The Politics of Immigration

Immigration reform is going to be a major, major issue in the upcoming elections. How it is handled and how it is spun will decide the fate of both parties.

Salena Zito in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review makes several interesting points.

First,

Immigration reform is the wedge issue for the midterm elections, escalating to new heights with all the grace of a wedgie gone atomic. (You know the kind, where someone's boxers are unnaturally lifted above his shoulder blades.)
The in-your-face May Day rallies last Monday were the moment it went atomic.

Second,

This country is staring down the second-largest wave of immigrants to hit its shores since the early 20th century. Many argue that the process to legally enter our country is burdensome and does not reflect labor needs -- ignoring the basic economic rules of supply and demand.

While that may be true, it still does not give anyone a free pass. We are a rule-of-law nation, and if we forget that then we should forget our little republican experiment and become France.

The immigrants who entered our country 100 years ago were just as poor, just as unskilled and just as motivated for a better life as our southern-border migrants.

Third:

But the glaring difference is that the first wave came to be part of this country. After their little May Day march, you get the feeling the new immigrants are coming to take over the country.

Mark Steyn: Moussaoui gets life, the terrorists win

Steyn does it again:

"America, you lose," said Zacarias Moussaoui as he was led away from the court last week.

Hard to disagree. Not just because he'll be living a long life at taxpayers' expense. He'd have had a good stretch of that even if he'd been "sentenced to death," which in America means you now spend more years sitting on Death Row exhausting your appeals than the average "life" sentence in Europe. America "lost" for a more basic reason: turning a war into a court case and upgrading the enemy to a defendant ensures you pretty much lose however it turns out. And the notion, peddled by some sappy member of the ghastly 9/11 Commission on one of the cable yakfests last week, that jihadists around the world are marveling at the fairness of the U.S. justice system, is preposterous. The leisurely legal process Moussaoui enjoyed lasted longer than America's participation in the Second World War. Around the world, everybody's enjoying a grand old laugh at the U.S. justice system.

Read the whole thing.

Liberals on How We Should Live

From Joe's Dartblog

A funny thing about liberals, especially when they stray off the Big Government pathway and into the tall, tall grass of left-wing energy policy, is that at their core they are conservative. Very, very conservative. Nuclear power? Too newfangled. Coal, oil? Instruments of the devil himself. Wind? Not in my gorgeous backyard, you don’t. Let’s just conserve. Let’s do less, work less, move less, hire less, build less. Let’s take it slow. And I thought of this strange little truth when I read the opening paragraph of the top post on the Daily Kos website, which I’ll reprint below because I suspect you, reader, will feel the very same ominous gut howl that I did when I realized where ‘DarkSyde’ must be going with this:

(click on the link)

McGovern Heckles Rumsfeld

This is what the AP story said:

Anti-war protesters repeatedly interrupted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld during a speech Thursday and one man, a former CIA analyst, accused him in a question-and-answer session of lying about Iraq prewar intelligence.
“Why did you lie to get us into a war that caused these kind of casualties and was not necessary?” asked Ray McGovern, the former analyst….

When security guards tried removing McGovern, the analyst, during his persistent questions of Rumsfeld, the defense secretary told them to let him stay. The two continued to spar. “You’re getting plenty of play,” Rumsfeld told McGovern, who is an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq.

Here's more on Mr. McGovern:

Dana Milbank at John Conyers’s kangaroo court impeachment hearings — already in progress:

The session took an awkward turn when witness Ray McGovern, a former intelligence analyst, declared that the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by administration “neocons” so “the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world.” He said that Israel should not be considered an ally and that Bush was doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
“Israel is not allowed to be brought up in polite conversation,” McGovern said. “The last time I did this, the previous director of Central Intelligence called me anti-Semitic.”

Jacob Laksin of FrontPage has more:

McGovern was not above retailing anti-Israel conspiracy theories. Hence he claimed, inter alia, that an Israeli company had advanced warning of the 9/11 attacks—an accusation echoed in literature passed out by Democratic activists at the hearing.

