She certainly should be finally and permanently "retired" from the White House Briefing Room for these charming comments:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NDRiMzU4ZTVlN2UwYzliNDE4YWJlM2Y3YzUyYTQxMjQ=
Helen Thomas to Jews: 'Get the Hell Out of Palestine' [Daniel Foster]
Helen Thomas had a message for Israel during a Jewish Heritage Celebration held at the White House on May 27:
“Get the hell out of Palestine. Remember these people are occupied, and it’s their land.”
Where should the Jews go, Helen?
“Go home,” to “Poland and Germany.”
Give Peace a Chance [Mark Steyn]
In contrast to the general directions of Helen ("Go back to Germany and Poland")
Thomas, the peace-lovers aboard the Mavi Marmara were more specific:
In response to a radio transmission by the Israeli Navy warning the Gaza flotilla that they are approaching a naval blockade, passengers of the Mavi Marmara respond, "Shut up, go back to Auschwitz" and "We're helping Arabs go against the US, don't forget 9/11".
Such amusing conversationalists.
These are not "humanitarian" "peace" "activists". These are, in any objective sense, a party to the conflict. They're not trying to bring "peace", they're trying to help their side win. That's their choice, and may the best man win, but the media collusion in presenting them as "humanitarian" "aid" workers is Orwellian - and all the more so in a world in which the Turkish Prime Minister accuses Israel of killing children on the beach and in which the doyenne of the White House press corps no longer recognizes Israel's "right to exist".
Now the Israeli navy is beseeching the MV Rachel Corrie (an Irish ship funded by the Malaysian government) to land in the port of Ashdod, where the authorities will deliver the (entirely unneeded) "humanitarian aid" to Gaza. The Rachel Corrie is flipping 'em the bird and saying "Gaza, here we come."
This ship is merely the latest memorial to Miss Corrie, a foolish young American killed while enjoying the frisson of vacationing in someone else's despair. There's never been a better time to read Tom Gross' piece on "The Forgotten Rachels":
Rachel Thaler, aged 16, was blown up at a pizzeria in an Israeli shopping mall. She died after an 11-day struggle for life following a suicide bomb attack on a crowd of teenagers on 16 February 2002.
Rachel Corrie's diaries have been published in book form, turned into a hit London play at the Royal Court, and her name has been cited in The Guardian alone hundreds of times ("Remembering Rachel", "Rachel's War", "Rachel Corrie: A True Martyr", "The Lonesome Death Of Rachel Corrie", "Rachel's Words Are A Spur To Action", etc).
By contrast, Rachel Thaler was a British subject. Yet not a single British journalist has ever mentioned her, profiled her, interviewed her parents or other British relatives, or published her diary in a Fleet Street newspaper - except for a single solitary mention by the great (Jewish) comedienne Maureen Lipman noting that nobody ever mentioned her, or the other victims of Palestinian terrorism.
Ah, but Israel is an "apartheid state", and the Palestinians are the Europeans' unending adopt-a-Third-World-pet project. I write in the new National Review (on sale now-ish) that, if old-school judenhass was a by-product of more or less traditional racism and conventional nationalism, the new judenhass advances under the cover of "anti-racism" and "multiculturalism". The oldest hatred didn't get that way without the ability to adapt.
Re ‘Give Peace a Chance’ [Jay Nordlinger]
I so appreciated this post — would add a couple of details. Onboard the MV Rachel Corrie is Denis Halliday, the U.N. man who was in charge of the Oil-for-Food program in Iraq. He resigned, saying U.N. sanctions were “genocide.” He is not the type to be concerned about what the likes of Saddam Hussein do. Also onboard the Corrie is Mairead Corrigan Maguire, who was a co-recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for 1976. She and Betty Williams won for opposing the violence in Northern Ireland: It was a worthy award.
Maguire is an old anti-Israel hand. She accuses Israel of running an “apartheid system.” She was hit by a rubber bullet when protesting the Israelis’ security fence. She has made a pet of Mordechai Vanunu, the man who spilled Israel’s nuclear secrets: met him upon his release from prison. She accuses the Israelis of “ethnic cleansing.” Blah, blah, blah. You know the type: Maguire is hard-core, like Helen Thomas.
And her views of America are essentially those of Noam Chomsky. You can see this, hear this, in most any of her speeches. She even opposed the Nobel prize to Barack Obama, vociferously! She said, “Giving this award to the leader of the most militarized country in the world, which has taken the human family against its will to war, will be rightly seen by many people around the world as a reward for his country’s aggression and domination.”
