Sure he made us mad, but...

This was forwarded by a friend.  I don't know if it is true.  I hope it is.  It sure sounds like the GWB we know and love.

Class shows up...

 The doctor  had his TV on in his office when the news of the  military base shootings at Ft. Hood , TX came on.  The husband of one of his employees was stationed  there.

He called her into his office and as he  told her what had happened, she got a text message  from her husband saying, "I am okay."  Her  cell phone rang right after she read the message.  It was an ER nurse,” I’m the one who just sent you  a text, not your husband. I thought it would be  comforting but I was mistaken in doing so. I am  sorry to tell you this, but your husband has been  shot 4 times and he is in surgery."

The  soldier's wife left Southern Clinic in Dothan , AL  and drove all night to Ft.Hood. When she arrived, she found out her husband was out of surgery and would be OK. 

She rushed to his room and found that he already had visitors  there to comfort him. 

He was just waking up and found his wife and the visitors  by his side. The nurse took this picture.

What?  No news crews and cameras?  This is how people with class respond and pay respect to those in uniform.

I sent my cousin in Fayetteville , N.C. (Retired from Special Forces) that picture of Geo. W. visiting  the wounded at Ft. Hood.  I got this reply:

 What is even better is the fact George W. Bush heard about Fort Hood, got in his car without any escort, apparently they did not have time to react, and drove to Fort Hood.  He was stopped at the gate and the guard could not believe who he had just stopped.   Bush only asks for directions to the hospital then drove on.  The gate guard called that "The President is on Fort Hood and driving to the hospital."
 
 The base went bananas looking for Obama.  When they found it was Bush, they immediately offered escort.  Bush simply told them no escort, just let him visit the wounded and the dependents of the dead.
He stayed  at Fort Hood for over six hours, and was finally asked to leave by a message from the White House.

 Obama flew in days later, held a "photo" session in a gym, and did not even go to the hospital.  All this from two soldiers who happened to be at Fort Hood when it happened.  This Bush/Obama/Ft.Hood story is something that should be sent to every voter in the US .  Those who wanted "change" certainly got  it.

"Obama's Greek Tragedy"

From Victor David Hanson.

Anti-Semitism: Coming to America?

It's not here yet, says writer J.R. Dunn at The American Thinker.   Helen Thomas's outrageous and virulent comments show that in some precincts, ant-Jewish rhetoric is tolerated if not encouraged.   But the swift reaction against her by the American mainstream (which trickled up to influence elite opinion) indicates that anti-semitism has yet to grab a foothold in American society as it has in Europe and elsewhere, argues Dunn.

Dunn ties the fall of France and Germany as great powers directly to the modern, intellectual variant of anti-semitism that grew like topsy within their societies beginning in the 19th century.  In France, the Dreyfus affair in the 1890's caused a decades-long split among the ranks of intellectuals, between those who believed that Dreyfus was framed (he was) and those who needed his Jewishness as the only proof of treason.  According to Dunn, many among the "ultramontane, ultranationalist" elements in France wore anti-semitism as a badge of honor.

In Germany, heavy-duty intellectuals like Richard Wagner in the 1850s pushed anti-semitism from the fringes of polite society to the salons of the elites that held enormous influence over popular opinion.  They gave anti-semitism the intellectual weight and heft necessary to penetrate the consciousness of the masses and move to the center of "Deutsche Politik." Less than a century later, both France and Germany lay in ruins, the former destroyed by the latter and the latter defeated by the America and her allies.

So far, says Dunn, anti-semitic (disguised as pro-Palestine or anti-Israel) rhetoric in America is confined to "second-rank or over the hill" activists and entertainers like Danny Glover and Jane Fonda (and hack journalists like Helen Thomas) with an assist from pseudo-intellectuals like John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt of "Israel Lobby" fame and Jewish liberals like Peter Beinart.  The Obama administration has introduced some figures of low repute and standing who harbor anti-Jewish sentiments, like diplomat Charles Freeman.  But there exists no popular figure in America with wide-ranging appeal to the masses a la Wagner in Germany that could give anti-semitism the respectability and intellectual grounding necessary for it to spread into the heartland.

What the Helen Thomas affair shows, says Dunn, is that European-style anti-semitism has not spread to America in any significant sense.  Dunn wonders, however, whether there lurks in our future a dark and evil figure with the stature and renown to influence the masses into adopting the "oldest hatred" in its most virulent form.