And more still:

That Israel pulls the strings of American foreign policy is not the only conspiracy theory propounded by McGovern. While maintaining that the Bush administration manipulated intelligence information to justify the war against Iraq, McGovern has allowed for the possibility that WMD may be found in Iraq. But he hastens to add that any weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq will likely have been “planted” by American forces. “Some of my colleagues are virtually certain that there will be some weapons of mass destruction found, even though they might have to be planted,” he told Agence French Presse in April of 2003, darkly insisting that “that would justify the charge of a threat against the U.S. or anyone else.”

If McGovern’s name sounds familiar, it should: he’s been popping up on TV and in newspaper articles lately as one of the media’s go-to guys for quotes defending accused CIA leaker Mary McCarthy. Evidently, believing that Jews have their hands up the back of a U.S. puppet government isn’t quite the mainstream credibility-killer it once was.
But there’s more still.

McGovern belongs to a group of ex-intel officials known as Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, or VIPS. VIPS is infamous for — no, I’m not kidding — encouraging intelligence operatives to undermine the Bush administration by breaking their confidentiality agreements and leaking information. As McGovern himself put it in a September 2004 op-ed, “[l]eaking can be patriotic.” Here’s Rick Moran’s lengthy post about VIPS from April 25th speculating about the group’s possible role in the flood of leaks Porter Goss is hard at work trying to stop.

Italian Communists Assist Iran in Killing Italian Soldiers

But don't call them unpatriotic.

From Gateway Pundit:

An article on L’Opinione reports (in Italian) that anti-globalization and communist groups based in Italy, among which is the infamous “anti-imperialist camp” (that collecting “Euros for the Iraqi resistance”) coordinated with Islamic terrorists in Iraq to attack our troops in Nassiryiah. The Italian intelligence heard phone conversations in which the red fundamentalists instructed the Islamists about how and when to kill our soldiers. It seems that the attack was organized in order to pressure Mr. Prodi to speed the pullout from Iraq.

When the bodies of the three fallen heroes were on display in a governmental palace in Rome, the dead’s colleagues (Carabinieri) were unwilling to accept the "condolances" from Prodi and his Leftist colleagues.

Affecting the Climate Change Report

From TCS Daily:

Something stunningly sensible has just occurred in the field of climate change research. But what might actually induce gasps of amazement is that that something has been done by the US Government. And it is already causing shock and dismay among tree huggers and Gaia worshippers everywhere, however simple, elegant and even desirable this something is.


By way of background, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is the UN-sponsored organization looking into climate change on our behalves. We had the Third Report from them back a few years ago and it was that report that became the impetus for the great global warming outcry -- bringing the whole subject to fore of our collective consciousness. Now, it's time for the Fourth Report to be compiled; obviously science has not stood still in recent years. In fact, given the money and effort being expended on this subject, we'd rather hope it hadn't. That Fourth Report is due to be published next year.


OK, so, fine, the process goes on apace and what's so remarkable about that? Well, the draft report has historically been kept secret. Sooper-seekkrit. You see, the scientists (and the rather more political creatures who write the summaries) want to be able to work in peace and deliver the report at once in a blaze of publicity. So what has the US Government gone and done? Posted a draft of it on the Internet! (Right here).


Now, admittedly, you do have to apply for a password to get onto the site, but I can assure you that it's set up as an automatic function and if the choice of password that I got is any indication we're all going to be getting exactly the same one.

Mark Steyn: Worshipping at the church of Tim Hortons

In case you are not Canadian, Tim Horton’s is a Canadian donut shop chain, much like Dunkin Donuts. Mark Steyn dissects, as only he can, an article in the Toronto Star that uses Tim Horton’s as a metaphor to differentiate between Canadians and American. As usual, Steyn is deadly, and funny:

The other week, the Toronto Star assigned Kenneth Kidd to do a big story on Tim Hortons as an icon of Canadian identity. This was a couple of days before that odd incident with the fellow going into the men's room and blowing himself into a big bunch of Timbits, so nothing tricky was required, just the usual maple boosterism.