And her co-laureate, Betty Williams? You may remember her from the George W. Bush years. In 2006, she told Australian schoolchildren, “I have a very hard time with this word ‘non-violence,’ because I don’t believe that I am nonviolent. Right now, I would love to kill George W. Bush. I don’t know how I ever got a Nobel Peace Prize . . .”A one-time deal, a crazed moment? Well, she performed an encore the next year, in Dallas, speaking to the International Women’s Peace Conference: “I mean, right now, I could kill George Bush, no problem. No, I don’t mean that. I mean, how could you nonviolently kill somebody? I would love to be able to do that.” Big laughs — from her and the audience.
Charming, these Irish ladies who win the Nobel Peace Prize.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Friday, June 4, 2010
Sir Jerk - Paul McCartney is in the East Room of the White House
Sir Jerk? [Jay Nordlinger]
So, Paul McCartney is in the East Room of the White House, with President and Mrs. Obama. He is being fêted because he has just won an award from the Library of Congress. He caps the evening with this remark – this is his farewell, his send-off: “After the last eight years, it’s good to have a president that knows what a library is.”
Can anyone tell me why people are such schmucks? Why they are so graceless and clueless and nasty? I mean, Paul McCartney’s like the richest, most popular, most honored musician in the world. Does he not have it in him to behave like a gentleman — or at least a non-boor — while he’s being celebrated at the White House? Does he have to be the Wanda Sykes of popular music? Is it not possible to love Obama, as McCartney does, without hating Bush — or at least insulting him on a high, non-political occasion?
I don’t care that “Penny Lane” is a pretty tune, Paul McCartney is a horse’s butt. Let me amend that: He acted like one, on Wednesday night.
Re ‘Sir Jerk?’ [Jay Nordlinger]
Much mail concerning Paul McCartney’s insult of Bush while he, the Beatle, was being honored at the White House. (The relevant post is this.)
The mail comes in essentially three categories:
1) Doesn’t McCartney understand that Bush is a voracious reader who’s married to a librarian? That doesn’t matter. What matters is, “Bush dumb,” the eternal mantra of the (dumb) Left.
2) Even worse than McCartney’s insult was that the Obama crowd laughed like junior-high hyenas. Yes, this was surprising from such a classy bunch. I mean, they’ve treated their predecessors with such grace since they took office two Januarys ago.
3) And this, from Bush-hating correspondents: But don’t you realize how stupid Bush is? How could McCartney help himself? Well, that settles the matter, doesn’t it?
Re: Re: ‘Sir Jerk?’ [Daniel Foster]
Jay, you're not the only one who was offended. John Boehner is asking McCartney for an apology:
"Like millions of other Americans, I have always had a good impression of Paul McCartney and thought of him as a classy guy, but I was surprised and disappointed by the lack of grace and respect he displayed at the White House," the Ohio Republican said. . . . "I hope he'll apologize to the American people for his conduct which demeaned him, the White House and President Obama."
Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith added the comments were "particularly offensive" because "the [former] president and first lady (who is actually a librarian) did so much for literacy."
So, Paul McCartney is in the East Room of the White House, with President and Mrs. Obama. He is being fêted because he has just won an award from the Library of Congress. He caps the evening with this remark – this is his farewell, his send-off: “After the last eight years, it’s good to have a president that knows what a library is.”
Can anyone tell me why people are such schmucks? Why they are so graceless and clueless and nasty? I mean, Paul McCartney’s like the richest, most popular, most honored musician in the world. Does he not have it in him to behave like a gentleman — or at least a non-boor — while he’s being celebrated at the White House? Does he have to be the Wanda Sykes of popular music? Is it not possible to love Obama, as McCartney does, without hating Bush — or at least insulting him on a high, non-political occasion?
I don’t care that “Penny Lane” is a pretty tune, Paul McCartney is a horse’s butt. Let me amend that: He acted like one, on Wednesday night.
Re ‘Sir Jerk?’ [Jay Nordlinger]
Much mail concerning Paul McCartney’s insult of Bush while he, the Beatle, was being honored at the White House. (The relevant post is this.)
The mail comes in essentially three categories:
1) Doesn’t McCartney understand that Bush is a voracious reader who’s married to a librarian? That doesn’t matter. What matters is, “Bush dumb,” the eternal mantra of the (dumb) Left.
2) Even worse than McCartney’s insult was that the Obama crowd laughed like junior-high hyenas. Yes, this was surprising from such a classy bunch. I mean, they’ve treated their predecessors with such grace since they took office two Januarys ago.
3) And this, from Bush-hating correspondents: But don’t you realize how stupid Bush is? How could McCartney help himself? Well, that settles the matter, doesn’t it?
