Eli Lehrer at National Review Online wrote a nice piece about the new federal proposal to eliminate prison rape, to which Andrew Sullivan, to his credit, linked approvingly.  One of Lehrer’s points is that the subject of prison rape - in a nation which professes horror at all sorts of hazing practices that are called “torture” - remains funny rather than horrible:  “But, somehow, prison rape remains a perfectly acceptable topic for sitcoms, widely trafficked websites, and late-night comedians.”

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The Obama administration, according to Haaretz, hopes to improve relations with the Arab world by putting pressure on Israel.

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Marty Peretz, who so recently half-defended the Reverend Mr. Wright, has thrown in the towel.  Today he half-defends Bill Kristol for reporting the results of a new study by Stanford/Columbia U professors on the anti-semitism of Democrats vs. Republicans.  The issue is not Israel for once - it’s the old canard that the Jews are responsible for economic disturbances.   The original study is reported in the liberal Boston Review - and I recommend that you read the comments, particularly the chap who says that even the anti-Israel is not anti-Jewish, just anti-Zionist, except for the few who think the Arabs are better behaved than the Jews. 

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In the new Weekly Standard (June 22), see my new piece on the Cuba spy Myers.

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Judea Pearl correctly takes President Obama to task today in the Wall Street Journal for agreeing with the historical lie popular in the Muslim world:

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The brilliant Ira Stoll is dismayed.  He writes on Commentary’s Contentions that he “ had actually defended Obama against those who felt he would be a disaster for Israel. This speech makes me think that may have been a mistake.”

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The president’s Cairo speech was by no means as bad as I feared, but he dropped a wonderful opportunity to link Arabs (in particular, not Muslims in general) and Jews. Both peoples - not just the Jews - owe their independent nations to the sacrifices of the Western democracies in World War I and specifically to the principles of national self-determination that America’s race-obsessed president Woodrow Wilson insisted upon. Israel, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia - all of these states were created by the British forces (freed by the American rescue of the Allies) fighting the Turkish state in the war to end war.

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Jeffrey Goldberg, the estimable foreign affairs reporter now at The Atlantic, says that when I compare his hard-headedness regarding Iran and Hezbollah to his naivete regarding the financial-advice industry (as I did in a recent Wall Street Journal Taste Page piece, “The New Soft-Bitten Journalists”), I am equating Hezbollah’s evil and SmartMoney’s erroneous stock market advice.

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Doesn’t he realize that when he resorts to unilateral violence, President Obama is simply creating more pirates?

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It’s in the new issue on sale now, April 13, and possibly available here:

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on view at the Weekly Standard:  http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/213scmae.asp>

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“There will be no acceptance of Israel, by the Arabs or by the Muslims - including the Iranians, and the Indonesians, and others, if Israel does not find a way of coexisting peacefully with the other inhabitants of the land in which it has established itself… Demonstrably, Israel excels at war; sadly, it has shown no talent for peace… “

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http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/081lzbjx.asp

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Having only ever voted as a citizen of the sovereign nation of Cook County, as a Nutmegger, as a citizen of the former Taxachusetts, and a subject of NY state, my votes for McGovern, Carter, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Bush I, Dole, Bush II and Bush II have all been wasted.

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may be amusing to you, and you can read it here:  http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/015/715lnilj.asp.

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To keep it alive is not to demonstrate that Obama is a sexist - although millions have seen him being rather ungallant to Hillary Clinton.  It is to demonstrate to all - persuaded and unpersuaded - that the Obama/Biden ticket is amateurish and unready for office.  The future President of the United States has been thinking about nothing but his opponent’s vice president for over a week.   A man without experience has descended to argue about who has less experience - with someone at the bottom of the ticket.  A man who has voted twice, steadfastly, every time he could, for the Bridge to Nowhere, is attacking somone at the bottom of the ticket for having been in favor of it before changing her mind and killing it.  Obama has many talents, but the ability to negotiate a crisis is not one of them.
To remind voters about Obama’s failure of nerve, of good manners and of common sense is a great strategy.  Because if he obsesses about Sarah Palin today rather than run his campaign, it reminds us that, if elected, he will be just as likely to obsess about Parviz Davoodi rather than focus on his country’s interests in a dangerous world.

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If, in the course of a full week since Sarah’s speech, and ten days since her nomination, Obama is still so visibly rattled, so unable to pick a strategy and stick to it, so frightened - how can he possibly be ready for the Presidency?

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I should not have been as surprised as I was.  Since then, I have realized that, perhaps as easy cover for their anti-Zionism, the mainline Protestant churches make a great noise about their occasional condemnation of “Jews for Jesus” and similar group.  But this fastidiousness has simply not trickled down to the parish level.

