McCain on Iran

Via Dr. Sanity, "McCain Speaks Out on Iran":

Neda, "shot through the heart," has become "a symbol of the movement."

Why doesn't our president speak up like that?

Oh, I forgot, he's not "a member of the Insane Clown Posse."

Pamela and Jim have more ...

Obama Must Choose Sides in Iran

Quick aside: I'm still amazed at the lagging news cycle. This New York Times piece, "In a Death Seen Around the World, a Symbol of Iranian Protests," is for tomorrow's paper (via Memeorandum).

Some newspaper coverage has been good, but the transimission of information via the dinosaur hard-copy press has been dreadful.

In any case, Bruce Thornton's essay goes well with the Ramirez cartoon above, "Standing with Freedom: Obama Must Choose Sides":

Remember when the liberal punditariat sneered at George Bush for putting Iran in the “axis of evil” in his 2002 State of the Union address? Whole legions of sophisticated, nuanced thinkers rushed to explain the crudity of Bush’s thinking, not to mention his indulgence of dangerous religious ideas like “good” and “evil.” Iran is not a Hitlerian totalitarian state, they sniffed, and elections are held there, offering some level of democracy.

Typical of such thinking is a column not long ago by the New York Times’ Roger Cohen, in which this nuanced thinker wrote: “Totalitarian regimes require the complete subservience of the individual to the state and tolerate only one party to which all institutions are subordinated. Iran is an un-free society with a keen, intermittently brutal apparatus of repression, but it's far from meeting these criteria. Significant margins of liberty, even democracy, exist. Anything but mad, the mullahs have proved malleable. Most of Iran's population is under 30; it's an Internet-connected generation. Access to satellite television is widespread. The BBC's new Farsi service is all the rage. . . . The June presidential election pitting the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, against Mohammad Khatami (a former president who once spoke in a synagogue) will be a genuine contest as compared to the charades that pass for elections in many Arab states. No fire has burned down the Majlis, or parliament.”

I wonder what the people in the streets of Tehran would think about this “genuine contest,” or whether they appreciate Cohen’s sophistries like “un-free” and “intermittently brutal” and “margins of liberty” and “complete subservience to the state.” What percentage of a citizen’s freedom has to be eliminated before a regime will meet Cohen’s criteria for “complete subservience”? Let’s see, all candidates for office have to be approved in advance by the mullahs, and even then the election is blatantly stolen, after which protesters are killed and beaten, opposition leaders and their families arrested, the media silenced and internet interdicted, the “Supreme Leader” (sic!) Ayatollah Khamenei publicly threatens violence against his own citizens, gangs of paramilitary thugs rampage through Tehran like storm troopers ––looks pretty totalitarian to me, though time will tell whether it ultimately lasts or not.

More here.

Interesting how Thornton singles out Roger Cohen as a key example (he's really a "water carrier" for Obama's policy of engaging Iran). Recall that all of a sudden, Cohen's a superstar for the leftists, Andrew Sullivan, for example, who says he "saw it coming." And that a hoot!

As as Jeffrey Goldberg indicates:

Roger Cohen in no way "saw this coming." In fact, he made a name for himself internationally as one of the leading Western apologists for Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, arguing that the regime was substantially benign and that engagement with these murderers was practically a moral necessity. He saw nothing coming, nothing at all.

Sullivan keeps digging here.

Thank you Jeffrey Goldberg!

Cartoon Credit: Michael Ramirez.

Public Confidence in Obama Stimulus Tanks!

From the Washington Post, "Confidence in Stimulus Plan Ebbs, Poll Finds":

Barely half of Americans are now confident that President Obama's $787 billion stimulus measure will boost the economy, and the rapid rise in optimism about the state of the nation that followed the 2008 election has abated, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Overall, 52 percent now say the stimulus package has succeeded or will succeed in restoring the economy, compared with 59 percent two months ago. The falloff in confidence has been sharpest in the hard-hit Midwest, where fewer than half now see the government spending as succeeding. In April, six in 10 Midwesterners said the federal program had worked or would do so.

The tempered public outlook has not significantly affected Obama's overall approval rating, which at 65 percent in the new survey outpaces the ratings of Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton at similar points in their tenures. But new questions about the stimulus package's effectiveness underscore the stakes for the Obama administration in the months ahead as it pushes for big reforms in health care and energy at the same time it attempts to revive the nation's flagging economy.

The tide is turning against this administration, and it hasn't even been six months. As Robert Stacy McCain asks, "What Part of 'It Won't Work'Is So Hard to Understand?"

Hat Tip: Glenn Reynolds.

Paleocons/Postmoderns Bash Democracy Promotion, Neocons

What does Patrick Buchanan have in common with Andrew Sullivan, Daniel Larison, E.D. Kain, and James Poulos? Perhaps a burning hatred of the "evil" neocons?

Here's Pat Buchanan on last weekend's Hardball:

Matthews: And that’s why you, Pat Buchanan, although you are a libertarian in many ways, you do not ... no, you’re a nationalist actually ... you are not what you like to call, derisively, a “democratist.”

Buchanan: No, I don’t believe there’s a great salvation in the political process at all. I believe in different, far different things. I mean I put democracy far down the line, in the ... I think a devoutly Christian, conservative, traditionalist country, even if it’s a monarchy, is fine with me.

Matthews: Your Franco is talking, Pat ... Franco is speaking even now.

Buchanan: He was better than the alternative.

Also, here's Pat Buchanan showing why the "paleo/post-modern conservatives" ("realist" Israel-bashers) are a disaster for America:

Yid With Lid has more, "Pat Buchanan Says Iran Protests Are Tools of Neocons and Israel":

How does a bigot like Pat Buchanan Stay on TV? The Racist, Holocaust revisionst anti-Semite made is claim on Morning Joe today, implying that Bibi Netanyahu and the neocons were helping the protests on Iran.

See also, "Andrew Sullivan: Update on Neocon Derangement."

Bonus: Riehl World View , "Andy Please Phone Home."