Re: Re: ‘Sir Jerk?’ [Daniel Foster]
Jay, you're not the only one who was offended. John Boehner is asking McCartney for an apology:
"Like millions of other Americans, I have always had a good impression of Paul McCartney and thought of him as a classy guy, but I was surprised and disappointed by the lack of grace and respect he displayed at the White House," the Ohio Republican said. . . . "I hope he'll apologize to the American people for his conduct which demeaned him, the White House and President Obama."
Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith added the comments were "particularly offensive" because "the [former] president and first lady (who is actually a librarian) did so much for literacy."
Tuesday, June 1, 2010
The virulent worldwide reaction to Israeli’s handling of the Gaza flotilla
The Turkish Government as Global Arbiter of Ethnic Violence [Victor Davis Hanson]
The virulent worldwide reaction to Israeli’s handling of the Gaza flotilla has been quite instructive. The bankrupt Greeks, for example, are taking a holiday from railing at the Germans to demonstrate in solidarity with the Turkish-organized Gaza effort, which puts them on the same side as those whose government supports the occupation of much of Greek-speaking Cyprus and its divided capital.
No one in Europe worried much about the constant shower of missiles from Gaza in the past. No one in Europe said a word when North Korea torpedoed and slaughtered South Koreans on the high seas. No one objected when the Iranians hijacked a British ship and humiliated the hostages.
We ourselves seem to be getting a sort of novel pass for executing scores of suspected terrorists — and anyone in their vicinity — in our new, stepped-up Predator drone assassinations.
But the Western and Islamic worlds have a preexisting furor at the Jewish state that can be tapped at will by almost any pro-radical-Palestinian group clever enough to do proper P.R. after a desired asymmetrical confrontation. The fallout from Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount, the distortions around the 2002 terrorist storming of the Church of Nativity, the 2006 Lebanon war — over time, these incidents do their part, in weird fashion, to incur hatred for a liberal democracy while creating sympathy for a theocratic thugocracy like Hamas.
What explains this preexisting hatred, which ensures denunciation of Israel in the most rabid – or, to use the politically correct parlance, “disproportionate,” terms? It is not about “occupied land,” given the millions of square miles worldwide that are presently occupied, from Georgia to Cyprus to Tibet. It is not a divided capital — Nicosia is walled off. It is not an overreaction in the use of force per se — the Russians flattened Grozny and killed tens of thousands while the world snoozed. And it cannot be the scale of violence, given what we see hourly in Pakistan, Darfur, and the Congo. And, given the Armenian, Greek, and Kurdish histories (and reactions to them), the currently outraged Turkish government is surely not a credible referent on the topic of disproportionate violence.
Perhaps the outrage reflects simple realpolitik — 350 million Arab Muslims versus 7 million Israelis. Perhaps it is oil: half the world’s reserves versus Israel’s nada. Perhaps it is the fear of terror: draw a cartoon or write a novel offending Islam, and you must go into hiding; defame Jews and earn accolades. Perhaps it is anti-Semitism, which is as fashionable on the academic Left as it used to be among the neanderthal Right.
Perhaps there is also a new sense that the United States at last has fallen into line with the Western consensus, and so is hardly likely to play the old lone-wolf supporter of Israel in the press or at the U.N.
At this point, it doesn’t much matter — as this latest hysterical reaction reminds us, much of the world not only sides with Israel’s enemies but sides with them to such a degree as to suggest that, in any existential moment to come, the world either will be indifferent or will be on the side of the side of Israeli’s enemies.
Quite frightening, when you think of it.
Krauthammer
's Take [NRO Staff]
On the Israeli raid on the Gaza-bound flotilla:
The fundamental deception here is the use of the word "humanitarian." . . . Humanitarians don't wield iron clubs, and [they] would have killed the Israelis had the Israelis not drawn their pistols in self-defense.
But there‘s a larger issue here. What exactly is the humanitarian crisis that the flotilla was actually addressing? There is none. There’s no one starving in Gaza. The Gazans have been supplied with food and social services, education, by the U.N., by UNWRA, for 60 years, in part with American tax money.
Second, when there are humanitarian needs, the Israelis allow — every day — food and medicine overland into Gaza. The reason that it did not want to allow this flotilla is because, as the spokesman for the flotilla said herself, this was not about humanitarian relief. It was about breaking the blockade.
And the reason the Israelis have a blockade is because they only want to allow humanitarian supplies and not weaponry. Look, the proof of that is the fact that if you look at a map of Gaza, you'll see that Israelis only control three sides of this rectangle. There’s a fourth side on the Egyptian side. So it is an Egyptian-Israeli blockade.
