Harry Reid's Handshake...Worth LESS Than the Paper It's Printed On

If I learned anything about Harry Reid this week, is never play golf with the Majority Leader. You see more than anything Golf is a game of Honor, you score yourself, you penalize yourself, you make bets on a handshake,etc. Harry Reid proved that he is devoid of Honor. This past April Reid agreed to confirm three nominees in exchange for Republicans shelving plans to shut down the Senate over the issue. The Judges were to be confirmed before the Memorial Day recess (last week). The ONLY thing to happen before Memorial Day is that Reid earned a giant W for welsher. Now the Dems want to invoke some cockamamie rule that you shouldn't vote on Judges after July in a Presidential election year. Sounds to me like another excuse for our "do nothing" congress to do NOTHING.

Harry Reid's Handshake
June 3, 2008 ...

Senate Democrats are giving fresh meaning to the phrase "trust but verify." Leading up to Memorial Day, Majority Leader Harry Reid walked away from his spring pledge to Senate Republicans to confirm three of President Bush's judicial nominees by the holiday weekend. We'll soon see if Republicans will take this lying down.

In the deal brokered in April, Mr. Reid agreed to confirm three nominees in exchange for Republicans shelving plans to shut down the Senate over the issue. But as the deadline approached, Mr. Reid insisted he had always said he "couldn't guarantee" the confirmations. In the end he confirmed only Steven Agee for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, kicking the other 10 pending appellate nominees into the summer.

So far this year the Senate has confirmed a grand total of two circuit court judges. That's unprecedented in its stinginess, even for a Senate controlled by the party that isn't also in the White House. In Bill Clinton's last Congress, a Republican Senate confirmed 15 appellate nominees, and Democrats confirmed 17 in Ronald Reagan's last two years.

In the latest excuse for doing nothing, Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy is invoking the "Thurmond rule." Under a precedent ostensibly created by Republican Strom Thurmond in 1980, confirmations of new judges cease after July in a presidential election year. But the Thurmond rule is a Democratic urban myth. Mr. Thurmond made the statement in question at a September 1980 hearing when his committee voted out 10 Jimmy Carter nominees a mere six weeks before the election.

That same year, a Senate staffer named Stephen Breyer was nominated and confirmed to the First Circuit after Ronald Reagan was elected, in the very final days of the Carter Administration. Mr. Breyer would become a Supreme Court Justice during the Clinton presidency thanks to that Republican bow to Ted Kennedy, for whom Mr. Breyer worked. In 1984, a GOP Senate confirmed six circuit court nominees in August and another five in October. Ditto 1988, when a Democratic Senate confirmed a pair of Reagan nominees as late as October. Compared to Mr. Leahy, ol' Strom was the picture of bipartisanship.

Mr. Reid's strategy is clearly to leave as many vacancies as possible for President Obama – never mind that four circuits are currently operating with one or more seats that count as judicial "emergencies" because they have been vacant for so long. The Fourth Circuit is down four judges, but Mr. Leahy is refusing to move on four well-qualified nominees – Glen Conrad, Rod Rosenstein, Steve Matthews and Bob Conrad. Peter Keisler, nominated for the D.C. Circuit, has been waiting for a hearing since 2006. Democrats think he's too smart and too qualified and thus future Supreme Court material. So don't expect Mr. Reid to return the Stephen Breyer favor.

Instead, he wants to say he fulfilled his pledge to the GOP by moving on a pair of Sixth Circuit nominees, Ray Kethledge and Helene White. Democrats signed off on those two as part of a deal with Michigan Democrat Carl Levin, who is Ms. White's cousin-in-law. Republicans thought their deal with Mr. Reid was for two nominees in addition to the Michigan pair – but with the Majority Leader, you have to read the fine print of any handshake.

The question is how Republicans are going to react to this rude treatment. With 49 Senators, they can make life very difficult for the majority. Arlen Specter, the ranking Republican on Judiciary, said last week that the GOP caucus was "of a mind to get tough." But Democrats have heard that one before.

Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is up for re-election this year and wants to spend as little time as possible in Washington. But there are few better political fights for Republicans than over judicial nominations. A new Rasmussen study shows that the type of Supreme Court Justices a presidential candidate would appoint outranks even the war as a priority among GOP voters. Democrats are hoping to gain as many as nine Senate seats this fall, which means Republicans had better find a way to show voters that they matter – and soon.

Yerushalaim Shel Zahav (Jerusalem of Gold)-a Tribute

Today marks the 41st anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem, the holy City in the Holy land
If you have been to Jerusalem you have never truly felt the presence of God
Its not something that I can explain in words its like what my mom used to tell me about Yiddish, there is no translation.

Thank you Hashem for allowing us to once again feel your presence in your holy city. Please prevent the politicians in the Israeli Government who do not want connect with you from giving away the gift you gave us so long ago.


If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand forget her cunning.
If I do not remember thee,
let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth;
if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.

-Psalm 137

Yerushalaim Shel Zahav (Jerusalem of Gold)

Yerushalayim ...

The air of the mountains is as clear as wine

And the fragrance of the pine trees

Is lifted upon the evening breeze

With the ringing of the bells

And in the deep sleep of the tree and the stone

Held captive in a dream

The city which sits alone

And in her heart, a wall

Jerusalem of gold

And of copper and of light

For all of your songs

I am the harp

How the water cisterns have dried up

The city square is empty

Nobody goes up to the Temple Mount

In the Old City

And in the caves of the rocks

Winds howl

And no one goes down to the Dead Sea

Upon the Jericho Road

Jerusalem of gold...

Although I come to sing to you today

And to tie crowns upon you

I am less than the youngest of your sons

And the last of the sweet singers

For your name singes the lips

Like the kiss of the serpent

If I forget thee, oh Jerusalem

She is completely golden

Jerusalem of gold...

We have returned to the water cisterns

To the marketplace and the square

A shofar calls out on the Temple Mount

In the Old City

And in the caves in the rocks

A thousand suns shine forth

And again we will go down to the Dead Sea

Upon the Jericho Road

Jerusalem of gold...