Martyred Neda: Never an Activist, Outrage Drove Her to Protest

Just 3 out of 40 students in my morning class had seen the video of Neda Agha-Soltan, the young Iranian woman who was murdered in broad daylight on Saturday. But as activists and bloggers know, she has long since become a symbol of the aspirations for a free Iran.

Here's the Fox News story, "Neda Soltan, Young Woman Hailed as Martyr in Iran, Becomes Face of Protests." And from the Los Angeles Times, "Family, Friends Mourn Iranian Woman Whose Death Was Caught on Video":

The first word came from abroad. An aunt in the United States called her Saturday in a panic. "Don't go out into the streets, Golshad," she told her. "They're killing people."

The relative proceeded to describe a video, airing on exile television channels that are jammed in Iran, in which a young woman is shown bleeding to death as her companion calls out, "Neda! Neda!"

A dark premonition swept over Golshad, who asked that her real name not be published. She began calling the cellphone and home number of her friend Neda Agha-Soltan who had gone to the chaotic demonstration with a group of friends, but Neda didn't answer.

At midnight, as the city continued to smolder, Golshad drove to the Agha-Soltan residence in the eastern Tehran Pars section of the capital.

As she heard the cries and wails and praising of God reverberating from the house, she crumpled, knowing that her worst fears were true.

"Neda! Neda!" the 25-year-old cried out. "What will I do?"

Neda Agha-Soltan, 26, was shot dead Saturday evening near the scene of clashes between pro-government militias and demonstrators who allege rampant vote-count fraud in the reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The jittery cellphone video footage of her bleeding on the street has turned "Neda" into an international symbol of the protest movement that ignited in the aftermath of the June 12 voting. To those who knew and loved Neda, she was far more than an icon. She was a daughter, sister and friend, a music and travel lover, a beautiful young woman in the prime of her life.

"She was a person full of joy," said her music teacher and close friend Hamid Panahi, who was among the mourners at her family home on Sunday, awaiting word of her burial. "She was a beam of light. I'm so sorry. I was so hopeful for this woman."

Security forces urged Neda's friends and family not to hold memorial services for her at a mosque and asked them not to speak publicly about her, associates of the family said. Authorities even asked the family to take down the black mourning banners in front of their house, aware of the potent symbol she has become.

But some insisted on speaking out anyway, hoping to make sure the world would not forget her.Neda Agha-Soltan was born in Tehran, they said, to a father who worked for the government and a mother who was a housewife. They were a family of modest means, part of the country's emerging middle class who built their lives in rapidly developing neighborhoods on the eastern and western outskirts of the city.

Like many in her neighborhood, Neda was loyal to the country's Islamic roots and traditional values, friends say, but also curious about the outside world, which is easily accessed through satellite television, the Internet and occasional trips abroad.

The second of three children, she studied Islamic philosophy at a branch of Tehran's Azad University, until deciding to pursue a career in the tourism industry. She took private classes to become a tour guide, including Turkish language courses, friends said, hoping to some day lead groups of Iranians on trips abroad.

Travel was her passion, and with her friends she saved up enough money for package tours to Dubai, Turkey and Thailand. Two months ago, on a trip to Turkey, she relaxed along the beaches of Antalya, on the Mediterranean coast.

She loved music, especially Persian pop, and was taking piano classes, according to Panahi, who is in his 50s, and other friends. She was also an accomplished singer, they said.

But she was never an activist, they added, and she began attending the mass protests only because of a personal sense of outrage over the election results.

Hat Tip: Memeorandum. Photo Credit: Los Angeles Times.

Also, don't miss the Iran coverage at Atlas Shrugs: "Iran: The Bloody Revolution Marches On: - Attacking Protesters, Islamic Ruling Murderers Calling Victims Murderers UPDATED ALL DAY."

Iran Students Dying in Streets: "Recognize Regime Change," Cordesman Says

Appears to be new video? Blood drips as one of the students is carried into the hospital:

Meanwhile, Anthony Cordesman argues that President Obama is showing the "right degree of restraint," but if the mullahs collapse, the administration should "formally recognize the importance of the change in regime." See, "IRAN: Obama showing 'right degree of restraint,' analyst says."

Well, if President Obama wasn't so morally weak on the former we might now in fact be seeing the latter.

Hat Tip: Allahpundit on Twitter.

Power Burst at Washington Examiner

From David Weigel, "Examiner Leads Conservative Response to Liberal Blogosphere":

For the first few years of George W. Bush’s presidency, Mark Tapscott was a journalist without a newsroom, shouting from the sidelines about his industry’s swift decline. Tapscott ran the Heritage Foundation’s Center for Media and Public Policy, and trained reporters in the use of technology for research and crunching numbers. When he considered how few conservatives, libertarians, or real skeptics of federal power were working in newsrooms, he saw a problem that was making the growth of government possible.

“The [Freedom of Information Act],” Tapscott wrote in a 2004 commentary, “has been subverted from its original intent – shining light in all corners of the federal establishment – and used instead by the bureaucrats, special interests and politicians who live off the Nanny State, especially those hiding behind closed doors in places like Health and Human Services, the Education Department and Housing and Urban Development.”

Sitting up straight in his office at the Washington Examiner, where Tapscott has been the editorial page editor for three years, he repeats the point. “There are 57 people in the Freedom of Information Hall of Fame,” he says. “Three of them are conservatives — two of them, if you don’t count me. Now, that’s a problem.”

Since its launch in 2005, the second daily metro newspaper owned by conservative billionaire Phillip Anschutz (the first was the San Francisco Examiner) has struggled for an identity in a city crawling with political journalists. But since the November 2008 election, the Examiner has beefed up its staff and pulled prominent right-leaning reporters and pundits away from publications like The American Spectator and National Review. Tapscott and a growing staff of political and opinion writers are carving out an identity as the conservative version of the left-leaning opinion and investigative journalism sites that — in the view of many conservatives — have used reporting to embarrass conservatives and the Republican Party.Nice piece. Read the whole thing, here.