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Where are the GOP “re-branders” now? Palin brews “GOP Classic” In the spring and summer of 2008, it was popular to talk about the GOP “brand” as damaged goods. Boehner, Schwarzenegger, Tom Davis, even Andrew Sullivan all lamented (or celebrated) the shopworn nature of the Republican brand - and all suggested that the path to re-branding led away from Bush’s White House, to a new formulation - in essence, a kinder, gentler Republicanism of the Bush I or even Rockefeller era. They ignored, of course, Bush the younger’s attempt to provide a compassionate conservatism. Needless to say, none of them had any idea of what branding is all about. As marketers, the GOP rebranders would have had successful careers at the Coca Cola Company in the early 1980s, when New Coke was created. But New Coke was a failure, except by its contrast with Coca Cola Classic. What Sarah Palin delivered last night was GOP Classic - a slap in the face not only to the hapless Obama and Biden pairing, but to those who sought to walk away from the strengths and basic identity of GOPitude and create a New GOP brand. Coca Cola Classic saved Coke. We just saw a master marketer - Sarah Palin - hired by a master CEO - John McCain - do what great marketers have always done.

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1.  Bristol Palin’s pregnancy was broadcast to the world as soon - or sooner than - it was discovered.  John Edwards’s mistress Rielle Hunter’s pregnancy was covered up by major media sources even though it was well documented.

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Over at Commentary’s Contentions blog, James Kirchik wrote a noble post demanding a reassesment of Joe Lieberman, now that he has been passed over for McCain’s running mate. Kirchik argues that since Lieberman did not modify his positions on key issues to him, such as abortion and the selection of judges, he should be admired for consistency, not damned as a hack:

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Heather MacDonald, who, like Noam Chomsky, is what Walter Laqueur calls a perfectionist in politics (which is an odd thing to be if you are, like Heather, an atheist conservative rather than a millenarian Marxist), grumbles noisily:

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The challenge is about three times as hard as Fallows thinks:

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Look at just a few of their recent posts:

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Governor Palin did not win her way to power because of her husband’s political office, or because of her husband’s financial support. She is the first woman candidate to emerge on the national stage whose career was propelled by her own talents. In fact, her career, if anything, has impaired the middle-management career of her husband, who resigned his field supervisor’s position with BP because his company would be negotiating with the State of Alaska.

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“For example, you’re a voter, and you have Candidate X and Candidate Y, Candidate X agrees with you on everything. But you don’t think that person can deliver on anything. Candidate Y disagrees with you on half the issues, but you believe that, on the other half, the candidate will be able to deliver. For whom will you vote?”

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Not because it is an indicator of the willingness to sacrifice for one’s country. Not because it provides a background of solemnity and comradeship in the event of a decision to put the lives of servicemen and severicewomen on the line. What McCain gained from his military service - upon which, according to Jimmy Carter, he shamelessly capitalizes - is not moral standing but the ability to think strategically.
McCain just exhibited great generalship in the last few days - not only in whom he picked as VP, but how tightly controlled the whole process was. It took daring, imagination, and the ability to think five or six moves ahead. These are qualities that the men on the Democratic ticket often impute to themselves and have seldom shown in action.
To be fair, given the limitations of their native abilities, had Obama or Biden ever been professional soldiers, they would not have learned these things on the job. But at least they would have learned that even mediocrities must be prepared to be confronted by brilliance. Watch the left this weekend and enjoy their gnashing of teeth.

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Tom Friedman’s column in today’s Times hails China’s progress at the expense of ours: “When you see how much modern infrastructure has been built in China since 2001, under the banner of the Olympics, and you see how much infrastructure has been postponed in America since 2001, under the banner of the war on terrorism, it’s clear that the next seven years need to be devoted to nation-building in America.”

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It’s not a particularly brave position to take. If Obama wins, she doesn’t lose much. Her insistence on circa-1969 feminist grievances (which she does not out of conviction, I think, but out of its opposite - it’s easy for her to keep that particular background music going while she performs other tasks) will keep her immune from any interest-group recriminations. She will rise above the fray and become a Teddy-Kennedy-sort of figure - looked up to as a kind of secular saint without any of her worshippers knowing quite why. If Obama loses, then she has been just loyal enough to avoid the dolchstosse imputation, and she resumes the role of inevitability with which she is most comfortable.

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If they weren’t among the chief Jewish voices among Obama’s Zionist supporters, Marty Peretz and Leon Wieseltier would provide a beautiful anthology of anti-Obama arguments for those Jews selfish enough to wish that their race not be exterminated.

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Earlier this week, John Edwards promised us that he only conducted his affair with Rielle Hunter during the period when his wife’s deadly cancer was in remission - and I see no reason why we should not take him at his word.  And most of us admire him for his gallantry in this regard.  But after a couple of sleepless nights, I’m no longer sure that his behavior is as admirable as I first thought.

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Senator Obama, finally, coyly, has suggested that anyone who opposes him - and whoever runs against him - is a racist.  In doing so, he has opened a Pandora’s box of evils for his campaign.  As we’ve already seen in the past few days, Obama has released the pygmy energies of his cultured defenders, who have amplified, trivialized, and thus unintentionally satirized Obama’s ploy.

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I have to admit that I disagree with the estimable Mike Long about the governor of the commonwealth of Virginia in which we both live.   Tim Kaine has a record of accomplishment in his brief term as Governor that Senator Obama cannot equal.  Consider just a few of them:

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