Israeli naval commandos stormed a flotilla of ships carrying aid and hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists to the blockaded Gaza Strip on Monday, killing nine passengers in a botched raid that provoked international outrage and a diplomatic crisis.
Dozens of activists and six Israeli soldiers were wounded in the bloody predawn confrontation in international waters. The violent takeover dealt yet another blow to Israel’s international image, already tarnished by war crimes accusations in Gaza and its 3-year-old blockade of the impoverished Palestinian territory.
AP editors would doubtless defend their transparent tendentiousness as providing the reader with “context,” but they seem rather selective in the matter of choosing context. How about the reality of who these “pro-Palestinian activists” were in fact organized by pro-Hamas group with terror ties?
The Turkish IHH (Islan Haklary Ve Hurriyetleri Vakfi in Turkish) was founded in 1992, and reportedly popped up on the CIA’s radar in 1996 for its radical Islamist leanings. . . .
The Turkish nonprofit belongs to a Saudi-based umbrella organization known to finance terrorism called the Union of Good (Ittilaf al-Kheir in Arabic). Notably, the Union is chaired by Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, who is known best for his religious ruling that encourages suicide attacks against Israeli civilians. According to one report, Qardawi personally transferred millions of dollars to the Union in an effort to provide financial support to Hamas. In 2008, the Israelis banned IHH, along with 35 other Islamist charities worldwide, for its ties to the Union of Good. . . . Israelis first blocked the Union of Good from operating in the West Bank and Gaza in 2002.
Interestingly, the Union of Good may not only be tied to Hamas. . . . French magistrate Jean-Louis Brougiere also testified that IHH had an “important role” in Ahmed Ressam’s failed “millennium plot” to bomb the Los Angeles airport in late 1999. The U.S. government . . . also views the Union of Good as a terrorist organization. On November 12, 2008, a press release from the U.S. Treasury announced the umbrella group’s leaders as Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT), stating that the group was “created by Hamas leadership to transfer funds to the terrorist organization.”
“Terrorist groups such as Hamas continue to exploit charities to radicalize vulnerable communities and cultivate support for their violent activities,” said Treasury Undersecretary Stuart Levey.
How much of that shows up in the Associated Press story? Two sentences:
Organizers included the IHH, an Islamic humanitarian group that is based in Istanbul but operates in several other countries. Israel outlawed the group in 2008 because of its ties to Hamas.
This blog would like to send a very heartfelt message to Rachel Maddow, but will require a bit of support to do it.
Seeing what a smashing success Rep. Cantor has been with YouCut, and the admittedly swift propaganda play on Rand Paul, we’d like to take that idea just one consonant further.
The idea is that we can express our opinion of Rachel with the mere insertion of the character ‘n’ into YouCut. Specificially, the plan involves having Stacy McCain go on her show in some attire that will either offend a feminist, or bring out the best of her neutral, object, well-researched, and reasonable journalistic skills.
Sure, you’ve probably guessed where this is going, but the idea explains itself in a single word: YouCnut.
You’ve understood me correctly: Medieval McCain Meets Maddow.
Can we get a witness?
So is Rand Paul a racist? No, and it’s irritating to watch his out-of-context quotes . . . splashed on the Web to make that point. Paul believes, as many conservatives believe, that the government should ban bias in all of its institutions but cannot intervene in the policies of private businesses.
Now, few conservatives would go as far as Paul. In an essay just this month on the thought of William F. Buckley, Lee Edwards criticized Buckley’s belief “that the federal enforcement of integration was worse than the temporary continuation of segregation.”
“As a result of National Review’s above-the-fray philosophizing,” wrote Edwards, “and Barry Goldwater’s vote, on constitutional grounds, against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the albatross of racism was hung around the neck of American conservatism and remained there for decades and even to the present.” . . .
David’s got the complete transcript of the Maddow/Paul interview. As much respect as I have for the great conservative historian Lee Edwards, I will risk “the albatross of racism” by siding with Buckley and Goldwater and — though Edwards doesn’t mention this — Ronald Reagan.
One of the rallying points of California conservatives in the early 1960s was opposition to the Rumford Fair Housing Act, a 1963 state law that banned racial discrimination in housing. Considering this an unjust and unnecessary intrusion on property rights — an attempt to mandate how people bought and sold their homes — conservatives supported Proposition 14, to overturn the new law. Proposition 14 passed with a 2-to-1 majority, although it was subsequently overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Reagan opposed the Rumford law and supported Proposition 14. Given that the 1964 Civil Rights Act incorporated the same kind of housing anti-discrimination measures as the Rumford law, it is therefore not surprising that Goldwater opposed the federal law — or that Reagan was Goldwater’s strongest advocate.