Silenced by YouTube.

Remember the "We Con the World" video I sent out last week?  This is the video produced, among others, by Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick parodying the "Freedom Flotilla" incident and the international outcry it engendered against Israel.  When I first saw it last week on YouTube it had been viewed by 1.6 million people.  By the time I got around to circulating it had been seen by 2 million plus.

The video has reached viral proportions--now seen by 3 million viewers--and presumably has created quite a stir among Israel's enemies.  YouTube has taken the parody down from its website, claiming that it violates copyright protection afforded to the creators of "We are the World," a claim Ms. Glick refutes.  According to Caroline, the parody is protected under the "fair use" doctrine of the U.S. Copyright Act, leading her to believe that there is something more sinister going on here:

If YouTube didn't already have a track record for censoring pro-Israel material, I would say that despite the obviously frivolous and unsubstantiated nature of the copyright claim against We Con the World, the company was simply erring on the side of caution. 

The fact that more than 3 million people have already seen the video and that it has been written up in major newspapers and featured on major television networks around the world since we first posted it last Thursday night however causes me to fear that something else is going on here. 

Despite these obstacles, we at Latma have no intention of crying Uncle. By tomorrow, we will repost our song on blogs throughout the world. If you already downloaded the song, please post it on your website. If not, I will post a non-youtube version on my site tomorrow with instructions from my webmaster about how to download it. 

Moreover, stay tuned for our next video next Thursday night.

If someone is in fact trying to silence our voices, they will soon discover that they are messing with the wrong Jews. 

I don't claim to know Ms. Glick personally (although we have corresponded a time or two in the past).  But based on what I now of her through her writings and her curriculum vitae, indeed one "messes" with Caroline at his or her own peril.

To Caroline and friends, I say "Bravo."

If you want to follow up on this story, please visit Caroline's website at Carolineglick.com.

Obama's Offensive Charm Offensive.

                                                                                                                          

We heard a lot about Barack Obama's "charm offensive" to woo his Jewish supporters back into the fold after having dissed Israel and P.M. Bibi Netanyahu a few months back.  As readers will recall, following the infamous visit of Joe Biden to Israel during which officials announced the approval of permits to build 1200 or so residential units in Ramat Shlomo, a Jerusalem neighborhood, the Obama Administration "condemned" Israel for daring to build housing in its own capital. Shortly thereafter, Obama reportedly left Bibi to stew alone in the White House while The One dined upstairs with his family, apparently to punish him for daring to stand up for his own country (a behavior that is apparently foreign to our Dear Leader).

Since the cumulative effect of this was agitation and disillusionment among even pro-Obama Jews, the president and his team mounted a campaign to try to convince Jewish supporters that Obama would never sacrifice Israel's security interests, Heaven forbid.  They hosted something called Jewish Heritage Week at the White House (which would have gone unnoticed but for the fact that it served as the backdrop for Helen Thomas' career-ending anti-Jewish tirade); held numerous meetings with members of the "Israel Lobby" (as Steven Walt and John Mearsheimer refer to pro-Israel Jews and Christians); and even distanced itself from J Street, the leftist lobbying group that pretends to love Israel so much it takes up the cause of the Palestinians who want to destroy her. The administration even kept public pressure against Israel at a low simmer, lest they betray the president's deeply held commitment to Israel's demilitarization, denuclearization and de-Judaization.

Not that any of this for a moment fooled anyone.  Obama-loving Jews needed no such campaign to restore their belief in Obama since they hadn't lost it to begin with.  It is an article of faith with them that "loving" Israel means America dragging them kicking and screaming to the bargaining table with the Arabs or better yet imposing on Israel a solution to the conflict "for the sake of peace." This Time magazine article by Peter Beinart is the latest and best example of enlightened opinion from those who want only what's best for Israel, regardless of what Israel thinks is best for her.

Jews who never supported Obama and even some of those who did but had already come to see that he is more antagonistic towards Israel than any president since...well, ever...weren't taken in by the charm campaign either.  It was simply a matter of time before Obama's default animosity toward Israel would shine through in policy if not rhetoric.  Sure enough, the Freedom Flotilla incident the other week offered just such an opportunity to test Obama's commitment to Israel's security.

