Beijing's Olympic Nightmare

Betsy Newmark noted that restrooms at Beijing's Olympic facilities feature "squat toilets," and she adds:

I can say unequivocally that I'm not traveling anywhere where they don't have modern sit-down toilets.

I first saw squat toilets in 1973, on a summer vacation in France. I was just a kid and, and while fascinating, I didn't relate the type of restroom facilities to the level of state development in a nation, but Newmark's post got me thinking about China: It turns out that Elizabeth Economy and Adam Segal, at the new Foreign Affairs, offer an eye-popping look China's public relations catastrophy heading into the summer games: "China's Olympic Nightmare":

On the night of July 13, 2001, tens of thousands of people poured into Tiananmen Square to celebrate the International Olympic Committee's decision to award the 2008 Olympic Games to Beijing. Firecrackers exploded, flags flew high, and cars honked wildly. It was a moment to be savored. Chinese President Jiang Zemin and other leaders exhorted the crowds to work together to prepare for the Olympics. "Winning the host rights means winning the respect, trust, and favor of the international community," Wang Wei, a senior Beijing Olympic official, proclaimed. The official Xinhua News Agency reveled in the moment, calling the decision "another milestone in China's rising international status and a historical event in the great renaissance of the Chinese nation."

Hosting the Olympics was supposed to be a chance for China's leaders to showcase the country's rapid economic growth and modernization to the rest of the world. Domestically, it provided an opportunity for the Chinese government to demonstrate the Communist Party's competence and affirm the country's status as a major power on equal footing with the West. And wrapping itself in the values of the Olympic movement gave China the chance to portray itself not only as a rising power but also as a "peace-loving" country. For much of the lead-up to the Olympics, Beijing succeeded in promoting just such a message.

The process of preparing for the Games is tailor-made to display China's greatest political and economic strengths: the top-down mobilization of resources, the development and execution of grand-scale campaigns to reform public behavior, and the ability to attract foreign interest and investment to one of the world's brightest new centers of culture and business. Mobilizing massive resources for large infrastructure projects comes easily to China. Throughout history, China's leaders have drawn on the ingenuity of China's massive population to realize some of the world's most spectacular construction projects, the Great Wall, the Grand Canal, and the Three Gorges Dam among them. The Olympic construction spree has been no different. Beijing has built 19 new venues for the events, doubled the capacity of the subway, and added a new terminal to the airport. Neighborhoods throughout the city have been either spruced up to prepare for Olympic visitors or simply cleared out to make room for new Olympic sites. Official government spending for the construction bonanza is nearing $40 billion. In anticipation of the Olympics, the government has also embarked on a series of efforts to transform individual behavior and modernize the capital city. It has launched etiquette campaigns forbidding spitting, smoking, littering, and cutting in lines and introduced programs to teach English to cab drivers, police officers, hotel workers, and waiters. City officials have used Olympic projects as a means to refurbish decaying buildings and reduce air pollution, water shortages, and traffic jams.

Yet even as Beijing has worked tirelessly to ensure the most impressive of Olympic spectacles, it is clear that the Games have come to highlight not only the awesome achievements of the country but also the grave shortcomings of the current regime. Few in the central leadership seem to have anticipated the extent to which the Olympic Games would stoke the persistent political challenges to the legitimacy of the Communist Party and the stability of the country. Demands for political liberalization, greater autonomy for Tibet, increased pressure on Sudan, better environmental protection, and an improved product-safety record now threaten to put a damper on the country's coming-out party. As the Olympic torch circled the globe with legions of protesters in tow, Beijing's Olympic dream quickly turned into a public-relations nightmare.

Although the Chinese government excels when it comes to infrastructure projects, its record is poor when it comes to transparency, official accountability, and the rule of law. It has responded clumsily to internal and external political challenges -- by initially ignoring the international community's desire for China to play a more active role in resolving the human rights crisis in Darfur, arresting prominent Chinese political activists, and cracking down violently on demonstrators. Although there is no organized opposition unified around this set of demands, the cacophony of voices pressuring China to change its policies has taken much of the luster off of the Beijing Games. Moreover, although the Communist Party has gained domestic support from the nationalist backlash that has arisen in response to the Tibetan protesters and their supporters in the West, it also worries that this public anger will spin out of control, further damaging the country's international reputation. Already, China's coveted image as a responsible rising power has been tarnished.

For many in the international community, it has now become impossible to separate the competing narratives of China's awe-inspiring development and its poor record on human rights and the environment. It is no longer possible to discuss China's future without taking its internal fault lines seriously. For the Chinese government, the stakes are huge. China's credibility as a global leader, its potential as a model for the developing world, and its position as an emerging center of global business and culture are all at risk if these political challenges cannot be peacefully and successfully addressed.

Read the whole thing. Squat toilets are the least of the regime's problems.

See also, American Interests, "China Now Leading Emitter of Climate Change ..."

The Crisis in Zimbabwe

This story from the Washington Post discusses the latest calls by Zimbabwe's opposition forces for international action to stem the nation's crisis:

Zimbabwe's battered opposition called Wednesday for the deployment of thousands of African Union peacekeeping troops to bring order to a nation ravaged by months of political violence as President Robert Mugabe clings to power after 28 years.

The plea came as African leaders increasingly condemned Mugabe's ruthless campaign of retribution against the opposition that has left 86 party members dead and thousands wounded. A key group of southern African leaders urged Mugabe to cancel Friday's presidential runoff election.

Former South African president Nelson Mandela, speaking in London, complained about "the tragic failure of leadership in our neighboring Zimbabwe." Kenya's prime minister, Raila Odinga, warned that Zimbabwe "right now is a disaster in the making."

In Harare, Zimbabwe's capital, Jose Marcos Barrica, an Angolan minister heading an election observer mission for the Southern African Development Community, said, "When a brother beats a brother, that is a crisis."

Reports of assaults by youth militias have not eased since opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew from the runoff on Sunday. With attacks widespread -- and Tsvangirai spending most of his time in the safe haven of the Dutch Embassy -- opposition officials say that only outside powers can bring peace to Zimbabwe.

Tsvangirai's spokesman, George Sibotshiwe, said the party already has tentative commitments from several regional powers, including Tanzania and Angola, for a peacekeeping force. He estimated that a total of 4,000 armed and unarmed troops are needed.

After briefly emerging from the Dutch Embassy, Tsvangirai told reporters gathered at his home that the African Union and southern African regional powers needed to lead a mediation effort in Zimbabwe.

