Arab World: The House the Muslim Brothers Built

by Jonathan Spyer

The recent events in Sinai are the latest evidence of Egypt’s rapid transformation under the ascendancy of the Muslim Brotherhood.

They are only the most visible manifestation of the Brotherhood’s project in the largest Arab state.

The details of the unfolding situation in Egypt, in turn, may offer clues as to the direction of events in other parts of the region, as Sunni Islamism moves forward to power and influence in a variety of countries.

Events in Egypt have moved forward with astonishing rapidity. The Muslim Brotherhood’s swift victories in parliamentary and presidential elections left the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces as the final barrier to the Brotherhood’s full spectrum domination of Egypt.

President Mohamed Morsy’s bold move this month to annul the constitutional declaration granting SCAF its special powers, and his sacking of a number of senior generals, have removed this obstacle.

This achieved, the Brotherhood is now moving forward to consolidate power. In the committee tasked with drafting the new Egyptian constitution, Brotherhood members and other Islamists constitute a majority. They are pushing to ensure that Islamic Shari’a law forms the basis for Egypt’s governance.

Senior Brotherhood member Essam al-Arian told Asharq Alawsat newspaper this week that it is not right for a supporter of democracy to object to the right of the majority to implement Islamic Shari’a law.” President Morsy has himself said that Shari’a should govern all aspects of life.

Egypt’s current constitution sees Shari’a as the “principal source of legislation.”

Islamists within the committee are fighting to ensure that Article Two of the new constitution strengthens this provision. Representatives associated with the Salafi al-Nour Party initially insisted that Shari’a be named as the “basis” rather than the “principal source” of legislation. A compromise has been reached, according to which the ancient Al- Azhar University will become the final arbiter on matters related to Shari’a. This in itself represents an advance for the Islamists. It indicates that Shari’a and its correct application are set to take a central place in the new Egyptian system of governance now in the process of formation.

The steady advance of the Muslim Brothers must be seen in context. This movement has been in existence since 1928. Its strategic goal is very clear. Khairat al-Shater, one of the most powerful figures in the Egyptian Brotherhood, in a speech in Alexandria on April 21, 2011, detailed the process by which the organization hopes to achieve, or revive, the “Global State of Islam” as he called it.

Shater depicted the process in the following terms: “As Ikhwan [Brothers], we have spent a long time working on the individual, walking along this line, working on the household, working on society. So we are now developing the Muslim individual and Godwilling we will continue. We are developing the Muslim household and God-willing we will continue. We are developing the Muslim society and God-willing we will continue. We are preparing for the stage of Islamic government after this because it is what follows the stage of society.”

Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood leader Muhammad Badie characterized the Brotherhood’s path in similar terms. He outlined the Brotherhood’s strategy as “reforming the individual, followed by building the family, the society, the government and then a rightly guided caliphate and finally mastership of the world.”

It has become received wisdom in policy- making circles in the West that the strategic goal of the Muslim Brotherhood (here described as the “Global State of Islam” and “mastership of the world”) is of no concern. This is because it is seen as merely a nebulous, endlessly deferred utopian aspiration.

It is not clear on what this assumption is based. The Brotherhood has certainly been characterized by patience and flexibility in the 84 years of its existence. But this does not mean that it lacks seriousness or a sense of urgency regarding its objectives.

Where it has held power, as in the Hamas enclave in the Gaza Strip, it has proven to be a skilled, ruthless and tenacious wielder of authority, one that brooks no rivals.

The rapidly unfolding situation in Egypt lends further credence to the view of the Muslim Brotherhood as a sophisticated, patient, deeply radical organization with a clear blueprint for the transformation of society.

The events of 2011-12 in the Middle East constitute the most exciting time for the Muslim Brotherhood since its inception. The group is moving toward power in Egypt. In Tunisia, a party close to the movement is already in government. The Brotherhood, via its Hamas franchise, would probably have captured the leadership of the Palestinians by now, were its Fatah rivals not protected by the IDF in the West Bank. In Jordan, they form the main opposition group (although the Arab monarchies have proved a far less brittle target than the secular republics).

In Aleppo, the Tawhid Brigade, funded by the Brotherhood, is playing the key role in this key sector of the Syrian civil war.

The Brotherhood enjoys the support of AKP-led Turkey, which has given it a leading role in the Syrian opposition structures it sponsors. Qatar and its communications arm, the Al Jazeera Media Network, are also to be numbered among its firmest supporters.

Revolutionary groups do not usually compromise on their strategic goals during the period of their ascent. The goal of the Muslim Brotherhood, as its senior officials openly state, is the creation of states based on Shari’a law, which will then unite and expand. This may in the end prove an entirely delusional goal. But the Brotherhood will nevertheless do its best to push it forward at this, the moment of its triumph.

As one Iranian dissident, a firm opponent of the Brotherhood recently put it: when you build a house, you first draw up the plans, consult, build a blueprint, recruit the labor force, perform groundwork and build foundations. The actual construction of the house is one of the final stages.

The Muslim Brotherhood has laid the foundations. It is now set to embark on a push toward political power and societal transformation in a variety of contexts across the region.

This article was originally posted on JPost.com.

Jonathan Spyer

Source: http://www.gloria-center.org/2012/08/arab-world-the-house-the-muslim-brothers-built/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

IAEA Evidence Shows Israel, Not Obama, Talking Sense About Iran

by Jonathan S. Tobin

The latest report being prepared by the International Atomic Energy Agency about Iran appears to be a sobering retort to those who have spent the summer trying to claim that Israel’s warnings about the need to act should be ignored. The report, which has not yet been released but whose contents have been leaked, says that Iran has installed hundreds of new centrifuges in recent months and is devoting its efforts to refining uranium to a level of greater than 20 percent, a sign that it is working on a nuclear bomb and not, as it disingenuously contends, on medical research. Of equal concern is that all of this new equipment has been installed in facilities near the holy city of Qum and buried so far under underground that they may be invulnerable to attack.

This evidence would mean the alarms being sounded in Israel in recent months were entirely justified. If the Iranians have dramatically increased their stockpile of refined uranium and are now transferring more of their work into hardened bunkers, they may be close to what Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and Defense Minister Barak have called a “zone of immunity”: the point at which their program can no longer be halted by force. But rather than taking this as a sign that their complacent attitude toward Iran needs to be revised, the Obama administration remains in denial. Despite the obvious failure of the P5+1 talks and Iran’s determination to run out the clock on its nuclear program before the West acts, a White House spokesman said Friday there is still “time and space” for a diplomatic solution to the standoff. Indeed, as the New York Times noted, the administration seemed more intent on trying to undermine Israel’s stance on the nuclear peril than it was on actually doing anything about the problem.