And naturally the first thing Kidd did was call up the Canadian media's Mister Rent-A-Quote, Michael Adams, the author of Fire And Ice and American Backlash, and a man who can be relied upon to provide some sociological context to the lamest premise.
Mr. Adams evidently thought about the old doughnut-chain thing for a nanosecond and then slotted it effortlessly into his grand universal theory about the difference in American and Canadian "values." Canadians are communal and gregarious, while Americans are paranoid and cowering in terror behind the gates of their stockades. "Americans aspire to independence," he told the Star's man. "Their model is to drive out of town, Gary Cooper with Grace Kelly, and get on their ranch and she's in the kitchen and having babies and he's standing at the ranch gate with a gun, saying, 'no trespassing.' "

'Really? Is that in the director's cut? No matter. This turned out to be just the sort of thing Kenneth Kidd needed for the piece and he ran with it: "Canadians, by contrast, are far less fearful," he decides. "Americans now increasingly use churches as their replacement for a sense of community lost to long working hours and lengthy commutes."

I don't know if, in the course of their research, Messrs. Kidd and Adams ever visited any "communities" -- in, say, New England, or old England, or Belgium, or Slovenia, or even Canada. But, if they did, they might have noticed that you drive through the outskirts of the "community," past the various "dwelling units," and arrive at the centre of the "community" -- often called a "village green" or a "town square" -- and smack dab at the centre of the centre you'll see a big building with a cross on it, and perhaps a sign saying "St. George's Parish Church. Consecrated 1352." Nonetheless, undaunted, two grown men are willing to argue in the Toronto Star that Americans have to make do with going to church because they've lost all sense of community.

But not in Canada. "We don't go to church as much on Sundays," says Adams. "We go shopping and we go to Tim's." Gotcha. Americans are forced to worship Christ, whereas Canadians are free to worship crullers.

Read the whole thing … it gets better.

Harvard Loves a Thug ... Radical Chic On Tour

From the NY Post by Deborah Orin:

May 1, 2006 -- HARVARD University has a bizarre idea of how to advance the education of its grads: Instruct them to bow down to North Ko rea's paranoid dictators and show proper "respect" for the Axis of Evil.
It's the ultimate in radical Stalinist chic - the Harvard Alumni Association's $636-a-night totalitarian luxury tour of a rogue nation where thousands are deliberately starved to death.

"Demonstrations of respect for the country's late leader, Kim Il Sung, and for the current leader, Kim Jong Il, are important," instructs the Harvard Alumni Association's tour memo.

"You will be expected to bow as a gesture of respect at the statue of Kim Il Sung and at his mausoleum."

Harvard even tries to pretend that bowing down to thugs is perfectly normal - explaining that it's because "North Korea, like every country, has its own unique protocols."

Well, yes, that certainly is a charming use of euphemism to cover up an ugly and unique reality - since North Korea is not "like every country."

North Korea's "protocols" feature massive human-rights abuses, deliberate famine, concentration camps, religious persecution, gas chambers, likely genocide and trafficking in women and children.

Read the whole thing. It's not just Harvard. These tours are also in the works for Columbia, Princeton, Duke, the National Trust, MIT, and the University of California-Berkeley.

Day by Day 2

Day by Day

Toon: CNN

Townhall: University presidents battle for honors in spinelessness

It's time for this column to announce its Sheldon Award, given annually to the university president who does the most to look the other way when free speech is under assault on campus. As all Sheldon fans know, the prize is a statuette that looks something like the Oscar, except that the Oscar shows a man with no face looking straight ahead, whereas the Sheldon shows a man with no spine looking the other way. The award is named for Sheldon Hackney, former president of the University of Pennsylvania and a modern legend in looking the other way.