I need not amplify here the details of Israel's engagement with the Turkish-sponsored mini-flotilla which attempted to break Israel's (and Egypt's) arms blockade of Gaza.  Countless articles and videos have been forwarded by yours truly on the subject.  Suffice it to say that Israel's actions, justifiable in its premises if not perfect in its execution, has created a public relations nightmare for the Jewish State amid a firestorm of elite criticism and public Israel-bashing.

At first the Obama administration kept its mouth shut, which under the previous administration would have been construed as a breach of faith with Israel but under this crowd passes for a stoic portrayal of studied detachment.  As time went by, though, the Obamites could no longer restrain themselves.  This past week Obama met with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas (from Fatah, the "good" terrorists who run the West Bank)) and opined that the world needs to "help" Israel find a friendlier, more relaxed way of protecting its security interests than the meddlesome arms embargo against Gaza.  "The situation is unsustainable," said Obama, using his favorite term for anything that needs "fundamental change."  In the spirit of letting no crisis go to waste, the administration wants to turn the "tragedy" of Israel's raid into an opportunity to impose on Israel a new "conceptual framework" for protecting itself.  

As proof of his intention to make sure that the days of U.S. serving as an "honest broker" in the Middle East are over, Obama doled out $400 million in Obama Money (courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer) to the Palestinian leader, officially earmarked for infrastructure projects in Gaza and the West Bank but undoubtedly headed straight into the pockets of the thieves, murderers and apparatchiks who run Fatah and Hamas.

In another bid to weaken the blockade, which Egypt also maintains to protect itself from the fundamentalist regime in Gaza,  the American administration has refused to send a half billion dollars to Egypt for the purpose of building a steel anti-smuggling wall between Egypt and Gaza, apparently at the behest of Israel's newest enemy, Turkey.  The U.S., Debkafile.com reports, is focusing on undermining the Netanyahu government's legitimacy in an effort to appease Turkey and its Islamic government.  The president's sweet words and toothy smiles for Israel, its leaders and its supporters have been replaced with bared teeth and veiled threats, in the Chicago style of doing business.

And finally comes word of a new and dangerous development in Israel-America relations.  Bill Kristol of the Weekly Standard reports that the U.S. is about to sign on to an anti-Israel resolution in the U.N. next week calling for an "independent" commission under U.N. auspices to look into Israel's behavior regarding the "freedom" flotilla.  According to Kristol:

The White House has apparently shrugged off concerns from elsewhere in the U.S. government that a) this is an extraordinary singling out of Israel, since all kinds of much worse incidents happen around the world without spurring UN investigations; b) that the investigation will be one-sided, focusing entirely on Israeli behavior and not on Turkey or on Hamas; and c) that this sets a terrible precedent for outside investigations of incidents involving U.S. troops or intelligence operatives as we conduct our own war on terror.

It should be noted that the White House has angrily and categorically denied Kristol's claim that the U.S. intends to back such a resolution, and admits that doing so would indeed be unprecedented. Indeed, delivering Israel to the tender mercies of the U.N., which never met an anti-Israel resolution it didn't like, would be a faithless betrayal the U.S.'s greatest ally and the only democracy in the Middle East.  It would be the equivalent of filing divorce papers against a loyal and loving spouse.

 Let us hope that such an action is beyond the pale even for this White House.  But either way, it appears that the "charm offensive" to win back Jewish supporters is over, and what has taken its place is, frankly, just offensive.

Israel at a Crossroad?

We have two alternatives. We can come to terms with the "Palestinian" narrative, as the leftist demonstrators would have us do, wave a white flag of surrender and enter negotiations with the hopes of being granted the status of dhimmi in the new Palestine. The other alternative is to revolutionize Israel's basic values, rebuild our national ethos on Jewish foundations, return to our Jewish sense of justice and re-invent ourselves as proud Jews in the Jewish Land.

--Moshe Feiglin, Leader, Manhugit Yehudit (Jewish Leadership).

Gaza: "We Con the World"

Who says Israelis are bad at P.R.? This has gotten over one and a half million views.

Free Gaza... before they eat themselves to death!

Israel trucks 10,000 tons a week in food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies to Gaza.  Yet the "Freedom" Flotilla apologists insist that Gaza is suffering under the brutal whip-hand of the Israeli occupiers, who maintain a blockade of Gaza for no other purpose than to keep the poor Gazans hungry and in penury.