The Bush Legacy in Iran

From the People's Cube, "That Damn Bush Legacy":

(Right) Left thinking people scoffed when Bush claimed that liberating Iraq would spread the seeds of democracy throughout the region. Now look what his twisted policy has gone and done. How is Chairman Obama ever going to claim credit for this grassroots Iranian revolution? Is it too late to republish his Cairo speech and add a few lines calling on the people of Iran to rise up?

Related: The Rhetorican, "Bush Is Missed at the White House."

Kamala Harris, Democrat for California A.G., Shielded Alien Criminals From Deportation

Here's another representative case of Democratic Party values.

It turns out San Francisco's Kamala Harris, the city's Democratic District Attorney, ran an illegal immgrant job training program that kept criminal offenders out of jail and in the country. Harris is now a candidate for the Democratic nomination for California Attorney General. From the Los Angeles Times, "San Francisco D.A.'s program trained illegal immigrants for jobs they couldn't legally hold":

The assault on Amanda Kiefer at dusk in San Francisco's posh Pacific Heights was extraordinary enough for its cruelty.

A stranger, later identified as Alexander Izaguirre, snatched her purse and hopped into an SUV, police say. The driver sped forward to run Kiefer down. Terrified, she leaped onto the hood and saw Izaguirre and the driver laughing. The driver slammed on the brakes, propelling Kiefer to the pavement. Her skull fractured. Blood oozed from her ear.

Only after the July 2008 attack did Kiefer learn of the crime's political ramifications. Izaguirre, police told her, was an illegal immigrant who had pleaded guilty four months earlier to a drug felony for selling cocaine in the seedy Tenderloin area.

He had avoided prison when he was picked for a jobs program run by San Francisco Dist. Atty. Kamala Harris, now a candidate for California's top law enforcement post. In effect, Harris' office had been allowing Izaguirre and other illegal immigrants to stay out of prison by training them for jobs they cannot legally hold.

The program, Back on Track, is a centerpiece of Harris' campaign for state attorney general. Until questioned by The Times about the Izaguirre case, Harris, a Democrat, had never publicly acknowledged that the program included illegal immigrants. In interviews last week, she and her office offered inconsistent explanations.

Izaguirre's trial this fall for the Kiefer attack -- his arrest forced him out of the program and into jail -- will put Harris in the middle of the controversy over San Francisco's lax policies toward illegal immigrants.

The city has a history of shielding some illegal immigrant criminals from deportation. The assault on Kiefer occurred just a month after a triple homicide in San Francisco that put Mayor Gavin Newsom on the spot over the city's repeated release of Edwin Ramos, the illegal immigrant accused of the slayings.

Izaguirre's assault arrest, by contrast, drew almost no public attention.

Kiefer, then 29, was walking with a friend to a restaurant when the attack occurred. To her, it makes no sense that the D.A.'s office would set Izaguirre free after his earlier drug arrest -- or enroll him and other illegal immigrant felons in Back on Track.

"If they've committed crimes and they're not citizens, then why are they here?" Kiefer asked. "Why haven't they been deported?"

Read the whole thing at the link.

I don't believe Harris' denials that she was unaware of illegal aliens participating in the program. San Francisco is a sanctuary city. This is what Democrats do.

Neda!

From Neda's Facebook page:

The Daley Gator has a detailed report on the Neda story: "Iranian woman killed in video ID’d?"

For some news, see the Wall Street Journal, "Heavy Security Reins In Iranian Protests," and "Iran's Web Spying Aided By Western Technology."

More at Memeorandum.

McCain: U.S. Has "Moral Obligation" To Support Iranians

From CBS News:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) spoke with Bob Schieffer about the current crisis in Iran, continuing success in Iraq, and how to handle growing tension between the U.S. and North Korea.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Hat Tip: Real Clear Politics.

Rock-Throwing Protesters Put Iranian Police on the Run!

I looked around yesterday for an embeddable copy of this BBC video. It shows a clash between Iranian police and protesters. If you didn't catch it yet, watch all the way to the end.

Battle w/ Police - Tehran, Iran - June 20th 2009
by mightier-than

Power Line on Regime Change Iran

From Scott at Power Line, "Let It Be Said":

The Iranian regime is responsible for the maiming and murder of many Americans and others who have been made its victims. The overthrow of the regime would be well deserved. We support the brave protesters who have taken to the streets of Iran to express their opposition to the regime and we wish them success in their endeavors.

More at the link.

Netanyahu on Meet the Press: "Deep Desire" for Freedom in Iran

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on this morning's Meet the Press (video starts shortly):

On the Iranian pro-democracy protests:

MR. GREGORY: This is an unfolding story that we’ve been seeing all week long. The images from the streets are disturbing, you have a violent crackdown under way in Iran. What does your intelligence in Israel tell you about the weakness, the nature of the Iranian regime today?

MR. NETANYAHU: Well, it’s not my intelligence, but my common sense and the traditional sense. Obviously, you see a regime that represses its own people and spreads terror far and wide. It is a, a regime whose real nature has been unmasked, and it’s been unmasked by incredible acts of courage by Iran’s citizens. They, they go into the streets, they face bullets. And I tell you, as somebody who believes deeply in democracy, that you see the Iranian lack of democracy at work. And I think this better explains and best explains to the entire world what this regime is truly about.

MR. GREGORY: I ask about your intelligence services as well in terms of what hard information you have about what’s going on inside the regime.

MR. NETANYAHU: I don’t know if anyone really knows, and I cannot tell you how this thing will end up. I think something very deep, very fundamental is going on, and there’s an expression of a deep desire amid the people of Iran for freedom, certainly for greater freedom. But perhaps the word is a simple one, freedom. This is what is going on. You don’t need all the intelligence apparatus that modern states have to see something when it faces you right away. It, it’s facing you in–it’s staring us in the face, there’s no question about that.

MR. GREGORY: You know there’s been quite a debate here in the United States and really around the world about what President Obama should do and should say at a moment like this. He has said over the weekend that these are unjust actions, that the whole world is watching, that Iran should not violently crack down on its people. Has he said and done enough, do you think?