"The time for actions is now," Tsvangirai said at a news conference. "The people and the country can wait no longer."

In response to a question, Tsvangirai said he "didn't ask for military intervention, just armed peacekeepers."

Leaders of the Southern African Development Community, meeting Wednesday near Swaziland's capital, Mbabane, adopted a four-page statement in which they called for a postponement of the election and negotiations between Mugabe and Tsvangirai.

"The political and security situation in Zimbabwe appears not to be permissive for holding the runoff election in a manner that would be deemed free and fair," the statement said. "Holding the election under the current circumstances may undermine the credibility and legitimacy of its outcome."

Though the statement was far stronger than any previously issued by the 14-member regional body, officials at the summit, including Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, declined to name any actions they might take against Mugabe if the election goes ahead....

Zimbabwe has been locked in political stalemate since the March 29 election in which the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, won control of parliament and Tsvangirai outpolled Mugabe. Electoral officials, after withholding results for a month, said Tsvangirai narrowly missed an absolute majority, setting up the runoff vote scheduled for Friday.

Even as the crisis has captured the world's attention, conditions within the country continue to deteriorate. The world's worst inflation strains the government's ability to measure it. Ruling party youths patrol many towns and cities. Torture, beatings, arson and false arrests are common. Many of Tsvangirai's key party officials are in jail, in exile or dead.

With global criticism building, Queen Elizabeth II of Britain -- Zimbabwe's former colonial ruler -- stripped Mugabe of ceremonial knighthood, a title he received in 1994 when he was still perceived as a symbol of African liberation. Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa called on Mugabe to resign and likened him in an interview to "a kind of Frankenstein."

See also, "Zimbabweans Make Plea for Help as Runoff Nears."

Cartoon Credit: Tom Toles

Obama 12-Point Lead, in L.A. Times Poll, Draws Controversy

The new Los Angeles Times poll, which finds Barack Obama with a 12-point lead over John McCain, has drawn fire from analysts suggesting an oversample of Democratic respondents.

Don Frederick has the details:

A well-known Republican research firm argues that the voter pool tapped for the new L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll was too skewed toward Democrats - a challenge that causes the GOP strategists to question the double-digit lead the survey gave Barack Obama over John McCain.

The case against the poll, laid out in a memo sent out today by Public Opinion Strategies, in turn sparked a response from survey director Susan Pinkus, who stood by its methodology and findings.

Part of the dispute reflects a long-standing disagreement between independent pollsters and partisan operatives (something The Times wrote about four years ago) -- whether or not to tinker with a poll to make sure its respondents reflect the nation's political composition at some fixed point, such as the most recent election.

Pinkus, like most nonpartisan pollsters, rejects that notion. Discussing the current survey, she says, "The poll was weighted slightly, where necessary, to conform to the Census Bureau’s proportions of sex, race, ethnicity, age and national region. The poll was NOT weighted for party identification since party ID is a moving variable that changes from one election to another, or when one party may be favored more than the other."

As a result, the survey simply asked respondents their party affiliation or inclination, and came up with this breakdown: 39% Democratic, 22% Republican, 8% something else, 4% refused to say.

There's the rub, insists the memo from Bill McInturff, Liz Harrington and David Kanevsky. They write that these figures, and the 17 percentage-point gap between the two parties, are "greatly out of line with what most other surveys are reporting."

The memo cites several other recent polls in which the party ID gap ranged as low as plus 6 percentage points for the Democrats to as high as plus 14.

It then asserts: "McCain’s double-digit deficit is not a reflection of reality, simply a result of an unusual party identification result in this survey.... If party identification on the L.A. Times survey is recalculated to ... 29% GOP / 39% Dem / 27% Ind / 5% Don’t Know/Refused, the ballot would be 40% McCain – 47% Obama."

Pinkus responds, at the link. She suggests that the statistic of 39 percent Democrats was generated from a random sample of "1,115 registered voters (which includes listed, unlisted and cell phone users)."

These numbers look like outliers to me. For example, today's Gallup survey finds Obama and McCain Tied at 45 percent:

The latest Gallup Poll Daily tracking update on the presidential election finds John McCain and Barack Obama exactly tied at 45% among registered voters nationwide.

Voter preferences had been fairly evenly divided for the past week, with Obama generally holding a slight advantage of two or three percentage points. This is the first time since Gallup's May 31-June 4 rolling average that Obama does not have at least a slim advantage over McCain. Obama's largest lead to date has been seven points. (To view the complete trend since March 7, 2008, click here.)

Since the changes from Tuesday's results are well within the margin of sampling error, it is unclear at this point if today's results represent a further tightening of the race. The last two individual nights of polling have, however, been more favorable to McCain that what Gallup has shown for most of June.

That sounds much more accurate, but see also Andrew Romano, "Does Obama Really Have a Double-Digit Lead?", and Marc Ambinder, "McCain Campaign Pushes Back On LA Times/BB Poll."

Supreme Court Spares Child Rapists From Execution

A divided Supreme Court today ruled against the death penalty for convicted child rapists, in what is certainly a decision raising the most disturbing moral and legal issues of the day.

Allahpundit has a long analysis, and I was struck by the question of relative depravity, raised in Samuel Alito's dissent:

With respect to the question of moral depravity, is it really true that every person who is convicted of capital murder and sentenced to death is more morally depraved than every child rapist? Consider the following two cases. In the first, a defendant robs a convenience store and watches as his accomplice shoots the store owner. The defendant acts recklessly, but was not the triggerman and did not intend the killing. In the second case, a previously convicted child rapist kidnaps, repeatedly rapes, and tortures multiple child victims. Is it clear that the first defendant is more morally depraved than the second?

The Court’s decision here stands in stark contrast to Atkins and Roper, in which the Court concluded that characteristics of the affected defendants—mental retardation in Atkins and youth in Roper—diminished their culpability. Nor is this case comparable to Enmund v. Florida, 458 U. S. 782 (1982), in which the Court held that the Eighth Amendment prohibits the death penalty where the defendant participated in a robbery during which a murder was committed but did not personally intend for lethal force to be used. I have no doubt that, under the prevailing standards of our society, robbery, the crime that the petitioner in Enmund intended to commit, does not evidence the same degree of moral depravity as the brutal rape of a young child. Indeed, I have little doubt that, in the eyes of ordinary Americans, the very worst child rapists—predators who seek out and inflict serious physical and emotional injury on defenseless young children—are the epitome of moral depravity.

