to the heartland, you ain’t gettin’ to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

At the debate last night, Sarah Palin’s warmth and down to earth connection to the American people was undeniable.

I’d like someone who has lived a little in the trenches, who understands sacrifice and may have a clue as to what the average woman or man on the street is going through at this point in time. Despite their Ivy League educations, this is something I always appreciated about the Clintons – and surely why the Democratic elite always held them in contempt. They have the ability to reach out to the working class voter.

It has long been my experience that those who look at me like a bug under a glass have little understanding of my needs or the urgency of answering them.

It may also explain why Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter are the only two Democrats to have won the White House in the last 40 years – although, unlike Carter, Clinton was a hugely successful President.

In addition to Joe Biden’s truth-lapses – a habit he shares in common with his #1, Barack Obama – what annoyed me about Biden was his flashing that enormous mouth of blistering white teeth to Gwen Ifill when Sarah started to speak. It struck me as a bit condescending – “oh look what the little girl is saying now”.

In recalling Scranton, Wilmington and Home Depot, Biden was working a little too hard to sound like a man of the people, which his slightly plastic appearance due to a seeming eyelift and a trip to “BriteSmile” seemed to belie. That coupled with his ultimate beltway insider status may make people a little less trusting of his let’s bang on the facts message (especially when those “facts” will easily be debunked all over the net and on the campaign trail).

Then again, Obama has held so many flip flopping positions on the issues that anything Biden said last night could have been considered true at some point. The question is – what is true now? We don’t know. He could fire any dart at the dartboard and hit a bull’s eye because the waffling has been endless.

I have no real idea of what Obama would ACTUALLY do in the White House. Do you?

The UK Telegraph today revealed a letter from British Ambassador to the U.S., Sir Nigel Sheinwald to Prime Minister Gordon Brown assessing Senator Obama:

Barack Obama is a “decidedly liberal” senator “who was finding his feet, and then got diverted by his presidential ambitions”…

No kidding. I’d have preferred he “find his feet” first but ambition is all, apparently – ready or not.

Mr. Obama “can seem to sit on the fence, assiduously balancing pros and cons”, Sir Nigel wrote, and “does betray a highly educated and upper middle class mindset”. Charges of elitism “are not entirely unfair” and he is “maybe aloof, insensitive” at times.

Insensitive? Yes, the bug under the glass thing again. Sitting on the fence? That reminds me of Obama’s 130 ‘present’ votes in the State Legislature. Well, there is no voting ‘present’ in the White House.

“He can talk too dispassionately for a national campaign about issues which touch people personally, e.g. his notorious San Francisco comments [in April] about small-town Pennsylvanians ‘clinging’ to guns and religion.”

The stings Senator Obama delivered to many groups who chose not to vote for him in the primaries are not likely to be forgotten at the polls either.

In contrast, John McCain is respectful in his interviews and at every speaking engagement. I still remember a town hall he held months ago when a hostile man questioned him about his positions on Iraq. Senator McCain openly answered the question and then asked if the man wanted to follow up. He did, and John did. Then John asked again – would you like to follow up? They must have gone back and forth five times until the man’s questions were answered to his satisfaction and he sat down. Courage, respect, humility, decency.

Contrast this with a man who questioned Obama at a campaign rally. Obama’s response was, ‘if you don’t like my answer, get another candidate or run for office yourself.’

When gut check time arrives at the polls on November 4th, it will be interesting to see whether the American people feel safer with two candidates who talk to them, rather than at them or over them with noses in the air.

Whether I agree with John McCain and Sarah Palin on all the issues has become less important to me than the fact that I know where they stand and have a pretty good idea of how they would govern in the White House: with determination, humility and openness.

The bobbing and weaving of the Obama/Biden camp leaves me uncertain. What good is someone who agrees me, only to meet with my polar opposite the next day and pretend agreement with them, too?

