by Jamie Glazov
Is the president’s foreign policy catastrophe a result of naiveté or an urge for destruction?
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/jamie-glazov/obamas-designs-on-america-on-the-glazov-gang/
Click here: Hypocrisy Among Pro-BDS Professors – Maggie’s Farm
http://maggiesfarm.anotherdotcom.com/archives/20793-Hypocrisy-Among-Pro-BDS-Professors.html
The actual respect held by an organization of anti-Israel California professors who want to Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) toward academic freedom and open exchange of views is contradicted by their actual activities and speech. On November 6, the electorate of California will vote on whether to increase their taxes, against the threat by Governor Brown that the state’s severe deficits will otherwise have to be made up by cuts to education funding. The letter from California Scholars For Academic Freedom and the facts behind it do not argue for taxpayers increasing their taxes in order to fund abusers and deniers of academic freedom.
Thirty-five of the 134 California Scholars For Academic Freedom (CSAF) wrote to each member of the California State Assembly denouncing their unanimous passing of House Resolution 35. As they say:
HR 35 does not create new law, but it calls upon university administrators to deny First Amendment rights to students and faculty. The Assembly resolution states,”[university] leadership from the top remains an important priority so that no administrator, faculty, or student group can be in any doubt that anti-Semitic activity will not be tolerated in the classroom or on campus, and that no public resources will be allowed to be used for anti-Semitic or any intolerant agitation.” In a strange twist of illogic, they assert: “HR-35 itself is fundamentally anti-semitic because it associates and conflates with Judaism an unending list of well-documented racist policies and crimes against humanity committed by the state of Israel.
The actual respect held for academic freedom is exhibited by one of the 35 signers, Jess Grannam, a Palestinian clinical professor and the Chief of Medical Psychology at the University of California, San Francisco. He was taped and quoted at a March 2010 meeting enthusiastic about the students who interrupted the Israel Ambassador’s talk at University of California, Irvine:
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=288264&utm_source=Jerusalem+Post&utm_campaign=me+and+mitt&utm_medium=email For some time now some liberal friends, and even my own daughters, have been pestering me with the same question. Why, they ask, are you supporting Mitt Romney? Indeed, what propelled you, more than a year ago, to give up the comforts of home and move to Boston to work day and night for […]
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/333917.php
October 17, 2012
CBS Poll: Romney Wins 65-34 on Economy;
CNN Poll: Romney Wins 54-40 on Economy,
49-46 on Health Care,
51-44 on Taxes,
59-36 on Deficit,
49-46 on Leadership,
All in Favor of Romney
You now, as far as “Debate Winner” it’s pretty close with those registered voters. CBS gives it to Obama, among registered voters 37-30. CNN’s registered voters gives it to Obama 46-39.
But on actual issues — the ones that will determine this election — Romney destroyed him.
CNN’s focus group claimed they thought Obama “won.” They had it something like 14 for Obama, 15 draw, 6 Romney.
But even that group said this– on the question of “Who offers a better vision for the future?,” Romney edged Obama 18-17.
Now that’s very slim. I wouldn’t read too much into that.
But consider: More people think Romney presents a better vision for the future — the quickest possible shorthand for “who should be President?” — and yet he didn’t “win” the debate?
You always have to question what the criteria people are employing when you ask them who “won.” I think people are rating the performance. And narrowly saying, on performance, it was a close thing, but edge to Obama.
But ask about who actually reached them on the most important issues, and it’s Romney, all the way.
So they seem to be distinguishing between performance and substance.
Romney wins the substance, pretty clearly.
I’ll take it. And give Obama his charity performance points.
More: Foreign policy, Obama edges 49-47.
But this is amazing: Did Obama offer a clear vision for solving the country’s problems?
38% Yes
61% No
61% No. Wow.
How about that asked about Romney?
49% Yes
50% No
A Specatator Culture: Americans have gotten pretty sophisticated about judging performance, especially after 10 years of American Idol.
We shouldn’t assume that when people answer the question “Who won the debate?” they confuse that question with “Who did you find more persuasive?”
They might actually be offering a sophisticated analysis: “I think this guy won on debate performance points.”
But then ask them “Who actually persuaded you?,” and they might answer a completely different way.
It certainly appears that’s what happened here tonight.
More: NumbersMuncher has even more of the below-the-topline polling questions.
Romney wins.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/10/17/Crowley-interrupts-28-times-Romney
Candy Crowley, who was suspected of being one more liberal moderator in the tank for Barack Obama, was more than just in the tank for him; she dove in and sucked all the water out for him so he could pretend he walked on water.