President Obama has pledged to stop Iran from going nuclear, but his priority throughout the last year has been to stop Israel from acting on its own to deal with the problem. No serious observer has any confidence that the sanctions on Iran that were belatedly adopted (and loosely enforced) by Washington will force the ayatollahs to back off on their nuclear plans. The P5+1 talks led by the European Union’s Catherine Ashton got nowhere despite several tries. Any revival of these negotiations would only serve Iran’s purposes as they string Western diplomats along while their centrifuges keep spinning.

But despite the evidence of Iran’s progress, the administration is doing its best to downplay the crisis. An “administration official” speaking without attribution to the New York Times — the White House’s favorite outlet for leaks — confirmed the latest intelligence gleaned from the IAEA report but pooh-poohed it as “not a game changer.” The argument from the source was that a “breakout” that could convert the existing Iranian stockpile to weapons grade could be rapidly accomplished. But the source said the U.S. would find out about it and still have time to deal with it. The upshot of this statement was that the world should ignore Israel’s fears and trust President Obama to deal with the problem in his own good time.

Yet how can the president be trusted on the issue if his whole focus seems to be on kicking the can down road until after the presidential election in November? It is one thing to accuse the Israelis of alarmism or of trying to exert pressure on Obama to pledge to act. But if the Iranians are able to compile enough refined uranium and store it in places that can’t be attacked, a U.S. policy rooted in a predisposition to delay action is a formula that is certain to fail.

Time is running out not only on the countdown to the day when Iran will be able to quickly assemble a bomb but until the point where it will no longer be possible to use force to prevent them from doing so. Four years of Obama policies toward Iran have shown the administration to be willing to do nothing but talk about the need to avert this danger. The latest information from the IAEA is more proof that despite the media campaign orchestrated from the White House intended to undermine Israel’s appeals, it is Jerusalem, and not Washington, that is talking sense about Iran.

Jonathan S. Tobin

Source: http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/08/26/iaea-evidence-shows-israel-not-obama-talking-sense-about-iran-nuclear/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Sleeping with the Enemy in the 'War On Women'

by Clarice Feldman

It wasn't long ago that Barack Obama's supporters pointed to his successful campaign as proof of his executive ability, responding to truthful claims he had no executive experience. As this year's flailing campaign matches his amateurish handling of the presidency, and the third Recovery Summer shows the US economy in worse shape than it was before all this recovering took place, Democratic women are manning their enemy's ramparts while preposterously claiming it is the Republicans who are waging a "war on women".

Governor Romney has correctly noted that 92.3% of the jobs lost under Obama were women's jobs. But in an effort to distract from the fact that their mishandling of the economy has had dire affects on the lives of women, Democrats plan to highlight at their convention Sandra Fluke to remind us that Obamacare will provide women with "free" contraceptives. You'd have to be even more innumerate than the President is to believe that a benefit worth about $9 a month -which you will in fact be paying for through that benighted legislation-beats the opportunity to earn a living.

And best of all, the show the "War on Women" will not only feature Fluke, but as well, Caroline Kennedy and Bill Clinton. In case you are ignorant of recent history, Jack Cashill kindly has reminded us of the way the Kennedy men and Clinton treated women. Perhaps the names of women victims of Clinton and the Kennedys should be run as a chyron under the broadcasts for those with faltering recollections.

Do women need extra assistance from the government now?

I don't think so. In fact like many I think the pendulum has swung too far and needs to be righted. (See Christine Hoff Sommers Who Stole Feminism?). These days there really is a War on Men, especially White Men . My friend Jane Woodworth, who organized a tea party in Massachusetts, runs her own firm and co-hosts an weekly radio show "Fun with Dick and Jane," apologizes for tooting her own horn in this post, but I repeat it because I think it accurately reflects the experience of many women of her generation.

I really want to know more about this war on women? Is it something new? Cause I recall another iteration of it.

I started working in the 2nd grade (giving out milk and cookies to get mine free). NO one told me a boy should have the job. I worked every year after that. I worked in the cafeteria, I babysat all through high school. I don't know of any boys who had got jobs babysitting. I was even allowed to dish out ice cream to hungry customers.

I went to college, I can't remember any problem being female in getting in. I can't even remember worrying about it. I certainly was allowed to work the whole time I was at college, both at the school and in the community. No one ever told me I didn't have the correct anatomy to bag groceries or wait on tables.

Of course it all changed when I got out. I needed a job. I applied to be a claims adjuster. Liberty Mutual had recently been told they had to let women be claims adjusters. Who knows if some guy was more qualified than I? But times were different so they put me in the front of the line. 2 years later I was asked to apply to be a Risk Manager in a growing software company. They wanted a woman because the 2 other people in the department were men. I have no idea how many resumes they got from qualified men. But I went straight to the front of the line.

I got into MBA school - which I truly sucked at. Some guy would probably have done better. And then I applied to law school. The fact that I was both older (by then) and a woman, guaranteed my acceptance. I couldn't hold a candle to either the men or women who were there straight out of college. They had to have much better credentials just to get accepted. I only had to be female and old. I was apparently the face of past discrimination, and clearly deserved to go to the front of the line over and over again.

I was able to get a job in a law firm during my first year - I'm pretty sure that was based on my resume, which I'm pretty sure was helped by the facts I stated above. That firm hired me out of law school and 2 years later I started my own firm. I had an awful lot of clients who wanted a female litigator because they were harder to come by. That woman thing was such a disadvantage.

So someone tell me more about this war. Cause I don't get it.

And I apologize in advance for posting my resume.

I went to college and law school a few years before Jane and my experience was less beneficent by a long shot, but the tide has certainly turned, as another friend, JMH observes:

Women's options really were a lot more limited, both professionally and socially, when I was growing up, and women had to break through a lot of constraints before the idea of a glass ceiling even kicked in. There have always been women who managed to chart their own courses, but the original women's movement, with all its warts, was truly a paradigm shifting force for the rest of us. They turned into their own worst enemies, alas, after they won the war and didn't put down their weapons.

In things like college admissions, graduation rates, professional hires, women are simply an advantaged class these days and it's dishonest to pretend otherwise.

In addition to sharing the podium in Charlotte with one of the worst misogynists of our age and the family representative of a string of them, the Democratic women who agitate under the banner of Code Pink who regularly tart themselves up to look like vaginas plan to send pictures of their vaginas to Republican convention goers. I bet that will really appeal to women voters. (One wonders how Code Pink would be treated by the Palestinians whose cause they propagandize for. Why not dress like vaginas and parade through the streets of Gaza and let us know how it went?)