The Egyptians have the same problem with Gaza. People accuse Israeli of the blockade [saying it’s because] because they're racist, they’re anti-Muslim, anti-Arab. The Egyptians are Muslim and Arab and they’ve gone to war three times on behalf of the Palestinians. So why do they have exactly the same blockade? Because Gaza is run by Hamas, a terror entity that wants to import weaponry and resume the war against Israel.
The man who made the announcement that we saw earlier, explaining the commando raid is the defense minister of Israel. He‘s not a right-winger. He‘s not Likud. He’s Ehud Barak, who’s the leader of Labor, the party of Yitzhak Rabin, Golda Meir, the party of the left, and the man who ten years ago this summer offered the Palestinians a peace agreement that would have
[provided] a Palestinian state, division of Jerusalem, and an end of the conflict.
The Palestinians said no. And Gaza two years ago declared war on Israel. That's why you have a blockade. . . .
If these people had wanted humanitarian aid, Israel offered to take the ships into Haifa, peacefully, unload all the stuff inside and to allow all the humanitarian aid immediately into Gaza, all the food and medicine. And it was refused because it was meant to be a provocation and to create an incident.
The virulent worldwide reaction to Israeli’s handling of the Gaza flotilla has been quite instructive. The bankrupt Greeks, for example, are taking a holiday from railing at the Germans to demonstrate in solidarity with the Turkish-organized Gaza effort, which puts them on the same side as those whose government supports the occupation of much of Greek-speaking Cyprus and its divided capital.
No one in Europe worried much about the constant shower of missiles from Gaza in the past. No one in Europe said a word when North Korea torpedoed and slaughtered South Koreans on the high seas. No one objected when the Iranians hijacked a British ship and humiliated the hostages.
We ourselves seem to be getting a sort of novel pass for executing scores of suspected terrorists — and anyone in their vicinity — in our new, stepped-up Predator drone assassinations.
But the Western and Islamic worlds have a preexisting furor at the Jewish state that can be tapped at will by almost any pro-radical-Palestinian group clever enough to do proper P.R. after a desired asymmetrical confrontation. The fallout from Sharon’s visit to the Temple Mount, the distortions around the 2002 terrorist storming of the Church of Nativity, the 2006 Lebanon war — over time, these incidents do their part, in weird fashion, to incur hatred for a liberal democracy while creating sympathy for a theocratic thugocracy like Hamas.
What explains this preexisting hatred, which ensures denunciation of Israel in the most rabid – or, to use the politically correct parlance, “disproportionate,” terms? It is not about “occupied land,” given the millions of square miles worldwide that are presently occupied, from Georgia to Cyprus to Tibet. It is not a divided capital — Nicosia is walled off. It is not an overreaction in the use of force per se — the Russians flattened Grozny and killed tens of thousands while the world snoozed. And it cannot be the scale of violence, given what we see hourly in Pakistan, Darfur, and the Congo. And, given the Armenian, Greek, and Kurdish histories (and reactions to them), the currently outraged Turkish government is surely not a credible referent on the topic of disproportionate violence.
Perhaps the outrage reflects simple realpolitik — 350 million Arab Muslims versus 7 million Israelis. Perhaps it is oil: half the world’s reserves versus Israel’s nada. Perhaps it is the fear of terror: draw a cartoon or write a novel offending Islam, and you must go into hiding; defame Jews and earn accolades. Perhaps it is anti-Semitism, which is as fashionable on the academic Left as it used to be among the neanderthal Right.
Perhaps there is also a new sense that the United States at last has fallen into line with the Western consensus, and so is hardly likely to play the old lone-wolf supporter of Israel in the press or at the U.N.
At this point, it doesn’t much matter — as this latest hysterical reaction reminds us, much of the world not only sides with Israel’s enemies but sides with them to such a degree as to suggest that, in any existential moment to come, the world either will be indifferent or will be on the side of the side of Israeli’s enemies.
Quite frightening, when you think of it.
Krauthammer
's Take [NRO Staff]
On the Israeli raid on the Gaza-bound flotilla:
The fundamental deception here is the use of the word "humanitarian." . . . Humanitarians don't wield iron clubs, and [they] would have killed the Israelis had the Israelis not drawn their pistols in self-defense.
But there‘s a larger issue here. What exactly is the humanitarian crisis that the flotilla was actually addressing? There is none. There’s no one starving in Gaza. The Gazans have been supplied with food and social services, education, by the U.N., by UNWRA, for 60 years, in part with American tax money.