The Court's ruling stays with previous case history holding capital punishment as available only for the crime of murder. But this issue of ultimate moral depravity becomes even more clear when we look at the background Patrick Kennedy, the child rapist who was to be executed in Lousiana for one of the most heinous crimes imaginable. Here's some of the descriptive background on the crime from Anthony Kennedy’s majority opinion in Kennedy v. Louisiana:

...Petitioner’s crime was one that cannot be recounted in these pages in a way sufficient to capture in full the hurt and horror inflicted on his victim or to convey the revulsion society, and the jury that represents it, sought to express by sentencing petitioner to death. At 9:18 a.m. on March 2, 1998, petitioner called 911 to report that his stepdaughter, referred to here as L. H., had been raped....

He told the 911 operator that L. H. had been in the garage while he readied his son for school. Upon hearing loud screaming, petitioner said, he ran outside and found L. H. in the side yard. Two neighborhood boys, petitioner told the operator, had dragged L. H. from the garage to the yard, pushed her down, and raped her. Petitioner claimed he saw one of the boys riding away on a blue 10-speed bicycle.

When police arrived at petitioner’s home between 9:20 and 9:30 a.m., they found L. H. on her bed, wearing a T-shirt and wrapped in a bloody blanket. She was bleeding profusely from the vaginal area. Petitioner told police he had carried her from the yard to the bathtub and then to the bed. Consistent with this explanation, police found a thin line of blood drops in the garage on the way to the house and then up the stairs. Once in the bedroom, petitioner had used a basin of water and a cloth to wipe blood from the victim. This later prevented medical personnel from collecting a reliable DNA sample.

L. H. was transported to the Children’s Hospital. An expert in pediatric forensic medicine testified that L. H.’s injuries were the most severe he had seen from a sexual assault in his four years of practice. A laceration to the left wall of the vagina had separated her cervix from the back of her vagina, causing her rectum to protrude into the vaginal structure. Her entire perineum was torn from the posterior fourchette to the anus. The injuries required emergency surgery.

There's a bit of moral depravity there, I'd say.

Hat Tip: Michelle Malkin

Obama Takes Issue With Nader Comments

Well, consider this my obligatory daily blog post on race.

The news this afternoon is that Barack Obama's upset with Ralph Nader, who suggested that Obama's "talking white" instead of genuinely discussing the crucial issues facing black America:

Independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader accused Sen. Barack Obama, the presumed Democratic Party nominee, of downplaying poverty issues, trying to "talk white" and appealing to "white guilt" during his run for the White House.

Nader, a thorn in the Democratic Party's side since the 2000 presidential election, has taken various shots at Obama in recent days while ramping up his latest independent run for president.

In a wide-ranging interview with the Rocky Mountain News on Monday, he said he is running because he believes Democrats, like Republicans, are too closely aligned with corporate interests.

Nader was asked if Obama is any different than Democrats he has criticized in the past, considering Obama's pledge to reject campaign contributions from registered lobbyists.

"There's only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He's half African-American," Nader said. "Whether that will make any difference, I don't know. I haven't heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What's keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn't want to appear like Jesse Jackson? We'll see all that play out in the next few months and if he gets elected afterwards."

The Obama campaign had only a brief response, calling the remarks disappointing.

Asked to clarify whether he thought Obama does try to "talk white," Nader said: "Of course.

"I mean, first of all, the number one thing that a black American politician aspiring to the presidency should be is to candidly describe the plight of the poor, especially in the inner cities and the rural areas, and have a very detailed platform about how the poor is going to be defended by the law, is going to be protected by the law, and is going to be liberated by the law," Nader said. "Haven't heard a thing."

"We are obviously disappointed with these very backward-looking remarks," Obama campaign spokeswoman Shannon Gilson said.

Continue reading the article at the link.

Nader's just giving some straight talk on race, in my opinion. I haven't written on the issue much lately, but social policy - especially the urban crisis - is a major concern for me, and it should be to all Americans.

Still, Obama's got enough problems with his ties to radical elements in the Hyde Park political milieu, as well as the remnants of the Reverand Wright contoversy. So it's no suprise he's not pushing a big urban agenda.

I don't think Nader's comments are racist, frankly, and hopefully we'll see more generalized discussion of these issues going forward.

One left-wing blogger posting on this has totally ignored the essence of Nader's criticism, to focus instead on the "eccentric use of grammar," and Nader's flaws as a candidate.

Nader's discussion's not "eccentric" in the least. If Obama's going to "target" black voters, he should at least make a real attempt to tackle problems unique to that constituency.

Ideas, Clarity, and American Power

This past week or so has been a difficult time at American Power. I've been engaged in a battle of ideas, and at times the debate's turned painful and ugly.

But I continue doing what I do, knowing in my heart that reason and goodness prevail, and that ultimately the power of one's values will be measured by their success in the marketplace of ideas.

I'm thus pleased to find, at the time of this writing, that one of my morning posts, "Cranky Rednecks and Leftist Bigots," has been picked for distribution on the main page at RealClearPolitics:

Best of the Blogs

Cranky Rednecks and Leftist Bigots - Donald Douglas, American Power
Hoyer Hails FISA Bill - Glenn Greenwald, Salon
Money Grubbing Tax Grabbers - McQ, QandO
Returned to the Battlefield - Hilzoy, Obsidian Wings
McCain and the Internets - Katharine Seelye, The Caucus

This is not the first time I've been cited at RCP, and I normally make no mention of the links. But this particular linkage is significant in confirming to some extent that reasoned discussion of controversial topics is recognized objectively as conducive to improving the political dialog.

Many of those who visit here do not comment, so let me share the timely support of one of my readers, who noted simply, by e-mail:

Your blog continues to be one of the very best out there. Keep up the great work!

So, thanks to everyone who's read through some of the bitterness and backlash of late, and thanks especially to those who've given me support. The names and links are too many to share here, but be assured that the friendship and readership is never underappreciated.

Ideas of moral clarity, progress, and the stewardship of power drive my blogging project.

This is what I do.

Should Revolutionaries Feel Good About Obama?

Zombie Time's photo below, of the revolutionary communist trolling for converts in Berkeley, is pretty intriguing:

Look closely: The young guy's holding a copy of the communist journal, Revolution, with its cover blurb, "The Barack Obama Campaign: Should People Feel Good About This Country?"

So, let's think about it: Should folks feel good about the United States?