[snip...read the whole thing]

President V. Lane Rawlins burst onto the Sheldon scene when his university, Washington State, organized and financed the disruption of a controversial student play. FIRE showed that the university had paid for the tickets of students who shouted down the actors and stopped the performance. The play, "Passion of the Musical" by Chris Lee, was a satire starring Jesus and Lucifer among others. It managed to offend gays, Jews, blacks, Christians and other groups on campus. Rawlins defended the disrupters, saying they had "exercised their rights of free speech in a very responsible manner." Moist-eyed Sheldon judges said admiringly, "Anyone who defends the stopping of a play as a free speech right, and finances the operation, has our full attention."

Rawlins broadened his Sheldon appeal in the highly publicized case of student Ed Swan, who was threatened with expulsion from the Washington State teacher-education program after he expressed conservative religious and political views. Swan was told he could stay if he underwent mandatory diversity training and special faculty scrutiny. Instead, he called FIRE. Rawlins and the university backed down.

Another heavyweight Sheldon contender is the Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, president of DePaul, a Catholic university in Chicago. Though in office only 22 months, Holtschneider has already presided over three Sheldon-attracting controversies:

A veteran, part-time teacher with a good record, Thomas Klocek, was suspended without a hearing after a verbal run-in with pro-Palestinian students at a school fair. He refused an order to apologize, and balked at the university's plan to put a monitor in his classes. Then he sued.

The college Republicans were found guilty of violating a campus prohibition against "propaganda" after handing out fliers criticizing an upcoming lecture by radical professor Ward Churchill.

Sponsors of a mock bake sale satirizing affirmative action were hauled on the carpet. The were found not guilty of harassment, but then censured because the university said their application for table space was faulty. Holtschneider denounced the sale as "an affront to DePaul's values of respect and dignity."

Judges agreed they had never seen two candidates as eminently qualified as Rawlins and Holtschneider. Calling the pair "the Ruth and Gehrig of modern Sheldonism," the judges awarded the golden no-spine statuette to both. Congratulations, Sheldon laureates 2006.

United 93

Vanderleun reviews the movie:

Instead, I like to think that the men and women of United 93 had their souls set upon, in those last moments, the refusal to die as passive victims with seatbelts fastened as the monsters in the cockpit pushed their evil mission to its appointed end.

In a film of brief but telling moments, there's one moment towards the end where you see one man reach down and remove his seatbelt. In that moment you can sense that he goes from being a passive victim to a man who has decided to stand up and engage the evil that has taken control of his life; to take the controls back from thugs and the cut-throats and the mumbling fanatics of a wretched and burnt-out god.

John Kenneth Galbraith Is Dead

From A Stitch in Haste:

Many reformers -- Galbraith is not alone in this -- have as their basic objection to a free market that it frustrates them in achieving their reforms, because it enables people to have what they want, not what the reformers want.
--Milton Friedman

It will be interesting (to use a euphemism) to read the flood of commentary, most of which will be glowing if not apotheosizing, on the death of John Kenneth Galbraith, especially from the new wave of ultra-liberal would-be central planner economists such as Robert Frank and Paul Krugman.

(SIDEBAR: Galbraith was literally a central planner -- he ran the Office of Price Administration during World War II ... and failed miserably at it. He was the closest this country ever came to a real-life Wesley Mouch. See also this post.)

I can't curse or damn Galbraith the way he probably deserves to be cursed and damned. Yes, he was about as radical a leftist as one can be in polite society. Yes he legitimized Keynesian interventionism to Washington in the 1950s. Yes he designed and propagandized the Great Society. Yes he was just plain wrong in just about everything he believed as an economist.

But he was no Paul Krugman and he was no Robert Frank.

Galbraith was a liberal in the sense that Danial Patrick Moynihan was, rather than the way Ted Kennedy is today. He saw economic and sociological trends that were completely new and that had admittedly ominous implications. He sought to understand and explain -- and warn about, if necessary -- the modern world that was emerging around him. He did what too few economists do: he looked forward rather than backward.