Daniel Pipes on the Difference Between Obama and McCain on the Middle East

In his latest article for Frontpagemagazine.com Daniel Pipes makes some interesting points comparing the Jeffry Goldberg interviews with each of Senator McCain and Senator Barack Obama. One of the most interesting things he points out is that Obama starts out his Mideast interviews with a pathetic uncomfortable (my words not Pipes) version of "some of my best friends are Jewish." It is obvious that Obama knows he has something to be guilty about. McCain on the other hand doesn't feel that he has to start by proving his support of Jews and Israel. he launches right into his policies:

Obama vs. McCain on the Middle East

By Daniel Pipes
FrontPageMagazine.com | Tuesday, June 03, 2008

How do the two leading candidates for president of the United States differ in their approach to Israel and related topics? Parallel interviews with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic, who spoke in early May with Democrat Barack Obama and in late May with Republican John McCain, offer some important insights.

Asked roughly the same set of questions, they went off in opposite directions. Obama used the interview to convince readers of his pro-Israel and pro-Jewish bona fides. He thrice reiterated his support for Israel: "the idea of a secure Jewish state is a fundamentally just idea, and a necessary idea"; "the need to preserve a Jewish state that is secure is … a just idea and one that should be supported here in the United States and around the world"; and "You will not see, under my presidency, any slackening in commitment to Israel's security."

Obama then detailed his support within four specifically Jewish contexts.

• Personal development: "when I think about the Zionist idea, I think about how my feelings about Israel were shaped as a young man — as a child, in fact. I had a camp counselor when I was in sixth grade who was Jewish-American but who had spent time in Israel."
• Political career: "When I started organizing, the two fellow organizers in Chicago were Jews, and I was attacked for associating with them. So I've been in the foxhole with my Jewish friends."
• Ideas: "I always joke that my intellectual formation was through Jewish scholars and writers, even though I didn't know it at the time. Whether it was theologians or Philip Roth who helped shape my sensibility, or some of the more popular writers like Leon Uris."
• Philosophy: "My staff teases me sometimes about anguishing over moral questions. I think I learned that partly from Jewish thought, that your actions have consequences and that they matter and that we have moral imperatives."

In contrast, McCain felt no need to establish his Zionism nor his pro-Jewish credentials. Taking them as a given, he used his interview to raise practical policy issues, particularly the threat from Iran. For example, asked about the justness of Zionism, he replied that "it's remarkable that Zionism has been in the middle of wars and great trials and it has held fast to the ideals of democracy and social justice and human rights," then went on: "I think that the State of Israel remains under significant threat from terrorist organizations as well as the continued advocacy of the Iranians to wipe Israel off the map." Again referring to Iran, McCain committed himself "to never allowing another Holocaust." He referred to the threatened destruction of Israel as having "profound national security consequences" for the United States and he stressed that Tehran sponsors terrorist organizations intent "on the destruction of the United States of America."

A second difference concerns the importance of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Obama presented it as an "open wound" and an "open sore" that infects "all of our foreign policy." In particular, he said, its lack of resolution "provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions." Asked about Obama's statement, McCain slammed the idea that radical Islam results mainly from the Arab-Israeli confrontation: "I don't think the conflict is a sore. I think it's a national security challenge." Were the Israeli-Palestinian issue resolved tomorrow, he pointedly continued, "we would still face the enormous threat of radical Islamic extremism."

Finally, the two disagree on the import of Israelis continuing to live on the West Bank. Obama places great emphasis on the topic, commenting that if their numbers continue to grow, "we're going to be stuck in the same status quo that we've been stuck in for decades now." McCain acknowledged this as a major issue but quickly changed the topic to the Hamas campaign of shelling Sderot, the besieged Israeli town that he personally visited in March, and whose predicament he explicitly compares to the mainland United States coming under attack from one of its borders.

Goldberg's twin interviews underscore two facts. First, major-party candidates for the U.S. presidency must still pay homage to warm American ties to Israel, no matter how, as in Obama's case, dramatically this may contradict their previously-held views. Second, whereas McCain is secure on the topic, Obama worries about winning the pro-Israel vote.

Will Jay Rockefeller Attack Britian Over Claims Taliban on Ropes ?

Boy oh Boy, Jay Rockefeller is PISSED OFF. In a nasty letter to CIA Director Hayden Friday, the chairman Senate Intelligence Committee, Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., wrote he was "surprised and troubled" by the director's comments, which "are not consistent with assessments that have been provided to the Senate Intelligence Committee over the past year." Its also not consistent with the Democratic Party position.The letter was a response to Hayden's comments that al-Qaida had suffered "near strategic defeat" in both Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and "significant setbacks … globally" that were keeping it "off balance -- even in their best safe haven along the Afghanistan- Pakistan border." "I have seen nothing, including classified intelligence reporting, that would lead me to this conclusion," wrote Rockefeller, citing congressional testimony by Hayden and others to the effect that al-Qaida had reconstituted its central leadership in that mountainous and lawless region.

Now the commander of British forces in Afghanistan has come out and said "precise, surgical" tactics had killed scores of insurgent leaders and made it extremely difficult for Pakistan-based Taliban leaders to operate. Do you think that Senator Rockefeller is going to flip out at the British?

Taliban bombed 'to brink of defeat'
KABUL: Missions by coalition forces and air strikes by unmanned drones have "decapitated" the Taliban and brought the terror movement to the brink of defeat in Afghanistan, military leaders said yesterday.

The commander of British forces in Afghanistan told London's Daily Telegraph that new "precise, surgical" tactics had killed scores of insurgent leaders and made it extremely difficult for Pakistan-based Taliban leaders to operate.

Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith told the newspaper that in the past two years, an estimated 7000 Taliban had been killed, the majority in southern and eastern Afghanistan. But it was the "very effective targeted decapitation operations" that had removed "several echelons of commanders", he said.

This had left the insurgents on the brink of defeat, the head of Task Force Helmand told the paper yesterday.

"The tide is clearly ebbing, not flowing for them. Their chain of command is disrupted and they are short of weapons and ammunition," Brigadier Carleton-Smith said.

