Who's Planning Our Next War? by Patrick J. Buchanan

Of the Axis-of-Evil nations named in his State of the Union in 2002, President Bush has often said, "The United States will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."

He failed with North Korea. Will he accept failure in Iran, though there is no hard evidence Iran has an active nuclear weapons program?

William Kristol of The Weekly Standard said Sunday a U.S. attack on Iran after the election is more likely should Barack Obama win. Presumably, Bush would trust John McCain to keep Iran nuclear free.

Yet, to start a third war in the Middle East against a nation three times as large as Iraq, and leave it to a new president to fight, would be a daylight hijacking of the congressional war power and a criminally irresponsible act. For Congress alone has the power to authorize war.

Yet Israel is even today pushing Bush into a pre-emptive war with a naked threat to attack Iran itself should Bush refuse the cup.

In April, Israel held a five-day civil defense drill. In June, Israel sent 100 F-15s and F-16s, with refueling tankers and helicopters to pick up downed pilots, toward Greece in a simulated attack, a dress rehearsal for war. The planes flew 1,400 kilometers, the distance to Iran's uranium enrichment facility at Natanz.

Ehud Olmert came home from a June meeting with Bush to tell Israelis: "We reached agreement on the need to take care of the Iranian threat. ... I left with a lot less question marks regarding the means, the timetable restrictions and American resoluteness. ...

"George Bush understands the severity of the Iranian threat and the need to vanquish it, and intends to act on the matter before the end of his term. ... The Iranian problem requires urgent attention, and I see no reason to delay this just because there will be a new president in the White House seven and a half months from now."

If Bush is discussing war on Iran with Ehud Olmert, why is he not discussing it with Congress or the nation?

On June 6, Deputy Prime Minister Shaul Mofaz threatened, "If Iran continues its nuclear weapons program, we will attack it." The price of oil shot up 9 percent.

Is Israel bluffing -- or planning to attack Iran if America balks?

Previous air strikes on the PLO command in Tunis, on the Osirak reactor in Iraq and on the presumed nuclear reactor site in Syria last September give Israel a high degree of credibility.

Still, attacking Iran would be no piece of cake.

Israel lacks the stealth and cruise-missile capacity to degrade Iran's air defenses systematically and no longer has the element of surprise. Israeli planes and pilots would likely be lost.

Israel also lacks the ability to stay over the target or conduct follow-up strikes. The U.S. Air Force bombed Iraq for five weeks with hundreds of daily runs in 1991 before Gen. Schwarzkopf moved.

Moreover, if Iran has achieved the capacity to enrich uranium, she has surely moved centrifuges to parts of the country that Israel cannot reach -- and can probably replicate anything lost.

Israel would also have to over-fly Turkey, or Syria and U.S.-occupied Iraq, or Saudi Arabia to reach Natanz. Turks, Syrians and Saudis would deny Israel permission and might resist. For the U.S. military to let Israel over-fly Iraq would make us an accomplice. How would that sit with the Europeans who are supporting our sanctions on Iran and want the nuclear issue settled diplomatically?

And who can predict with certitude how Iran would respond?

Would Iran attack Israel with rockets, inviting retaliation with Jericho and cruise missiles from Israeli submarines? Would she close the Gulf with suicide-boat attacks on tankers and U.S. warships?

With oil at $135 a barrel, Israeli air strikes on Iran would seem to ensure a 2,000-point drop in the Dow and a world recession.

What would Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria do? All three are now in indirect negotiations with Israel. U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Iraq could be made by Iran to pay a high price in blood that could force the United States to initiate its own air war in retaliation, and to finish a war Israel had begun. But a U.S. war on Iran is not a decision Bush can outsource to Ehud Olmert.

Tuesday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Michael Mullins left for Israel. CBS News cited U.S. officials as conceding the trip comes "just as the Israelis are mounting a full court press to get the Bush administration to strike Iran's nuclear complex."

Vice President Cheney is said to favor U.S. strikes. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Mullins are said to be opposed.

Moving through Congress, powered by the Israeli lobby, is House Resolution 362, which demands that President Bush impose a U.S. blockade of Iran, an act of war.

Is it not time the American people were consulted on the next war that is being planned for us?

From Real Clear Sports:
A Mid Season Report Card on Joe Girardi
By Mark Jurkowitz

As soon as Joba Chamberlain threw pitch No. 100 to the Padres on June 19, Joe Girardi marched to the mound. It made no difference that Chamberlain had struck out nine and was locked in a 1-1 game. The manager brought the hook for his ace of the future.

At that point, Yankee fans may have had a flashback to the mound visit that didn’t happen. In the biggest moment of 2007�"leading 1-0 in Game 2 of the ALDS against the Indians�"Joe Torre failed to intervene while Chamberlain inhaled a sudden swarm of bugs. It looked like a Hitchcock movie. Two wild pitches later, the lead�"and effectively, the Yanks’ season�"was gone.

Most blamed the Yankees for the ugly divorce with Torre. But some fans had grievances against “Sleepy Joe” that included everything from his laid-back style to painful post-season blunders (opting for Jeff Weaver over Mariano Rivera in Game 4 of the 2003 World Series, not bunting against Curt Schilling in the “bloody sock” game in the 2004 ALCS.)

So Torre took his bruised ego to L.A where he stars in a State Farm commercial�"surfing the Pacific, shopping Rodeo, and cruising in a convertible. He looks mah-velous in Dodger Blue. And the man following him in New York looks kind of small in his Yankee uniform.

It doesn’t help that Girardi inherited a club on the dark side of a dynasty, one that sometimes stirs memories of the 1965 Yankees�"the aging Mantle-led club that ushered in a long winter of losing in the Bronx known as the Horace Clarke era.

Halfway through Girardi’s rookie season, the Yankees (42-36) are four games ahead of last year’s pace�"although the odds of them pulling off another 51-25 closing sprint seem remote. But even if the 13-year playoff run ends in Girardi’s first year�"and one can imagine how the New York tabloids would handle that�"in a subtle but important way, he’s already proven to be the right choice.

Truth is, Girardi has disappointed both his fiercest critics and most ardent backers. He did not alienate a veteran team with a hyperactive rah-rah style as some feared. But he did not infuse it with a crisp, aggressive, small-ball mentality as others hoped. Both sides would admit he’s been more low-key than expected. But what he has done so far, and it’s no small thing, is hold together a team that has seen its pre-season blueprint vaporize.

This club was supposedly transitioning to youth, the big reason why they decided not to deal for Johan Santana. But Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy, the two can’t-miss kids in the rotation, were 0-7 with a hideous 113 hits and walks in 60 innings before getting hurt.

As for the two 20-something pillars of the daily lineup, Robby Cano has been compared to a young Rod Carew. But with a.241 average and .282 OBP, Rod Kanehl may be more like it. The Yanks keep waiting for Melky Cabrera to blossom into a .285, 20 homer, 20 stolen base guy. Yet at .254 and on pace for a career high in strikeouts, he may have regressed.

Meanwhile, the long absences of A-Rod and Posada took the starch out of a lineup that can no longer slug its way past its problems. Halfway through 2008, the team that led the league last year in average, homers and runs is now third in average, seventh in homers, and sixth in runs.

So why exactly does Girardi deserve props? For proving refreshingly and surprisingly immune to the enormous pressure to win every day in New York. (He is clearly aware of it, since the #27 on his back is the number of the next Yankee championship.) And his patience has paid off in two key areas�"with a fragile bullpen and some aging everyday ballplayers.

Torre’s Bronx legacy included a smoking pile of burned-out bullpen arms as he frantically searched for that elusive “Bridge to Mo.” The result was some very hairy eighth innings and a sometimes weary closer. (Rivera’s 3.15 ERA last year was his highest since 1995, when he started 10 games.)