I certainly do, and I suspect most of my readers do as well. But just yesterday I posted on Will Smith, who announced on national television that:

You know I just, I just came back from Moscow, Berlin, London and Paris and it's the first, I've been there quite a few times in the past five to 10 years. And it just hasn't been a good thing to be American. And this is the first time, since Barack has gotten the nomination, that it, it was a good thing...

Now, Will Smith is no revolutionary communist, but he does reflect the disturbing anti-American propensity among Obama supporters to state openly that they're not proud of the United States.

But let's be precise: Barack Obama, for all his ties to extremist movements, is the Democratic Party's nominee for president. He's by definition, then, not communist.

Moreover, note too that even the Revolution article comes out clearly against him, saying that Obama's nomination represents his acceptance by the capitalist oppressors - they see and welcome his policies as perpetuating the imperialist hegemony of the international system's dominant criminal state.

Yet the piece contains this extremely suggestive passage (with bold text added):

The Obama campaign is not about—and cannot be about—addressing in any real, fundamental way, the things that make millions of people not feel good about this country. But an important part of what the Obama candidacy is all about, and why it has gotten as far as it has with the blessings of the powers-that-be, is that it is about mis-channeling outrage into making people feel good about this country.

The point here is not that nothing can be done about all the things that the rulers of this country have done, and are doing, here and around the world. It can—but only outside the killing confines of a system that allows nothing more meaningful than participating in a ritual choice of who will preside over the next four years of oppression.

What all this shows even more emphatically is that we need a whole new, radically different system, and a revolution to bring that system into being.

Now, communist ideology explicity predicts that the people's revolution will represent the end stage of history, and amid the final crisis of capitalism the proletarian revolution will seize power, and ultimately society's resources will be distributed from each according to ability, and to each according to need. The state will whither away and community utopia will reign on earth.

The ideology's been completely discredited by history, of course.

But while the doctrinaire publishers of the Revolution state clearly that an Obama campaign will simply continue America's alleged imperial evil, the passage above provides a bit of insight as to why many of the radical members of the left-wing are flocking to the Obama banner: If the Obama campaign's truly about "mischanneling" outrage to make people feel good, then those, like Will Smith, as well as Michelle Obama (who's on record as not being proud of America), see Barack Obama as the personification of Lenin's "vanguard of the proletariat." That is, underneath the Democratic Party window-dressing, many Obama supporters indeed agree with the thesis of America as the irredeemable nation, the ultimate capitalist abomination.

Thus, these people, while not outwardly faithful to genuine Marxist-Leninism, nevertheless see - at some subconscious level - an Obama accession as representing a mid-term Hegelian stage, working toward achievement of the final contradictions in the American system of hegemonic crisis. The country, under Obama, thus moves into a quasi-communist party state of dynamic social-market economics, while the revolutionary consciousness of mass society is cultivated and prepared for next stage of the revolutionary process: the expropriation of the expropriators.

This is the significance of Barack Obama's appeal as the "messiah." This is the ulitmate significance of his candidacy for all of the hardline radicals, like those posting "community blogs" at the Obama campaign's official page.

Barack Obama is not communist himself. But his promise of change for those a bit less doctrinaire than the editorial mandarins at the Revolution provides a wedge-opening to achieve the long-term triumph of the working classes over capital. Obama supporters might not look at it in quite as abstract terms, but when they say they "can't be proud" of the United States, they're naturally implying endorsment for a radically different direction, toward a workers' utopia midwifed by Barack Obama's calls for ethereal "hope" and "change."

So, yes, revolutionaries should feel good about Obama. He's their vanguard icon for the toppling of capitalism.

Israel: Front Line of Western Civilization

Here's a great piece from The Objective Standard, "Israel and the Front Line of Civilization," by John David Lewis:

I just returned from a speaking engagement at Tel Aviv University (pictures from the trip are on my website). My honorarium was four days of sight-seeing in Tel Aviv, Abu Gosh, Jerusalem, En Gedi and Masada, and a series of meetings with writers, policy analysts, academics and writers. I came back with one overriding conclusion, which stands for me stronger than it did before my trip: Israel stands at the front-line of the war between civilization and barbarism. As Eric Hoffer wrote over forty years ago, “as it goes with Israel, so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the holocaust will be upon us all.” (“Israel’s Peculiar Position,” LA Times 5/26/68)

Israel is America’s best friend in the world today. It is Western in every fundamental respect: Its secular government has prevented both civil war and tyranny since its founding; its citizens’ rights are largely protected; its press is free and open; its court system is independent of executive fiat; and its economy is vibrant. It has its share of lunatics, but they have not taken over the culture. It is “middle-eastern” only in location.

While driving through Israel, one cannot help but remember that the area can become a military front at any moment. A sign in the road points left to Ramallah, home of Yasir Arafat—you can drive there (we did not), but an Israeli soldier will soon stop you to warn that the army cannot protect you if you go further. Straight ahead is the road to Jerusalem, which is just a few miles away. It’s all so close.

In less than half hour’s drive, the seacoast climate of Tel Aviv changes to the desert climate of Jordan. Bedouin camps—temporary structures, some with camels in front—squat between towns with high-tech industry. Jerusalem itself is deeply permeated with religious fanaticism of all kinds, and with neighborhoods defined by ethnic identities. The line that divided Israeli tanks from those of Arabs during the numerous attacks on Israel is a street—you can walk down it.
On the highway—a modern road built by the Israelis—I see towns surrounded by trees. The trees were nearly all planted by the Israelis. This is something little known in the U.S.: The Israelis have planted tens of millions of trees in a desert that had never before been planted, and they remain committed to planting in the Negev Desert, especially near Beer Sheva. Trees did not exist here before 1948. The so-called “Green Line” originally dividing Israel from its neighbors is called such because it literally is a line of green.

At one point we come over a hill, and there are two towns ahead. The one on the left is an Israeli “settlement”—to use the popular phrase in the western press today—and on the right is an Arab town. To the left is a sea of trees among the buildings, and to the right, none. What the press and politicians in America call “illegal settlements” are Israeli towns, with factories, high-tech industries, and homes—built on hills where there was previously nothing but sand—bringing economic life and civilization to the desert.

There can be no basis for calling these towns “illegal” because, prior to Israel’s establishment of civilization in the area, no law and no government existed there (so-called “International Law” notwithstanding). It is also little known in the United States that when the Israelis announce their intent to withdraw from these areas, thousands of non-Israeli inhabitants—Muslims and Arabs—pick up and move to Israeli-controlled areas (Daniel Pipes has recounted some of this). Life under Hamas is hell, life in Israel is good, and most locals know it.