If you were to shoot one and only arrow into Galbraith's theories, it should be this: He lamented the supposed foolhardiness of consumers, who in his view are too easily manipulated by advertising and are innately controlled by the need to "keep up with the Joneses," yet he ignored the ability of politicians to engage in the very manipulation that he accused corporate America of committing. He bought into the Big Lie and fell into the trap of the "politician as enlightened public servant" combating the "corporate executive as soulless agent of greed and exploitation." And in the process inspired two generations of liberals to do likewise.

Once you start down that road of "some preferences are more legitimate than others" and "consumers are stupid," then all the rest follows. Soon you are dismissing some preferences as illegitimate, or unimportant, or counterproductive. Then come the targeted taxes, the subsidies, the regulations -- and the Politics of Pull.

To his credit, Galbraith was not a fan of the mathematization of economics; that entitles him to at least some level of redemption. One wonders, though, whether all those who will now idolize him as an "iconoclast" will afford others who also denounce the elevation of economic models over economic ideas the same respect.

What Does Victory in the War On Terror Look Like?

Belmont Club considers how to win the war and what victory looks like. Believe it or not, Democracy is our secret weapon.

Excerpts:

Today's news brings an unusually thoughtful wire story from Alfred de Montesquio of the Associate Press bearing the title "Rift Grows Between al-Qaida, Muslim Groups." The article is interesting for the point made by the title -- that Islamist groups are rejecting and even denouncing the tactics of the violent jihadis

[snip]

Al Qaeda -- by which I mean the organization itself and its networked allied groups -- is an ideological movement with a deep philosophical history. It seeks to establish an oppressive regime run on roughly the same basis as the Taliban ruled Afghanistan -- anything less is "apostate." This “Caliphate” is to extend to the high water mark of Islamic conquest in ages past. In al Qaeda's vision, the Caliphate’s lands embrace essentially the entire world from al Andalus (you might call it “Spain”) in the west to East Timor in the east. In the extended version, the Caliphate eventually rules the entire world. (The most accessible book-length treatment of this subject is Mary Habeck's Knowing the Enemy: Jihadist Ideology and the War on Terror, which I highly recommend.)

{snip]

Al Qaeda’s ideology has roots that go back a long time. This ideology has significant support throughout the Muslim world and some support in the West. This should not surprise us. Communism also long enjoyed considerable support in the non-communist world, until it was discredited. We should assume that al Qaeda's support will persist until its ideology is discredited.

[snip]

Today's Muslim regimes cannot win this war in the long term. Most of them are absurd governments of kings and princes or brutal generals whose idea of succession planning is primogeniture. (Kings?!? How often do we Americans, who institutionalized lèse-majesté, consider how idiotic a system monarchy really is?) These kings, princes, sheikhs and generals-for-life are clowns, and anybody who views any of them -- even the "moderate" ones -- as better than contemptible is seriously deranged. History is against them, and every thoughtful person in the world knows it. The question is, what will replace them? The jihadis are fighting to install a Caliphate and lower a dark curtain over a fifth of the world. The United States and its courageous allies are fighting to create room for modern democratic governments based on popular sovereignty.

[snip]

We need Average Abdul to stop cooperating with al Qaeda and to start turning in the jihadis in the back of the mosque. Unfortunately, he won't turn in the jihadis because he is more afraid of them than the local regime and he will not bear any risk to defend the clown regime. The jihadis will kill him and his family for blowing the whistle, but the clown regime will neither punish him for keeping silent or induce him to fight the jihadis out of patriotism. Average Abdul, simply put, is unwilling to risk his life for the clown regime, which has not earned his devotion, even for money.

Average Abdul will, however, risk his life for an idea, just as al Qaeda's jihadis do. Once, that idea was pan-Arabism, or Communism. Today, both are discredited. "Moderate Islam," whatever that means in a dusty town in Syria, Jordan or Egypt, obviously does not have the fire to motivate Abdul to risk his life to fight the Islamists. The only idea with the juice to do the job is popular sovereignty. Democracy. This is the realist case for the Bush administration's "democratization strategy" (although it is not entirely clear how many people inside the Bush administration understand the realist case for their most important strategy).