Undoubtedly to provide some contrast, the media which will surely broadcast all the ninnies yapping at the Democratic convention and give Code Pink lots of play have made it clear that they will not cover Anne Romney's address to the Republican convention. Better to let the audience think all the women are on the left side of the fence I suppose.

Why have the Democrats with no viable plans to advance as a campaign plank, chosen, in Rush Limbaugh's words, to make their convention about "death and taxes"?

The Democrats are actually going to turn their convention into a celebration of abortion.

They think that they're on to something so powerful and so big here. They think the "social issues" are death for the Republicans and they think that this is a godsend. It's gonna be woman after woman after woman, and it's gonna be, "Abortion, abortion, abortion! Contraception, contraception, contraception!" It is gonna be the Democrat Party's 30-year-old playbook every night at their convention. So this, as far as I'm concerned -- if they follow through with this -- will officially make them the party of death and taxes.

They hope to capitalize on the unfortunate choice of words of Todd Akin, a candidate for Senate from Missouri who played into their hands by justifying his belief that even rape doesn't justify abortion, adding that such acts rarely end in pregnancy anyhow.

It's true that he may have hurt his chances in HIS election with his clumsy iteration-though it's a bit early to say because his opponent Claire McCaskill is not well liked and the issue is still being overplayed. But as Rich Lowry observes, even if the Akin stumble costs the Republicans a sure Senate pickup the hope of a Republican Senate is far from lost.

Are American women so daft that they'll trade their economic futures and that of their children for a man so desperate to win and so devoid of respect for human life that he repeatedly voted to permit a form of infanticide?

Obama has offered deceptive explanations of his own pro-abortion legislative work, while simultaneously accusing his pro-life opponents of being dishonest. More important, Obama's record as a state senator was not merely pro-choice, but radically pro-abortion. His voting record indicates that he does not believe infants deserve protection even once they have emerged from the womb if they are deemed to be below the age of viability, and he did in fact, three times, vote to keep a form of infanticide legal.

This jockeying for unearned special privileges including the right to kill born alive children reminds me of a Shel Silverstein poem in his wonderful book "Light in the Attic." It's about a girl named Pamela Purse who always demanded special privileges because of her sex. It didn't end well for her either:

When we went off on our jungle trip.

Pamela Purse said her thirst was worse

And guzzled our water, every sip.

And when we got grabbed by that wild savage band,

Who tied us together and made us all stand

In a long line in front of the King of the land-

A cannibal known as Fry-'Em-Up Dan,

Who sat on his throne in a bib so grand

With a lick of his lips and a fork in his hand,

As he tried to decide who'd be first in the pan-

From back of the line, in that shrill voice of hers,

Pamela Purse yelled, "Ladies first."

Clarice Feldman

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/08/sleeping_with_the_enemy_in_the_war_against_women.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Middle East Non-Solutions

by Steven Plaut

The mantra crops up almost everywhere. "You Israelis have two simple choices," it goes. "You can either annex all of the 'occupied territories' and grant equal Israeli citizenship to all of the Palestinians there, in which case Israel will no longer be a Jewish state. Or you can agree to a two-state solution, in which Israel continues to exist alongside a Palestinian Arab state. Simple. Make your choice!" The posing of these two "choices" for Israel is part of the campaign to convince Israelis that there is no alternative to the "Two-State Solution."

The first "alternative" is often dubbed these days the "One-State Solution" by its anti-Israel advocates. Israel and its Jewish population would be enfolded within a larger Arab-dominated Islamic state. A better term for this is the "Rwanda Solution." It is little more than a recipe for a second Holocaust of Jews, a Nazi-style final solution, in which the Middle East conflict would end because the Jewish population of the Middle East would be exterminated.

But the "Two State Solution" is little better. The creation of a "Palestinian" state "alongside Israel" would not solve anything and would not end the conflict. To the contrary, it would be the opening round for a major escalation in the conflict and the launching of an all-out war by "Palestine" against the rump Jewish state -- a war in which "Palestine" would be joined and backed by the entire Arab world and much of the non-Arab Muslim world. Like rump Czechoslovakia after Munich, the remaining Jewish mini-state would be the target for aggression and irredentist belligerence, manifested in rocket and missile attacks. The thousands of rockets that were fired at Sderot and the Negev after the unilateral Israeli withdrawal from Gaza will appear as a child's game by comparison.

Let us note that neither the "One State " nor the "Two State" is a viable solution to the Middle East conflict. Neither would resolve anything.

There is no two-state solution -- only a two-state "solution." There is also no such thing as a "One-State Solution," at least if one means by that the granting of Israeli citizenship to all those claiming to be "Palestinians." So how must Israelis respond to the diktat that they choose either the one or the other? They must answer neither.

Israelis cannot formulate and propose "solutions" to the Middle East conflict for the exact same reason why the Western allies could not have proposed or formulated any "solution" to the ambitions of Germany in the late 1930s. No solution would have satisfied those ambitions, and none could have appeased Hitler. The quest in the 1930s for "solutions" resulted in years of delay, during which Germany re-armed and support for Hitler within Germany solidified. Similarly, no "solution" could have prevented the assaults against Pearl Harbor, Malaya, and the Philippines by Imperial Japan. The only solution to those conflicts was Western victory.

In short, "solutions" are magical panaceas sought by lazy, shallow, and impatient minds.

The entire Oslo "peace process" initiated by Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres was based upon the belief that peace can be achieved by pretending that war does not exist. Never mind what the Arabs are saying.

The Middle East conflict also has nothing to do with territory. The Arab countries already control territory nearly twice that of the United States (including Alaska), while Israel is smaller than New Jersey. The architects of the "peace process" argued that possession of territory twice the size of the U.S. without the Everglades-sized West Bank is a recipe for endless war, but if Israel just turns that Everglades-sized zone over to the "Palestinians," all will be peaceful. Twenty-two sovereign Arab states have produced war and barbarism, but creating a 23^rd Arab state as a "Two State Solution" will produce peace.

Now, if Israelis refuse to embrace the above two pseudo-solutions, insists the left, then Israel will end up an "apartheid regime" -- one in which "Palestinian Arabs" live under endless Israeli "occupation" and control, but without Israeli citizenship, without the right to vote. It is always amusing to hear whining about the absence of the Palestinian right to vote in Israeli elections, especially when it comes from the very same people who do not care that Arabs have no free elections anywhere else in the Middle East. And never mind that Israel is the only country in the Middle East that is not an apartheid regime. Essentially, the insistence that Israel must choose one of the two pseudo-solutions or else it will morph into an "apartheid regime" amounts to the belief that Israelis are better off allowing their country to be annihilated rather than risk becoming the target of name-calling.