MR. NETANYAHU: I’m not going to second-guess the president of the United States. I know President Obama wants the people of Iran to be free. He said as much in his seminal speech in Cairo before the Muslim world. I’ve spoken to him a number of times on this subject, there’s no question we’d all like to see a different, a different Iran with different policies. Remember, this is a regime that not only represses its own people–Sakharov said, Andrei Sakharov, the great Russian scientist and humanist, said that a regime that oppresses its own people sooner or later will oppress its neighbors. And certainly Iran has been doing that. It’s been calling for the, the denial of the Holocaust. It’s threatening to wipe Israel off the map. It’s pursuing nuclear weapons. To that effect it’s sponsoring terror against us, but throughout the world. So I think what everybody would like to see is a change in policy, and the change of policy is both outside and inside.

On the Iranian nuclear threat:

MR. NETANYAHU: We’ve had thousands, hundreds of thousands demonstrate in Israel right and left, but that’s how we behave, that’s how you behave, and I have no doubt that everyone in the world is sympathetic to the desire of the Iranian people for freedom.

MR. GREGORY: Let me ask you about the nature of the Iranian threat. Mohamed ElBaradei, who, as you know, runs the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in an interview with the BBC on Wednesday the following: “The ultimate aim of Iran,” he said, “as I understand it, is they want to be recognized as a major power in the Middle East. [Increasing their nuclear capability] is to them the road to get that recognition, to get that power and prestige. It is also an insurance policy against what they have heard in the past about regime change.” My question, Prime Minister, what does all that’s happening on the streets of Iran do, in your estimation, to the nature of the threat from Iran? Is this a game changer in some way?

MR. NETANYAHU: First of all, I, I don’t subscribe to the view that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is a status symbol. It’s not. These are people who are sending thousands and thousands of missiles to their terrorist proxies Hezbollah and Hamas with the specific instruction to bomb civilians in Israel. They’re supporting terrorists in the world. This is not a status symbol. To have such a regime acquire nuclear weapons is to risk the fact that they might give it to terrorists or give terrorists a nuclear umbrella. That is a departure in the security of the Middle East and the world, certainly in the security of my country, and so I wouldn’t treat the subject so lightly. Would a regime change be a game changer? A policy change would be a game changer.

Hat Tip: Atlas Shrugs, Israel Matsav.

Down With Tyranny: Neocons Want "Blood Running in the Street"

It's not just Andrew Sullivan, Spencer Ackerman, and Frank Schaeffer spewing the most insane ravings of GOP demonization right now. Howie Klein's literally flipped his lid over the "neocons" who want "blood running in the streets" of Iran. Klein goes on about martyr Neda as if Americans killed her, then adds this:

This video is absolutely horrific and I don't recommend you watch it unless you're ready to shed some tears for our sisters and brothers in Tehran ...

While bloodthirsty vampires on the political right, your McCains, Pences, Liebermen and Cantors - whose only desire is to see blood running in the streets of Tehran - do whatever they can to inflame emotions and offer Iranian patriots false hope, the entire world is viscerally mourning for Neda. And Twitter is part of that at #neda. Mousavi, no friend of the West by a long shot, says he's prepared for martyrdom - he tweeted it - but Neda is already dead. Unlike him, she never ordered the deaths of 30,000 political prisoners or funded Hezbollah. President McCain, President Graham, President Lieberman are wrong - always ... about everything. But it is their cranky, crackpot voices - voices Charles Pierce explains so very well in Idiot America - that dominate the incendiary, trivial, ratings-hungry mass media.

Wow, President McCain and Lieberman?

Sheesh. Howie Klein is exactly the kind of unhinged Bush hater Pamela Geller was talking about!

(P.S. Interestingly, Klein puts in a good word for Ron Paul, "America's Biggest Asshole," so you've really got to think for a moment about how the ideological alliances line up sometimes.)

The Iranian Revolt

Via Atlas Shrugs and Riehl World View, here's Rich Lowry's communication with John O'Sullivan, "The Iranian Revolt":

John O'Sullivan wrote me this note today.

Dear Rich,

Thanks for your note. I am happy to give you my judgment on the Iranian revolt. In brief, it’s one of the most important movements of our time. It radically undermines both the realist argument that Muslims are uninterested in democracy and the Jihadist claim to represent the mass of Muslims. And if it continues—whether it is crushed or triumphs in the immediate future—it will add immeasurably to the forces of evolutionary change in the Muslim world since it strikes me as being more like the Glorious, American and “velvet” revolutions (i.e., it is a revolution against a radical revolution) than like the French, Bolshevik, and 1979 revolutions.

Well, that’s a bigger mouthful than you expected. But this is an issue on which I would prefer you to take the advice and opinions of my Iranian colleagues on Radio Farda and the English language website of RFERL. So I am attaching two documents below that I think you will find helpful.

There are two sections following this, at the link. Here's this, a second letter, from a protester on the ground:

If you want blood, you got it

5:00 pm Tehran is officially a war zone

Our peaceful demonstration quickly turned into a riot. Charges by the guards and return favors of the people quickly got out of hand. Jaleh, Hooman and I just joined the flow and we were attacked three times by the time we got to Navab avenue. Blood was everywhere. Right after Navab avenue the guards started firing tear gas into the crowed and boy did that hurt. As all three of us escaped into a small street choking from the gas the guards attacked us from behind and we all got hit on the back by many painful things. I looked back and saw a young man fell on the ground, I screamed “khodaaaaaaa” (God), Hooman quickly ran towards him and the three of us carried him to a corner. He was hit on the head and his eyes were rolled up and could not comprehend anything ...

See also, Memeorandum.

Healthcare Bondage? The Uninsured as Chattel Slaves

You know the debate over universal healthcare has gotten pretty polarized when hardline netroots blogs start agitating for a new war of secession. That's right. Check out Glenn Smith at Firedoglake, "Slavery and the Health Care Crisis":

The gravity of America's health care crisis is the moral equivalent of the 19th Century's bloody conflict over slavery. This is not hyperbole, though the truth of it is often lost in abstract talk of insurance company profits, treatment costs, and other cold, inhuman analyses.

Today's health system condemns 50 million Americans to ill health and death while guaranteeing health care to the economic privileged. It cannot stand.