In the Vice-Presidential debate, Martha Raddatz, no slouch at shilling for the Democratic Party, interrupted Paul Ryan 15 times and Joe Biden only five.
Crowley made Raddatz look like an amateur. She interrupted Obama nine times, (although four of those were when he wouldn’t respect the time limit when discussing assault weapons; he went over his time limit all night long), but when it came to Mitt Romney, she was utterly beyond the pale.
Crowley interrupted Romney 28 times. 28 times. Her desperation to keep Romney from scoring points was so patently obvious that it wasn’t really a surprise when she had her infamous moment: the moment when she interrupted and falsely claimed Romney was incorrect in accusing Obama of refusing to call the Benghazi attack an act of terror.
And even beyond the interruptions, there were numerous instances where Crowley’s obvious partisanship prompted her to treat Romney with great disrespect:
http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=2702
Obama’s record is not debatable
One comment repeated by different analysts following Tuesday night’s second presidential debate was that “Barack Obama at least showed up this time.” Indeed, his figurative failure to do so in the first round against Republican contender Mitt Romney caused everybody to wonder whether the president was actually capable of appearing on any show other than “The View” or “Letterman” without his teleprompter in tow.
Undoubtedly, his campaign managers and advisers went into overdrive to put such speculation to rest. They probably coached him as long and as hard as they could, the same way they had to coach Vice President Joe Biden to prepare him for his debate against Paul Ryan last week. Having the wisdom of hindsight — having seen Biden follow their script pretty well, but bomb by behaving abominably — they now had two challenges. The first was to teach Obama what to say. The second was to caution him against appearing too arrogant.
Still, Obama is nothing if not a quick study when it comes to putting on an act. Let us not forget that four years ago he made a surprise entrance on the scene, swiftly side-swiping Hillary Clinton, and becoming the Democratic nominee for president before the former first lady had time to change her hair style and makeup.
This was not merely because Obama is black and beautiful, though that definitely gave him an edge — even over a woman, and a Clinton, to boot. Democrats were thrilled to be able to elect a young minority member promising “hope and change.” Furthermore, Obama was so skilled at playing the role of messiah that he managed to camouflage, if not hide, his truly radical roots from the general public.
Of course, he was aided and abetted in this ruse by the sycophantic mainstream media. Nevertheless, credit should be given where it is due. Even a “Manchurian Candidate” has to present himself as someone who fits the bill. And voters did put him in the White House by a distinct margin, after all. So, getting him to memorize his lines and strut his stuff in the lead-up to the debate was probably not as tough a task as some Romney supporters, including myself, might have hoped it would be.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/10/crowley_obamas_teleprompter_substitue.html
We can now fairly assume that both Democrat and Republican analysts concluded that President Obama’s weak performance in the first presidential debate could be attributed to the absence of a teleprompter. The president’s reputation — earned or unearned — as a golden orator cannot be upheld without this prop. So, to level the playing field — as he is fond of saying — he was provided with a flesh and blood teleprompter in the shape of Candy Crowley for the second debate.
It was a Catch 22. If Mitt Romney had pointedly objected to this glaring intervention he would have been seen as the bad sport who shouts at the referee. The same goes for post-debate commentators. You’re not supposed to grumble about the conditions, it makes it look like your guy didn’t hold his own.
From my observation point here in Paris in the middle of the night, the whole setup was skewed. Forgive me if I don’t know the inner workings of the election committee that supposedly ensures a fair fight but I am wondering how in the world they could organize a Town Hall debate composed of 80 undecided voters. Does anyone know how the voters proved they were undecided? Was there a competition to eliminate the less undecided in favor of the truly sincerely undecided? Did they have some kind of test to root out the secretly decided? And how about intelligence? Are the undecided automatically inarticulate or was there another filter that excluded citizens capable of pronouncing a sentence of more than five words containing more than one idea? Why did they all look like props?
I have witnessed dozens of town hall style debates on French television and, trust me, they are never reduced to such first-grade level. When a person intervenes in this kind of discussion, one can perceive something behind the words — call it substance or context or a foundation — that indicates a thought process and life experience that crystalized in a given statement or question. Not so last night. It sounded like a first grade teacher had handed out the questions, matching them up to Johnny, Mary, Alvin, Chris and Rosina on the basis of some silly notion of identity.
Where is this election committee coming from? What is this kindergarten concept of objectivity? Put together eighty people who say they are undecided and all the questions will be equally fair and advantageous to each candidate. Close your eyes and take one moderator from any TV channel — oh my goodness, it’s Candy Crowley from CNN and she’s a woman — and, because she is called the moderator she will moderate.