This year, by shrewdly mixing and matching the unproven relief crew of Jose Veras, Edwar Ramirez, Ross Ohlendorf, and the eternally unreliable Kyle Farnsworth, Girardi has somehow survived Chamberlain’s transition to a starting job. The Yankees have lost one game when leading after six innings and a fresher Rivera, at 38, has a .76 ERA without a blown save.

At the same time, Girardi’s decision to rotate his lineup, giving regular time off to Bobby Abreu, Hideki Mastui, and Johnny Damon (all of them 34 and the latter two increasingly gimpy), has worked. Damon and Matsui are both hitting over .320. Abreu with 10 homers and 50 RBIs, avoided a repeat of last year’s lousy start. For an offense that sometimes struggles to score runs, and isn’t being single-handedly carried by A-Rod, that’s a life saver.

None of this makes Girardi a genius. Nor has it fundamentally changed the reality of a decaying team trying to rebuild without having the luxury of a down season or two. No manager in baseball is under more pressure to win than Girardi. The fact that he’s not acting like it not only distinguishes him from Torre. It’s his best quality.

From FoxSports.com:
Imus talk brings ratings, but misses point
by Jason Whitlock

I blame the white media — liberal and conservative — for the sensational coverage of Don Imus' latest attempt at shock-jock relevancy.

The O.J. Simpson double-murder trial taught white television and radio executives they could attract huge ratings by allowing a white host to referee a simple-minded argument pitting opposing views on an alleged black-white racial dispute.

Under the guise of promoting racial dialogue, the networks have created a collective talk-show hybrid, "The Mr. Gerald Springer III Show," a shirt-and-tie, race-based spinoff of "Jerry Springer."

The show topics change from week to week, bouncing from the Jena Six to Imus to Duke lacrosse to whatever most-coveted guest Al Sharpton has on his mind that day. What doesn't change is the stupidity of the conversation or the serious, concerned, irate and predictable look of the white host throughout the segment.

I first learned that Imus had said something "controversial" when I looked on my cell phone and saw a missed call from CNN. The news networks call me just about whenever something racial happens within the sports world.

It's no secret I like to write about and discuss race. The problem is I like to do it in an honest, intelligent fashion. What I learned from the first Imus-Rutgers go-round is that it is nearly impossible to do that on television.

The hosts are generally clueless about the topic and, worse, scared to death that they'll say something that provokes Sharpton to call their boss. The other guests are generally just as clueless, afraid they'll say something that provokes Sharpton to call them an Uncle Tom or a bigot and are primarily concerned with demonstrating they're worthy of an invite back or their own TV show.

I'm telling you, O.J. Simpson started this (spit). His trial launched TV careers, networks and got Marcia Clark a makeover that almost made her attractive in a non-sexual, Greta Van Susteren after-the-second-facelift kind of way.

So the interview requests poured in for me this week.

Imus suggested Dallas Cowboys cornerback Adam "Pacman" Jones' six arrests were rather predictable given his African-American heritage. A day later, Imus clarified his statement — and tried to avoid trouble — by stating that he was making a sarcastic point about America's unequal criminal-justice system.

Imus was right both times. But Imus being right doesn't make for good television and certainly does not pay for the conk in Rev. Sharpton's wig.

No, sir. This was a full-blown racial controversy, a Nielsen-ratings-mover, a chance for white talk-show hosts to climb into the Octagon and let Kimbo Slice and Jimbo White Rice knuckle up until the viewers tapped out.

I took a pass.

The networks don't want to really get into this issue, not in a substantive way. Statistically, Pacman's problems with law enforcement are predictable in a "well, there you go" way given his age, African-American heritage and residence in the United States.

The incarceration numbers for black men age 18-30 (about one in nine) are staggering, frightening, and lift-every-voice-and-sing alarming. And just as Imus suggested, the reason for this brand of volunteer slavery can be directly linked to the unequal form of criminal justice long practiced in America (along with a black youth culture that is morally and educationally bankrupt thanks to a lack of fathers in the home).

I wrote about much of this in the June issue of Playboy Magazine. As you read in a previous column, the white editorial director at Playboy, Chris Napolitano — perhaps in an audition for a job in TV — slapped a simple-minded, ratings-grabbing, distracting headline on my article.

No one wanted to talk with me about this issue in depth. Hell, Playboy didn't even want the issue presented in a serious fashion.

But let Don Imus or anyone slip and say something that can get Al Sharpton some face time with Larry King, and every radio and TV producer will have me or some other race expert on speed dial. It's depressing. It's really kind of dangerous for our democracy.

I normally don't pay attention to politics. But the Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton race for the Democratic nomination was rather fascinating. Early on in the primaries, I sensed that the TV networks (and hosts and regular guests) desperately wanted Obama to win because they realized he gave them an easy racial angle to talk about whenever there was no legitimate news to address.

Obama is the Tony Soprano of politics, a guaranteed ratings winner. It made sense for the networks to renew Obama's reality show for the general election. Don't be surprised when Rev. Jeremiah Wright reprises his role as Uncle Junior and causes Obama problems from a mental hospital.

I digress. My point is that what Imus said warrants discussion. We just don't need to discuss Imus. He is not our problem. Pacman Jones, with his off-field antics and stupidity, has done more damage to the image of American black men than Don Imus could ever hope to do.

From The New York Times:
Dying Is Hard. Comedy Is Harder.
By JERRY SEINFELD

THE honest truth is, for a comedian, even death is just a premise to make jokes about. I know this because I was on the phone with George Carlin nine days ago and we were making some death jokes. We were talking about Tim Russert and Bo Diddley and George said: “I feel safe for a while. There will probably be a break before they come after the next one. I always like to fly on an airline right after they’ve had a crash. It improves your odds.”

I called him to compliment him on his most recent special on HBO. Seventy years old and he cranks out another hour of great new stuff. He was in a hotel room in Las Vegas getting ready for his show. He was a monster.

You could certainly say that George downright invented modern American stand-up comedy in many ways. Every comedian does a little George. I couldn’t even count the number of times I’ve been standing around with some comedians and someone talks about some idea for a joke and another comedian would say, “Carlin does it.” I’ve heard it my whole career: “Carlin does it,” “Carlin already did it,” “Carlin did it eight years ago.”

And he didn’t just “do” it. He worked over an idea like a diamond cutter with facets and angles and refractions of light. He made you sorry you ever thought you wanted to be a comedian. He was like a train hobo with a chicken bone. When he was done there was nothing left for anybody.

But his brilliance fathered dozens of great comedians. I personally never cared about “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” or “FM & AM.” To me, everything he did just had this gleaming wonderful precision and originality.

I became obsessed with him in the ’60s. As a kid it seemed like the whole world was funny because of George Carlin. His performing voice, even laced with profanity, always sounded as if he were trying to amuse a child. It was like the naughtiest, most fun grown-up you ever met was reading you a bedtime story.

I know George didn’t believe in heaven or hell. Like death, they were just more comedy premises. And it just makes me even sadder to think that when I reach my own end, whatever tumbling cataclysmic vortex of existence I’m spinning through, in that moment I will still have to think, “Carlin already did it.”

Jerry Seinfeld is a writer and a comedian.

Morality -- Trotskyite vs. Christian
by Patrick J. Buchanan

Did Hitler's crimes justify the Allies' terror-bombing of Germany?

Indeed they did, answers Christopher Hitchens in his Newsweek response to my new book, Churchill, Hitler and the Unnecessary War: "The stark evidence of the Final Solution has ever since been enough to dispel most doubts about, say, the wisdom or morality of carpet-bombing German cities."