The jihadis understand this, and fight against democracy in the Arab world with everything they've got, even if it costs them their Ba'athist allies.

Why Al Qaeda Is Retreating From Iraq

From Strategy Page (read the whole thing)

April 30, 2006: Despite the many brickbats of the media, al Qaeda has been defeated in Iraq, and is now retreating to lick its wounds where it can. If it can. Just over four and a half years, al Qaeda has gone from being the dominant terrorist group in the world to a defeated shell of its former self. In trying to defeat the United States, al Qaeda made three big mistakes: They fought the last information war, they underestimated the American leadership, and they also managed to anger the Iraqi people.

[snip]

Also on the media front, the Internet was already becoming a major player. In 1998, Matt Drudge was showing that one person with a web site could break a major story. In 2004, a few bloggers were able to start the chain of events that led to Dan Rather's retirement from CBS. In 2006, bloggers are now an acknowledged player on the media battlefield. These efforts were dismissed by al Qaeda, and as a result, while al Qaeda hit its target, the effect was grossly minimized due to the fact that the "silent majority" now had tools by which they could be heard. The media created a false picture after the 1968 Tet Offensive, but was unable to do the same in Iraq.

[snip]

These three mistakes resulted in the defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq, a defeat has left that group largely discredited. Osama bin Laden is now reduced to making audio tapes with grand pronouncements which have little or no likelihood of ever becoming reality, since al Qaeda has no safe havens where they can train new recruits, nor countries willing to support them. In less than five years, al Qaeda has gone from being feared by the world, to little more than a sideshow in the long war that the United States is now fighting.

Iraq cleric calls for disarmament

Ayatollah Ali Sistani, one of Iraq's most senior Shia clerics, has called for the next government to dismantle militias operating in the country.

The grand ayatollah said only the government should have weapons, and its forces should be loyal to the nation - not to individual political parties.

Very Good news for Iraq

Mark Steyn: Where's the dissent about source of quote?

Mark Steyn skewers a fake quote that was never uttered by Thomas Jefferson:

John Kerry announced this week's John Kerry Iraq Policy of the Week the other day: "Iraqi politicians should be told that they have until May 15 to deal with these intransigent issues and at last put together an effective unity government or we will immediately withdraw our military."


With a sulky pout perhaps? With hands on hips and a full flip of the hair?

Did he get that from Churchill? "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, at least until May 15, when I have a windsurfing engagement off Nantucket."

Actually, no. He got it from Thomas Jefferson. "This is not the first time in American history when patriotism has been distorted to deflect criticism and mislead the nation," warned Sen. Kerry, placing his courage in the broader historical context. "No wonder Thomas Jefferson himself said: 'Dissent is the greatest form of patriotism.' "

Close enough. According to the Jefferson Library: "There are a number of quotes that we do not find in Thomas Jefferson's correspondence or other writings; in such cases, Jefferson should not be cited as the source. Among the most common of these spurious Jefferson quotes are: 'Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.' "

Read the whole thing..

Mark Steyn: Celebrate tolerance, or you're dead

Macleans has another literary gem from Mark Syteyn:


Over in Sweden, they've been investigating the Grand Mosque of Stockholm. Apparently, it's the one-stop shop for all your jihad needs: you can buy audio cassettes at the mosque encouraging you to become a martyr and sally forth to kill "the brothers of pigs and apes" -- i.e. Jews. So somebody filed a racial-incitement complaint and the coppers started looking into it, and then Sweden's chancellor of justice, Goran Lambertz, stepped in. And Mr. Lambertz decided to close down the investigation on the grounds that, even though the porcine-sibling stuff is "highly degrading," this kind of chit-chat "should be judged differently -- and therefore be regarded as permissible -- because they were used by one side in an ongoing and far-reaching conflict where calls to arms and insults are part of the everyday climate in the rhetoric that surrounds this conflict."