As usual, Israel is blamed for the inability to make peace with a foe that is dedicated to destroying her. American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expresses a dominant view in the U.S. State Department when she rants against Israeli towns as an “impediment to peace.” Yet observe the Palestinian leadership’s response to Rice: "With the arrival of that black scorpion with a cobra's head, Condoleezza, I began to worry that she would use her venomous fangs and hiss to kill this initiative and new spirit that we should protect” said Hamas Minister of Culture 'Atallah Abu Al-Subh,in remarksaired on Al-Aqsa TV on June 15, 2008.

The deepest cause of the conflict between Israel and those purporting to lead the Palestinian people is philosophical: the deep inculcation of jihad into the minds of Palestinian youth, in the form of a violent ideology that has nothing to offer except the destruction of Israel and claims to paradise as a reward for death. Samples of this ideological material have been collected at the Israeli Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center; follow the link to “Captured Material.”

Until the motivations for jihad against Israel are admitted, confronted, and repudiated, the causes of war will remain in place, festering in the minds of each new generation of children. All else—the “settlements,” the check-points that prevent non-Israelis from freely partaking of the Israeli economy, the claims to economic devastation, the “historic connection” to a soil that the Palestinians never planted—is pretense. To see this, all one need ask is why Israel’s return to the 1967 borders would remove a cause of war, given that Israel was attacked when she held those borders. And, of course, for Israel to retreat to those borders now would leave foreign enemies a few miles from Tel Aviv. This would be national suicide for Israel, a new holiday for Hamas, and the end of civilization in the Middle East.

Be sure to read the remainder of the essay, at the link.

All I can add is that Lewis captures my sentiments perfectly!

See also, "Israel is the Defining Moral Issue of Our Time."

Related: "'Clean Hands' and the Triumph of Evil?"

Cranky Rednecks and Leftist Bigots

It seems there's going to be some race-related controversy every day throughout the campaign.

The latest racial dust-up involves Don Imus, who deployed racial stereotypes when discussing football star Adam “Pacman” Jones' recent run-ins with the law.

Ed Morrissey, who represents the solid center of the conservative blogosphere, offers his reflections:

Al Sharpton may get another chance to distract everyone from the massive IRS investigation into his personal and professional finances by seizing on another Don Imus eruption. This morning, Imus discussed the case of Adam “Pac-Man” Jones, the NFL player that sat out 2007 with disciplinary suspensions and has been arrested a half-dozen times since being drafted the previous year. While Imus’ news announcer talks about Jones’ desire to drop his nickname — it’s too “negative” now — Imus startled him with a question:

Imus: “What color is he?”

A: “He’s African American.”

Imus: “Well there you go… now we know.”

This may not be quite as overt as “nappy-headed ho’s”, but in listening to the clip, you can almost hear the smirk on Imus’ face as he replied to the answer. Put that together with the preceding “What do you expect at a nightclub?” sequence, and it looks like WABC may find out how it felt to be CBS Radio and MS-NBC in the prior controversy. Imus has not learned much since, it appears.

And what was Imus supposed to "learn"? Perhaps to be careful about making racial slurs.

What's interesting is that Imus seem mostly like a cranky old redneck, and he and his listeners might just be consigned to the margins of the political spectrum, except that whenever something like this erupts, it becomes a major public issue. Recall that Imus is back on the air after making derogatory statements about young black women athletes, and now he's involved in another uproar.

So here it goes: Radical lefties, like TRex, cry foul:

Let’s start with Don Imus. Anyone who followed his egregious missteps in the wake of Nappy-Headed-Ho-Gate knew that these were old Cowboy Don’s true colors. From calling Gwen Ifill “The Cleaning Lady” to the notorious remarks that got him axed from MSNBC and temporarily banned from the radio, Don Imus has always been one gaffe away from getting permanently consigned to the dustbin of no-longer-relevant media personalities.

But note the hypocrisy: TRex spews some of the most vicious anti-Semitism around the leftosophere.

So what we have is cranky rednecks and leftist bigots, and none of it's okay.

I don't think Imus' remarks this time around were that egregious, but he's taking the heat nevertheless for his apparent pattern of racial insensitivity, and the left's propensity to exploit it.

Photo Credit: "Imus Says He's Defending, Not Offending 'Pacman' Jones."

Revolutionary Communists for Obama

The "community blogs" over at Barak Obama's official page just keep getting better and better!

Via LGF, check out this "World Can't Wait" crosspost, "Why Jeremiah Wright Wasn’t Talking About ‘The Past’":

The Sean Bell Murder and the Re-Klanification of America
by Malcolm Shore

This article originally appeared on the website of The World Can’t Wait—Drive Out the Bush Regime (worldcantwait.org) and is reprinted here with permission.

In opening his 2003 speech Revolution: Why It’s Necessary, Why It’s Possible, What It’s All About, Bob Avakian—the Chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP)—traced the rivers of Black blood that feed the ocean of American history. After angrily recounting some of the most horrific instances of lynching that occurred on U.S. soil, Avakian quoted an author who had written a book about the subject as saying: “It is doubtful that any Black male growing up in the rural South, in the period from 1900-1940, was not traumatized by a fear of being lynched.”

A few minutes later in this talk, Avakian updated the author’s observation to reflect modern U.S. society. “Today it is mostly the police—who openly, as the police—carry out brutality and terror against Black youth and Black people in general,” Avakian said. “Applying that author’s statement on lynching to the present, we could put it this way: ‘It is doubtful that there is a young Black male growing up in the US today—in the south or the north—who does not have a very real fear of being brutalized or even murdered by the police.’”

Is there really any question that the most radical ideological elements on the spectrum are backing the Obama campaign?

Better ask Reppy!

He's up on this stuff, but at least check out World Can't Wait's home page, as well as the organization's Discover the Network's entry, listed as: "Revolutionary communist movement that stages protests against the Bush administration."

See also, "Barack Obama's Marxist Ties," and "Communists for Obama?"

Plus, there's lots more good stuff at LGF's entry, "At the Official Barack Obama Blog Site: The Revolutionary Communist Party."

What is it About Today's Press?

This morning I noted how the press has gone "AWOL" in its coverage of recent progress in Iraq (while intent to make big stories from the rants of antiwar reporters). Thus I thought I'd follow up that entry with Wordsmith's powerful essay, "The NYTimes Once Again Shapes the Battle Space."