Atheist, Trotskyite and newborn neocon, Hitchens embraces the morality of lex talionis: an eye for an eye. If Germans murdered women and children, the British were morally justified in killing German women and children.

According to British historians, however, Churchill ordered the initial bombing of German cities on his first day in office, the very first day of the Battle of France, on May 10, 1940.

After the fall of France, Churchill wrote Lord Beaverbrook, minister of air production: "When I look round to see how we can win the war, I see that there is only one sure path ... an absolutely devastating, exterminating attack by very heavy bombers from this country upon the Nazi homeland."

"Exterminating attack," said Churchill. By late 1940, writes historian Paul Johnson, "British bombers were being used on a great and increasing scale to kill and frighten the German civilian population in their homes."

"The adoption of terror bombing was a measure of Britain's desperation," writes Johnson. "So far as air strategy was concerned," adds British historian A.J.P. Taylor, "the British outdid German frightfulness first in theory, later in practice, and a nation which claimed to be fighting for a moral cause gloried in the extent of its immoral acts."

The chronology is crucial to Hitchens' case.

Late 1940 was a full year before the mass deportations from the Polish ghettos to Treblinka and Sobibor began. Churchill had ordered the indiscriminate bombing of German cities and civilians before the Nazis had begun to execute the Final Solution.

By Hitchens' morality and logic, Germans at Nuremberg might have asserted a right to kill women and children because that is what the British were doing to their women and children.
After the fire-bombing of Dresden in 1945, Churchill memoed his air chiefs: "It seems to me that the moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed."

Churchill concedes here what the British had been about in Dresden.

Under Christian and just-war theory, the deliberate killing of civilians in wartime is forbidden. Nazis were hanged for such war crimes.

Did the Allies commit acts of war for which we hanged Germans?

When we recall that Josef Stalin's judges sat beside American and British judges at Nuremberg, and one of the prosecutors there was Andrei Vishinsky, chief prosecutor in Stalin's show trails, the answer has to be yes.

While Adolf Hitler and the Nazis were surely guilty of waging aggressive war in September 1939, Stalin and his comrades had joined the Nazis in the rape of Poland, and had raped Finland, Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, as well. Scores of thousands of civilians in the three Baltic countries were murdered.

Yet, at Nuremberg, Soviets sat in judgment of their Nazi accomplices, and had the temerity to accuse the Nazis of the Katyn Forest massacre of the Polish officer corps that the Soviets themselves had committed.

Americans fought alongside British soldiers in a just and moral war from 1941 to 1945. But we had as allies a Bolshevik monster whose hands dripped with the blood of millions of innocents murdered in peacetime. And to have Stalin's judges sit beside Americans at Nuremberg gave those trials an aspect of hypocrisy that can never be erased.

At Nuremberg, Adm. Erich Raeder was sentenced to prison for life for the invasion of neutral Norway. Yet Raeder's ships arrived 24 hours before British ships and marines of an operation championed by Winston Churchill.

The British had planned to violate Norwegian neutrality first and seize Norwegian ports to deny Germany access to the Swedish iron ore being transshipped through them. For succeeding where Churchill failed, Raeder was condemned as a war criminal and sent to prison.

The London Charter of the International Military Tribunal decided that at Nuremberg only the crimes of Axis powers would be prosecuted and that among those crimes would be a newly invented "crimes against humanity." This decree was issued Aug. 8, 1945, 48 hours after we dropped the first atom bomb on Hiroshima and 24 hours before we dropped the second on Nagasaki.

We and the British judiciously decided not to prosecute the Nazis for the bombing of London and Coventry.

It was an understandable decision, and one that surely Gen. Curtis LeMay concurred in, as LeMay had boasted at war's end, "We scorched and boiled and baked to death more people in Tokyo that night of March 9-10 than went up in vapor in Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined."

After the war, a lone Senate voice arose to decry what was taking place at Nuremberg as "victor's justice." Ten years later, a young colleague would declare the late Robert A. Taft "A Profile in Courage" for having spoken up against ex post facto justice. The young senator was John F. Kennedy.

Mr. Buchanan is a nationally syndicated columnist and author of "The Death of the West," "The Great Betrayal," "A Republic, Not an Empire" and "Where the Right Went Wrong."

From Time:
How George Carlin Changed Comedy
By Richard Zoglin

When the culture began to change in the late 1960s — when the old one-liner comics on the Ed Sullivan Show were looking pretty tired and irrelevant to a younger generation experimenting with drugs and protesting the war in Vietnam — George Carlin was the most important stand-up comedian in America. By the time he died Sunday night (of heart failure at age 71), the transformation he helped bring about in stand-up had become so ingrained that it's hard to think of Carlin as one of America's most radical and courageous popular artists. But he was.

Carlin started doing stand-up comedy in the early '60s and had fashioned a successful career by the middle of the decade: a short-haired performer with skinny ties, well known to TV audiences for his sharp parodies of commercials and fast-talking DJs and a "hippy dippy weatherman." But as he watched the protest marches of the late '60s and absorbed the new spirit of the counterculture, Carlin decided that he was talking to the wrong audience, that he need to change his act and his whole attitude.

So he grew long hair and a beard and began doing different kinds of material — about drugs and Vietnam and America's uptight attitude toward language and sex. Fans of the old George Carlin weren't ready for it. Carlin got thrown out of Las Vegas twice for material that today would seem tame (one offending routine was about his own "skinny ass"). At the Playboy Club in Lake Geneva, Wis., he so riled up a conservative crowd with his jokes about Vietnam that he nearly caused an audience riot. Even Johnny Carson banned him as a Tonight show guest for a time because of his reputation as a drug abuser.

But by the early '70s Carlin had completed a remarkable change, opened up a new audience for stand-up comedy and helped redefine an art form. Like Lenny Bruce — whom he idolized and who helped him get his first agent — Carlin saw the stand-up comic as a social commentator, rebel and truth-teller. He challenged conventional wisdom and tweaked the hypocrisies of middle-class America. He made fun of society's outrage over drugs, for example, pointing out that the "drug problem" extends to middle-class America as well, from coffee freaks at the office to housewives hooked on diet pills. He talked about the injustice of Muhammad Ali's banishment from boxing for avoiding the draft — a man whose job was beating people up losing his livelihood because he wouldn't kill people: "He said, 'No, that's where I draw the line. I'll beat 'em up, but I don't want to kill 'em.' And the government said, 'Well, if you won't kill people, we won't let you beat 'em up.'"

Most famously, he talked about the "seven words you can never say on television," foisting the verboten few into his audience's face with the glee of a classroom cut-up and the scrupulousness of a social linguist. While his brazen repeating of the "dirty" words caused a sensation (and prompted a lawsuit that eventually made it to the Supreme Court, resulting in the creation of the "family hour" on network television), his intention was not just to shock; it was to question our irrational fear of language "There are no bad words," said Carlin. "Bad thoughts. Bad intentions. And woooords."

Fuzzy language and fuzzy thinking were always among Carlin's favorite topics. He marveled at oxymorons like "jumbo shrimp" and "military intelligence," and pointed out the social uses of euphemism: "When did toilet paper become 'bathroom tissue'? When did house trailers become 'mobile homes'?" He reminisced about his class-clown antics and Catholic upbringing in the rough Morningside Heights section of New York City. He took on all the taboos, even the biggest one, God. How could the Almighty be all-powerful, mused Carlin, since "everything he ever makes ... dies."