In reality, the most productive way to seek to resolve the Middle East is to take as the starting point the list of what is ruled out, what must never be. No "solution" to the Middle East conflict is possible if it involves creation of an Arab "Palestinian" state, and none is possible if it involves "Palestinians" being granted Israeli citizenship. Both of these nonstarters must be ruled out absolutely. Once that is understood, any proposal based upon those two nevers can be taken into consideration.

The immediate implication is that Israel must remain in the West Bank, and the "Palestinian" population there will be granted neither Israeli citizenship nor national sovereignty. The United States occupied Okinawa for decades, and American national historic and cultural roots did not originate in Okinawa. Indeed, American armed forces still fill that island. There is no time limit on how long Israeli "occupation" can last, and the very word "occupation" is actually a misnomer. In any case, the Israeli presence in the West Bank is sui generis and not comparable to any other case of "occupation."

So if West Bank "Palestinians" will be granted neither Israeli citizenship nor national sovereignty, what can they be offered? The original "peace proposals" offered by Israel in the 1970s and 1980s spoke about limited local autonomy. Had the Palestinians played their cards right, they could have enjoyed as much freedom and prosperity under local autonomy as do Puerto Rica, Guam, and American Samoa. But the Israeli Labor Party lost patience with the idea after a few years and decided to frog-leap to a "Two State Solution." It imported Yasser Arafat's storm troopers into the suburbs of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and proclaimed its "recognition" of the "Palestinian people."

There is indeed another "solution" for West Bank "Palestinians" unhappy with the two nevers defining conflict resolution. They can leave. There are those 22 sunny Arab states, plus lots of other Muslim states, whither any unhappy West Bank "Palestinian" can move and live amongst his kin. After all, Jews unhappy with life in Argentina, France, or Hungary demand not the annihilation of those countries, but merely the right to move to Israel. The fact that the "Palestinians" prefer Israeli "occupation" over blissful residence in these alternative countries speaks volumes about just how badly treated the "poor suffering Palestinians" really are.

The "Palestinians" find these constraints on their options distasteful? Too bad! Part of adulthood means coming to terms with the fact that, as in Mick Jagger's words, "[y]ou can't always get what you want." What the "Palestinians" and their apologists want is the annihilation of Israel and a second Holocaust of Jews.

And they are not going to get what they want.

Steven Plaut

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/08/middle_east_non-solutions.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Review: 2016: Obama's America

by Matthew May

At the conclusion of his film 2016: Obama's America, producer and star (or featured narrator, if you will) Dinesh D'Souza asks viewers whether we will pursue the American dream or Barack Obama's dream.

That dream, as D'Souza argues, is the defeat of oppressive colonialism that manifested itself in the rise of the United States as the dominant world power at the expense of the third world. In short, Obama seeks to right the wrongs identified by the most radical Communist sympathizers and activists of the post-World War II world, with Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. chief among them. D'Souza, utilizing Obama's first autobiography, Dreams from My Father, takes viewers along for a journey into Obama's upbringing in Hawaii and Indonesia, and then to his alleged self-discovery in Kenya at his father's grave.

One aspect of the film that D'Souza may or may not have intended to come across is the fact that Obama's childhood story is actually quite sad. As the movie restates, Obama was shuffled about from Hawaii, Indonesia, and back to Hawaii. His father abandoned him and his mother to gallivant in North America and at Harvard, fathering several children by different women, all the while abusing some of those women and drinking heavily. D'Souza portrays the elder Obama as a frighteningly selfish and irresponsible lout.

Obama at times lived with his mother and her husband, Lolo Soetoro, in Indonesia. Interestingly, as D'Souza points out, Soetoro worked for an oil firm and was virulently anti-communist. However, Obama's mother rejected Soetoro and made it plain that Obama Senior's politics were honorable, Soetoro's dishonorable.

After a time, young Obama was shipped back to Hawaii to live with his grandparents there. Obama never really had a foundational home base, and his childhood brings to mind the term dislocated. In many respects, Obama was a lost little boy.

Along the way and throughout his life, as D'Souza shows, Obama has had a string of surrogates influencing him, people D'Souza calls "Obama's Founding Fathers." These include the Communist writer and activist Frank Marshall Davis, terrorist Bill Ayers, anti-Israeli crank Edward Said, Jeremiah Wright, and Brazilian Communist professor Roberto Unger. This series of father figures were in and out of his life at various intervals. The common thread among them, unfortunately, is that they marinated the young man in the swill of Marxist, anti-colonial propaganda, endorsed by the near-mystical specter of his missing father, that can be diluted thusly: the United States of America represents the greatest threat to mankind in the world and must be taken down.

D'Souza argues that Obama's policies can be easily traced to this worldview. Critics will no doubt huff that D'Souza is engaging in ridiculous pop psychology, particularly in his attempt to parallel his own experiences with colonialism in India to those of some of Obama's surrogates and of Obama's father. Perhaps. Yet the contempt with which Obama has treated Great Britain (notably his attempts to link his grandfather as a "servant" to the U.K. and opposition to Great Britain concerning the Falklands) and Israel, and his tacit and overt support for radical Islamic actions in the Middle East as the work of freedom-fighters, makes D'Souza's assertions compelling. So do, D'Souza argues, Obama's actions concerning the winnowing of the American nuclear arsenal to ostensibly level the nuclear playing field while dangerous governments in Russia, North Korea, and Iran increase their weaponry. It is the implementation of the theories expressed by Obama's father, Davis, and many of the president's surrogates.

D'Souza assembled an impressive roster of interviewees for the film, including AT contributor Paul Kengor, author Shelby Steele, scholar Daniel Pipes, Obama's half-brother in Kenya, and many others who deliver their insights into Obama's background and his policy choices from a number of different perspectives. Pipes sums things up succinctly when saying of Obama, "He doesn't think well of America."

D'Souza also includes conversations along his travels with lesser-known figures who knew Obama's father well and were acquainted with Obama's mother in Hawaii, as well as a specialist in the psychological aspects of children of absentee fathers. D'Souza mentions that the Brazilian Communist and Harvard professor Unger declined to be interviewed for the film; it would have been interesting to know other names from the left D'Souza attempted to get on camera.

Political reporters and commentators who participated in the mythmaking of the 2008 campaign and afterward should, after seeing this film, leave the theater kicking themselves for a missed golden opportunity. Had a one of them put into practice a third of the investigative scrutiny D'Souza applied to Obama's background, he or she could have gained everlasting fame and fortune. He or she would have also rendered a great service to his or her country, regardless of whether the electorate would have heeded the warning.