Last year's killing of Mullah Dadullah, the Taliban chief, most likely by Britain's Special Boat Service, was "a seminal moment in dislocating" their operation in southern Afghanistan, he said.

"We have seen increasing fissures of stress through the whole organisation that has led to internecine and fratricidal strife between competing groups," Brigadier Carleton-Smith said.

Taliban fighters are reportedly becoming increasingly unpopular in Helmand, where they rely on the local population for food and water, the report said.

"I can therefore judge the Taliban insurgency a failure at the moment," Brigadier Carleton-Smith said. "We have reached the tipping point."

The report came as a suspected missile strike destroyed buildings including a mosque in a Pakistani tribal area yesterday.

At least two blasts ripped through the compound in Spilga, a village on the outskirts of Miranshah, the main town in the Taliban stronghold of North Waziristan.

Missile strikes launched by US-led forces in Afghanistan and the Pakistani tribal regions have had great success in killing Taliban and al-Qa'ida-linked insurgents in recent years.

Much of the Taliban operation is run by Mullah Omar, and to a lesser extent by al-Qa'ida from their headquarters at Quetta, in Pakistan.

But Brigadier Carleton-Smith said the ability of what is known as the Quetta Shura leadership had been "hugely reduced" and its influence was "increasingly marginalised".

The number of Afghans involved in the insurgency had fallen, he said, with increasing numbers of Pakistanis, Chechens, Uzbeks and Arabs found dead on the battlefield.

Meanwhile, Afghan forces under attack in northwestern Afghanistan yesterday called in NATO air strikes in heavy clashes that left dozens of Taliban fighters dead.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force confirmed it had carried out air strikes in the area and said its information was that at least 10 insurgents had been killed.

Barack Obama Didn't Invent Engaging Our Enemies

If you listen to Senator Obama's Stump speech you would think that engaging our enemies is a brainstorm that he came up with one Sunday when he was sitting in church NOT listening to Pastor Wright. The fact is under the right conditions America has been engaging our enemies for centuries. Sometimes it works, like with Muammar Qadhafi and Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat. Sometimes it screws things up, like almost every time we (or our allies) "touched" Iran from the Kennedy administration through today:


SHATTERED ENGAGEMENTS By Barry Rubin

Engagement doesn’t always produce marriage. In the U.S.-Iran case, diplomatic engagements have been repeatedly disastrous. Yet many think the idea of engagement was just invented and never tried;

President John Kennedy pressed Iran for democratic reforms in the early 1960s.. The Shah responded with his White Revolution which horrified traditionalists and moved them to active opposition. One of them was named Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

President Richard Nixon urged Iran in the early 1970s, under the Nixon Doctrine, to become a regional power since America was overextended in Vietnam. The Shah embarked on a huge arms-buying campaign and close alliance stirring more opposition and fiscal strain, contributing to unrest.

In the late 1970s, President Jimmy Carter pushed Iran to ease restriction The result was Islamist revolution. Next, Carter urged the Shah not to repress the uprising, helping bring his downfall.

After the 1979 revolution, Carter engaged the new regime to show Khomeini that America was his friend. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, today advising Barack Obama, met Iranian leadersTehran interpreted this engagement as an effort to subvert or co-opt the revolution, so Iranians seized the U.S. embassy and took everyone there hostage.[1]

The Reagan administration secretly engaged Iran in the mid-1980s to help free U.S. hostages of its terrorism. Result: a policy debacle and free military equipment for Iran.

In recent years there was a long engagement in which European states negotiated for themselves and America to get Tehran to stop its nuclear weapons’ drive. Iran gained four years to develop nukes; the West got nothing.[2]

The history of U.S. engagement with the PLO and Syria is similar. The Oslo era (1992-2000) was engagement as disaster, establishing a PLO regime indifferent to its people’s welfare, increasing radicalism and violence, with no gain for peace. Aside from the worsened security problem, Israel’s international image was badly damaged by concessions made and risks taken. America’s making the PLO a client brought it no gratitude or strategic gain.[3]

Similarly, Syria used the 1991-2000 engagement era to survive its USSR superpower sponsor’s collapse while doing everything it wanted: dominating Lebanon, sponsoring terrorism, and sabotaging peace. U.S. secretaries of state visited Damascus numerous times and achieved nothing, a process that continued up to 2004. Syria first helped Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, then sponsored terrorists who disrupted Iraq and killed Americans.[4]

There have, of course, been successful engagements—but not with Iran, Syria, or the PLO. The most successful was Egypt’s turnaround by Nixon and Kissinger. A partial success was changing Libya’s behavior. In those two cases, American power, not compassion, achieved success. Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi and Egyptian President Anwar al-Sadat (“America holds 99 percent of the cards”) knew they were weak and needed to stop America from hitting them hard.

Engagements, of course, have effects other than direct success. One is to buy time for someone. But who? If one party subverts other states, builds nuclear weapons, demoralizes the other’s allies, and sponsors terrorism during talks while the other side…just talks, the first side benefits far more.

Second, if one side gets the other to make concessions to prove good faith and keep talks going, that side benefits. Keeping engagement going becomes an end in itself as the weaker side uses a diplomatic version of asymmetric warfare to make gains.

Finally, while using talks to deescalate tensions apparently benefits everyone, matters are not so simple. By talking, a stronger side can throw away its leverage. The weaker side does not have to back down to avoid confrontation.

So engagement, without pressure or threat, benefits the weaker side. If the stronger side is eager to reach agreement, the weaker side has more leverage. The advantage is transferred from the strongest side to the most intransigent one. Here, Iran, Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah have the upper hand.

Senator Obama doesn’t understand these points. To see how alien a normal liberal concept of foreign policy is for him, note what he could have said:

“America must be strong to protect its interests, values, and friends against ruthless adversaries. But if America is strong, it can also be flexible. Let us engage countries and leaders by telling them clearly our demands and goals. Once Iran understands the United States will counter its threats of genocide against Israel, involvement in terrorism against Americans, and threats to our interests it may back down. If Iran gives up its extremism, we are ready to offer friendship. But if Iran remains extremist we will quickly abandon engagement and never hesitate to respond appropriately."