About 18,000 Americans die each year because they lack health insurance. That's more than a third the number of lives lost in battle during each year of the four-year Civil War.

Members of Congress without the moral clarity to recognize this equivalence will be condemned by history. Their spinelessness and lack of will when confronted with the power of the insurance industry is just as morally bankrupt as the American congressmen who bowed to Southern slave-owners.

The morally compromising efforts to pass health care reform that insurance companies might like is as insane as the compromises over slavery. Those compromises -- the First and Second Missouri Compromises of 1820, their repeal by the Kansas-Nebraska act of 1854, and the notorious Dred Scott decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1857 led to the War Between the States.

War is what happens when morality is sacrificed to political expediency. The stupid compromises over slavery ducked the fundamental moral question at hand. The compromises were doomed to fail, as all such moral cowardice ultimately fails. That's no original thought. It's a central message of authentic Judaism, Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. In fact, those traditions only bought blood and trouble for themselves when they forgot this fundamental teaching about moral courage ...

Condemning Americans to premature death and ill health so some can earn profits is the moral equivalent of slavery.

Boy, that's a doozy! Read the rest here (via Memeorandum).

I guess if cooked polling data isn't enough (health reform may be dead this year), leftists can always raise the specter of a March to the Sea to crush the hegemonic private-insurance oppressor class!

Image Credit: Michelle Malkin.

RightwingSparkle on Twitter

I love Kathleen's tweet:

Please. If you are liberal, don't follow me. You won't enjoy it and twitter is my happy place. I argue enough on my blogs.

And check out RightWing Sparkle!

Neda is Martyr to Iranian Revolt!

From Robin Wright, "In Iran, One Woman's Death May Have Many Consequences":

Iran's revolution has now run through a full cycle. A gruesomely captivating video of a young woman — laid out on a Tehran street after apparently being shot, blood pouring from her mouth and then across her face — swept Twitter, Facebook and other websites this weekend. The woman rapidly became a symbol of Iran's escalating crisis, from a political confrontation to far more ominous physical clashes. Some sites refer to her as "Neda," Farsi for the voice or the call. Tributes that incorporate startlingly upclose footage of her dying have started to spring up on YouTube.

Although it is not yet clear who shot "Neda" (a soldier? pro-government militant? an accidental misfiring?), her death may have changed everything. For the cycles of mourning in Shiite Islam actually provide a schedule for political combat — a way to generate or revive momentum. Shiite Muslims mourn their dead on the third, seventh and 40th days after a death, and these commemorations are a pivotal part of Iran's rich history. During the revolution, the pattern of confrontations between the shah's security forces and the revolutionaries often played out in 40-day cycles. (See pictures of terror in the streets of Tehran.) ...

"Neda" is already being hailed as a martyr, a second important concept in Shiism. With the reported deaths of 19 people Saturday, martyrdom also provides a potent force that could further deepen public anger at Iran's regime.

More at the link. And Memeorandum.

Also, Robin Wright at the Los Angeles Times, "The evolution of Iran's revolution: The current confrontation is another phase of the country's century-long political journey. And this one, like the others, will bring lasting changes."

Image Credit: The Lede, "Sunday: Updates on Iran’s Turmoil."


**********

UPDATE: Instalanche!

They Killed Neda - YouTube Monetizes Video!

I didn't know Neda's name yesterday when I posted these thoughts to my Facebook profile:

I think that video today of the young woman shot and killed in Iran, showing her eyes roll up in death, was one of the saddest things I've ever seen. It's not a movie. We are blessed with freedom, and freedom isn't free...

Michelle Malkin has a commemoration, "They Killed Neda, But Not Her Voice":

Her name was Neda, which means “voice” in Farsi. According to numerous online accounts picked up by media outlets worldwide, she was shot in the streets by Iranian state police while protesting today. This is what repression looks (warning: graphic)...

Here's the video, the Live Leak version, since YouTube monetized the video at the link:

See also, the Los Angeles Times, "IRAN: Footage of woman apparently shot in Tehran galvanizes opposition."

Plus, Dr. Melissa Clouthier," Iran: Blood Is Spilled."

Hat Tip: Memeorandum.

Say Hello to Noah Johns!

In my inbox:

Mr. Douglas:

I too am a political science professor here in NC. I share many of the same political beliefs as you. I have just recently started a blog I am placing a link on there to your site and would appreciate you returning the favor. Thanks for the great work on your blog and I really enjoy reading it.

Noah

Noah's blog is here. He's got a post up on American Power!

He's also now on my blogroll. So, say hello to Noah Johns!

Andrew Sullivan: Update on Neocon Derangement

Andrew Sullivan is the moment's most prolific Iran blogger on the web. Yet his work's a travesty of journalism, with all the petty, venal, and scurrilous anti-Semitism we are seeing. On top of that we've also got all of his pathetic Man-Crush Obama blogging.

Dan Riehl has some thoughts:

If Andrew Sullivan wants to jump into the emoting bin at Wal-Mart to pick-out a cheap canned syrupy concoction on Iran to serve up to his readers, he's allowed; but it shouldn't be confused with the insight, or wisdom he colors it up to look to be. And it does matter for reasons that are critically important to America and her security.

The rejection of al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan; the ground-up election of Obama in America; and now the rising up of Iranians for freedom and civility with their neighbors: these are the green shoots of recovery from 9/11 and its wake.

Sullivan manages to see Obama's invisible hand having at least some role in all this. But Obama has been more invisible, than he's been a hand in fighting al Qaeda in Iraq, or to the Iranian people currently dying in the streets. In fact, he's done more to legitimize the very leadership that still oppresses and shoots innocents down in the streets in Iran, than has he done anything to undermine it. To the extent America has played any role, this movement was not born of the last five months.

Ann Althouse, picking up on the same themes, asserts Sullivan's questionable integrity:

It is possible that Obama is doing exactly the right thing — but I can't take Andrew Sullivan's word for it, because of he's been slathering praise on the man for far too long.

I'm glad to see Sullivan's writing coming under scrutiny.