D'Souza's movie is significant and engrossing. The tactic of taking Obama's words in his book Dreams from My Father is keen. D'Souza leaves alone the very real possibility that Ayers wrote or re-wrote large portions of Dreams, though if he had pursued that line, it would have led back, as AT contributor Jack Cashill has demonstrated, to one of the "Obama Founding Fathers."

While one can look upon Obama's childhood and upbringing as sad tale, it is also true that he is a child of privilege who was afforded a lavish education from high school on. As D'Souza argues, Obama realized that Americans of goodwill were willing to help him advance -- in college, in law school, in politics -- and he capitalized on that help to present himself as a figure of unity while harboring the resentments of his surrogates. He had his chances, and he made his choices.

Obama chose to associate with, study under, emulate, and work alongside the worst this nation has to offer. D'Souza's film is but a visual version of what readers of this site have known for years: Barack Obama may be a natural-born American citizen, and he may be the American president. He may be from America, but he is not of America. Neither is his dream.

Matthew May welcomes comments at may.matthew.t@gmail.com.

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/08/review_2016_obamas_america.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

The Smear Campaign Against Geert Wilders

by Peter Martino

Kortenoeven is manipulating the Jews, using their religious concerns for his own personal political agenda. The bill against unstunned ritual slaughter was supported by most parties in the Dutch Chamber of Representatives, and yet these people are singling out only Wilders for criticism. Wilders, whose unpopular support for Israel and for Jews has been unwavering, leads the fight against anti-Semitism in the Netherlands -- and on the European continent.

Few politicians are as pro-Jewish and pro-Israel as Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch Freedom Party PVV. The 49-year old Wilders, who lives under round-the-clock police protection because of Islamist death threats, has visited Israel over 40 times. In his recent book Marked for Death: Islam's War against the West and Me, Wilders, who was raised a Catholic, relates how he lived and worked in Israel for one year as a young man and how he admires the Jews and their state.

Geert Wilders also leads the fight against anti-Semitism in the Netherlands -- and in Europe. Two years ago, the senior Dutch politician Frits Bolkestein advised "recognizable Jews" to leave the Netherlands and emigrate to Israel and the U.S. because of the Dutch government's inability to prevent the anti-Semitic violence committed by Jew-hating Muslim immigrants. An indignant Wilders reacted that "Jews shouldn't emigrate; anti-Semitic immigrants should."

Public opinion, misinformed by the Western media, is as anti-Israel in the Netherlands as in any other European country. Consequently, it is not electorally rewarding to take pro-Israel positions -- Wilders has nevertheless been unwavering in his support for the Jewish state.

Despite Wilders's record as a friend of the Jews, it is strange to see that there is a smear campaign going on which accuses the PVV leader of harboring anti-Semites within his own party. This campaign has everything to do with the upcoming general elections to be held in the Netherlands on September 12^th.

Last year, the Dutch Chamber of Representatives approved a bill of the Animal Party to ban unstunned ritual slaughter. The bill received a large majority. Apart from three Christian parties, the bill was supported by all the parties in the Dutch Parliament, including Wilders's PVV, the Social-Democrats, and also the Conservatives of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte. Yet only the PVV has been singled out for criticism -- although the party, which has Jewish parliamentarians, allowed its representatives to vote as they pleased regardless of the party line.

The Netherlands is one of the most secular countries in the world. Secular people frequently lack understanding of religious sensitivities, while they are often driven by emotions in other respects. The Dutch secularism probably explains why the Dutch have a party such as the Animal Party, which aims to extend "animal rights," resembling human rights, to beasts. All the Dutch parties have a spokesman for animal rights, including the PVV, whose animal welfare spokesman is one Dion Graus. Graus is a highly emotive, though popular, character, who hosted the television show Beasts with Dion before he became a PVV parliamentarian.

While Graus was not the instigator of the bill to ban no-stun slaughter, he defended this bill in parliament, comparing unstunned slaughtering of animals to "torture." Graus never said, however, as some maliciously claim, that "the Jewish practice of Schechita [Jewish ritual slaughter] constitutes torture." Nor did he advocate a bill to "ban the import of kosher meat into the Netherlands." Nor is Graus, as some also claim, seeking to ban brit milah, the Jewish practice of circumcising male infants. While the PVV opposes female genital mutilation, it has never taken a position against male circumcision, nor does it intend to do so. Male circumcision has become a political issue in Germany, but is simply not an issue in the Netherlands.

The ban on unstunned ritual slaughter is an initiative if the Animal Party and is supported by all the major parties, including that of the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister, Uri Rosenthal -- who is Jewish, Pro-Israel, and whose wife is Israeli. And yet these people are singling out only Wilders for criticism.

As far as unstunned ritual slaughter is concerned, the practice is banned in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Norway, Iceland, Austria, Switzerland and New Zealand. But not yet in the Netherlands. Last June, the Dutch Senate rejected the bill which the Chamber of Representatives had previously approved. The Animal Party has announced that it will table a new bill after next month's elections. Charges that the PVV is targeting the Jewish community in the Netherlands is also utter nonsense.

The current campaign against the PVV has everything to do with the upcoming elections. Last June, shortly before the PVV disclosed its candidates, a number of parliamentarians (none of them Jewish) left the party because they feared that Mr. Wilders would not give them a safe seat on the party list. One of these soon to be ex-parliamentarians, Wim Kortenoeven, is now waging a personal vendetta against the PVV, accusing Wilders of "refusing to give Graus the boot and dissociating himself from anti-Semites within his party." Two weeks ago, Kortenoeven travelled to the U.S. to see American Jews whom he suspected to be sympathetic towards Mr. Wilders, urging them to pressure him into dissociating himself from Graus "so that the Freedom Party would then be free to vote against the proposed ban on shechita and brit milah."

The proposed ban on no-stun slaughter in the Netherlands is an initiative of the Animal Party. Opposing such a ban would be harmful within the secular Dutch political context in which Wilders has to operate. And no one in the Netherlands is proposing – or even considering to propose -- a ban on the male circumcision of infants. To say so is simply uninformed and ridiculous.

Equally ridiculous is the accusation that Geert Wilders is condoning anti-Semitism within his own party. What is more, it is extremely unfair towards a politician who is not only the greatest friend of Israel and the Jewish people on the European continent, but who leads a life under constant police protection because he courageously opposes radical Islam, the most dangerous foe that the Jews -- and also the Christians and secularists -- currently have.