Second, when there are humanitarian needs, the Israelis allow — every day — food and medicine overland into Gaza. The reason that it did not want to allow this flotilla is because, as the spokesman for the flotilla said herself, this was not about humanitarian relief. It was about breaking the blockade.
And the reason the Israelis have a blockade is because they only want to allow humanitarian supplies and not weaponry. Look, the proof of that is the fact that if you look at a map of Gaza, you'll see that Israelis only control three sides of this rectangle. There’s a fourth side on the Egyptian side. So it is an Egyptian-Israeli blockade.
The Egyptians have the same problem with Gaza. People accuse Israeli of the blockade [saying it’s because] because they're racist, they’re anti-Muslim, anti-Arab. The Egyptians are Muslim and Arab and they’ve gone to war three times on behalf of the Palestinians. So why do they have exactly the same blockade? Because Gaza is run by Hamas, a terror entity that wants to import weaponry and resume the war against Israel.
The man who made the announcement that we saw earlier, explaining the commando raid is the defense minister of Israel. He‘s not a right-winger. He‘s not Likud. He’s Ehud Barak, who’s the leader of Labor, the party of Yitzhak Rabin, Golda Meir, the party of the left, and the man who ten years ago this summer offered the Palestinians a peace agreement that would have
[provided] a Palestinian state, division of Jerusalem, and an end of the conflict.
The Palestinians said no. And Gaza two years ago declared war on Israel. That's why you have a blockade. . . .
If these people had wanted humanitarian aid, Israel offered to take the ships into Haifa, peacefully, unload all the stuff inside and to allow all the humanitarian aid immediately into Gaza, all the food and medicine. And it was refused because it was meant to be a provocation and to create an incident.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Obama the Incompetent (or the Emperor's New Clothes)
Even the MSM is wising up to the Teleprompter President: Incompetent, Arrogant, Not up to the Task. Does he even care ?
The BP Oil Spill & the Joe Sestak cover up. What a combo !
Michael Barone: Obama - Incompetent and Ideological http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/obama_incompetent_and_ideological_xhY0m0S1zSF7YyLaK8WttJ
Peggy Noonan: http://wizbangblog.com/content/2010/05/29/peggy-noonan-nails-it-he-was-supposed-to-be-competent.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WizbangFullFeed+(Wizbang+Full+Feed)
Rich Lowry: On the Sestak bribe / coverup matter w/ a smattering of Bill Clinton
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/psst_buddy_want_legally_murky_not_CNy1PjxaRliiVSytXYj6SL
Rich Lowry: Obama Drowning in the BP Oil Spill http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/drowning_in_the_spill_IPbNBdPAo3Ua4QYxTgW2pI
The BP Oil Spill & the Joe Sestak cover up. What a combo !
Michael Barone: Obama - Incompetent and Ideological http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/obama_incompetent_and_ideological_xhY0m0S1zSF7YyLaK8WttJ
Peggy Noonan: http://wizbangblog.com/content/2010/05/29/peggy-noonan-nails-it-he-was-supposed-to-be-competent.php?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WizbangFullFeed+(Wizbang+Full+Feed)
Rich Lowry: On the Sestak bribe / coverup matter w/ a smattering of Bill Clinton
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/psst_buddy_want_legally_murky_not_CNy1PjxaRliiVSytXYj6SL
Rich Lowry: Obama Drowning in the BP Oil Spill http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/drowning_in_the_spill_IPbNBdPAo3Ua4QYxTgW2pI
Israel again under attack for defending its sovereignty - Gaza naval clash
It was like a well-planned lynch,” one IDF officer said. “These people were anything but peace activists.”
Gaza flotilla was warned for many hours to stand down; but they came for confrontation.
In the end, after all, the flotilla is just another chapter in an int'l campaign to chip away at Israel’s legitimate right to defend itself.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=176936
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=176970
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=177019
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=177040
No doubt, Obama and State Dept. will echo the European weenies and combe down hard on Israel, which showed remarkable restraint; and not place blame where it belongs - on the death cult terroirst supporters who only in Bizarro World would be called Peace Activists.
Gaza flotilla was warned for many hours to stand down; but they came for confrontation.
In the end, after all, the flotilla is just another chapter in an int'l campaign to chip away at Israel’s legitimate right to defend itself.
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=176936
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=176970
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=177019
http://www.jpost.com/Israel/Article.aspx?id=177040
No doubt, Obama and State Dept. will echo the European weenies and combe down hard on Israel, which showed remarkable restraint; and not place blame where it belongs - on the death cult terroirst supporters who only in Bizarro World would be called Peace Activists.
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