This way, a leader shows he knows how to use both carrots and sticks. But Obama has never said anything like this. He has no concept of toughness as a necessary element in flexibility, or of deterrence as a precondition to conciliation. Nor does he indicate that he would be steadfast if engagement failed. He defines no U.S. preconditions for meeting or conditions for agreement. He offers to hear Iran’s grievances but says nothing about American grievances.

Radical Islamists interpret this strategy as weakness of which they will take full advantage. That’s why Iran, Syria, and Hamas favor Obama. Thus spoke Lebanese cleric Muhammad Abu al-Qat on Hizballah’s al-Manar television on May 10: “The American empire will very soon collapse….This won't happen as a result of war….An American Gorbachev will surface in America, and he will destroy this empire.[5]

Islamists and radicals want Obama because they understandably expect him to play into their hands. By the same token, more moderate Arab regimes and observers are horrified.

Obama is so scary and is accused of appeasement not because he wants to meet enemies in person but because he doesn’t want to meet them in struggle. He doesn’t know how international politics work through power, threats, deterrence, self-interest, and credibility. He doesn’t comprehend that totalitarian ideologies cannot be moderated by apology or weakness.

Whatever you think of Senator John McCain, he understands these basic concepts. That’s why he’s a centrist who can be trusted to protect American national interests. Whatever you think of Senator Hillary Clinton, she understands these basic concepts. That’s why she’s a liberal who can be trusted to protect American national interests. And that’s why Obama is both a dangerously naïve amateur and a leftist posing as a liberal.

---

[1] On Points 1-4, see Barry Rubin, Paved with Good Intentions: The American Experience and Iran, (Oxford, 1980; Viking-Penguin, 1981)

[2] On Point 5, see Barry Rubin, Cauldron of Turmoil: America in the Middle East, (Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1992.) available for free at http://www.gloriacenter.org/submenus/freebooks/download/cauldron.pdf]. See also Barry Rubin, "Lessons from Iran," in Alexander T. J. Lennon and Camille Eiss, Reshaping Rogue States: Preemption, Regime Change, and U.S. Policy toward Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, (Boston: MIT Press, 2004), pp. 141-156, and “Regime Change and Iran: A Case Study,” Washington Quarterly, 2003.

[3] On U.S. policy and the PLO, see Barry Rubin and Judith Colp Rubin, Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography Oxford University Press 2003; paperback, 2005.

British/Commonwealth edition: Continuum 2003. Australian edition: Allan & Unwin. Italian edition: Mondadori, 2004; Hebrew edition, Yediot Aharnot, 2005; Turkish edition, Aykiri Yayincilik, 2005.

[4] On U.S. policy and Syria, see Barry Rubin, The Truth About Syria, Palgrave-MacMillan (2007); paperback, 2008.

[5] http://www.memritv.org/clip_transcript/en/1772.htm

---

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley).

Boston Globe Reports Clinton WILL CONCEDE RACE TONIGHT

No Surprise but it is now official. MSNBC Concurs Sounds like she is Quitting without quitting (It depends what Is-is? story below:

Clinton to say Obama has enough delegates

Aides: N.Y. senator will stop short of formally suspending or ending her race

CHICAGO - Hillary Rodham Clinton will concede Tuesday night that Barack Obama has the delegates to secure the Democratic nomination, campaign officials said, effectively ending her bid to be the nation's first female president.

The former first lady will stop short of formally suspending or ending her race in her speech in New York City. She will pledge to continue to speak out on issues like health care. But for all intents and purposes, the two senior officials said, the campaign is over.

Most campaign staff will be let go and will be paid through June 15, said the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to divulge her plans.

The advisers said Clinton made a strategic decision to not formally end her campaign, giving her leverage to negotiate with Obama on various matters including a possible vice presidential nomination for her. She also wants to press him on issues he should focus on in the fall, such as health care.

History within his reach, Obama was primed to claim the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday or soon after as voters in Montana and South Dakota bring his months-long contest with dogged rival to a close.

Clinton campaign chairman Terry McAuliffe said Tuesday that once Obama gets the majority of convention delegates, "I think Hillary Clinton will congratulate him and call him the nominee."

The outcome could come by the end of the day with some choreography by the party's superdelegates. The party insiders were lining up behind Obama at a rate that could seal the nomination once results are in from Montana and South Dakota — or even before.

Two more superdelegates endorsed him Tuesday morning, from Michigan and Missouri, leaving him just 40 delegates short of the 2,118 needed to put him over the top and make him the nation's first black presidential nominee from a major party.

Challenge unlikely
Clinton, once seen as a sure bet in her historic quest to become the first female president, was still pressing the superdelegates to support her fading candidacy. But McAuliffe indicated she was not inclined to drag out a dispute over delegates from the unsanctioned Michigan primary despite feeling shortchanged by a weekend compromise by the party's rules committee that she could still appeal to a higher level.

"I don't think she's going to go to the credentials committee," he said on NBC's "Today" show. Taking the matter to that committee would essentially extend the dispute into the convention and deny Democrats the unity they sorely want to achieve against Republican John McCain.

Seeing the cards fall into place for his November rival, McCain planned a prime time speech Tuesday night in the New Orleans suburb of Kenner, La., in what is essentially a kickoff of the fall campaign.

Obama told The Associated Press on Monday that "we've got a lot of work to do in terms of bringing the party together" with the convention approaching.

On Tuesday, House Majority Whip and unpledged delegate James Clyburn told the TODAY show that he was throwing his support behind Obama.

"I believe the nomination of Senator Obama is our party's best chance for victory in November, and our nation's best hope for much needed change," the South Carolina representative said.

"Once the last votes are cast, then it's in everybody's interest to resolve this quickly so we can pivot," he added.

Obama said there were a lot of superdelegates who have been private supporters of his but wanted to respect the process by not endorsing until the final primaries were done.