In the 1970s Carlin was selling out college concerts, releasing bestselling records (his breakthrough 1972 album, FM & AM, spent 35 weeks on the Billboard pop charts, revitalizing a comedy-record business that had fallen on hard times). When NBC introduced a new late-night comedy show in 1975 called Saturday Night Live, Carlin was the comedian they turned to as the first guest host. And when HBO began rolling out its influential series of "On Location" comedy concerts, Carlin was among its most popular stars, headlining a record 14 one-man shows for the network, the last just a few months ago.

Carlin was a product of the counterculture era in lifestyle as well as comedy. His drug use became so heavy in the mid-'70s that it began to affect his health (he had a heart attack in 1978, the start of heart problems that eventually killed him) and his career as well. "I really wasn't being as creative," Carlin admitted years later. "I lost years. I could have been a pole vaulter in those years, and instead I was kind of like doing hurdles."

But in the early '80s, after kicking his drug habit, he revived his career, becoming a kind of curmudgeonly uncle, with small-bore "observational" humor and an aphoristic style. Then, in the '90s, he tacked back to harder-edged political material, railing against everything from the environmental movement to the middle-class obsession with golf. Even in his late 60s, Carlin could be as perceptive on the cliches and buzzwords of the era as ever: "I've been uplinked and downloaded. I've been inputted and outsourced, I know the upside of downsizing, I know the downside of upgrading. I'm a high-tech lowlife. A cutting-edge, state-of-the-art, bicoastal multitasker, and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond..."

Carlin's material grew increasingly dark in later years, to the point where he was cheerleading (with only a trace of irony) for mass suicide and ecological disaster. "I sort of gave up on this whole human adventure a long time ago," he said a couple of years ago. "Divorced myself from it emotionally. I think the human race has squandered its gift, and I think this country has squandered its promise. I think people in America sold out very cheaply, for sneakers and cheeseburgers. And I don't think it's fixable."

But Carlin's career, and his comedy, was anything but a downer. He was unique among stand-ups of his era in remaining a top-drawing comedian for more than 40 years, with virtually no help from movies or TV sitcoms. His influence can be seen everywhere from the political rants of Lewis Black to the "observational" comedy of Jerry Seinfeld. He showed that nothing — not the most sensitive social issues or the most trivial annoyances of everyday life — was off-limits for smart comedy. And he helped bring stand-up comedy to the very center of American culture. It has never left.

Richard Zoglin's book Comedy on the Edge: How Stand-Up in the 1970s Changed America was published earlier this year by Bloomsbury.

From Dirty Harry's Place:
30-Disc “Sopranos” Box Set Coming In November

The full series of The Sopranos will be released come November in a 30-disc boxed set with a list price of $399.99 — which probably means $249.00 at your local Best Buy:

Besides seven seasons worth of episodes, the set has two bonus DVDs that include an interview with creator David Chase by Alec Baldwin. The set will have two “Supper with the Sopranos” features, sit-down dinners (food not included) with Chase and various actors discussing their favourite scenes, auditions and other aspects of the show.

Chase also discusses how the show was cast and the evolution of the characters. He includes three music soundtrack CDs that he curated and were previously released, and 16 scenes that were filmed but never made it on the air. The set includes a recording of a New York seminar on cast members who were whacked and various spoofs on other TV outlets.

Four hundred dollars won’t buy you Tony Soprano, however. James Gandolfini didn’t participate in any of the “extras.”

It’s no secret Gandolfini can be a bit of a grump.

In my opinion, The Sopranos was one of the greatest dramatic television series ever. This set looks to be quite the treat. I already own a few of the seasons on DVD and The Hot Little Number I Call Mrs. Harry and I enjoy going back and reviewing them. The series holds up well with repeat viewings.

From Carolina Blue:
Brave New World
Adam Lucas on the end of Carolina's season.

June 22, 2008

OMAHA--I am not willing to let you write the legacy of Carolina's 2008 senior class.

Not if you are going to paint them as the group that made it to three straight College World Series without winning a national championship. Not if your description includes the word, "never," as in, "Never won a national title."

That will be the short-sighted verdict, of course. Three times, the Diamond Heels came to Omaha during this class's four-year reign. Three times, they got close without winning.

One local paper already compared this group to the Buffalo Bills. Get it? Three Super Bowls, three losses. Three College World Series, three losses.

I do not get it. Also, I do not appreciate it. So you will need to get your "nevers" elsewhere, unless you want to read them in the context of, "This is one group that absolutely never embarrassed the University of North Carolina."

Some perspective on this group of seniors, which included Chad Flack, Tyler Trice, Seth Williams, Kyle Shelton, Mike Facchinei, and Rob Wooten:

When they arrived at Carolina, the center of the UNC baseball universe was Chapel Hill and the outermost geographic limit was Columbia, South Carolina. Temperature-wise, Columbia is located just north of Hades, but baseball-wise, it wasn't much of a domain. The Diamond Heels couldn't talk about owning the college baseball world--or even the ACC baseball world--until they owned the Carolinas.

The season had ended in Columbia for three straight years when these seniors enrolled in the fall of 2004. Most of those games were close, but some--like a 14-4 demolition in the 2003 super-regionals--weren't. But the outcome, with South Carolina moving on and Carolina boarding a bus to ponder such painful geographic misfortune, was constant.

It is possible that you do not remember those games, or even that you weren't aware they were being played. Four years ago, college baseball at Carolina occupied a distinct world inhabited mostly by those who made an effort to dwell within it. The roof of the coaches' offices in Boshamer Stadium leaked with any substantial rainstorm, requiring them to strategically place buckets around the room to catch the water--which did not exactly impress recruits. Players walked Franklin Street in anonymity.

To get a score, you had to exert some effort. Weekday games were not even consistently carried live on the radio in their entirety. Coaching decisions were not debated the next morning at the office. Important at-bats were not rehashed over family cookouts. Erin Andrews did not hang out in the dugout, and ESPN did not seem to know the Diamond Heels existed (OK, some things haven't changed).

Compare that to where we are now. We are in the world of a new generation of baseball fans. The radio network has three affiliates, including the Triangle's largest sports station. During a recent baseball broadcast, fans on four different continents emailed the booth to say they were following the action. Carolina baseball doesn't just stretch to Columbia, the city. Now it goes to Colombia, the country--and beyond.

In minor league locker rooms across the nation, former players followed games over the internet and sent text messages to the current Tar Heels, creating that same family pride that has made UNC basketball so special. Crowds are measured in thousands rather than hundreds. Enough people care about Carolina baseball to fund a $25 million renovation to Boshamer Stadium, which will open next season and instantly become one of the finest facilities in the country.

Let that marinate for a moment. Twenty-five million dollars. In the early 1980s, the Rams Club raised $34 million for the Dean Smith Center, which was considered revolutionary. Even with twenty years of inflation, I'd put baseball's $25 million in the same category. Not so much for the total, but for what it represents: the structure rising now on Ridge Road is the brick-and-mortar affirmation that baseball is a big deal at the University of North Carolina.

Maybe it would have been built anyway if Chad Flack had gone to Clemson or Rob Wooten had let an arm injury end his career or Seth Williams had played football instead of baseball or Kyle Shelton had let the Tar Heel coaching staff's frank assessment--"You may not play much here"--deter him from Chapel Hill.

But I doubt it. And that is their legacy. Somehow, they figured out a way to move a program from the fringe of local importance onto the biggest national stage.

They'll never get to play in the new Boshamer. But they built it.

And now those seniors will go out into the world. What they'll find is something that they have created.

It's a world that knows them as Carolina baseball players--and that title now means something. It's a world that knows Carolina baseball.

And that is their legacy.

Adam Lucas is the publisher of Tar Heel Monthly. He is also the author or co-author of four books on Carolina basketball.

George Carlin on Baseball and Football

Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game.
Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle.