Nearly a half-century after that controversy, shall we retroactively pronounce Buckley, Reagan and Goldwater “racists”? And shall we impugn Rand Paul for “above-the-fray philosophizing” in daring to defend the policy stances taken by these icons of conservatism who are, after all, not alive to defend themselves?
Well, it’s still a free country, and you are free to throw Buckley, Reagan and Goldwater under the bus along with Rand Paul. I am equally free, however, to say that in discussing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 we must consider not only the direct effects of the law — the abolition of Jim Crow — but also its indirect effects.
Don’t conservatives believe that many problems in American society are unintended consequences of well-intentioned liberal legislation? What is the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 — heavily implicated in the mortgage crisis — except a logical extension of the Civil Rights Act’s effort to eliminate discrimination in housing?
All conservatives now recognize the harm done by the constant playing of the race card in political discourse. But we have also seen in the recent health-care debate how liberals likewise love to play the “reform” card: Support this specific law, or else you are “anti-reform.”
This is not new, and liberals were playing the same game with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, so that everyone who opposed the bill was accused of being an apologist for Jim Crow. And Rand Paul is now being excoriated for being honest enough to say that this was unfair, that whatever the benefits of abolishing Jim Crow, there were unintended consequences to the 1964 law — consequences that were to some extent foreseen by Buckley, Goldwater and Reagan — that still merit critical discussion.
Maddow’s badgering of Rand Paul amounts to an attempt to render off-limits the controversies of the past, to require that everyone endorse a progressive conception of history. As Clifton says, Paul is being forced into a Catch-22:
If Paul says he fully supports how the feds forced the private sector to end segregation he loses libertarian street cred, but by only supporting the results of the Civil Rights Act and not the actual legislation, Paul gives the left room to paint him as a racist.
What is at work here is a sort of intellectual terrorism, not just an effort to portray Rand Paul as a bigot, but to wield the accusation of racism as a weapon to intimidate anyone who dares challenge the progressive worldview.
Here is where wise men must perceive the totalitarian implications of political correctness, the Orwellian “memory hole,” the demand for conformity of thought, Trotsky airbrushed from the old Bolshevik photos. This argument is not really about racism, and it is not merely about Rand Paul or a single Republican campaign in Kentucky. Rather, it is about defending intellectual freedom from the bullies of the Left who arrogate to themselves the authority to decide what people can or cannot say in public discourse.
Conservatives must resolve to stand united against this kind of bullying treatment — to denounce it as an intellectually dishonest enterprise — or they shall eventually find that there is no remainder of the American tradition worth conserving.
“[T]ruth is great and will prevail if left to herself . . . she is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless by human interposition disarmed of her natural weapons, free argument and debate, errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them.”
— Thomas Jefferson, Virginia Act for Establishing Religious Freedom (1786)
“Let the others turn away. . . . They fear being ridiculed by the intelligentsia and allow the abuses to continue. They fear the mob as an excuse to avoid action. These are the people who, afraid to risk their reputation for rational thought, avoid rational conclusions. They seek some middle ground where they risk nothing and others do their chores.”
— T.L. Davis, The Constitutionalist (2010)
UPDATE: One of the commenters evidently wants to get me into a fight with my friend Dan Riehl — an invitation I’m not going to accept. Dan was rightly concerned from the outset about the efforts of some conservative to use Rand Paul’s candidacy to undermine Mitch McConnell in the Senate. Point taken.
With friends on both sides of the Kentucky GOP primary, I did not take sides — thinking it best to let Kentuckians fight it out amongst themselves — and was surprised by Sarah Palin’s intervention. Having now crossed this bridge, however, conservatives must fight the fight we are in and not waste time wishing we had met the enemy on some other field.
Dan’s I-told-you-so is valid, as is his comment that “Paul doesn’t have the good political sense to stop fighting” — or, as I would say, the sense to shift the fight onto more defensible terrain. If Paul or his supporters are “whining about principle,” to borrow Dan’s phrase, that’s not an effective political strategy.
Turn the enemy’s attack against him — rhetorical ju-jitsu. A static defense, a stubborn insistence that you are right, is not nearly so effective as the counterattack that shows your opponent is wrong.