"We're still working the phones and we're still talking to people ... so we'll certainly have to wait until a little later tonight to see what the final tally is, but we certainly feel good waking up this morning," Robert Gibbs, Obama's spokesman, told CNN on Tuesday.

In a defiant shot across the GOP bow, Obama, who returned to hometown Chicago late Monday, planned to hold his wrap-up rally in St. Paul, Minn., at the arena that will be the site of the Republican National Convention in September.

Clinton rally in NYC
Clinton returned to New York, the state she represents in the Senate, planning an end-of-primary evening rally in Manhattan after a grueling campaign finale as she pushed through South Dakota on Monday.

"I'm just very grateful we kept this campaign going until South Dakota would have the last word," she said at a restaurant in Rapid City in one of her final campaign stops. Polls suggested Obama would win both South Dakota and Montana.

She still sounded buoyant. Her biggest booster and most tireless campaigner, husband Bill Clinton, didn't. "This may be the last day I'm ever involved in a campaign of this kind," the former president said somberly as he stumped for her in South Dakota.

Ahead of Tuesday's concluding primaries, Obama sought to set the stage for reconciliation, praising Clinton's endurance and determination and offering to meet with her — on her terms — "once the dust settles" from their race.

"The sooner we can bring the party together, the sooner we can start focusing on McCain in November," Obama told reporters in Michigan. He said he spoke with Clinton on Sunday when he called to congratulate her on winning the Puerto Rico primary, most likely her last hurrah.

Clinton as running mate?
That fueled speculation for a "dream ticket" in which Clinton would become Obama's running mate — but neither camp was suggesting that was much of a possibility.

In the AP interview, Obama was asked when he would start looking for a running mate.

"The day after I have gotten that last delegate needed to officially claim the nomination, I'll start thinking about vice presidential nominees," he said. "It's a very important decision, and it's one where I'm going to have to take some time."

Clinton finished a whirlwind four days of campaigning that took her from New York to Puerto Rico to South Dakota and back. For a campaign pushing against long odds, it was a show of determination.

The former first lady, suffering from a recurrent cough, had to cede the microphone to her daughter Chelsea twice Monday as she struggled to recover her voice. Chelsea promptly took the opportunity — to discuss health care.

The UN Has Officially Declared War Against Jewish Organizations

Tomoorow the UN will be voting to take away access right from the World Union of Progressive Judaism. The WUPJ, represents more than 1.7 million reform, progressive, liberal and reconstructionist Jewsall over the world. Most of the time this group is concerned with things like disaster or poverty relief. Why is about to have its privileges to attend and speak at UN events erased? The did a very bad thing, they pointed out that Hamas is a terrorist group, and has the destruction of a UN member state as part of its charter. Well, nothing pisses the UN off more than when someone starts telling them TRUTH. Now, lead by Cuba, (the great bastion of Human Rights?!?!) the council of on-aligned nations (more great bastions of Human Rights?!?!) has sent a letter to the UN asking for WUPJ to lose its privileges. I guess the message here is NEVER CALL a TERRORIST GROUP, A TERRORIST GROUP:

UN-speakable hypocrisy By Anne Bayefsky

Monday, June 2nd 2008, 4:00 AM

Fascism is alive and well right here in New York City. Home base is Conference Room 1 of United Nations headquarters, where the UN Committee on Non-governmental Organizations is now in session.

There are more than 3,000 non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, that are officially accredited by the UN's central processing body. Representing a range of people and interests from around the globe, these groups can enter UN premises, get access to meetings and decision-makers and speak at UN bodies like the Human Rights Council.

Now, the UN is on a warpath against one particular NGO. It is poised tomorrow to revoke these basic access rights from the World Union of Progressive Judaism. Yes, the WUPJ - which represents more than 1.7 million reform, progressive, liberal and reconstructionist Jews all over the world - is about to have its privileges to attend and speak at UN events erased.

What was its sin? Daring to speak clearly against UN human rights hypocrisy.

Bureaucrats at the UN trace the problem back to a statement made by the WUPJ during a Jan. 24, 2008, session of the Human Rights Council. The meeting marked the fourth time the UN's lead human rights body had convened an entire session to condemn Israel. That brought the total to four special sessions on Israel - compared with six sessions to address human rights in the other 191 UN member states.

As the council conducted its predetermined witch hunt, WUPJ representative David Littman made the mistake of referring to Hamas' genocidal charter. He began three times, quoting the charter's words that "Israel will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it," and calling upon the council to invoke the Genocide Convention.

Each time, the council president interrupted and warned him to "focus on the issue." Littman stood his ground: "The issue is what Hamas and the government in Gaza wishes to do to Israel." Bang, bang, bang went the gavel. Stymied, Littman recalled his Shakespeare and said: "There is a general malaise in the air. A feeling that something is rotten in the state of this council."

That was the last straw. Those words were "disrespectful" to the Human Rights Council, the diplomats from the Muslim world declared.

That brings us to the present day - tomorrow, actually - when the UN committee charged with ensuring NGOs' equal access rights is set to expel the WUPJ from the premises.

Chairing the committee is that bastion of civil liberties, Sudan. Vice-chairs include Pakistan and Cuba. Among the other 16 members are serial free speech abusers Angola, China, Egypt, QatarRussia. and

At this past Thursday's committee meeting, Sudan - currently committing genocide - expressed concern that the WUPJ's behavior "violates the spirit and the letter of the charter of the UN." China - where you're arrested for logging on to the Internet and typing in "human rights" - was upset because "We respect civil society and NGOs."

What is really going on here is that the UN is trying to remove a sharp stone in its shoe. Littman and the WUPJ are rare but tenacious voices who confront Islamic human rights abuses at the UN at every turn. Over the past year, Littman has complained to the council that Iranian law "still allows the marriage of girls at only 9 years old and justifies the stoning of women for alleged adultery," warned against "Sharia law [taking] supremacy over the Universal Declaration," and urged that "calls to kill in the name of Allah be unequivocally condemned."

Each time, the likes of Egypt, the Palestinian Observer and Iran have tried to shut him up.