Baseball is played on a diamond, in a park. The baseball park!
Football is played on a GRIDIRON, in a STADIUM,
sometimes called
SOLDIER FIELD or WAR MEMORIAL STADIUM.

Baseball begins in the spring, the season of new life.
Football begins in the fall, when everything is dying.

In football you wear a helmet
In baseball you wear a cap.

Football is concerned with downs. "What down is it?
Baseball is concerned with ups. "Who's up? Are you up? I'm not up!
He's up!"

In football you receive a penalty.
In baseball you make an error.

In football the specialist comes in to kick.
In baseball the specialist comes in to relieve somebody.

Football has hitting, clipping, spearing, piling on, personal fouls,
late hitting, and unnecessary roughness.
Baseball has the sacrifice.

Football is played in any kind of weather: Rain, snow, sleet, hail,
fog...can't see the game, don't know if there is a game going on; mud
on the field...can't read the uniforms, can't read the yard markers,
the struggle will continue!
In baseball if it rains, we don't go out to play. "I can't go out!
It's raining out!"

Baseball has the seventh-inning stretch.
Football has the two-minute warning

Baseball has no time limit: "We don't know when it's gonna end!"
Football is rigidly timed, and it will end "even if we have to go to
sudden death."

In baseball, during the game, in the stands, there's kind of a picnic
feeling. Emotions may run high or low, but there's not that much
unpleasantness.
In football, during the game in the stands, you can be sure that at
least twenty-seven times you were perfectly capable of taking the life
of a fellow human being

And finally, the objectives of the two games are completely different:

In football, the object is for the quarterback, otherwise known as
the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling
the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of
the blitz, even if he has to use the shotgun. With short bullet passes
and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing
this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes
in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.
In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! "I hope I'll be
safe at home!"

From The New York Times:
George Carlin, Splenetic Comedian, Dies at 71
By MEL WATKINS

George Carlin, the Grammy-Award winning standup comedian and actor who was hailed for his irreverent social commentary, poignant observations of the absurdities of everyday life and language, and groundbreaking routines like “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” died in Santa Monica, Calif., on Sunday, according to his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He was 71.

The cause of death was heart failure. Mr. Carlin, who had a history of heart problems, went into the hospital on Sunday afternoon after complaining of heart trouble. The comedian had worked last weekend at The Orleans in Las Vegas.

Recently, Mr. Carlin was named the recipient of the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. He was to receive the award at the Kennedy Center in November. “In his lengthy career as a comedian, writer, and actor, George Carlin has not only made us laugh, but he makes us think,” said Stephen A. Schwarzman, the Kennedy Center chairman. “His influence on the next generation of comics has been far-reaching.”

Mr. Carlin began his standup comedy act in the late 1950s and made his first television solo guest appearance on “The Merv Griffin Show” in 1965. At that time, he was primarily known for his clever wordplay and reminiscences of his Irish working-class upbringing in New York.

But from the outset there were indications of an anti-establishment edge to his comedy. Initially, it surfaced in the witty patter of a host of offbeat characters like the wacky sportscaster Biff Barf and the hippy-dippy weatherman Al Sleet. “The weather was dominated by a large Canadian low, which is not to be confused with a Mexican high. Tonight’s forecast . . . dark, continued mostly dark tonight turning to widely scattered light in the morning.”

Mr. Carlin released his first comedy album, “Take-Offs and Put-Ons,” to rave reviews in 1967. He also dabbled in acting, winning a recurring part as Marlo Thomas’ theatrical agent in the sitcom “That Girl” (1966-67) and a supporting role in the movie “With Six You Get Egg-Roll,” released in 1968.

By the end of the decade, he was one of America’s best known comedians. He made more than 80 major television appearances during that time, including the Ed Sullivan Show and Johnny Carson’s Tonight Show; he was also regularly featured at major nightclubs in New York and Las Vegas.

That early success and celebrity, however, was as dinky and hollow as a gratuitous pratfall to Mr. Carlin. “I was entertaining the fathers and the mothers of the people I sympathized with, and in some cases associated with, and whose point of view I shared,” he recalled later, as quoted in the book “Going Too Far” by Tony Hendra, which was published in 1987. “I was a traitor, in so many words. I was living a lie.”

In 1970, Mr. Carlin discarded his suit, tie, and clean-cut image as well as the relatively conventional material that had catapulted him to the top. Mr. Carlin reinvented himself, emerging with a beard, long hair, jeans and a routine that, according to one critic, was steeped in “drugs and bawdy language.” There was an immediate backlash. The Frontier Hotel in Las Vegas terminated his three-year contract, and, months later, he was advised to leave town when an angry mob threatened him at the Lake Geneva Playboy Club. Afterward, he temporarily abandoned the nightclub circuit and began appearing at coffee houses, folk clubs and colleges where he found a younger, hipper audience that was more attuned to both his new image and his material.

By 1972, when he released his second album, “FM & AM,” his star was again on the rise. The album, which won a Grammy Award as best comedy recording, combined older material on the “AM” side with bolder, more acerbic routines on the “FM” side. Among the more controversial cuts was a routine euphemistically entitled “Shoot,” in which Mr. Carlin explored the etymology and common usage of the popular idiom for excrement. The bit was part of the comic’s longer routine “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television,” which appeared on his third album “Class Clown,” also released in 1972.

“There are some words you can say part of the time. Most of the time ‘ass’ is all right on television,” Mr. Carlin noted in his introduction to the then controversial monologue. “You can say, well, ‘You’ve made a perfect ass of yourself tonight.’ You can use ass in a religious sense, if you happen to be the redeemer riding into town on one — perfectly all right.”

The material seems innocuous by today’s standards, but it caused an uproar when broadcast on the New York radio station WBAI in the early ’70s. The station was censured and fined by the FCC. And in 1978, their ruling was supported by the Supreme Court, which Time magazine reported, “upheld an FCC ban on ‘offensive material’ during hours when children are in the audience.” Mr. Carlin refused to drop the bit and was arrested several times after reciting it on stage.

By the mid-’70s, like his comic predecessor Lenny Bruce and the fast-rising Richard Pryor, Mr. Carlin had emerged as a cultural renegade. In addition to his irreverent jests about religion and politics, he openly talked about the use of drugs, including acid and peyote, and said that he kicked cocaine not for moral or legal reasons but after he found “far more pain in the deal than pleasure.” But the edgier, more biting comedy he developed during this period, along with his candid admission of drug use, cemented his reputation as the “comic voice of the counterculture.”

Mr. Carlin released a half dozen comedy albums during the ’70s, including the million-record sellers “Class Clown,” “Occupation: Foole” (1973) and “An Evening With Wally Lando” (1975). He was chosen to host the first episode of the late-night comedy show “Saturday Night Live” in 1975. And two years later, he found the perfect platform for his brand of acerbic, cerebral, sometimes off-color standup humor in the fledgling, less restricted world of cable television. By 1977, when his first HBO comedy special, “George Carlin at USC” was aired, he was recognized as one of the era’s most influential comedians. He also become a best-selling author of books that expanded on his comedy routines, including “When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?,” which was published by Hyperion in 2004.

Pursuing a Dream

Mr. Carlin was born in New York City in 1937. “I grew up in New York wanting to be like those funny men in the movies and on the radio,” he said. “My grandfather, mother and father were gifted verbally, and my mother passed that along to me. She always made sure I was conscious of language and words.”

He quit high school to join the Air Force in the mid-’50s and, while stationed in Shreveport, La., worked as a radio disc jockey. Discharged in 1957, he set out to pursue his boyhood dream of becoming an actor and comic. He moved to Boston where he met and teamed up with Jack Burns, a newscaster and comedian. The team worked on radio stations in Boston, Fort Worth, and Los Angeles, and performed in clubs throughout the country during the late ’50s.