Last Tuesday, the Telegraaf, the largest Dutch newspaper, ran a front page article headlining that Wilders' "Jewish sponsors" in the U.S. are "furious" with him. Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles was quoted as saying "Demonizing religious rituals is the terrain of dictators," while Kortenoeven accused the PVV of being "led like a mafia gang." The article stated that in the past Wilders had returned from his Jewish friends in the U.S. with "coffers full of donated dollars." The article implied that Jews use their money to buy political influence in foreign countries – which in itself is an old anti-Semitic slur. Wilders denies the allegations. In a reaction to the article, he called Kortenoeven's story "totally stupid" and asked "Where is his proof?"

Kortenoeven is manipulating the Jews, using their religious concerns for his own personal domestic political agenda.

Peter Martino

Source: http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3306/geert-wilders-smear

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Obama’s Dirty Campaigning Takes Unprecedented Turn

by Jacob Laksin

Presidential nomination conventions traditionally have been governed by a ceasefire: Out of courtesy and tradition, the rival party yields the national stage to the nominating party. That tradition is now being cast aside by President Obama, who, along with his Democratic Party surrogates, is poised to launch what The Hill calls a “full-scale assault on Republicans” as they gather in Tampa, Florida, next week. Hope and change, meet slash and burn.

While Republicans will be officially nominating Mitt Romney, Democrats, led by Vice President Joe Biden, will converge on Tampa to condemn the GOP as the enemy of women and minorities. According to the Democratic National Committee, Democrats will focus on “how the Republican Party Mitt Romney is being nominated to lead is outside the mainstream on issues of importance to Americans — particularly as it relates to women, Hispanics and African-Americans.” President Obama meanwhile is set to stage high-profile rallies in key swing states. Even the First Lady will take part in the counter-convention campaign, with a scheduled appearance on the “David Letterman Show” timed to coincide with the nomination.

If such crude tactics seem a world away from the transcendent, post-partisan pitch of Obama’s 2008 campaign, they are by no means exceptional. As the country has soured on his leadership, Obama has beat a hasty retreat from his onetime promise to elevate the political debate. Not content to demonize Mitt Romney as a sinister corporate raider during his time at Bain Capital, the president and his campaign allies have tried to cast him as a criminal and worse. In July, for instance, Obama campaign manager Stephanie Cutter mused that Romney might be a “felon” who had lied to the Securities and Exchange Commission over his role at Bain Capital, despite having no evidence whatsoever that the charge might be true. Called to account for the smear at a recent press briefing, Obama insisted that “nobody accused Mr. Romney of being a felon,” a strained bit of linguistic parsing premised on the notion that groundless innuendo did not rise to the level of an accusation.

While the president has dodged responsibility for his campaign’s negative bent, Vice President Biden has embraced it. At a campaign rally in Virginia last week, Biden informed a mostly black audience that a Romney presidency would “unchain Wall Street” but that “They’re gonna put ya’ll back in chains.” Crass though it was, Biden’s comment was perfectly revealing of the Obama campaign’s willingness to sacrifice civility for political gain.

On the rare occasions when the president and his team have declined to stoop to smear tactics, Democratic political action committees have been happy to shoulder the burden. Thus Priorities USA Action recently ran a shockingly dishonest ad that tried to link Mitt Romney to the death of a laid-off steelworker’s wife. Obama did not condemn the ad, though he generously conceded he personally didn’t “think” that Romney was “somehow responsible for the death.” Others, presumably, were free to think so. This is what now passes for post-partisanship in the Obama campaign.

As the Democrats planned hate parade at next week’s GOP convention suggests, that’s not likely to change any time soon. The Obama campaign has already sunk over $100 million into advertising, the majority of it attacking Romney. Affiliated Democratic groups have pitched in another $20 million for the anti-Romney ad blitz. Millions more will be spent, by both sides, as the presidential race begins in earnest this fall.

The overwhelmingly negative tenor of the campaign is not without its perils. Polls show that the drumbeat of negative campaigning, coupled with the grim economic picture, has dispirited formerly enthusiastic Obama supporters. “There’s this sense of disillusionment. We don’t see as many people saying he makes them feel proud,” Pew Research Center director Andrew Kohut recently said. The point is emphatically driven home in a new documentary by Citizens United, the conservative advocacy group of Supreme Court fame. Titled “The Hope and the Change,” the film interviews committed Democrats whose early support for (and in some cases infatuation with) the president has devolved into buyer’s remorse. The savior of 2008 is the failure of 2012.

Obama is of course not the first president to go negative in a campaign. But because he once made such bold promises to transform the discourse in Washington, the current gap between rhetoric and reality seems particularly stark. Not the least of the ironies of the Obama presidency is that the candidate who promised to rise above partisan rancor has become its incarnation.

Jacob Laksin

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/jlaksin/obamas-dirty-campaigning-takes-unprecedented-turn/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Why an Israeli Strike on Iran Will Happen Before the Election

by Daniel Greenfield

If Israel jets show up in Iranian airspace, it will most likely happen while Obama is too busy accusing Mitt Romney of secretly storing all his money in a giant cave in the Rocky Mountains to do more than dispatch a flunky to chew out Netanyahu over the phone. The election is the perfect window for a strike on Iran’s nuclear program, because Team Obama will be too tied down on the Romney Front to do much damage to Israel.

The Obama Administration is interested in somehow making Iran’s nuclear capabilities go away in the interests of regional stability. Particularly the regional stability of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar. But the last thing that this form of regional stability needs is Israeli planes flying over Saudi Arabia to take out that nuclear capability.

Just like during the Gulf War, regional stability demands that the United States protect Saudi Arabia and the Gulfies, while keeping Israel out of it. Since Iran’s Revolutionary Guard isn’t camped out in Kuwait City, protecting them is a matter of posture. The posturing is hollow because everyone knows that Obama is not about to bomb Iran on behalf of Saudi Arabia. He is as likely to bomb Iran for Israel as he is to move to South Carolina and join the NRA. If a third Gulf War is fought, it will be fought for Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, one more time.

In 1988, the United States fought Iran to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers. If oil prices go high enough to potentially cost Obama the election, then he might pry away his foreign policy people from drawing up maps of Syrian targets long enough to actually hit some Iranian naval installations.

None of this has anything to do with Iran’s nuclear program… and that’s the point. George W. Bush did appear to think that Iranian nuclear weapons might be bad news for the United States. He was nearly unique in that regard. The diplomatic and military establishment is full of experts who view Iranian nuclear weapons purely as factors in the balance of power and utterly refuse to look at them from any other angle. To them, Israel isn’t really concerned about a nuclear attack; it’s only playing a regional power game.