Will they succeed - or will the United States, which also sits on the committee, fight a lot harder to defend the WUPJ's rights? If the censors prevail, it will have a dramatic chilling effect on groups across the UN system and leave human rights victims out in the cold.

Bayefsky is a senior fellow with the Hudson Institute and editor of eyeontheun.org.

WHITEY or WHY'D HE? THAT IS THE QUESTION

Just as much as anyone else who supports John McCain, I really hope that the story about the Michelle Obama tape is true. It would really let Americans know what this guy is all about.

But the more I hear/read about it the more I doubt its true (I hope I am wrong). Let me explain why I think it will never see the light of day.

• I First Heard about it from Geraldo. Everyone knows that you have to doubt his reports, unless he is giving US Troop positions.

• If this tape exists, why haven't the masters of dirty politics, the Clinton's found it and distributed it?

• If the Republican party really has this tape, why would they wait till October. Releasing it now would throw the entire democratic convention is disarray.
  

• Jim Geraghty is say that there is a question of what she really said, to paraphrase Prince Hamlet, Whitey, or Why'd He? THAT is the question:
  

Is the Michelle Obama Tape a Matter of Enunciation?

JIM GERAGHTY

A really interesting theory about the alleged Michelle Obama tape, which could explain a lot, from the liberal blog Booman Tribune. Michelle, offering a speech critical of President Bush, offers a refrain of "why'd he" — the words "why did he" mushed together — that sounds like "whitey" on the tape.

Apparently, if the tape ever comes to light, her words will sound something like:

Whitey cut folks off Medicaid?
Whitey let New Orleans drown?
Whitey do nothing about Jena?
Whitey put us in Iraq for no reason?*

...when the intended message is,

Why'd he cut folks off Medicaid?
Why'd he let New Orleans drown?
Why'd he do nothing about Jena?
Why'd he put us in Iraq for no reason?

Or so we will be told. The irony is, if the latter interpretation is accurate, we still have a potential first lady accusing her husband's predecessor of "letting" New Orleans drown.

UPDATE: Contemplating the rumor below, I wondered when and how Michelle Obama and Louis Farrkhan would appear on a panel together. Farrakhan doesn't seem like the type to voluntarily share the stage. But then I noted that in late 2007, Trinity United gave Farrakhan its lifetime achievement award with a full ceremony — the video shown that evening is still on YouTube, with the feminine announcer declaring, "For his commitment to truth, education and leadership, we honor Minister Louis Farrakhan with the Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. lifetime achievement award." (Before you ask, the announcer is not Michelle Obama.) Is it possible the two are at the head table for a banquet? Is this the circumstance of Michelle Obama's remarks?

ANOTHER UPDATE: Readers point out that whether this is a question ("Why'd he") or a statement ("whitey") should be fairly clear from the intonation of the sentence, if we ever get to hear the audio of the tape. The pitch usually increases for a question, and decreases for a statement.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: There's another transcript floating around FreeRepublic and elsewhere that would make it hard to believe that this is a mispronunciation of "why'd he." I have no idea where this alternative transcript comes from, and note that those who are posting it to various conservative chat rooms, etc., give no sense of where they heard it from.

An interesting point about the alternative explanation posted on Booman Tribune. Whoever felt the need to give that clarifying transcript to a liberal blog is, by that action, confirming that the tape exists.

Obama Will Never Get Rid of That Yellow Stain

"You can wipe the rest of your life Mister, you will never wipe off that yellow stain"-Caine Mutiny

At the end of the Caine Mutiny, Jose Ferrer delivers that classic line as he flings a glass of champaign into Fred McMurray's face. The reason for the outburst was McMurray's character's cynicism. That same cynicism that can be applied to Senator Barack Obama. Two Days ago, the Senator resigned from the church he prayed at for twenty years. He resigned for the same reason he joined, political expediency. But as hard as he wipes he will never get rid of the stain of how he handled his church, that shall ever be his Yellow Stain:

No Liberation
Stanley Kurtz
Barack Obama can run, but his ties to Trinity and its radical political and theology roots are deep.

By Stanley Kurtz

Having now left Trinity United Church of Christ, can Barack Obama escape responsibility for his decades-long ties to Michael Pfleger and Jeremiah Wright? No, he cannot. Obama’s connections to the radical-left politics espoused by Pfleger and Wright are broad and deep. The real reason Obama bound himself to Wright and Pfleger in the first place is that he largely approved of their political-theological outlooks.

Obama shared Wright’s rejection of black “assimilation.” Obama also shared Wright’s suspicion of the traditional American ethos of individual self-improvement and the pursuit of “middle-classness.” In common with Wright, Obama had deep misgivings about America’s criminal justice system. And with the exception of their direct attacks on whites, Obama largely approved of his preacher-friends’ fiery rhetoric. Obama’s goal was not to repudiate religious radicalism but to channel its fervor into an effective and permanent activist organization. How do we know all this? We know it because Obama himself has told us.

A Revealing Profile
Although it’s been discussed before (because it confirms that Obama attended Louis Farrakhan’s Million Man March), a 1995 background piece on Obama from the Chicago Reader has received far too little attention. Careful consideration of this important profile makes it clear that Obama’s long-standing ties to Chicago’s most rabidly radical preachers call into question far more than Obama’s judgment and character (although they certainly do that, as well). Obama’s two-decades at Trinity open a critically important window onto his radical-left political leanings. No mere change of church membership can erase that truth.

By providing us with an in-depth picture of Obama’s political worldview on the eve of his elective career, Hank De Zutter’s, “What Makes Obama Run?” lives up to its title. The first thing to note here is that Obama presents his political hopes for the black community as a third way between two inadequate alternatives. First, Obama rejects, “the unrealistic politics of integrationist assimilation — which helps a few upwardly mobile blacks to ‘move up, get rich, and move out. . . . ’ ” This statement might surprise many Obama supporters, who seem to think of him as the epitome of integrationism. Yet Obama’s repudiation of integrationist upward mobility is fully consistent with his career as a community organizer, his general sympathy for leftist critics of the American “system,” and of course his membership at Trinity. Obama, we are told, “quickly learned that integration was a one-way street, with blacks expected to assimilate into a white world that never gave ground.” Compare these statements by Obama with some of the remarks in Jeremiah Wright’s Trumpet, and the resemblance is clear.