I've long said it, but the more I read Sullivan the more I'm convinced he's simply an awful man. What's bothersome this morning is Sullivan's opportunism. All week he's been attacking the "evil" neocons - deploying the oldest and most despicable anti-Semitic canards - and then today he turns around to expropriate the day's top neoconservative writing as his own.

In his post, "Today's Must-Reads I: Gerecht," Sullivan spins off Reuel Marc Gerecht's work as validation of his own:

Reuel Marc Gerecht, a neoconservative with intellectual honesty and a real grasp of the region he studies, homes in on the core fact on Day 9 of the uprising, and Day 1 of the battle ...

As Iranians have come to know theocracy intimately, secularism has become increasingly attractive. Iran now produces brilliant clerics who argue in favor of the separation of church and state as a means of saving the faith from corrupting power.

Where Gerecht is analytical, Sullivan scavenges like a vulture. He feeds on the insights of others:

It is hard to overstate the importance of this, which is why, in my judgment, this is potentially the most important positive moment in history since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Because it is the clearest and most promising sign that the Islamist Wall is breaking up. We have long wanted and needed a reformation of Islam and Islam's relationship with politics. The two are connected: without some civil space for dialogue, how can anyone do the intellectual and theological work to forge a new Islam more compatible with democratic norms and individual freedom. Iran is beginning to show us how that can happen.

Now step back and note how Sullivan actually repudiates himself in a later post, citing the master Bush-basher, Spencer Ackerman, in "This Conservative Revolution":

I've written before that this reminds me of the American rather than the French revolution - because it is being waged not as a means to destroy the system, but to force it to live up to its democratic promises. And that's why it's so potent. That's also why Obama's emphasis on justice, rather than freedom, is so shrewd. What we have to focus on is simply the election, its fraudulence and the necessity of a new vote. That's all. If those promises are met, the coup-regime will fall. Of course no liberal democracy will instantly follow. Mousavi is not a radical; he's a moderate establishment type. This is Gorbachev not Yeltsin. But this is not something to fear; it is something to embrace, as Reagan did.

Sullivan then quotes Ackerman for authority ("Moussavi’s Message of Reform").

But come on! What democratic promises in 1979?

As I've indicated, Ackerman wants to consolidate a "reformist" Iranian Islamist state "BECAUSE IT OVERTURNED A U.S-BACKED REGIME."

Ayatollah Khomeini did not come to power with the promise of freedom. The revolution of '79 installed a Islamo-fascist dictatorship. Spencer Ackerman sees the Bush administration as a bigger threat to the Iranian regime than the mullahs in Tehran. And Andrew Sullivan, in citing him, is blogging too fast to realize how stupid he makes himself out to be. Once you deconstruct what Sullivan is saying, we see it's all about him and his Man-Crush Dream-Boy Obama.

Iranians DO NOT need regime change to validate President Obama's hollow words on "justice." The Iranian people need to establish the secular state that Reuel Marc Gerecht has laid out, and when they do, they'll vindicate the neoconservative vision that folks like Andrew Sullivan and Spencer Ackerman have worked so hard to destroy.

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UPDATE: Thanks for the links! Atlas Shrugs, Gateway Pundit, and Riehl World View.

Bush Haters Bare Their Fangs

At Atlas Shrugs, "Wow, the Bush haters bare their fangs."

Public Enemies Trailer

I just caught this trailer for the new Johnny Depp film, Public Enemies, in theaters July 1st:

The official website is here, and the Wikipedia entry is here.

Gangster movies are right up there with Westerns in my book ("I want him DEAD! I want his family DEAD! I want his house burned to the GROUND! I wanna go there in the middle of the night and I wanna PISS ON HIS ASHES!").

But what makes this one look especially good is Johnny Depp. The most versatile actor of his generation, I'm excited to see him play ultimate bad-guy John Dillinger.

Exploding the "Foundation Myth" of Iran's Islamist Regime

Spencer Ackerman reveals his shallow understanding of Iran, in "Moussavi’s Message of Reform." Stabbing at insight, Ackerman says of Moussavi:

Clearly we're in the realm of myth, and foundational myth at that. It matters very little what westerners think about Moussavi's description of Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution. By locating the opposition within the promises of the Revolution, Moussavi claims a clear source of legitimacy, the same that the regime claims, and seeks to denies that legitimacy to Khamenei and Ahmadinejad.

Considering what the revolution of 1979 really represents, Ackerman needs to go back to school.

Contrast this "foundational myth" gobbledygook with Reuel Marc Gerecht, "The Koran and the Ballot Box":

WHATEVER happens in Iran in the aftermath of this month’s fraudulent elections, one thing is clear: we are witnessing not just a fascinating power struggle among men who’ve known each other intimately for 30 years, but the unraveling of the religious idea that has shaped the growth of modern Islamic fundamentalism since the creation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt in 1928.

The Islamic revolution in Iran encompassed two incompatible ideas: that God’s law — as interpreted by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini — would rule, and that the people of Iran had the right to elect representatives who would advance and protect their interests. When Khomeini was alive and Iran was at war with Iraq, the tension between theocracy and democracy never became acute.

Upon his death in 1989, however, the revolution’s democratic promise started to gain ground. With the presidential campaign of Mohammad Khatami in 1997, it exploded and briefly paralyzed Khomeini’s successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the theocratic elite. God’s will and the people’s wants were no longer compatible.

To the dismay of Ayatollah Khamenei, who remains supreme leader, Mir Hussein Moussavi, the candidate whom President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “defeated” in the rigged elections, has become the new Khatami — except he is far more powerful. While Mr. Moussavi lacks Mr. Khatami’s reformist credentials, he is a far steelier politician. And the frustrations of President Khatami’s failed tenure have grown exponentially among a new generation that is less respectful of mullahs and revolutionary ideology.

Yet in the current demonstrations we are witnessing not just the end of the first stage of the Iranian democratic experiment, but the collapse of the structural underpinnings of the entire Islamic approach to modern political self-rule. Islam’s categorical imperative for both traditional and fundamentalist Muslims —“commanding right and forbidding wrong” — is being transformed.