After attracting the attention of the comedian Mort Sahl, who dubbed them “a duo of hip wits,” they appeared as guests on “The Tonight Show” with Jack Paar. Still, the Carlin-Burns team was only moderately successful, and, in 1960, Mr. Carlin struck out on his own.

During a career that spanned five decades, he emerged as one of the most durable, productive and versatile comedians of his era. He evolved from Jerry Seinfeld-like whimsy and a buttoned-down decorum in the ’60s to counterculture icon in the ’70s. By the ’80s, he was known as a scathing social critic who could artfully wring laughs from a list of oxymorons that ranged from “jumbo shrimp” to “military intelligence.” And in the 1990s and into the 21st century the balding but still pony-tailed comic prowled the stage — eyes ablaze and bristling with intensity — as the circuit’s most splenetic curmudgeon.

During his live 1996 HBO special, “Back in Town,” he raged over the shallowness of the ’90s “me first” culture — mocking the infatuation with camcorders, hyphenated names, sneakers with lights on them, and lambasting white guys over 10 years old who wear their baseball hats backwards. Baby boomers, “who went from ‘do your thing’ to ‘just say no’ ...from cocaine to Rogaine,” and pro life advocates (“How come when it’s us it’s an abortion, and when it’s a chicken it’s an omelet?”), were some of his prime targets. In the years following his 1977 cable debut, Mr. Carlin was nominated for a half dozen Grammy awards and received CableAces awards for best stand-up comedy special for “George Carlin: Doin’ It Again (1990) and “George Carlin: Jammin’ ” (1992). He also won his second Grammy for the album “Jammin” in 1994.

Personal Struggles

During the course of his career, Mr. Carlin overcame numerous personal trials. His early arrests for obscenity (all of which were dismissed) and struggle to overcome his self-described “heavy drug use” were the most publicized. But in the ’80s he also weathered serious tax problems, a heart attack and two open heart surgeries.

In December 2004 he entered a rehabilitation center to address his addictions to Vicodin and red wine. Mr. Carlin had a well-chronicled cocaine problem in his 30s, and though he was able to taper his cocaine use on his own, he said, he continued to abuse alcohol and also became addicted to Vicodin. He entered rehab at the end of that year, then took two months off before continuing his comedy tours.

“Standup is the centerpiece of my life, my business, my art, my survival and my way of being,” Mr. Carlin once told an interviewer. “This is my art, to interpret the world.” But, while it always took center stage in his career, Mr. Carlin did not restrict himself to the comedy stage. He frequently indulged his childhood fantasy of becoming a movie star. Among his later credits were supporting parts in “Car Wash” (1976), “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” (1989), “The Prince of Tides” (1991), and “Dogma” (1999).

His 1997 book, “Brain Droppings,” became an instant best seller. And among several continuing TV roles, he starred in the Fox sitcom “The George Carlin Show,” which aired for one season. “That was an experiment on my part to see if there might be a way I could fit into the corporate entertainment structure,” he said after the show was canceled in 1994. “And I don’t,” he added.

Despite the longevity of his career and his problematic personal life, Mr. Carlin remained one of the most original and productive comedians in show business. “It’s his lifelong affection for language and passion for truth that continue to fuel his performances,” a critic observed of the comedian when he was in his mid-60s. And Chris Albrecht, an HBO executive, said, “He is as prolific a comedian as I have witnessed.”

Mr. Carlin is survived by his wife, Sally Wade; daughter Kelly Carlin McCall; son-in-law, Bob McCall, brother, Patrick Carlin and sister-in-law, Marlene Carlin. His first wife, Brenda Hosbrook, died in 1997.

Although some criticized parts of his later work as too contentious, Mr. Carlin defended the material, insisting that his comedy had always been driven by an intolerance for the shortcomings of humanity and society. “Scratch any cynic,” he said, “and you’ll find a disappointed idealist.”

Still, when pushed to explain the pessimism and overt spleen that had crept into his act, he quickly reaffirmed the zeal that inspired his lists of complaints and grievances. “I don’t have pet peeves,” he said, correcting the interviewer. And with a mischievous glint in his eyes, he added, “I have major, psychotic hatreds.”

From NJ.com:
JERSEY BOYS ROCK:
"Live in Concert: Greatest Hits and More"
The Smithereens (Koch)

Everyone knows that rock'n'roll thrives in intimate spaces. Even the Rolling Stones played a theater for Martin Scorsese's concert movie. The Smithereens don't play arenas these days. But the New Jersey band, which enjoyed big hits in the late '80s, is on something of a roll again, and wanting to rekindle youthful spark for a live album, they set up in the tightest, grungiest of their old haunts, New Brunswick's Court Tavern.

Four sweaty, boozy nights of recording yielded an 18-track disc featuring the Smithereens' best-known songs, plus a few that haven't appeared on any of their previous releases. The muscular performances, engineered by local Kurt Reil, have a tight, in-your-face sound. Even if the crowd was mixed low and rough edges cleaned up with the magic of digital editing, "Live in Concert: Greatest Hits and More" captures the spirit of a great night out. It was certainly made to be turned up loud.

The Smithereens' power-pop crunch hasn't aged a day, nor has singer-guitarist Pat DiNizio's British Invasion-influenced, noir-tinged songwriting. The disc features irresistibly hard-rocking versions of "Drown in My Own Tears," "Miles from Nowhere" and "Blood and Roses." There's also a wild-eyed "Top of the Pops," far better than the studio original. DiNizio sounds a bit tired on the hit "Girl Like You," but Jim Babjak's exciting power chords keep goading him on. The extended "House We Used to Live In" includes a wonderfully careening, Who-like jam.

The "more" in the album's title includes an ideal cover of Buddy Holly's dark "Well Alright" and a beery take on the "Batman" theme, familiar as a Smithereens closer. The disc's highlights, though, are gritty renditions of "Any Other Way" and "Since You Went Away," songs from DiNizio's most recent solo disc. Babjak's electric chording and gripping solo heighten the lament in "Since You Went Away," aided by the heft of the Dennis Diken/Severo Jornacion rhythm section. DiNizio sounds inspired by the roar, his voice dusky and dramatic.

A Smithereens renaissance started with last year's "Meet the Smithereens," the group's delightful, song-for-song remake of "Meet the Beatles." They followed quickly with a rock'n'roll Christmas disc. DiNizio's initial vision was for "Live in Concert" to be a half-live, half-studio set, but the studio sessions must have either gone too well or not well enough for that project to bear out.

"Since You Went Away" and the '60s-pop tunefulness of "Any Other Way" prove that DiNizio can still write songs of melody and feeling that feel natural in the Smithereens' hands. The live disc also features an excellent version of "She's Got a Way," from the band's last disc of originals, 1999's unsung "God Save the Smithereens." Here's to hoping the foursome can parlay their momentum into a new studio collection.

On the road off and on, the Smithereens return to the area to perform June 7 at the Appel Farms Arts & Music Festival in Upper Pittsgrove. On July 28, they play an old-school shore gig, at Jenk's Club in Point Pleasant.

Download this: "Since You Went Away"

-- Bradley Bambarger

From Crawdaddy:
Scott Kempner
by Denise Sullivan



Saving Grace: A Review

Back when dinosaurs roamed rock stages, New York's the Dictators and Scott Kempner (aka Top Ten) came along with their pre-punk savage beat and contributed to their extinction. In the '80s Kempner wrote the songs and fronted the rootsier Del Lords, the kind of band you could rely on to deliver no BS rock 'n' roll in an age when carefully coiffed bands, from the hair metal variety to Flock of Seagulls, ruled the radio waves and MTV. An American guitar band could barely get arrested back then, but that didn't stop Kempner and his bros from running down the dream in jeans and workboats to the tune of a sweaty American beat.