For Israel, violence is not a posture or a theory. It has few trading connections and no alliances in the region. Its foreign policy has always been about dissipating physical threats to its people, whether through diplomatic or military means. It does not follow this line because it is a saintly state, but because it is a state always on the edge. It has too little territory and too many enemies around it to follow any other path.

Surrounded by countries for which destroying it is a matter of national pride and religious fervor, its only real deterrent is military. Winning several wars won it enough breathing room to try diplomatic solutions. And now the first and last of those diplomatic solutions has failed. It can still count on the military as a deterrent, but there is no deterrent against a nuclear attack carried out by terrorists under plausible deniability. The only remaining deterrent after a nuclear attack is killing as many of those responsible as possible before succumbing to radiation poisoning.

Everyone in the region understands the nature of the countdown. Most of the Sunni Gulfies also privately welcome Israel doing something about Iran’s nuclear weapons, even as they redouble their efforts against the Jewish State to avoid allowing their Shiite enemies to benefit ideologically from a confrontation with the Zionist Entity. The rhetoric out of Iran now echoes the rhetoric out of Egypt in the 1960′s. That buildup eventually ended in a preemptive Israeli strike that destroyed Egypt’s air force.

But in Washington D.C., the countdown is not a real thing. The received wisdom among the press and the political and diplomatic establishments is that Netanyahu is an obstinate paranoid man who is playing games with them. They don’t believe that Israel will do anything about Iran, because they wouldn’t do anything about Iran and they assume that Netanyahu is just like them, only more deceptive because he pretends that he will do something about Iran.

It has become fashionable among Western elites to view aggression as either a posture or madness. They have forgotten that sometimes violence isn’t a move on an international chessboard or a prelude to a set of political steps. Sometimes it’s as simple as one side wanting to kill the other and the other side not wanting to be killed.

In the Middle East ideas that are considered aberrant insanity in the West are commonplace. Killing people is no great big thing. Most regimes do it from time to time to stay in power. Iran dispatched its Islamic militias to kill its own best and brightest in the streets of its capital. Virginity is believed to act as an instant pass to heaven for a woman, so teenage girls sentenced to death must first be forcibly married to their jailers and raped, before being hung.

The very idea that people think this way is incomprehensible in Washington D.C. But the simple question that Israel has to answer is, if this is what the Ayatollahs do to their own daughters, what would they do to those they consider the spawn of pigs and apes?

Israel already knows the answer to that. When Muslim mobs got their hands on Israeli Jews, before or after independence, they tore them to pieces and then sold snapshots of the remains. The policy of targeting all Jews, men, women and children, is not just something that terrorists do because they have no choice, it is the ideological position of Islamist leaders like Yusuf Al-Qaradawi in Egypt or Rashid Al-Ghannushi in Tunisia, and the policy of the Arab countries fighting Israel.

The liberal West has its illusions about the enemy. Israel has little room for those illusions. It will act because it is alone as few other countries on earth are. It will act because it cannot afford to be Poland, Czechoslovakia or Tibet– sacrificed in the great game of nations. It will act because it has no real choice but to act. It will act because for it this is not a set of talking points, a diplomatic program or a regional agenda, it is life or death. It will act, because for all its flaws, its survival is on the line.

That sense of a nation’s survival and the life of a people hinging on a single course of action has become an alien one in an insulated world. It is not a thing that Washington D.C or Brussels can take seriously. It is not even a thing that all Israelis take seriously anymore. But those who hear the clock ticking know what is coming. They know the hard choices that will come in the months ahead. And they will make those choices as they made them before, because they will choose to survive.

Daniel Greenfield

Source: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/daniel-greenfield/why-an-israel-strike-on-iran-will-happen-before-the-election/

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

What Might Civilized PeopleThink when Sociopaths like Tamimi Bask in Adulation?

by Frimet and Arnold Roth

After receiving some offline comments on the Tamimi speech we publicized yesterday, we have a few further thoughts to share. The urge to do this is triggered by a sense that something deeply disturbing is going on; it's being ignored or willfully not noticed by people who ought to be noticing.

When a politician or public figure on our side of the fence makes an ignorant or dumb or smart or incisive statement, particularly when it's about the Arabs (you know the examples), his/her comments are greeted with near-instant analysis and frequently with condemnation from a global array of press and politicians. The Arab media focus obsessively on such things. Outside the Arab/Islamic world, we frequently see European, American, Australian and other critics drawing wide inferences about how those specific Israeli views are going to bring on the next Black Plague or an increase in pogroms in France. The claim, at minimum, is that irreparable harm is going to be caused to the souls and DNA of innocent Israeli children, to world peace and so on.

To illustrate: when a posse of Israeli delinquents (it happens to be a very current issue here) beat up an Arab youth in a street fight, the New York Times says the event has led to "a stark national conversation about racism, violence, and how Israeli society could have come to this point" That's an actual quote: check it out. We think the Times' journalist's conclusion is overwrought nonsense, but that's not the point. Israel is not, never has been and should never be, immune to criticism, or even object to it, and mostly doesn't.

Now think for a moment about how Ahlam Tamimi and her hundreds of published interviews and speeches are treated by global public opinion. Pay attention in particular to how Arabs view her, since they are her principal audience.

No one - certainly not the woman herself - denies the fact that she planned and carried out a premeditated killing on a large and vicious scale, which was the whole point of doing it. The law convicted her on the basis that she's a murderer; she says (more or less) that she did it for the freedom and honour of her nation. The fact that she planned to kill and succeeded mightily has never been in dispute. She does not miss an opportunity to say that it was children, and specifically Jewish children, and even more specifically orthodox Jewish children like ours, who were the target. She regrets that she did not kill more - it's there in yesterday's video and in numerous other speeches and earlier videos recorded in her Jordanian freedom.

She appears on television and in front of adoring crowds (ask us if you want to view the video files) and expresses the vilest kind of racist hatred of Jews, Israelis and Zionists. She has done this many times since she unjustly got her freedom in October and her message is hugely amplified by the social media. She is a star on YouTube, a hero on Facebook. She is globally broadcast via satellite television into every corner of the Arabic-speaking world. It's arguable that she has the largest footprint of any ordinary murderer (ignoring "celebrities" like Hitler, Mao, Stalin et al) in human history. If that seems like an overstatement then we urge you to concede that she is in the major leagues. The fact that most people don't know this is largely because most people don't speak Arabic.

She smiles warmly when she says she killed those Jews, and her god wanted her to do it. She points to how she has subsequently been rewarded with freedom, fame, a wedding that received live television coverage. The adoring crowds applaud and ululate. The encouragement (and probably the will) to emulate her actions is clear.

How many Arabic speakers are there in the world? A quick query on the web turns up these numbers: "280 million native speakers, and an extra 250 million non-native speakers" [source]. How many Arabic newspapers? Many.