The pictures above would seem to undermine that characterization of the situation, as the Gaza City markets seem as full of staples, treats and delicacies as any in Israel or any other free country.  And my guess is there would be no products to sell if there weren't customers to buy them, which means that not everyone is jobless and penniless.

Don't get me wrong; I wouldn't want to live in that hellhole by the Mediterranean, even if I were an Arab.  But it sure isn't because of conditions created or maintained by Israel.  Gaza, in case you forgot, is run by the "bad" terrorists--Hamas--as opposed to the "good" terrorists who run the West Bank.  Hamas rules with an iron fist and, like most authoritarian regimes, treats its own kind even worse than its enemies.  Just ask the Fatah members who were summarily shot or lynched by their co-religionists when Hamas took over Gaza in 2007.

In addition, Gazans receive more international aid per capita than any other peoples on earth.  There is a United Nations agency (UNRWA) devoted solely to the so-called "refugees" of Gaza and the West Bank with a budget of over $400 million a year, most of which finds its way into the personal accounts of the corrupt apparatchiks of Hamas and Fatah.  If the Gazans can't live on whats left over, isn't Israel's fault.

Not that facts make a damn bit of difference when it comes to the now universally accepted narrative of Israel-as-purveyor-of-death-and-destruction, which casts the Palestinians as the poor innocent downtrodden victims of Jewish racism and triumphalism.  The narrative is so absurd on its face that anyone who buys into it either has an axe to grind or is painfully and woefully naive and softheaded.
No Israeli public relations campaign, no matter how brilliantly executed, can ever hope to persuade people in either category.

The only thing left for Israel to do is to unhinge itself from an unhinged world.  It has no natural or permanent allies, only natural and permanent enemies.  If the United States is among them, then so be it.  It is time for Israel to realize that it needs no person or country to support it or recognize its right to exist.   It is time for Israel to turn toward the Source of its salvation and ultimate redemption for comfort and strength, for that, it would seem, is its only hope.

Take that, you ugly old b*tch!

From Lanny Davis, Democrat strategist and lawyer, as quoted at Politico.com:


“Helen Thomas, who I used to consider a close friend and who I used to respect, has showed herself to be an anti-Semitic bigot. This is not about her disagreement about her criticisms of Israel. She has a right to criticize Israel and that is not the same as being an anti-Semite.


However, her statement that Jews in Israel should leave Israel and go back to Poland or Germany is an ancient and well-known anti-Semitic stereotype of the Alien Jew not belonging in the ‘land of Israel’ -- one that began 2600 years with the first tragic and violent diaspora of the Jews at the hands of the Romans.


If she had asked all Blacks to go back to Africa, what would White House Correspondents Association position be as to whether she deserved White House press room credentials -- much less a privileged honorary seat?


Does anyone doubt that my friends Ann Compton, head of the WHCA, and Joe Lockhart, who believe in the First Amendment right of free expression as much as I do, would be as tolerant and protective of Helen's privileges and honors in the White House press room as they appear to be if she had been asking Blacks to return to Africa? Or Native Americans to Asia and South America, from which they came 8,000or more years ago? I doubt it.


Of course Helen has the right as a private citizen under the First Amendment to speak her mind, even as an anti-Jewish bigot - but not as a member, much less privileged member with a reserved seat, in the WH press corps.


In my opinion, her apology was not direct and didn't address the merits of her belief in the stereotype that Jews are aliens in Israel and don't belong there. She should be at the least suspended from all privileges in the White House press room since bigots don't merit such privileges. And I believe Hearst should consider a similar suspension of her position as a nationally-syndicated columnist until she owns up to her bigotry and apologizes for it.”

"Jews get the hell out of Palestine!"

"Go home to Poland and Germany." Yeah, that worked out well last time, didn't it?

Funny, but not really.

All you need is...love.

"Suicide Activists" of the Gaza Flotilla

"Suicide bombers' success is measured by the number of Israelis killed...the goal of these [suicide] activists is to damage Israel in the world's eyes using the world media.

Their weapon is not a bomb belt; rather the media is their weapon...to deligitimize and demonize  Israel...and this week the world's media outlets fell for it hook, line and sinker"

Gingrich: a Time for Choosing.

"We are either in the next few years going to become a secular socialist country...or we are going to reach out and not only defeat the Left but insist on a principled conservatism that can solve problems, can reduce the size of government and can create greater prosperity, greater freedom and greater safety.


We need every citizen who care about his country, children and grandchildren to get actively involved and save America."