Be sure to read the whole thing, but I especially liked this part:

What is it about today's press that has impaired judgment, given aid and comfort to America's enemies, endangered lives, prolonged the conflict, and sabotaged and undermined anti-terror programs by publishing leaks regarding such things as CIA secret prisons, NSA surveillance program, the SWIFT program? Were 32 frontpage stories on abu Ghraib published in the New York Times really warranted? Did the act itself inflame the Arab world and create more terrorists, or was it the media hype about the abuses, which did so? What about Haditha? Who has done more damage to the war effort? Soldiers on the frontlines to win hearts and minds, protesters out on the streets, politicians back in Washington, or perceptions created and driven by the media in its coverage of the war? The Bush Administration is held accountable for its failures in prosecuting the Iraq battle with zero percent casualties; but where is the media accountability?

I replied at the post:

I can't answer the question, but I just refer to my framework of postmodern culture, where there's really no good or bad, or if anything, to the leftists, we're the "bad guys."

Obama and Change: Unlocking the Puzzle

Dorothy Wickenden argues that Barack Obama's promise of change remains an enigma, at the New Yorker:

On October 7, 2002, in Cincinnati, Ohio, George W. Bush delivered the defining speech of his Presidency. In the face of “clear evidence of peril” from a regime harboring terrorists and weapons of mass destruction, he declared, “we cannot wait for the final proof—the smoking gun—that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”

Five days earlier, a forty-one-year-old Illinois state legislator had given a momentous speech of his own, although few recognized it as such at the time. “I don’t oppose all wars,” Barack Obama told a few hundred Chicago protesters, adding:

I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of Al Qaeda. I am not opposed to all wars. I’m opposed to dumb wars.

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, Bush discovered a big idea for his Presidency. He would bring down a tyrant, crush terrorism, and impose democracy and peace on what his regent, Vice-President Dick Cheney, called “freedom-loving peoples of the region.” As the world now knows, that idea was based on faulty intelligence reports and executed with a fatal disregard of political reality in the Middle East and at home. By the time of the 2008 Presidential campaign, Bush’s approval rating had shrunk from sixty-seven per cent to thirty-seven per cent, the Republican Party was coming apart, and Obama’s 2002 speech had proved a precondition for an astounding climb to victory this month as the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee for President.

Still, sixteen months after announcing his candidacy, and after twenty-six Presidential debates and thousands of public-speaking engagements, Obama remains a puzzle to many voters. Almost as dedicated a policy wonk as Hillary Clinton and arguably more centrist in his economic beliefs, he offers plenty of specifics about what needs to be done. But his captivating eloquence and his slogan—“Change We Can Believe In”—have seemed to lift him dangerously high above the concrete. He has proved his steadiness of purpose without clearly defining his priorities. What, above all, does he intend to accomplish if he is elected President?

Obama is said to have been dissatisfied with the slogan. If so, he has a point. The “change” he advocates can be understood as a pragmatic correction to the radical policies and the ineptitude of the Bush brigade. His political departure is a kind of return. He has written two unusually revealing books—one describing how he came to be who he is, the other delineating how he proposes to reclaim the qualities that once made America so admired. He argues that the United States must relearn the fundamental lessons of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and its own long journey toward a more perfect union, and then apply them to the global upheavals of the twenty-first century.

In his books, Obama emerges not as the personification of cool projected onto him by his young adherents—or as the disdainful élitist suggested by his offhand remark about a “bitter” working class—but as something of a square: someone who doesn’t have to strain to talk about “values,” God, and family. His eerily objective self-analysis is matched by his lawyerly ability to see things from the perspective of those on the other side. In January, after Obama uttered a few words of praise for Ronald Reagan in an interview with newspaper editors, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards rushed to condemn his apostasy. But he meant what he said. In 2006, in “The Audacity of Hope,” he had written, “Reagan spoke to America’s longing for order, our need to believe that we are not simply subject to blind, impersonal forces but that we can shape our individual and collective destinies, so long as we rediscover the traditional virtues of hard work, patriotism, personal responsibility, optimism, and faith.”

Wickenden goes on to suggest that Obama's a model of consistency in his political views, not a "flip-flopper," like John McCain.

Actually, some have argued that it's Obama who flips on the issues (see "Barack Obama, Serial Flip-Flopper"), although I do think Obama demonstrates an overall consistency in his ideological program.

While maybe he's not clarified it so much yet (and I think that's a questionable assumption), he's clearly to the far-left on most of the big issues of the day. It's a little extreme to call him an evil "Obamanation," or the Beast of Revelations, but he's out there, that's for sure.

"Clean Hands" and the Triumph of Evil?

Neo-Neocon offers a highly philosophical post in her meditation on "clean hands" and the triumph of evil:

Commenter “gringo” wrote in earlier thread:

Re keeping hands clean. That was one motive for my becoming a Conscientious Objector during the Vietnam War.

The genocide in Cambodia changed my mind. One has “clean hands” and stands on the sidelines while others are slaughtered.

Sorry, “clean hands” become bloodstained in such abstention, from my point of view. What is that quote about standing by and doing nothing when evil men are doing their deeds?

What is that quote? The answer is not so simple; although the quote is usually attributed to Edmund Burke, the original source appears to be lost. No matter who said it, it is justly famous because it expresses an idea not always fully appreciated and yet profoundly important:

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

Note that the sentence states that inaction by good men (we’ll update that to “people”) is all that’s required. The speaker—whomever he or she may be—assumes that the existence of evil intent, and the willingness and means to act upon it effectively, are always present and always will be present among human beings. The author implicitly rejects the idea that humans can ever reach the sort of perfection that eliminates this impulse, its enormous capacity to harm, and its tendency to seek control. That’s why the author speaks not just of the “existence” of evil but its possible “triumph,” and posits that action on the part of those who are “good” will always be required.

However, the sentence offers no guidance on judging what (or who) is evil and what (or who) is good. Nor does it take into account the unintended consequences of action, only of inaction.

That’s why there’s another saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” One of the hallmarks of those who do evil is that they often think they are doing good. The situation is made even more complicated by the fact that it is difficult, although necessary, when evaluating an action, to try to imagine as best as possible its consequences, knowing that some will always be unforeseen and even unintended. And still another problem is trying to imagine the consequences of inaction—as in the quote attributed to Burke.