Here's our point: We have searched and have not yet found a blog, article, published speech or op-ed in her language, Arabic, which criticizes the woman or her views. So far, not one. If our readers can point us to exceptions, please do.

This is deeply shocking. Tamimi's message resonates throughout the Arab and Islamic world. Her views don't even rise to the level of controversial. She's simply a hero, wall to wall. She and her vile deeds, opinions and intentions appear to represent some sort of global consensus in the Arab and Islamic world. There is no public debate, no expressions of outrage - not even concerning the passivity of the Kingdom of Jordan where she lives and from where a vibrant Tamimi-focused industry of online and broadcast videos sends its message of hatred and death out to the world.

Does the absence of criticism throughout the Arab world mean they support the deliberate killing of the innocent people among their enemy? Does their silence mean they support the murder of children as Tamimi certainly does, and they want to see it happen again and again as she certainly does?

What does this say about the discourse underway in the Arab world? What light does it throw on the global news media?

What can we learn from here about the chances of ever making peace?

For talkback on this article go to; http://bigarticlesoftheweek.blogspot.co.il/2012/08/what-might-civilized-people-be-thinking.html

Frimet and Arnold Roth

Source: http://thisongoingwar.blogspot.co.il/2012/08/21-aug-12-what-might-civilized-people.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.

Has the old media worm turned against Obama?

by Lee Cary

The answer, in a word, is "No."

The old media worm has not turned against Obama, despite the much-publicized Newsweek cover featuring the president's photo with the caption, "Hit the road, Barack."

The cover set off a flurry of fireworks from leftist websites. For example, The Daily Beast logged the outrage coming from several liberal outlets, as well as comments from some conservative sources, including the American Thinker's editor, Thomas Lifson.

Writing for The Maddow Blog, a near-apoplectic Steve Benen wrote:

If, however, Newsweek's goal is to strengthen its reputation, and gain new respect as a major news outlet, Ferguson's new cover story marks an ignominious low for the once-great magazine, tarnishing the publication's reputation in ways likely to do lasting, irreparable harm.

Benen entitled his piece "Where political journalism must not go" and wrote that "... Ferguson's piece represents political journalism at its most atrocious." He adds, "What Ferguson and Newsweek published isn't journalism; it's a joke."

His criticism represents a rendition of an old saying which, in the Maddow Blog case, should read, "Throw a handful of stones into a pack of liberal columnists, and the ones that yelp loudest are the ones that got hit."

Betrayal, especially by a supposedly like-minded colleague, leaves a bruise. Hence Benen's adolescent criticism in calling Newsweek and its writer "a joke." He really means "insult" (to him and those like him) rather than "joke," since they're not laughing.

(As an aside, one wonders why the Maddow blog piece didn't accuse Newsweek of displaying a racist cover. "Hit the Road Jack" is a Ray Charles song, performed here. Go here for the lyrics. Do you suppose that the racist charge would have come had the picture and caption appeared on the cover of, say, National Review?)

Then, on the heels of Newsweek's apparent desertion from the legion of Obama-fawning news outlets, there came an unflattering photograph of Obama with his face hidden behind a teleprompter screen in Reuters. That got attention, too.

USA Today ran a story entitled "Obama has millions of fake Twitter followers." It begins with:

President Obama's Twitter account has 18.8 million followers -- but more than half of them really don't exist, according to reports. A new Web tool has determined that 70% of Obama's crowd includes "fake followers," The New York Times reports in a story about how Twitter followers can be purchased.

Add to those examples of an old media that shows signs of becoming more critical of Obama, the verbal spanking that CNN's Anderson Cooper recently gave to the DNC chair, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, albeit delivered in genteel language.

So is this the beginning of a groundswell of Obama-critical journalism coming from the liberal media? Or merely a few anomalies, mostly designed to attract more viewers?

Are some liberal editors and pundits imagining a President Romney and hedging their bets on the election's outcome, just as some campaign donors on Wall Street contribute to both parties?

To paraphrase Aristotle, "a few swallows don't make a summer," and a few examples of less biased media reporting are not evidence of a solid trend.

Like the campaign donors on Wall Street who contribute to both parties, are some liberal editors imagining a President Romney and hedging their bets on the election's outcome?

Past behavior is often the best predictor of future behavior. After John Kerry lost in 2004 to George W. Bush, the New York Times focused on the "flip-flop." Damien Cave wrote, in his December 26, 2004 piece entitled "Flip Flopper," that "[n]ever, perhaps, has such a silly word had such an impact on a presidential campaign."

So the election in 2006 was all about a silly word with a big impact. Really? What does that lead us to expect from that paper if Barack Obama loses the election? How about an article lede reading, "Never has such an innocent sentence like 'You didn't build that' had such an impact"?

If Obama loses, the old liberal media will catalogue the reasons for his fall.

But we shouldn't expect any confession that they intentionally misrepresented him for six years, from 2006 to 2012. There will be no admission of their failure to do journalistic due diligence concerning his background and qualifications to become president. Nor a collective stomach-pumping to purge their Kool-Aid-invoked reporting on him as president.

The old media's postmortem on an Obama loss is more likely to blame racism, the extremist conservative blogosphere, the radical Tea Party, dissention within the Obama campaign staff, and a bad economy that will remain Bush's fault at least as long as former Secretary of State Madeline Albright can talk.

So the answer to the question as to whether or not the old media worm has turned against Obama is -- the worm squirmed some, but it has not turned. Any of their aggravation that may be directed toward him will pertain not to his statist intentions, but to his political implementation. In short, a failure in action -- not motive.

Meanwhile, the Romney folks are sharp enough to know that the old media worm will never fully turn in their direction should they usher in the next presidential administration.

But it remains to be seen if they realize that the media calculus -- to use one of Obama's favorite words -- has irrevocably shifted. Both the liberal and conservative wings of the new internet media are here to stay. In fact, they're both in their pre-elementary school years, with much more growth and development ahead.

We'll know if a potential Romney administration understands this when we see the gathering of White House correspondents at the initial briefing called by the new regime.

Will the camera show the same ol' herd of sheep, but now with a hostile intent? For they will have been sheared in an Obama loss, too.

Or will representations from the new media also be invited, and one or two perhaps even be seated in the front row, where Helen Thomas used to perch?

Will a few Thomas Lifson-types be there? Along with representatives from sites like The Daily Beast and the Daily Kos?

That gathering, if it comes, will tell us much about what to expect from Washington going forward.

Lee Cary

Source: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/08/has_the_old_media_worm_turned_against_obama.html

Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.