I don't think I was the only one back then who had a hard time distinguishing the Del Lords' urban boogie from Boston's twang-tinged Del Fuegos (when it came to roots-rock I relied on my home state's the Blasters). But when the Del Fuegos lent their image and sound to a beer company, which was just about the uncoolest thing a band could do at the time, sides were drawn and the Del Lords bumped up a few notches on the real deal, roots rock radar.

Yes, that was all a frighteningly long time ago and today people of a certain age are more familiar with the Del Fuegos' Dan Zanes than they are with the Del Lords' Scott Kempner: Zanes is a children's music artist with old fans who play his records to their kids while Kempner's profile is significantly lower. He hasn't made a solo record since the early '90s (and when you think of it, that is also a frighteningly long time ago). But when he does step out, as he did with Little Kings—the band he formed when original Bronx rocker Dion ("The Wanderer", "Runaround Sue") called him up for a little co-creation—he doesn't stray far from his roots.

Dion and Kempner wrote "Heartbeat of Time" during those '90s sessions and Dion sat in on the recording of it for Saving Grace. Both "Heartbeat of Time" and the new album's "Love Out of Time" have that tentative, fluttery, and yet steadily rising Brill Building sound, like something Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman would write back in the day (and a little like a certain type of song Bruce Springsteen still writes). The Bruce connection runs deep round these parts: Bruce loves Dion and so does Kempner who also proclaims to be charged up by the Boss and their mutual influences, Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan. Which leaves Kempner open to further comparisons to East Coast rock types and a specific type of songwriting performer: One who combines sincerity with swagger, as Southside Johnny, Little Steven, and the two Willies: Nile and DeVille, all do. Of course Bruce was the one who made their genre his, by fusing retro song values with Byrds and Beatles-styled guitar and a workingman's point of view. And you can hear Kempner's version of that formula on the tough but restrained "Beyond the Pale" and "Baby's Room", with their guitars that sing out with a vintage jangle.

"Stolen Kisses" is like a punky boogie party. I want to say that throughout the album (gulp) J. Geils Band came to mind even though I know some people will hate me for just conjuring their name (personally, I can't deny their '70s hits). There's one song by an outside writer—"I'll Give You Needles" by Tommy Womack—a popular singer-songwriter that I'm afraid I just don't understand. Kempner takes seriously his American musical heritage and surrounds himself with longtime musical companions as well as session guys of some repute (bassist Bob Babbitt, drummer Ed Greene, and engineer Bob Olhsson).

"Passion Red", a song steeped in old world imagery complimented by an edgy arrangement, provides a refreshing chaser to the 10 otherwise straight shots of roots rock, while "Here Come My Love" provides another opportunity for Kempner to showcase his looser side. He plays great guitar on the album, and when he gets Link Wray-ed like he does on these tracks, it made me think a little more of that woulda been good.

Seeking redemption through real rock 'n' roll is a pretty old-fashioned and romantic ideal; it's rarely achievable in modern rock song unless your name is Joe Strummer or Bruce Springsteen. But you can't hold it against a guy like Kempner for trying; most rockers don't even bother attempting it anymore.

From The Spectator:
Princess Obama Derangement Syndrome
Melanie Phillips

Friday, 13th June 2008

My oh my, what a firestorm I appear to have started with my remarks two days ago on Obama’s background! It was wholly expected, of course, but nevertheless the posters’ comments are so revealing. They graphically illustrate the way in which Obamania has quite obviously destroyed the capacity for reason.

First, it is quite clear that any questioning at all of Obama’s background is entirely off-limits. Next, the posters fail totally to grasp that the real point isn’t what faith he professed or was brought up in as a child – it is the fact that he has not told the truth about his early background. Then, some even compare such questioning with the ‘truthers’ who allege that 9/11 was perpetrated by a conspiracy between America and Israel. They thus demonstrate that they cannot tell the difference between rationality and lunacy, evidence and fantasy, failing to grasp that the sole reason for the questions about Obama is the many discrepancies in the accounts of his early life -- including his own accounts -- plus his many questionable associations.

Ignoring all this substantive evidence and the legitimate questions to which it gives rise (can you imagine how they would be slavering about all this were Obama a Republican candidate??) they instead hurl insults at both me and my sources such as Daniel Pipes – a fine and authoritative scholar (and who has also exposed those who claim he has peddled falsehoods as themselves peddling falsehoods) whose own observations about Obama’s background are clearly and reliably sourced and are couched in Pipes’s characteristically cautious manner -- and then annouce that they have won the argument hands-down!

Oh dear. America really does have a problem here. Looks like what I wrote months ago, that the Obama phenomenon might mean the Americans too are succumbing to Princess Diana Derangement Syndrome, was a serious understatement.

To address a few specific points which have come up and which are not merely hysterical abuse. First, it’s been pointed out that Robert Spencer has said Islam does not mandate the death sentence for children who become apostates, a point subsequently acknowledged by Daniel Pipes. I don’t see, however, that this alters anything. The death sentence is mandated for adults who renounce Islam. The fact that all that is known about Obama’s Muslim roots relates – as I wrote -- to his early childhood is irrelevant. For as Spencer also notes, the real question is therefore when Obama converted to Christianity. By his own account, he did so when he was received by Pastor Wright into the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago some twenty years ago (although at other times he has also said he was ‘always a Christian’). In which case Pipes’s argument remains absolutely salient.

As for the ‘Islamic experts’ who poured cold water on a similar argument by Edward Luttwak in the New York Times -- who are hailed as Voices of Absolute Truth by my more excitable commenters despite the fact that they know zilch about them -- these prove nothing other than the existence of commentators who sanitise Islam.

Those who still insist that Obama was never brought up as a Muslim ignore the numerous reports of his Islamic education as a young child -- including his own statements, as in this deeply respectful article in the New York Times by Nicholas Kristof:

He once got in trouble for making faces during Koran study classes in his elementary school, but a president is less likely to stereotype Muslims as fanatics — and more likely to be aware of their nationalism — if he once studied the Koran with them. Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it’ll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as ‘one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.’

Next, the assertion that Obama and Raila Odinga are not cousins – by a poster who says he is a Kenyan and therefore knows about such things. Well, one might think that Raila Odinga himself might have a rather better claim to know. This is what the Telegraph reported:

Kenya's defeated presidential challenger Raila Odinga has claimed to be a cousin of Barack Obama and said that they had discussed his country's post-election violence. Mr Odinga, 63, said that the US senator's father, from western Kenya's Luo tribe, was his maternal uncle... Mr Obama has not commented on the Kenyan opposition leader’s claim to be a relative.

As I have already said -- but let me repeat very slowly for those suffering from Princess Obama Derangement Syndrome – the concerns about Obama’s Muslim antecedents arise from the fact that a) he has tried to conceal them and b) that he has a puzzling number of indirect connections with radical Islamists or their supporters.

1) He has gone out of his way to support in Kenya Raila Odinga, head of the Luo tribe, who promised to introduce sharia law if elected. Obama interrupted his New Hampshire campaign to speak by phone with Odinga. As the Investor’s Business Daily has reported, his half-brother Abongo ‘Roy’ Obama is a Luo activist in Kenya and a militant Muslim who argues that the black man must ‘liberate himself from the poisoning influences of European culture’ and urges Barack to embrace his African Muslim heritage.