It’s a tall order, is it not? But if we are to be moral beings acting in the real world, and not in some ideal one that exists only in our minds, we must attempt it.

Neo-Neocon's putting her reflections in the context of the Supreme Court's recent habeas corpus ruling in Boumedine, but the enormity of evil is something I've grappled with in both personal and professional ways.

As 20th-century international politics demonstrates, good intentions - for example, Neville Chamberlain's appeasement - often have enormous implications for the triumph of evil.

I agree with Neo's case, at the post, that in comtemporary American politics, it's easier to discern moral weakness in the forces of the left (who wrongheadedly embolden evil in the nihilist terrorist mayhem of our times). But we see evil as well in domestic ideologies of racial eliminationism, which still have significant currency on the extremist fringe.

Thus, I would hold that in both the domestic and international realms, dirtying our hands is necessary to beat back the most primitive human impulses to evil, including the normalization of hatred.

I'll have more on this and related topics in future essays.

Photo Credit: "The Mythology of Munich."

Mapping the Political Blogosphere

I couldn't resist sharing Ethan Zuckerman's post on the "Map of the Political Blogosphere."

The idea here is to look at linking between political blogs in only a political context, discarding other links that are outside of context. The result is a tight, pretty map that shows a decided red/blue (conservative/liberal) split in the US political blogosphere, plus a small set of common sources used by both sides.The graph is remarkably easy to explore, allowing users to mouse over it and see the media sources referenced.

It's fun to play around with, especially locating favorite blogs and news aggregators.

Have fun!

Good Thing to Be American? Yeah, Since Barack Got Nomination

Will Smith, during his interview with Matt Lauer on this morning's Today Show, said it's just now, with Barack Obama's nomination, "a good thing to be American":

You know I just, I just came back from Moscow, Berlin, London and Paris and it's the first, I've been there quite a few times in the past five to 10 years. And it just hasn't been a good thing to be American. And this is the first time, since Barack has gotten the nomination, that it, it was a good thing...

Here's the video. Scroll forward to about 5:00 minutes:

I really like Will Smith, but I'm disappointed with him here. He must not be following politics very closely.

The "patriotism gap" is a legitimate issue for many Americans. The Obama campaign's already under fire on questions of national loyalty (he's been photographed with arms lowered and relaxed during the Pledge of Allegiance, and Michelle Obama's on record as not being proud of her country), so the message that Obama's an unpatriotic radical is likely to become increasingly embedded as more and more top Obama supporters announce that "for the first time" it's good to be American.

Hat Tip: Newsbusters

Iraq Sees Decline in Roadside Bombings, Left Goes AWOL

I looks like just a couple of bloggers wrote on USA Today's story of a decline in roadside bombings in Iraq:

Roadside bomb attacks and fatalities in Iraq are down by almost 90% over the last year, according to Pentagon records and interviews with military leaders.

In May, 11 U.S. troops were killed by blasts from improvised explosive devices (IEDs) compared with 92 in May 2007, records show. That's an 88% decrease.

Military leaders cite several factors for the drop in attacks and deaths...

There's lots of blog commentary, however, on today's New York Times story, "Reporters Say Networks Put Wars on Back Burner."

This is the same reporter who thought there weren't enough "dead American soldiers" shown on television - so it seems for many in the press it's not that war entails casualties (and should be reported), but that we need to see more battlefield deaths to influence public opinion.

Note that the decline of bombings is a result of the increased numbers of MRAP personnel carriers (vehicles that better protect the troops and stymie enemy attackers) and improved surveillance (to foil attacks in advance).

One is reminded of all the earlier left-wing denunciations of the Bush administration for "not protecting the troops" with adequate body armor. But now that battlefield equipment has been updated to meet the requirements of combat, we see little acknowledgment of the changes on the left.

Or how about that surveillance? It's certainly making a difference in Iraq, helping to thrwart terrorists. But, again no big mention of this. Nope, we see massive left-wing praise for the Supreme Court's granting of habeas corpus rights for enemy combatants, but when we actually see huge defeats for those same enemies on the battlefield, hardly a word.

There's a lot of significance in these observations. Most on the left aren't so worried about the well-being of American troops as they are the "human rights" of those who might return to the battlefield to slaugther and maim another day.

Fine Line: Obama Risks Offending Muslim Base

I've commented a few times on the continuing controversy surrounding Barack Obama's religious identity (see "Barack Obama's Soft Underbelly: The Muslim Smear").

Well, the Wall Street Journal reports that Obama could lose the Muslim-American vote if he lashes out too hard against the smears:

It is inaccurate to call Barack Obama a Muslim. Is it a slur?

The Obama campaign suggests it is. A new campaign Web site designed to air and rebut potentially damaging Internet rumors reads in one part: "Smear: Barack Obama is a Muslim... Truth: Sen. Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised as a Muslim and is a committed Christian."

The characterization highlights a tricky balance the campaign is trying to strike: to tamp down false rumors -- intended by some to link the Democratic presidential candidate to radical Islam -- without offending Muslims and harming his image of inclusiveness.

Muslim-Americans have made up one of Sen. Obama's most loyal bases of support since he announced his candidacy last year. But lately some Muslims, concentrated in several battleground states, say they are having second thoughts over his campaign's ardent defense of his religious background.

Having a Muslim in the White House would be controversial for many Americans, but the larger issue is the dupicity and evasion surrounding Obama's reaction to the allegations.

On the question of Obama's integrity in this debate, see once again, Melanie Phillips, "Obama Takes on the Great Global Blogosphere Conspiracy Against His Holiness."

Note how the WSJ piece continues:

The handling of Islam in American politics, particularly since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, has become a delicate issue. Politicians from President Bush on down have wrestled with how to attack radical Islam without seeming anti-Islam.

Sen. Obama, who says he has always been a Christian, has been grappling with the accusations for more than a year, when Internet rumors began to emerge that he was educated in a radical madrassa in Indonesia and that he took the oath of office with his hand on the Quran instead of the Bible.

"The Muslims have said they plan on destroying the U.S. from the inside out, what better way than to start at the highest level, through the president of the United States -- one of their own!!!" reads one email chain, evoking the communist plot to take over the presidency in the 1962 movie, "The Manchurian Candidate."

A Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life poll conducted in March shows the rumors have only stuck with a small portion of mostly conservative, noncollege-educated voters: 79% of respondents said they had heard the rumor that Sen. Obama is a Muslim, but only one in 10 said they believe it. A separate poll from the Pew Forum last September showed the liability of the perception. In the survey, 45% of respondents said they would have reservations about voting for a presidential candidate who is Muslim, compared with 25% for a Mormon candidate and 11% for a Jewish candidate.