Having disposed of assimilation, Obama goes on to criticize “the politics of black rage and black nationalism” — although less on substance than on tactics. Obama upbraids the politics of black power for lacking a practical strategy. Instead of diffusing black rage by diverting it to the traditional American path of assimilation and middle-class achievement, Obama wants to capture the intensity of black anger and use it to power an effective political organization. Obama says, “he’s tired of seeing the moral fervor of black folks whipped up — at the speaker’s rostrum and from the pulpit — and then allowed to dissipate because there’s no agenda, no concrete program for change.” The problem is not fiery rhetoric from the pulpit, but merely the wasted anger it so usefully stirs.

Obama’s Network
De Zutter gives us a clear glimpse of Obama’s radicalism. Obama is called “progressive,” of course, and is said to yearn for “massive economic change.” That could simply mean an end to widespread poverty, rather than social restructuring. Yet Obama is also described as holding “a worldview well beyond” his mother’s “New Deal, Peace Corps, position-paper liberalism.” De Zutter lays out Obama’s ties to radical groups like Chicago Acorn, as Acorn’s lead organizer, Madeleine Talbott, is quoted affirming that: “Barack has proven himself among our members . . . we accept and respect him as a kindred spirit, a fellow organizer.” In “Inside Obama’s Acorn,” I explore Obama’s links to this radical group, and to Talbott, who practices the sort of intimidating and often illegal “direct action” Acorn is famous for. (For more on Talbott’s affinity for “direct action,” see “Where Do We Begin?”)



De Zutter also touches on some other key elements of Obama’s network. Obama’s early organizing work for the Developing Communities Project was “funded by south-side Catholic churches.” Clearly, this early work cemented Obama’s close ties to Father Pfleger, whose support formed a critical component of Obama’s grassroots network. Precisely because of this early link, Pfleger threw his considerable support behind Obama’s failed 2000 bid for Congress. By the way, Pfleger’s political influence in Chicago is such that Mayor Richard Daley actually declared his 2002 candidacy for a fourth full term as mayor at Pfleger’s St. Sabina church. In “Inside Obama’s Acorn,” I explore the possibility that Obama’s seat on the boards of a couple liberal Chicago foundations may have allowed him to direct funds to groups that served as his de facto political base. De Zutter quotes Woods Fund executive director, Jean Rudd, praising Obama for “being among the most hard-nosed board members in wanting to see results. He wants to see our grants make change happen — not just pay salaries.” No doubt, Obama was sincerely supportive of the sort of leftist organizations favored by the Woods Fund. However, if Obama was in fact looking to some of the groups supported by the Woods Fund as a personal political base, his unusually active board service would make all the more sense.

Black Churches
The threads of this political network are pulled tighter as Obama turns to a “favorite topic,” “the lack of collective action among black churches.” Obama is sharply critical of churches that try to help their communities merely through “food pantries and community service programs.” Today, Obama rationalizes his ties to Wright’s Trinity Church by citing its community service programs. Yet in 1995, Obama was highly critical of churches that focused exclusively on such services, while neglecting the sort of politically visionary sermons, local king-making, and political alliance-building favored by Pfleger and Wright. Obama rejects the strictly community-service approach of apolitical churches as part of America’s unfortunate “bias” toward “individual action.” Obama believes that what he derogates as “John Wayne” thinking and the old, “right wing...individualistic bootstrap myth” needs to be replaced: “We must unite in collective action, build collective institutions and organizations.”

Obama sees the black church as the key to his plan for collective social and political action: “Obama . . . spoke of the need to mobilize and organize the economic power and moral fervor of black churches. He also argued that as a state senator he might help bring this about faster than as a community organizer or civil rights lawyer.” Says Obama, “We have some wonderful preachers in town — preachers who continue to inspire me — preachers who are magnificent at articulating a vision of the world as it should be.” Obama continues, “But as soon as church lets out, the energy dissipates. We must find ways to channel all this energy into community building.” Obama seems to be holding up people like Wright, Pfleger, and James Meeks (who he has listed as his key religious allies) as positive models for the wider black church — in both their rhetoric, and in their willingness to play a direct political role. If anything, Obama would like to see the political visions of Wright and Pfleger given greater weight and substance by connecting them to secular leftist political networks like Acorn.

End Run
By the end of De Zutter’s piece, Obama’s distinctive vision comes clear. While in his years as a Chicago organizer and attorney, Obama took care to maintain friendly ties to the Daley administration, in Obama’s campaign for state senate, he specifically avoided asking the mayor or the mayor’s closest allies for support. Obama’s plan was to make an end-run around Chicago’s governing Democratic political network, by building a coalition of left-leaning black churches and radical secular organizations like Acorn (perhaps with de facto help from liberal foundation money as well). This coalition would provide Obama with the flexibility to play out a political career some distance to the left of conventional Illinois democratic politics. And sure enough, Obama’s extremely liberal record in Illinois vindicated his strategy.

The De Zutter story sheds considerable light on the debate over the significance of Obama’s ties to Pfleger and Wright. For the most part, that debate plays out with a relatively apolitical notion of church membership in mind. Obama’s defenders say that he should not be held responsible for the occasional political excesses of his preacher. Critics point out that the extremism of Wright and Pfleger is long-standing and well known. At some point, this line of thinking goes, the radicalism of such preachers ought to become intolerable. And what does it say about Obama’s judgement that he actually built his own national reputation by pointing to his appreciation of Wright’s sermons? Obama’s critics also see his decision to join Wright’s church as an opportunistic move by a politically ambitious secular humanist in search of a respectable religious home.

