http://pjmedia.com/blog/u-s-stumbles-on-palestinian-statehood-vote/?print=1 The Obama administration is sending mixed signals again: their words point one way; their actions, another. The White House stated its opposition to the Palestinian Authority (PA) bid for non-member state status in the UN, but declined to mobilize its and Israel’s traditional allies. It also appears the administration pressured senators to reject three […]
http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2012/12/12/aristotle-curiosity-and-the-mainstream-media/
This week, I went to the 2012 “Mightier Pen Award” at a semi-secure widely publicized location in New York. Sponsored by the indispensable Center For Security Policy, the award “recognizes journalists who promote the need for robust US national security policies.” This year’s recipient was the great Monica Crowley, author (most recently) of What the (Bleep) Just Happened?: The Happy Warrior’s Guide to the Great American Comeback.
Before Ms. Crowley’s luncheon talk, the Center had organized two panels on the media and the 2012 election. The first panel, “Beyond Bias: The Mainstream Media,” dilated on the role the mainstream media played in securing the election for Barack Obama. Speakers were my fellow PJM columnist Andrew McCarthy, Washington Times columnist Bill Geertz, and Forbes columnist (and PJM alumnus) Richard Miniter. The second panel, encouragingly titled “To the Rescue: The New Media,” featured Tiffany Gabbay from The Blaze, Peter Schweizer from the Hoover Institution, and John Nolte from Breitbart’s Big Hollywood.
It was a memorable event, a cathartic post-election moment at which little jewels of clarity and resolution were proffered and gratefully accepted by an audience most of whom were still suffering from PESS, post-election stress syndrome.
I’d like to share two points from the event. One concerns my title. Cardinal Newman once observed that, about most matters, to think like Aristotle was to think correctly. I believe that is true. Aristotle went wrong in a few areas—biology is a conspicuous example—but by and large his anthropology is spot on. It was with some chagrin, then, that I found myself disagreeing with a central Aristotelian observation in the light of Andrew McCarthy’s presentation. At the beginning of the Metaphysics, Aristotle says that “All men by nature desire to know.” Curiosity, he suggests, is native to the human animal. That is why were are so clever (that and the opposable thumb). But consider these questions Andy articulated about Obama and Benghazi:
Who told the president about the siege on our consulate in that Libyan hell hole?
When did Obama learn about the siege that left four Americans, including his official representative to Libya, dead?
What were his orders about dealing with the siege?
Who, when, what. In the normal course of events, you would think that the men and women whose whole professional life is, or is supposed to be, driven by the desire to answer such questions would be busy as terriers digging for the truth about this extraordinary event. Four Americans, including a U.S. ambassador, murdered on the anniversary of 9/11 by offshoots of al-Qaeda. You’d think, wouldn’t you, that every Pulitzer Prize-craving journalist in the country would be all over this one.
Sniff the air. What do you smell? I smell scandal, a bug juicy scandal emanating from an administration that watched the seven and a half hour siege unfold in real time while U.S. military assets stood by nary an hour away and did . . . nothing. What happened in Benghazi contravened the official narrative about the beneficent “Arab Spring” that was breaking out all over, therefore it didn’t happen. Or rather, it happened because some dodgy character in California disseminated a cartoon-like melodrama about Mohammed. Did anyone—anyone—believe that? Where are the watch dogs of the fourth estate? Why is it that The New York Times, The Washington Post, MSNBC, and CNN have stood by in mute, simian idiocy, seeing, hearing, speaking no evil? Why? What happened to the desire to know? Who first told the president, the commander in chief, the man whose first responsibility is to provide for the national security of the United States, who first told him about the siege on our sovereign property in Libya? When did they tell him? It had to have been within minutes of that day-long siege beginning. And what was his response? What orders did he issue—or fail to issue—to safeguard those American citizens?
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
2012.12.11 (Pattani, Thailand) – A school director and teacher are murdered in the cafeteria by Islamic ‘insurgents’.
2012.12.10 (Yathrib, Iraq) – Three Iraqis are machine-gunned by Muslim terrorists.
2012.12.10 (Kaki, Pakistan) – At least six innocents are killed when Shahid suicide bombers assault a police station near a mosque.
2012.12.10 (Laghman, Afghanistan) – The acting head of women’s affairs is brutally shot to death by fundamentalists on her way to work.
2012.12.09 (Shaikh Yousuf Chowk, Pakistan) – Islamic militants are thought responsible for opening fire on a group of vegetable traders on their way to market.
2012.12.09 (Miramshah, Pakistan) – Two local soldiers are kidnapped by the Taliban and executed.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/335519/when-words-lose-their-meaning-charles-c-w-cooke In 1946, a frustrated George Orwell, tired of “the special connection between politics and the debasement of language,” put pen to paper. “A bad usage,” Orwell averred, “can spread by tradition and imitation even among people who should and do know better.” Those of us who had the misfortune of being alive during the […]
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/06/antiisrael_former_senator_chuc.html
Anti-Israel former Senator, Chuck Hagel, was Obama’s preferred pick for Director of National Intelligence
Former Nebraska Senator Chuck Hagel and Barack Obama have been close for years. Hagel campaigned for Obama.Hagel has also appeared before numerous Arab-American groups to castigate Israel. Hagel has castigated the so-called Israel Lobby in America. He has soft-pedaled the threat from Iran.Hagel’s animus for Israel is a matter of record.I have written about Hagel and Israel numerous times.
I don’t know why Hagel rejected the position. I have speculated in the past that he may be appointed as Secretary of Defense one day (he is a Vietnam vet). Maybe he thought after Chas Freeman went through the grinder , partly because of his anti-Israel bias, he took a pass.One more sign, as if any more were needed, that Barack Obama has an agenda and it is not one that is helpful or supportive of our friends.
http://www.nationalreview.com/blogs/print/335499 Republican Chuck Hagel, a former Nebraska senator, is supposedly on the short list to succeed Secretary Leon Panetta at the Department of Defense, and he is reportedly being vetted by the Obama administration. This should be no surprise: Hagel has been putting himself in position for a top cabinet post and has warmed noticeably […]
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/americans-at-risk-from-anti-terrorism-law?f=puball While Americans were going about their lives Wednesday evening, the U.S. House of Representatives voted for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), said to provide the government with great means to fight terrorism. One of its provisions would permit government law enforcement authorities to detain terror suspects without trial and thus eviscerate the Fourth […]
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/turn-left-at-hollywood-and-vine Reading Ben Shapiro’s Front Page article, “Hollywood Hates Corporations, LovesCorporate Cash” (December 5th) caused me to reflect again on the esthetic, political, and moral gulf between the films of yesteryear and of today. What underscored the reflection was a recent watching of Director/Producer Sam Wood’s For Whom the Bell Tolls, one of my favorite […]
http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2012/12/12/morsi-staggers-referendum-on-constitution/ Amid the continuing unrest in Egypt, President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood has now decided to bifurcate the referendum on the proposed sharia constitution. The voting will go forward as scheduled this Saturday, but only in ten governorates. The rest of the country will then vote the following Saturday, December 22. The whole […]
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