As if that weren’t enough, Candy Crowley intervened from the very first exchange, like a mother prompting her little boy who forgot his spiel or maybe doesn’t want to brag about his accomplishments. The pattern was set: each candidate would give his answer to the (elementary) question, Candy would call on Barack and throw him some talking points, he would take the cue and do a little performance, and when Mitt Romney tried to do his rebuttal Candy would say that’s enough, let’s go to the next question.
This is a moderator? Why is there only one? If the reality principle had prevailed over the objectivity fallacy there would be two partisan moderators, as well-behaved as the candidates, capable of keeping tabs on each other without getting into a fistfight. A second moderator would have pinned President Obama down on, for example, Fast and Furious. Ms. Crowley let him slip out of it with a homily on good schools and equal opportunity.
Which brings us to Benghazi. First, the question was pathetic. The questioner made a point of saying that it came from a brain trust. How long had these big brains powwowed before coming up with the little bitty question: Is it true that requests for additional security at the Benghazi consulate had been ignored? That’s all the brainies wanted to know? What followed was to democracy what the Benghazi fiasco was to sovereignty. The teleprompter-moderator — who knew the questions in advance — and had apparently reviewed and memorized President Obama’s September 12th Rose Garden talk, intervened to swat down Governor Romney as he looked the president in the eyes and said “You called it an act of terror?”
She grabbed the ball from Obama’s hands and slam dunked it! And the audience applauded. Why in the world did they applaud? I thought they were undecided ergo objective. Why didn’t they emit a collective gasp in horror at Crowley’s totally unacceptable intervention in the debate? Had they too memorized the speech? And forgotten everything said by the president and his men and women since then?
I viewed the video this morning. It prefigures the spin that followed. The incident is called a tragedy not a terror attack. The president criticizes those who denigrate a religion, not those who murder an American ambassador. He pretends that Libyan forces helped, tried to protect, brought the personnel to a safe house, and brought Ambassador Stevens’ body to the hospital where he died. He promises to find out who did it and bring them to justice. In other words, it was a crime not an act of terror. Later, referring to the 9/11 commemoration ceremonies, he claimed that no act of terror against the United States goes unpunished. This was a reference to the elimination of Osama bin Laden. When the president had said what would be his last word before flying off to the fundraiser, a journalist called out: “Was it an act of war?”
But the president wasn’t taking questions.
So it will be up to American voters to answer that one.
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/10/crowley_obamas_teleprompter_substitue.html at October 17, 2012 – 07:54:02 AM CDT
http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2275/Rosenthal-Marines-in-Benghazi-Supported-by-Jihadists.aspx
John Rosenthal adds a shocking, crucial new piece to the Benghazi puzzle today at WND:
Video and documentary evidence shows that a Libyan-government-sponsored militia that reportedly provided support to American Marines on the night of the Sept. 11 Benghazi attacks is a radical Islamic militia that, like the presumed assailants, flies the black flag of jihad.
Over one month after the attacks – and despite a congressional hearing – the details of what occurred remain murky. But according to several largely concordant reports, certain broad outlines appear clear. It is generally agreed that the American consulate was attacked by Islamic extremists from a local Libyan militia. According to widely publicized speculations, the militia in question is thought to go by the name Ansar al-Shariah. Thus, for example, a recent New York Times article cites an eyewitness account attributing the attack to Ansar al-Shariah and notes that the witness claims to have seen the attackers “waving the black flag favored by such ultraconservative jihadis.”
All these frenzied polls would cross a rabbi’s eyes. When the dust settles and more fact checks come out we will see the trend for Romney versus Pharaobama who perseverated “that’s not true.”
As for Benghazi, Obama and Clinton actually made a video which is on the record….apologizing to Pakistan for the video on Mohammed….long before he called the attack “terrorism” to say nothing about his speech to the United Nations…..Furthermore his claims on oil, domestic drilling, the jobless numbers and the deficit don’t add up….simply put “that’s not true.”
The media is devious but the American public is smarter.
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/bruce-bawer/sarah-schulman-palestinian-activist/ It’s been almost a year since I wrote here about Sarah Schulman’s inane New York Times op-ed on “pinkwashing.” Schulman, a longtime “queer” (gay-left) activist, argued that Israel cynically uses its positive record on gay rights to put a human face on its brutal treatment of Palestinians – who, moreover, she maintains, aren’t as […]