This imperative appears repeatedly in the Koran. Historically, it has been understood as a check on the corrupting, restive and libidinous side of the human soul. For modern Islamic militants, it is a war cry as well — a justification of the morals police in Saudi Arabia and Iran, of the young men who harass “improperly” attired Muslim women from Cairo to Copenhagen. It is the primary theological reason that Ayatollah Khamenei will try to stop a democratic triumph in his country, since real democracy would allow men, not God and his faithful guardians, the mullahs, to determine right and wrong.

Read the whole thing.

In contrast to Gerecht, Ackerman believes in the Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution, BECAUSE IT OVERTURNED A U.S-BACKED REGIME.

But Ackerman, blinded by hatred, is wrong once again. As George Packer noted earlier, Ackerman is so intent on seeing the United States as the source of all evil in Iran, he can't see the bullets, truncheons, and rifle butts that are the real and immediate threats to the people on the streets. He suffers, frankly, from the same anti-Americanism and BDS that we've already seen in Andrew Sullivan and Matthew Yglesias - which is not surprising. Events in Iran have triggered some nasty partisan recriminations at home. And the debate is even more intense since it's likely we're looking at the Obama adminstration's first really substantive foreign policy failure.

If revolution fails now in Iran it won't because of events of long ago, from 1953. The realist "caution" of this administration will leave the president's hands soaked in the blood of this interrupted Green Revolution. Spencer Ackerman will be splattered along with him.

New York Times: Oversamples Democrats, Push-Polls Respondents in Health Care Survey

Maggie's Farm nails the New York Times' bogus healthcare survey, "New York Times: McCain Voters Not Americans?:

The lead headline is about a NYT/CBS News Poll, trumpeting “Wide Support for Government-Run Health.” The lead paragraph:

Americans overwhelmingly support substantial changes to the health care system and are strongly behind [72%] one of the most contentious proposals Congress is considering, a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

BUT, according to the actual poll data, of the 73% of respondents who said they voted in 2008 only 34% voted for McCain and 66% for Obama. The actual vote was 48% McCain. So, 29% of McCain voters ignored by the poll must not be Americans ...

It's not just the horribly flawed sampling. The question wording on some of these questions is a disaster - total push polling!. For example, question #56:

When you think about the problems with the U.S. health care system, how serious a problem is doctors ordering medical tests and treatments their patients don't really need. Is it a very serious problem, somewhat serious problem, not too serious a problem or not at all a serious problem?

Man, that is whacked!

The Obamacare health commissars, with the help of the New York Times, will make the determination over doctors in determining when medical tests are necessary and what type of treat patients get!

And even with the Times' bunk methodology, 77 percent of respondents are "generally satisfied with the quality of health care in this country."

And of course, Hullabaloo says we can't have that!

Hat Tip: Memeorandum.

Image Credit: Michelle Malkin.

America's Republican Mullahs!

Just when you thought you'd seen it all - and Andrew Sullivan can do that for you - here comes Frank Schaeffer at the Huffington Post, "The Real Lesson of Iran - Beware America's Republican Mullahs":

When there are tens of thousands of Americans sitting in evangelical churches every Sunday wherein President Obama is vilified as an "abortionist," a "Communist," a "secret Muslim," and even as "the Antichrist," when the former vice president accuses our President of what amounts to treason, all because President Obama won't allow the torture of prisoners in an American version of holy war, all because he has decided it is wise to build bridges of respect to Muslim countries, we've left recognizable political territory and entered the realm of violence-inciting hate and delusion of the kind Iran's "supreme leader" indulges in ...

Look at Iran and give thanks that the Republican Party - the tool of America's mullahs married to the Neocon war mongers - is in decline and has been rejected by the American people. Work to keep America secular, free and democratic.

This is over-over the top. Schaeffer's claim to fame, made repeatedly, is that he's a former member of "The Religious Right."

Weird stuff, but pretty much on par with what Sullivan's peddling. You've got to love the Huffington Post-Kos-Sullivan alliance!

Hat Tip: Hot Air Headlines.

Andrew Sullivan: Anti-Semitic Neocon Derangement

From William Jacobson's must-read post yesterday, "NeoCon Derangement Syndrome On Steroids":

To read Andrew Sullivan's posts on the suppression of the opposition in Iran, you would think American "NeoCons" (whoever they may be) were in the streets swinging batons from the backs of motorcycles, trashing the library at Tehran University, and breaking into homes in pursuit of demonstrators.

Sullivan's post, The Khamenei-NeoCon Agreement, is the latest in his recurring conspiracy theory that supporters of freedom for Iranians are actually against freedom for Iranians.

Also, as Michael Goldfarb indicates, Sullivan's blogging is demonstrably anti-Semitic, "Sullivan and Khamenei Agree: Jews Control the Media," and "Hiatt and Goldberg on Sullivan." (The latter post includes an update from Jeffrey Goldberg writing last year, "Andrew and the Jew-Baiters.")

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Andrew's latest post this afternoon, speaking of President Obama's most recent statement, also makes mention of the "evil" neocons, "Obama's Response":

Did you notice how many times he invoked the word "justice" in his message? That's the word that will resonate most deeply with the Iranian resistance. What a relief to have someone with this degree of restraint and prudence and empathy - refusing to be baited by Khamenei or the neocons, and yet taking an eloquent stand, as we all do, in defense of freedom and non-violence [emphasis added].

So, "Khamenei" and "the neocons" together in one breath.

God, this man is nasty, as I've demonstrated many times.

Ace of Spades HQ adds this:

It's jawdropping that Sullivan would claim that "neocons" and "AIPAC" would want the revolution to fail. One American clearly seeks the failure of the revolution, but that's his own fantasy-boyfriend Barack Obama. And Sullivan can't say that his would-be boyfriend is in the wrong, so he puts Barack Obama's words into the mouths of his enemies - "neocons" (by which he means Jews) and AIPAC (by which he means Jews).

Did I say one American opposed the revolution? My bad. Two. The man Sullivan passionately supported on the Republican side of the campaign - Jew-hatin' race-baitin' conspiracy-addled Ron Paul - also does.