See also, Daniel Pipes, "Confirmed: Barack Obama Practiced Islam."

I Fought the Law...

Zombie Time offers a delightful new photo-essay of the Berkeley Marine Corps protests, which took place on Saturday:

Today's Summer Solstice showdown featured Move America Forward, the Marines Motorcycle Club, the Patriot Guard Riders and other veterans' and pro-America groups facing off against their traditional adversaries: World Can't Wait, Code Pink, the Revolutionary Communist Party, assorted 9/11 Truthers, far-left activists and their fellow travelers.

I particularly got a kick out of this World Can't Wait activist, above, getting a ticket for some disorderly conduct or another. Cue the music: "I fought the law and law won..."

Check out the whole thing.

See also, "Bikers Rally in Berkeley to Support Military."

Hat Tip: Memeorandum

The Powerful Legacy of George W. Bush

The antiwar left has been yammering away for some time about how George W. Bush is the "worst president in history."

I've consistently disagreed with "the worst president" thesis, so it's refreshing to see an article arguing for a powerful Bush historical legacy. Andrew Roberts makes the case:

If the West wins ... the War Against Terror, historians will look back in amazement at the present unpopularity of George W Bush, and marvel at it quite as much as we now marvel at the 67 per cent disapproval rates for [Harry S.] Truman throughout 1952.

Presidents are seldom remembered for more than one or two things; the rest slip away into a haze of historical amnesia. With Kennedy it was the Bay of Pigs and his own assassination, with Johnson the Great Society and Vietnam, with Nixon it was opening up China and the Watergate scandal, and so on.

George W Bush will be remembered for his responses to 9/11 in Afghanistan and Iraq, but since neither of those conflicts has yet ended in victory or defeat, it is far too early categorically to assume - as left-wingers, anti-war campaigners and almost all media commentators already do - that his historical reputation will be permanently down in the doldrums next to poor old Warren Harding's.

I suspect that historians of the future will instead see Bush's decision to insist upon a "surge" of reinforcements being sent into Iraq, combined with a complete change of anti-insurgency tactics as configured by General Petraeus, as the moment when the conflict was turned around there, in the West's favour.

No one - least of all Bush himself - denies that mistakes were made in the early days after the (unexpectedly early) fall of Baghdad, and historians will quite rightly examine them. But once the decades have put the stirring events of those years into their proper historical context, four great facts will emerge that will place Bush in a far better light than he currently enjoys.

The overthrow and execution of a foul tyrant, Saddam Hussein; the liberation of the Afghan people from the Taliban; the smashing of the terrorist networks of al-Qa'eda in that country and elsewhere and, finally, the protection of the American people from any further atrocities on US soil since 9/11, is a legacy of which to be proud.

While of course every individual death is a tragedy to the bereaved families, these great achievements have been won at a cost in human life a fraction the size of any past world-historical struggle of this magnitude.

The number of American troops killed and wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan is equivalent to the losses they endured - for a nation only a little over half the size in the mid-Forties - capturing a single island from the Japanese in the Pacific War....

History will also shine an unforgiving light on those ludicrous conspiracy theories that claim that the Iraq War was fought for any other reason than to implement the 14 UN resolutions that Saddam that had been flouting for 13 years.

The CIA and MI6 believed, like almost every other intelligence agency in the world, that Saddam had WMD, and the "Harmony" documents seized and translated since the fall of his regime make it abundantly clear that he was also supporting almost every anti-Western terrorist organisation imaginable.

Historians will appreciate how any War Against Terror that allowed Saddam to remain in place would have been an absurd travesty.

When the rise of al-Qa'eda is considered by historians like Philip Bobbitt and William Shawcross, it will be President Clinton's repeated refusal to act effectively in the 1990s, rather than President Bush's tough response after 9/11, that will be held up as culpable.

For more analysis, click here.

See also, "Careful With Those Bush/Truman Analogies..."

Foreign Policy Remains Center Stage in Presidential Race

Despite tremendous public attention to domestic economic problems, foreign policy issues are likely to remain a powerful focus in the presidential campaign.

The Detroit Free Press reports:

It's not just the economy, stupid.

National security and foreign policy may have taken a backseat to pocketbook issues for many voters, but they're still very much in the car this campaign season, with presumptive nominees Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama continually sparring over who would be the better commander in chief.

McCain backers like 45-year-old Karen Katalinich of Howell say he's got the experience to lead and that Obama is too eager to talk to our enemies. Obama supporters like 61-year-old Tom Wilson of Detroit say he offers a fresh perspective on policy and an openness America needs.

"We can't continue to go around and force our will on the rest of the world," said Wilson, a 61-year-old physical education teacher. "You can't open up another country's mouth and pour democracy down their throat."

The message coming out of the two camps about the other's candidate could not be more clear:
McCain, the Obama camp suggests, is a Cold War-style warrior and President George W. Bush-wannabe who is more geared for saber-rattling and fear-mongering than real solutions that aid U.S. interests abroad.

Obama, the McCain camp argues, is a naive liberal newcomer to the ugly realities of world politics, too ready to talk to America's enemies and ill-prepared to take the tough steps to protect the United States from terrorists.

Their records and proposals, however, paint a more nuanced picture.

For instance, while Obama has staked a unique position far more grounded in open discussions with world leaders -- including enemies in Iran, North Korea and Cuba -- he has been downright hawkish on Afghanistan and Pakistan, saying as president he would take unilateral military action there if necessary to pin down Al Qaeda terrorists.

And while McCain, the 71-year-old former Navy pilot who spent five years in a Vietnamese POW camp, takes a hard-line approach with U.S. enemies, he has shown a moderate stance on issues such as climate change, calling for a new nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia and creation of a League of Democracies to tackle problems worldwide.

Helle Dale, director of foreign policy studies at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington, says both candidates have their contradictions.

"It's more like a menu approach to foreign policy," Dale said. "It could be what we're seeing is the shifting ground of U.S. foreign policy in the 21st Century."

The article continues with a discussion of the Iraq war, where voters will see the "starkest" differences between the candidates.

I've written about this many times, so readers know how I feel about Obama's positions on the war.

Question for Readers: How important a role will foreign policy play in an election environment likely to be dominated by news on the economy?

Photo Credit: "Female Suicide Bomber Kills 15 in Iraq."