In other words, if you threaten to kill people often enough, it will be seen as part of your vibrant cultural tradition -- and, by definition, we're all cool with that.

[snip]

Signora Fallaci then moves on to the livelier examples of contemporary Islam -- for example, Ayatollah Khomeini's "Blue Book" and its helpful advice on romantic matters: "If a man marries a minor who has reached the age of nine and if during the defloration he immediately breaks the hymen, he cannot enjoy her any longer." I'll say. I know it always ruins my evening. Also: "A man who has had sexual relations with an animal, such as a sheep, may not eat its meat. He would commit sin." Indeed. A quiet cigarette afterwards as you listen to your favourite Johnny Mathis LP and then a promise to call her next week and swing by the pasture is by far the best way. It may also be a sin to roast your nine-year-old wife, but the Ayatollah's not clear on that.


Read the rest.

The Rabbi and the Media

Several months ago I wrote a post “The Self Made Eunuch” on the auto-emasculation of the Drive-By-Media due to the threat of violence by Islamofascists. I commented that the Virginian Pilot favored censoring Rabbi Michael Panitz when he planned to refer to terrorists as having “blood stained hands.” I said then:

The Pilot favors censors because a Rabbi was going to refer to the Hamas terrorists as having “blood stained hands” in a prayer before a session of the Virginia Senate.

The Pilot editors objected because they considered referring to terrorist as having blood stained hands controversial! Well, yes, they admit that Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization (they noted that this was merely the opinion of the State Department ) and is responsible for “its share of violence,” (I suppose that Hitler was responsible for his share in World War 2) but … to say this is to be “inflammatory” and “divisive.”

Well, yes, I suppose if you are a terrorist or side with terrorists, you may not go along with the rabbi's description. But if you are a normal person, informed of any moral sense, calling cold stone killers bloody is not controversial.

There is something so wrong, so morally repugnant about the editorial attitude that it virtually defies classification. Has moral relativism has so invaded the shriveled souls of people who write these words that they now wish to withhold judgment on groups who regularly bomb civilian buses, stores and restaurants. Who proclaim their desire to finish what Hitler started?

It is rare that one witnesses self emasculation, leaving us with moral eunuchs, but the war we are in has provided us the opportunity to see more than one example. And this one happened right here in our home town.

I have had several e-mail communications from the Rabbi since then and he has pointed out that not all members of the press are as cowardly or as craven as the editors of the Virginian Pilot. The following appeared in The Richmond Times Disptach on Tuesday, March 7, 2006.

A rabbi personifies wisdom. Last week Michael Panitz, rabbi of Norfolk's Temple Israel, delivered the opening prayer to a session of the Virginia Senate. He spoke of the values upon which true democracy rests, and said the democratic process is not an end in itself or "a cure for all that ails the human spirit." Panitz implicitly warned against succumbing to the temptation to treat democracy with idolatry.

His spoken words were excellent; his written but unsaid text was better yet.

A the request of the Senate Clerk, Panitz deleted this passage from his invocation:
"Most recently, we have seen voters in Gaza go to the polls and democratically elect a terrorist organization to be their parliamentary representation. The people were proud to display ink-stained thumbs as a proof of their democratic breakthrough, but they voted for the party of blood-stained hands. What was their ultimate accomplishment?" Most recently, we have seen voters in Gaza go to the polls and democratically elect a terrorist organization to be their parliamentary representation. The people were proud to display ink-stained thumbs as a proof of their democratic breakthrough, but they voted for the party of blood-stained hands. What was their ultimate accomplishment?

Hamas does not deny its tactics or its goals. It wants to drive Israel into the sea. Panitz paid Hamas the compliment of taking the organization seriously. His honest statement deserved to be heard in the upper chamber of a legislative body considering itself the oldest and most distinguished in the New World.

Thank you Rabbi Panitz and the Richmond Times Dispatch..