We all know that McCain/Palin are not my ideal choices. But Hillary is no longer in the race so my hope for a Clinton/Clark ticket is gone for the moment. I do not trust anything that comes out of the Obama campaign, as their positions have changed with the prevailing wind.

Since the Democratic Party is neck deep in the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac scandal. And since Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, as our Party leaders, have shown they are unscrupulous enough to use the current economic suffering of American citizens for political gain, I can no longer vote party. I have to vote character.

And on that score, there is little room for doubt.

In the midst of all of this came an article by wcbstv.com, “Sources: Intense Pressure Led TO Palin UN Snub.” I am SO surprised to hear that, especially given the above-board manner (hahahaha) by which the Democrats have been acting this year - surely they would not force the Jewish groups holding this rally to rescind their invitation! Oh, but yes they would.

Below is the text of the article, but if you want to see a very good video on it, click the link above and there is one in the story:

Hillary Clinton won’t be speaking at Monday’s anti-Iran rally at the United Nations — and neither will Republican Sarah Palin or any other politicians for that matter.

The reason? A heated behind the scenes tug-of-war.

Sources tell CBS 2 HD that a decision to disinvite Palin from the high profile rally after Clinton pulled out in a huff came as the result of intense pressure from Democrats.

“This is insulting. This is embarrassing, especially to Gov. Palin, to me and I think it should be to every single New Yorker,” Assemblyman Dov Hikind, D-Brooklyn, told CBS 2 HD.

Sources say the axes were out for Palin as soon as Sen. Clinton pulled out because she did not want to attend the same event as the Republican vice presidential candidate.

“I have never seen such raw emotion — on both sides,” said someone close to the situation.

The groups sponsoring the rally against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking at the UN were reportedly told, “it could jeopardize their tax exempt status” if they had Palin and not Clinton or Democratic VP candidate Joe Biden on hand.

So all politicians were disinvited, most prominently, Palin.

“It’s an absolute shame that this has happened,” Hikind said. “To threaten organizations … to threaten the Conference of Presidents that if you don’t withdraw the invitation to Gov. Palin we’re going to look into your tax exempt status … that’s McCarthyism.”

Another Jewish group tried to step into the breach by inviting Palin to a different protest a day earlier.

“I’m absolutely appalled at the behavior of the Democrats,” said Bob Kunst of Defenders.net. “I’m a Democrat and for the first time in my life I’m going to vote Republican. I can’t take it anymore.”

As for Sen. Clinton, she brushed right past CBS 2 HD’s Lou Young when he tried to ask her about the issue on Thursday night.

Lou Young: “Were the organizers of Monday’s rally right to depoliticize it?”

Clinton walked past Young, said “Thank you all very much” and started hugging people.

Clinton’s people tell CBS 2 HD she intends to make some statement of support for the protestors. She is also expected to attack Ahmadinejad’s pro-nuke, anti-Israel stance.

Since Gov. Palin was uninvited, she made her remarks available to the New York Sun, if you care to read her remarks.

Here is the LINK to Senator Clinton’s letter to the organizers of the Anti-Iran Rally (damn, I miss hearing this woman, and how I wish she had spoken at this event regardless of Gov. Palin being there. That is just SO Un-Hillary-like. Gee, what are the chances that SHE got the hard-sell, too? I’m gonna bet 100%. Any takers?)

I don’t know when this became the DNC. I really don’t. This, along with all of the other immoral, unethical actions by the DNC this campaign season(previously listed about a gazillion times), along with the news about the source of the Palin rumors, now documented to be an orchestrated event (and covered by Easten McNeal at No Quarter), and one well connected to Obama and the DNC, just boggles the mind. Now, I realize I may have been very naive about the DNC and how it REALLY operates - I know I was shocked to learn that two people in Chuck Schumer’s office created a false credit report as a way to discredit Michael Steele (former Lt. Gov. of MD) just two years ago. But how could it get to this place?