I agree with all of these criticisms of Obama. Yet De Zutter’s article shows us that the full story of Obama’s ties to Pfleger and Wright is both more disturbing and more politically relevant than we’ve realized up to now. On Obama’s own account, the rhetoric and vision of Chicago’s most politically radical black churches are exactly what he wants to see more of. True, when discussing Louis Farrakhan with De Zutter, Obama makes a point of repudiating anti-white, anti-Semitic, and anti-Asian sermons. Yet having laid down that proviso, Obama seems to relish the radicalism of preachers like Pfleger and Wright. In 1995, Obama didn’t want Trinity’s political show to stop. His plan was to spread it to other black churches, and harness its power to an alliance of leftist groups and sympathetic elected officials.



So Obama’s political interest in Trinity went far beyond merely gaining a respectable public Christian identity. On his own account, Obama hoped to use the untapped power of the black church to supercharge hard-left politics in Chicago, creating a personal and institutional political base that would be free to part with conventional Democratic politics. By his own testimony, Obama would seem to have allied himself with Wright and Pfleger, not in spite of, but precisely because of their radical left-wing politics. It follows that Obama’s ties to Trinity reflect on far more than his judgment and character (although they certainly implicate that). Contrary to common wisdom, then, Obama’s religious history has everything to do with his political values and policy positions, since they confirm his affinity for leftist radicalism.

Sense of Mission
It could be argued that the new and supposedly moderate, “bipartisan” Obama of 2008 is the real Obama. Unfortunately, that argument is unconvincing. Again and again, De Zutter reports that Obama’s true passion, deepest calling, and most authentic sense of mission is to be found in his early community organizing work. Obama’s own vision for himself as a legislator is as a kind of super-organizer/activist, extending the “progressive” quest for “social justice” to society as a whole.

I see no reason to doubt Obama’s self-account, and many reasons to accept it. As De Zutter notes, Obama gave up a near-certain Supreme Court clerkship to come to Chicago and do community organizing. It’s also easy to imagine Obama joining one of the many other less radical black churches on the south side of Chicago, if that was all he needed to launch a political career. Clearly, given his good relations with the Daley administration, Obama could have asked for its support in his bid for the Illinois State Senate. Yet at every turn, Obama took a riskier path. That suggests he was operating from conviction. Trouble is, the conviction in question was apparently Obama’s belief in the sort of radical social and economic views held by groups like Acorn and preachers like Wright and Pfleger.

Obama was certainly more rhetorically smooth, and no doubt less personally embittered than some of his mentors. Yet what stands out after a consideration of Obama’s larger personal and political history is the general convergence of political orientation between Wright, Pfleger, Acorn, Chicago’s “progressive” foundations, and Obama himself. Obama in Chicago was a man of the Left, doing his level-best to assemble a coalition free from the constraints of conventional, middle-ground Democratic politics.

Obama Speaks
If there is any doubt about the accuracy of De Zutter’s detailed account, we get the same message from this too-little discussed but revealing and important piece by Obama himself. This chapter from a 1990 book called After Alinsky: Community Organizing in Illinois was originally published in 1988, just after Obama joined Trinity. The piece is called, “Why Organize? Problems and Promise in the Inner City,” and it shows exactly what Obama hoped to make of his association with Pfleger and Wright.

Obama begins by rejecting the false dichotomy between radicalism and moderation:

The debate as to how black and other dispossessed people can forward their lot in America is not new. From W.E.B. DuBois to Booker T. Washington to Marcus Garvey to Malcolm X to Martin Luther King, this internal debate has raged between integration and nationalism, between accommodation and militancy, between sit-down strikes and boardroom negotiations. The lines between these strategies have never been simply drawn, and the most successful black leadership has recognized the need to bridge these seemingly divergent approaches.

Of course, even James Cone, the radical founder of black-liberation theology, sees himself as synthesizing the moderation of Martin Luther King Jr. with the radicalism of Malcolm X. Obama here seems to be calling for an inside/outside strategy like the one he would have learned working with Chicago Acorn. Note Obama’s reference to the controversial tradition of “direct action” favored by Acorn (and earlier by Saul Alinsky, whose tradition of radicalism the book is meant to carry on). Obama offers radicalism with a moderate face.

Obama sketches out a vision in which a politically awakened black church would ally with “community organizers” (like Obama and his friends from Acorn), thereby radicalizing the politics of America’s cities:

Nowhere is the promise of organizing more apparent than in the traditional black churches. Possessing tremendous financial resources, membership and — most importantly — values and biblical traditions that call for empowerment and liberation, the black church is clearly a slumbering giant in the political and economic landscape of cities like Chicago.

After expressing disappointment with apolitical black churches focused only on traditional community services, Obama goes on to point in a more activist direction:

Over the past few years, however, more and more young and forward-thinking pastors have begun to look at community organizations such as the Developing Communities Project in the far south side [where Obama himself worked, and first encountered Pfleger, SK]...as a powerful tool for living the social gospel, one which can educate and empower entire congregations and not just serve as a platform for a few prophetic leaders. Should a mere 50 prominent black churches, out of thousands that exist in cities like Chicago, decide to collaborate with a trained and organized staff, enormous positive changes could be wrought....

Give me 50 Pflegers or 50 Wrights, Obama is saying, tie them to a network of grassroots activists like my companions from Acorn, and we can revolutionize urban politics.

Mystery Solved
So it would appear that Obama’s own writings solve the mystery of why he stayed at Trinity for 20 years. Obama’s long-held and decidedly audacious hope has been to spread Wright’s radical spirit by linking it to a viable, left-leaning political program, with Obama himself at the center. The revolutionizing power of a politically awakened black church is not some side issue, or merely a personal matter, but has been the signature theme of Obama’s grand political strategy.

Lucky for Obama, this political background is unfamiliar to most Americans. There are others who share Obama’s approach, however. Take a look at this piece by Manhattan Institute scholar Steven Malanga on “The Rise of the Religious Left,” and you will see exactly where Obama is coming from. Malanga ends his account by noting that religious-left activists often partner with groups like MoveOn.org and attend gatherings featuring speakers like Michael Moore. After the 2004 election, there was some talk of the Democratic party “purging” MoveOn and Moore. Far from purging its radical Left, however, the Democratic party is now just inches away from placing it in the driver’s seat. That is the real meaning of the fiasco at Trinity Church.