Rachel Maddow and the Left in general are attempting to limit the scope of debate and define the terms to their own advantage, so that they get to decide who is or is not a “racist.” Americans are sick and tired of seeing accusations of racism tossed around willy-nilly like this, and if Rand Paul would confront this tactic head-on — exposing as invalid the rhetorical gamesmanship involved — he would emerge fromn the fight as a hero to many Kentucky voters, especially independents and conservative-leaning Democrats.
Rather than whining or acting defensively indignant (“How dare you call me a racist!”), focus the counterattack on the Left’s dishonest tactic of defining “racism” in a way that shuts off meaningful political debate and categorically stigmatizes conservatives.
“Post journalists must refrain from writing, tweeting or posting anything — including photographs or video — that could be perceived as reflecting political, racial, sexist, religious or other bias or favoritism that could be used to tarnish our journalistic credibility.”
Which is hogwash, of course. As long as you get the facts right, who gives a damn about “bias” or “favoritism”?
Is David Weigel prejudiced against social conservatives? Obviously. And that makes him different from other WaPo reporters . . . how?
At least Dave is honest about his prejudices. It is the bogus pretense of objectivity — that synoptic omniscient Broder bullshit — which is truly offensive. Unless Weigel starts makin’ stuff up (Janet Cooke) or plagiarizing (Ruth Shalit) his honest bias is only a problem insofar as it exposes the intrinsic hypocrisy of the WaPo’s official neutrality.
Why did the entire MSM jump to the same conclusion about Skulking White Man from the surveillance tape?
Speaking of sensible questions, I figured it might be helpful to add a photo of Ms. Brewer, just in case anyone was wondering, How could someone so unfathomably stupid get hired as a network news anchor?
It’s National Offend a Feminist Week, an excellent occasion to point out that having a nice rack isn’t a career disadvantage for “progressive” women. And if anyone is psychologically disturbed enough to Google “Contessa Brewer nude” or “Contessa Brewer topless” . . . well, why shouldn’t they be reading this blog?
Wait a minute: Connecticut Democrat. Who wants to bet that Faisal voted for Ned Lamont? He sure doesn’t seem likely to have been a Joe Lieberman voter, but maybe that’s just my “really outdated bigotry” talking . . .
UPDATE III:Drew M. at AOSHQ calls Ms. Brewer “Our favorite MSNBC News whore,” which is unfortunately crude. Wouldn’t a proper concern for civility require a more dignified designation, such as the Gaping Malodorous Orifice of Journalistic Fraudulence?
A week-long anchoring stint on MSNBC by Donny Deutsch ended abruptly on Wednesday, and four people briefed on the decision said the cancellation stemmed from an unflattering mention of that channel’s No. 1 anchor, Keith Olbermann, a day earlier.
Mr. Deutsch had labeled his hour on MSNBC “America the Angry,” and Mr. Olbermann was shown briefly in a series of clips of media bloviators during a segment that pondered what role the media plays in fomenting the public’s anger.
Geez, Donny, you start lumping in Herr Olbermann with minions of greedy racist homophobic Republican evil like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck, and what do you expect? Leg-thrills from Chris Matthews? A hand-job from Rachel Maddow?
Previously in this blog, in the “Joan Walsh: The Smoker She Drinks, The Player She Gets” episode, we explored Joan’s ludicrous assertion of earlier, pre-racial epithet video from March 20th at the Capitol Building being used in place of some hypothetical footage that would substantiate the false claims. Walsh:
As a friend notes, “It’s like running video of the Twin Towers on 9/10 to prove 9/11 didn’t happen.”
I caught the retiring, unassuming and altogether mellow Mr. Breitbart just after he had finished electrifying the crowd at the Washington Monument, and queried him concerning Ms. Walsh and Salon:Unofficial money quote transcript:
The point of showing that sequence is to show the tenor of the tea party crowd. They were boisterous. They were upset. And they were saying ‘Kill the bill, kill the bill, kill the bill’. And [the media] impugned the entire Tea Party movement. And that video shows you , as best as one could possibly show, that the narrative constructed falsely by the press, and its aiders and abettors in the shit new media like Salon, is that they wanted to be part of the team that impugned the Tea Party movement and toxified it in perpetuity as racist. And. They. Failed.
Upset? Rather. I was there, sporting my USS Constitution ballcap, albeit not present near the alleged incident:
Follow the link for the full shot with the crowd and Capitol Building in the background. As with the other half a dozen Tea Party events I’ve attended, it was a congenial, patriotic affair, deeply suspicious of the current Congress/Administration sort of affair.
The punchline to Walsh’s beclownment is that, when questioned in an old-school journalistic fashion, the so-called witnesses are walking back their stories.