LOL! Maureen Dowd Turns on "The One"

A Storyteller Loses the Story Line
By MAUREEN DOWD

It’s not a good narrative arc: The man who walked on water is now ensnared by a crisis under water.

One little hole a mile down on the ocean floor, so deep it seems like hell spewing up its sulfurous smoke, has turned the thrilling saga of “The One” into the gurgling horror of “The Abyss.” (Thank goodness James Cameron, the director of “The Abyss,” came to Washington Tuesday to help the administration figure out how to cap the BP well. What’s next? Sending down the Transformers and Megan Fox?)

With as much as 34 million gallons of oil inking the Gulf of Mexico, “Yes we can” has been downgraded to “Will we ever?”

It’s impossible not to feel sorry for President Obama, pummeled by the cascading disasters, at home and abroad, unleashed by two war-mongering oil men — plus scary escalations by Israel, Iran and North Korea. (Dick Cheney’s dark influence is still belching like the well. BP just brought on a new public relations executive: Anne Womack-Kolton, who served as Cheney’s campaign press secretary in 2004 and worked in W.’s White House and at the Energy Department.)

Obama wanted to be a transformative president and now the presidency is transforming him.

Instead of buoyant, he seems put upon. Instead of the fairy dust of hopefulness, there’s the bitter draught of helplessness.

His battle against water is taking on Biblical — even Job-like — proportions.

Besides the roiling water below, the skies opened from above and gusting, lightning-streaked rains drowned the president’s plans to give a Memorial Day speech at the Lincoln cemetery near Chicago. On the evening news, pictures of the president standing under an umbrella shooing people off the soggy field were a sad contrast to the wildly sentimental Joe Biden presiding, hand on heart, over a sunny and moving Memorial Day commemoration at Arlington National Cemetery.

After suffering more indignities — a S.U.V. in his motorcade blew a tire on I-55 outside of Chicago — a tired-looking Obama returned to Andrews Air Force Base at 7:30 Monday night and went to an area called the “tactical fitness center” to give his remarks to 150 or so subdued service members who had been rounded up by the White House advance team.

As The Washington Post’s Anne Kornblut wryly wrote in her pool report: “It has been years since President Obama attended a rally like the one that took place here Monday night: sparsely attended, thrown together at the last minute, involving people who were not expecting to be there. We’re partying like it’s Obama circa 2005.”

The oil won’t stop flowing, but the magic has.

Barack Obama is a guy who is accustomed to having stuff go right for him. He’s gotten a lot of breaks: two opponents in his U.S. Senate race in Illinois felled by personal scandals; a mismanaged presidential campaign by Hillary Clinton; an economic collapse that set the stage for a historic win, memorably described by the satiric Onion newspaper as “Black Man Given Nation’s Worst Job.”

Reporters grilled Robert Gibbs at his White House briefing on Tuesday about the president’s strange inability to convey passion over a historical environmental disaster. This was underscored by Obama’s perfunctory drop-by to a sanitized beach in Grand Isle, La. Despite his recent ode about growing up near an ocean, he didn’t bother to meet with the regular folks who have lost their seafaring livelihoods.

After Gibbs asserted that his boss was “enraged” at BP, CBS News’s Chip Reid skeptically pressed: “Have we really seen rage from the president on this? I think most people would say no.”

“I’ve seen rage from him, Chip,” Gibbs insisted. “I have.”

Reid asked for an exact definition of what constitutes emotion for Obama: “Can you describe it? Does he yell and scream? What does he do?”

Gibbs mentioned the words “clenched jaw” and the president’s admonition to “plug the damn hole.”

How does a man who invented himself as a force by writing one of the most eloquent memoirs in political history lose control of his own narrative?

In “Dreams From My Father,” Obama showed passion, lyricism, empathy and an exquisite understanding of character and psychological context — all the qualities that he has stubbornly resisted showing as president. It was a book that promised a president who could see into the hearts of other people. But there’s so much you don’t learn about candidates in campaigns, even when they seem completely exposed.

This president has made it clear that he’s not comfortable outside whatever domain he’s defined. But unless he wants his story to be marred by a pattern of passivity, detachment, acquiescence and compromise, he’d better seize control of the story line of his White House years. Woe-is-me is not an attractive narrative

Why Didn't I Think of That?

How to plug the oil leak in the Gulf:

H/T: Alan Smirin