LEAVWORLD: GRAFFITI POLITTI

Back in May, I wrote an article titled " Expansionist Iran: Lebanon, Syria, Gaza." I didn't know it until recently, but a website called " Free Syria " published it, under my name , the same day I first published it on Gather.com . While I didn't know about it, I appreciate the exposure, and wanted to return the favor. I'm publishing an excerpt from the Chief Editor's Word , Oct. '06: The fear of freedom is the worst of all fears. A timorous leader is a prisoner who is simply unaware of the real importance of freedom. It is the only key to guarantee a national unity that could be weakened by oppression, it is the only incentive for rising up a country and promoting stability for the whole society. Freedom is the first step towards democracy which will guarantee the citizens' rights to decide for their own destiny and to exercise their freedom of religion, thinking and expression. Syria has been living for the past decades under a constant co...

I'm sorry, but the Obama campaign has stepped over the line with this one. Connecting Sen. McCain to Rush Limbaugh is beyond the pale. It was one thing, when their strategy was to paint McCain as "Bush III," but Mr. Limbaugh is even further from McCain than President Bush is, politically. In their zest to discredit Sen. McCain, Sen. Obama's campaign has done just this, with a "Spanish language" commercial using "quotes" from Rush to characterize Sen. McCain as hostile to Latinos. However, the two "quotes" from Rush Limbaugh are actually his characterizations of other points of view, not his own opinion. Here are the quotes: ". . . stupid and unskilled Mexicans" and "You shut your mouth or you get out!" This is an excerpt from Rush's WSJ piece about the "controversy." ( link ) And more to the point, these sound bites are a deception, and Mr. Obama knows it. The first sound bite was extracted from a 1993 hu...

The biggest "scandal" of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is that they exist. Now that it's official that you and I "own" them, let's break them up, and sell them off to private firms, over the next few years. These corporations were "tools" for the government, to provide "liquidity" and "stability" in the housing markets. If you don't know it, these two objectives were at odds with each other, when housing prices "crashed." "Liquidity" means that if you want to sell a house, you should be able to find a buyer fairly quickly. "Stability" means that if you want to buy a house, it is going to be a good investment, over the long term. Fannie and Freddie have proved to be a failure at both of these policy objectives.They serve no purpose, other than political power over a large piece of the economy, for their political patrons. Because they had the implicit backing of the US taxpayer, they were allowed to...

When Charles Gibson asked Gov. Palin if she agreed with the "Bush doctrine," I confess I wasn't sure what he was talking about. I remember this term, but I also remember it being used by many people, to describe different Bush policy positions. Indeed, no single policy was ever oficially labeled "the Bush Doctrine." The media have taken, over time, different statements from several Bush speeches, and claimed them to be his "doctrine.*" I wasn't surprised that she didn't know which one he was talking about. "In what respect, Charlie?" was the correct reply. Further, as Bill Sammon of FOX NEWS points out (link): Gibson and his colleagues have been all over the map in defining the Bush Doctrine over the last seven years. In 2001, Gibson himself defined it as "a promise that all terrorists organizations with global reach will be found, stopped and defeated." But when Palin tried to give a similar definition on Thursday, Gibson c...

I don't know if it's just me, but Sen Obama seems a little "shakey" in his recent campaign events. His "lipstick" gaffe is a prime example, but it's more than that. He seems to have trouble focusing on what he's trying to say, as if he's "overthinking" every word. The "uuh's" and other lapses don't sound like the candidate that beat Sen. Clinton in the primaries. That is, unless you count the later stages of the primaries, when he couldn't win the nomination outright. He "backed into" the nomination, and he knows it. No sooner did he "smooth things over" with Sen. Clinton (if not all of her supporters), when Sen. McCain named Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate. Since then, Sen. McCain has had a signifigant "bounce" in almost all of the various polls. This was a bigger swing than after the Rev. Wright mess came to light, late in the primaries. (With all due respect to Sean Hann...

Yeah, that's better!

"Save the Cheerleader, Save the World." It's not demeaning to compare Sarah Palin to the "cheerleader" in the NBC Sci-Fi show "Heroes." After all, the "cheerleader" is also an "indestructible hero." You gotta love this lady.

Before Gov. Palin addresses the Republican National Convention Wednesday night, I want to review some of the "vetting" that has occupied the media since Friday. If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would say that McCain has "baited a trap" for the liberal media, and they took the bait. Let's start with the story of her daughter Bristol's pregnancy, which was front-page news in every newspaper, and the lead subject of every TV news outlet, both broadcast and cable, in the nation. I don't have the time or patience to review all of the coverage, so I will cite one example. On PBS, Mark Shields implied that Gov. Palin's acceptance of McCain's offer of the VP slot "guaranteed that her daughter would be known globally as the best known 17-year-old unwed teenager in the world, and that decision many people question." I'm sure he meant to say "pregnant" in there, but he continued on: "The ambition of going on a national ticket,...