Well, here we are, and where we are is a political party that strong-arms private groups to do its bidding. Great. Never mind that it was a GOOD CAUSE, one about which both Senator Clinton and Governor Palin feel strongly. Never mind that it would have given more POSITIVE coverage to those groups and their issue - the potential problems with Iran in terms of Israel. Now, the “disinvite” is being seen for what it is - and what it is ain’t pretty. Way to go, DNC - winning the hearts and minds of anyone who thinks bullying is the answer. And who is threatened by having two powerful women anywhere in the same vicinity of each other (oh my gosh - a CATfight could break out!! Or, NOT - and that would be WORSE, right?!?). Or is it that the DNC knows people will look at these two women, and know that HILLARY should be on the top of the ticket and not Obama? That SHE is the one who would have made the selection of Gov. Palin a non-starter? Yeah, that sounds about right to me. How about you?

Quite a cast of characters, all with very slanted opinions or activity that appear to be anti-Israel. Apparently we need to worry about Obama’s stance on Israel despite his rhetoric. He had this to say:

“We will also use all elements of American power to pressure Iran,” Obama said. “I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. That starts with aggressive, principled diplomacy without self-defeating preconditions, but with a clear-eyed understanding of our interests. We have no time to waste. We cannot unconditionally rule out an approach that could prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. We have tried limited, piecemeal talks while we outsource the sustained work to our European allies. It is time for the United States to lead. ”

His actions by pulling these particular Republicans as leaders calls in to question whether his words mean anything or was he pandering to the pro-Israel group. The very words he used in his American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) speech may just be rhetoric after all.

Of course we remember he said that he will talk to Ahmadinejad without preconditions. Here are those words in a Marc Ambinder piece. See the section titled SQUARE ONE. Here is Obama’s answer to the question from 2007,

“Would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea?…..”

“I would,” he answered.

See the video:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3Oj7Jn9rv4[/youtube]

And this was written in the editorial piece, apt and fitting:

Mr. Obama has made pro-Israel statements in his campaign. He spoke at the policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Washington and at a synagogue at Boca Raton, Fla., and at Jerusalem itself. What is one to make of it if he is then going to cart out Ms. Hauser and Messrs. Chafee and Leach? At the least, it exhibits a tone-deafness that weakens the argument that Mr. Obama deserves the benefit of the doubt on these matters. If these are the Republicans who are gravitating to Mr. Obama’s campaign, it is an ill omen for the Democrats.

Well Obama, do your words mean anything? Can pro-Israel groups really trust your words? Or is it more pandering and political expediency?

Bring on Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and every other unfriendly world leader and Obama will sit down and chat with them directly. And, according to the Associated Press, “In May, when a McCain adviser proposed a series of pre-convention appearances at town hall meetings, Obama said, ‘I think that’s a great idea…Obviously, we would have to think through the logistics on that, but … if I have the opportunity to debate substantive issues before the voters with John McCain, that’s something that I am going to welcome.’”

Alas, not unlike the Lion from the Wizard of Oz, Obama was just messin’ with us.
Is Obama a Paper Lion, similar to the concept of Paper Tiger? The original use of the term was used by the Chinese to negatively characterize what they saw as imperialistic nations (such as ourselves and the Soviet Union). In 1956 Mao Zedong declared that despite the appearance of power there was nothing to be afraid of. Mao’s application was faulty back then (can you spell “nuclear weapons”?), but it may fit who Obama is now with regards to stepping up to the plate and fulfilling his promises: “Outwardly a tiger, it is made of paper, unable to withstand the wind and the rain.”

I guess it would look too suspect for Obama to duck out of the three traditional post-convention debates, that is, if you can call asking canned questions (some of which are invariably stupid) with tightly timed answers and no opportunity for sustained interaction “debates.” (FYI, those dates are September 26th, October 7th, and October 15th.)

In the meantime we will just have to keep guessing who Obama really is and what it is he firmly stands for.

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