So that's two of Andi's crushbook favorites who are flacking for Ahmadinejad and the mullahs. But who gets blamed? The Jews, naturally.

And:

If you have any doubt that Sullivan is an anti-semite, I invite you once again to ponder how risible the claim is that Jews, of all people, are actually buddies with Khamenei and Ahmadinejad. And carrying their water.

Or neocons, for that matter, who aren't Jews (though Sullivan uses them as rough synonyms).

Iran has been fighting a proxy war against Israel since 1979 and its highest officers routinely threaten to wipe it off the map with a first-strike nuclear holocaust.

Any supporter of Israel -- Jewish or not -- would dearly wish Ahmadinejad to crumble into dust.

This is the most madcap of old-timey Jewish conspiracy ranting, where not only are Jews to be blamed for making trouble with foreign powers to further their own suspiciously-Yiddish interests, they're also, incoherently, alleged to be making secret pacts with those same foreign powers to further their dangerously-Hebraic agendas.

This is Nazi-type stuff, claiming Jews are both on both sides of every conflict and in fact the puppet-masters puppeteering both sides for their own nefarious, gefilte- stinking ends.

There's more in an update, "Take Two: Let Me Explain What Sullivan Is Saying." Ace explains the dementia of "Andi The Anti-Semite Sullivan":

... he's suffering from cognitive dissonance: He's a passionate supporter of both Obama and the Iranian Revolution, and his addled, demented brain is having trouble reconciling the fact that the Love of His Life actually seems to be the one flacking for Ahmadinejad, while neocon-Jews he despises actually seem to be against Ahmadinejad.

It also could be due to self-love, his unrelenting, insatiable narcissism. He wants himself to be the most passionate supporter of the Iranian uprising in America, and so when Charles Krauthammer appears to be an even more passionate supporter, saying crazy things like "Barack Obama should support the uprising," Sullivan needs some way to explain that Krauthammer is actually not what he seems.

Krauthammer seems to be more forward-leaning than Sullivan? Easily explained: He's actually supporting Ahmadinejad, deliberately, trying to trick guileless Gentiles into taking steps that will undermine the protesters. An agent provocateur.

Andrew Sullivan's narcissistic, demented worldview will not admit of someone being "more right" than he is. He must come up with some mechanism by which the only two people who have it exactly right are Andrew Sullivan and his dreamlover Barack Hussein Obama.

As readers can see, this is just one more reason why I don't like Andrew Sullivan. But the lefties will no doubt be standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Andi The Anti-Semite Sullivan. Also, recall my essay from last year, "Kos and Andrew: Merchants of Hate" (and by lefties, we can safely include Conor Friederdorf in that category as well).

Image Credit: Darleen Click, "Excitable Andy: ‘Watch out for the Jooooos!’"

Police Clash With Protesters in Bloody Tehran Crackdown

From Fox News, "Iran Riot Police Clash With Thousands of Protesters in Bloody Tehran Crackdown":

Thousands of protesters defied Iran's highest authority Saturday and marched on waiting security forces that fought back with baton charges, tear gas and water cannons as the crisis over disputed elections lurched into volatile new ground.

In a separate incident, a state-run television channel reported that a suicide bombing at the shrine of the Islamic Revolution leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini killed at least two people and wounded eight. The report could be not independently evaluated due to government restrictions on journalists.

If proven true, the reports could enrage conservatives and bring strains among backers of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. Another state channel broadcast images of broken glass but no other damage or casualties, and showed a witness saying three people had been wounded.

Read the whole thing, here.

Also Blogging: Drew at AOSHQ, "Obama To Iran: Hey Guys, Can't I Just Finish My Ice Cream?", and Reliapundit, "The Iranians Protesting and Dying in the Streets are the Real Freedom Fighters."

Plus: Mark Steyn, "Neutrality Isn’t an Option," via Memeorandum.

American Hegemony, Continued...

My good friend Ottavio, from Down Under, has a great post up, "U.S Declinism Theories Are Nothing New."

As he notes, "America will remain the sole superpower even if not quite as powerful as in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War ..."

Also, Ottavio's entry gives me an opportunity to finally post Michael Lind's contrarian recent essay, "The Next Big Thing: America":

There will be no winners from the prolonged and painful economic emergency. But some countries will lose more than others. The United States is likely to emerge less damaged than most, as unfair as that will seem to a world that blames it for triggering the crisis. For one thing, it is much easier for a chronic trade-deficit country such as the United States to rebuild its battered export sector than it is for export-oriented countries like China and Japan to rebalance their economies toward more consumption and social insurance. For another, the United States, alone among the world’s leaders, is potentially an industrial superpower, a commodity superpower, and an energy superpower at the same time.

The United States will also continue to benefit from the inward flow of foreign money, talent, and labor. Others may grumble about the creditworthiness of Uncle Sam in light of emergency-driven deficits, but in the foreseeable future what places will be a safer haven for investments? A fragile and politically unstable China? Japan, with a shaky economy and aging population? A Europe of squabbling nation-states, riven by cleavages between natives and Muslim immigrants? Authoritarian petrostates where assets can be confiscated without warning?

The crisis has reduced the flow of immigrants into the United States along with the demand for their labor, but both should recover, putting the country back on its pre-crisis path of immigration-fed population growth and leading to a population of 400 to 500 million by 2050 and as many as a billion people by 2100. Whether the U.S. economy can grow rapidly enough to maintain a high standard of living for all those people remains to be seen (though prophets of Malthusian gloom about alleged U.S. overpopulation have been refuted many times before). The bottom line is: The populations of Europe, Russia, and Japan are declining, and those of China and India are leveling off. The United States alone among great powers will be increasing its share of world population over time.

Otto von Bismarck observed that God favors fools, drunkards, and the United States of America. The U.S.A. has been a lucky country, and despite its present suffering it is unlikely that America’s luck has run out. Relying on the import of money, workers, and brains for more than three centuries, North America has been a Ponzi scheme that works. The present crisis notwithstanding, it still will.