Barack Obama has said he disagrees with his brother. But as the IBD has also reported:

In 1991, when Obama joined the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, he pledged allegiance to something called the Black Value System, which is a code of non-Biblical ethics written by blacks, for blacks. It encourages blacks to group together and separate from the larger American society by pooling their money, patronizing black-only businesses and backing black leaders. Such racial separatism is strangely at odds with the media's portrayal of Obama as a uniter who reaches across races. The code also warns blacks to avoid the white ‘entrapment of black middle-classness,’ suggesting that settling for that kind of ‘competitive’ success will rob blacks of their African identity and keep them ‘captive’ to white culture.

2) His mentor, the black power-supporting Christian pastor Jeremiah Wright, is a close associate of Louis Farrakhan, the demagogue leader of the black power, Jew-hating militant organisation Nation of Islam. A number of Obama’s own staffers have been members of the Nation of Islam.

3) Tony Rezko, who was recently convicted of fraud, money laundering and bribery conspiracy, has been a major supporter of Obama and contributor to his cause – the full extent of which Obama tried to conceal. The Chicago Sun-Times reported:

During his 12 years in politics, Sen. Barack Obama has received nearly three times more campaign cash from indicted businessman Tony Rezko and his associates than he has publicly acknowledged, the Chicago Sun-Times has found. Obama has collected at least $168,308 from Rezko and his circle. Obama also has taken in an unknown amount of money from people who attended fund-raising events hosted by Rezko since the mid-1990s.

He also did a land deal with Rezko in 2005, buying land from him to enlarge his own adjoining house at what has been reported to be a discount -- a transaction Obama has subsequently called ‘bone-headed’. In a further twist, as the Times reported earlier this year, a British-Iraqi billionaire, Nadhmi Auchi, who is said to have had connections with Saddam Hussein and who was convicted for corruption in France, lent millions of dollars to Rezko just weeks before that ‘bone-headed’ land deal.

But what has received far less attention is Rezko’s connections with the Nation of Islam. Reszko, born in Syria, was a business associate of Jabir Herbert Muhammad, the son of the founder of the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad, serving as a vice president and general manager of JHM’s firm Crucial Inc. And finally, Rezko was bailed from jail by Ali Baghdadi, the ‘Middle East adviser’ to the Nation of Islam.

Who know what all this adds up to? But isn’t it rather important that someone finds out before November?

To repeat once again for sufferers from PODS: the issue is NOT Obama’s religion, now or in the past. It is the many questions which need to be answered about a) why he has sought to conceal his early background; b) why he has so many indirect associations with radical Islamism; and c) whether these two questions are in some way related.

Anyone who doesn’t think all this cries out for proper investigation is either a fool or a knave.

From The Spectator:
Obama and the giant blogosphere conspiracy
Melanie Phillips
Wednesday, 11th June 2008

Today’s Guardian reports that Barack Obama is setting up an entire unit to combat ‘virulent rumours’ about him on the internet. Doubtless one of the blogs in the sights of team Obama is Little Green Footballs, which in the last few days has been excavating examples of wildly anti-Jewish and anti-American prejudice and conspiracy theories posted up by fans on Obama’s own website. LGF is making hay with the fact that the Obamanables are belatedly taking (some of) this stuff down from the site while simultaneously insisting that its presence is nothing to do with them because the website has no moderators. Yeah, right.

The Guardian quotes the director of some monitoring outfit as saying that the blogosphere’s smears about Obama are particularly vicious.

He added that one of the most persistent is that Obama, a Christian, is ‘some kind of Muslim Manchurian candidate, planted by Islamic fundamentalists to betray the country and it is very widespread’.

Well now. Crazed Jew-hating American-loathing moonbats posting comments on Obama’s website are one thing. But the fact is that there are serious and troubling questions about Obama’s ancestry and associations and what he himself has said about them, which have surfaced in the blogosphere but have been almost wholly ignored by the mainstream media in its collective Obamanic swoon.

First is his childhood background. Last November, his campaign website carried a statement with the headline:

Barack Obama Is Not and Has Never Been a Muslim

followed by

Obama never prayed in a mosque. He has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian.

Obama has also said:

I've always been a Christian

and

I've never practised Islam.

But none of this is true. As is explored in detail on Daniel Pipes’s website, Obama was enrolled at his primary schools in Indonesia as a Muslim; he attended the mosque during that period; his friends from that time testify that he was a devout Muslim boy. A former teacher at one of these schools, Tine Hahiyary, remembers a young Obama who was quite religious and actively took part in ‘mengaji’ classes which teach how to read the Koran in Arabic. The blogger from Indonesia who reported this commented:

‘Mengagi’ is a word and a term that is accorded the highest value and status in the mindset of fundamentalist societies here in Southeast Asia. To put it quite simply, "mengaji classes" are not something that a non practicing or so-called moderate Muslim family would ever send their child to... The fact that Obama had attended mengaji classes is well known in Indonesia and has left many there wondering just when Obama is going to come out of the closet.

His father was a Muslim, as was his stepfather. His grandfather was a Muslim convert. His wider family appear to have been largely devout Muslims. Yes, we only know about Obama’s early years as a Muslim; and yes, twenty years ago he became a Christian. The issue, however, is why he has been less than candid about his early background and his family. Indeed, he appears to have actively deceived the public about it. That is why the blogosphere is so exercised about it.

Now here’s another curious thing. Much has been made of his membership of the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago whose former pastor and his long-standing mentor, Jeremiah Wright, Obama was forced finally to renounce on account of his obnoxious views (although he has signally failed unequivocally to denounce those views themselves and the no less obnoxious philosophy of the Trinity United black power church). But according to a passing reference in a profile in The New Republic last year, Pastor Wright was himself a Muslim convert to Christianity. He seems to have moved from being a Muslim black power fanatic to a Christian black power fanatic – which might go some way to explaining his close affinity to the Muslim black power ideologue Louis Farrakhan.

Then there is also Obama’s troubling support for the Kenyan opposition leader -- and his cousin -- Raila Odinga, the leader of the violent uprising a few months ago against the newly elected Kenyan government and who signed a memorandum of understanding with Kenyan Muslims to turn Kenya into an Islamic state governed by sharia law. At the time, the Evangelical Alliance of Kenya released a statement in which church leaders said Odinga

comes across as a presumptive Muslim president bent on forcing Islamic law, religion and culture down the throats of the Kenyan people in total disregard of the Constitutionally guaranteed rights of freedom of worship and equal protection of the law for all Kenyans.

As the Atlas Shrugs site reported, Obama actually went to Kenya in 2006 and spoke at rallies in support of Odinga, causing the Kenyan government to denounce him as ‘Raila’s stooge’. Why was Obama supporting such a person? Why has no-one bothered to find out??

Daniel Pipes makes another highly significant point about Obama’s Muslim background. He points out that, in the eyes of the Muslim world, Obama remains a Muslim regardless of what religion he now professes because he was born to a Muslim father. By his own admission (of Christianity) therefore, he is a Muslim apostate – a status regarded by the Muslim world as a sin to be punished by death. Pipes thinks this would put his life in danger and undermine his initiatives towards the Muslim world. But surely the more significant point is that much of that Muslim world has actually embraced him. Indeed the Muslim Brothers of Hamas – who most certainly would regard any Muslim apostate as someone to be eliminated – actually came out publicly in support of him (until Obama blotted his copybook by professing undying support for Israel).

We are entitled therefore to ask whether the Muslim world supports him because it believes he is still a Muslim. We are entitled to ask precisely when he stopped being a Muslim, and why. Did Obama embrace Christianity as a tactical manoeuvre to get himself elected? Why indeed has he dissembled about his family background if not for that end?

These multiple known deceptions by someone who may become President of the United States are deeply alarming. The concealment is the issue. To dismiss such concerns and the related questions they provoke as a smear campaign is to attempt to browbeat into silence those who legitimately raise them and require urgent answers as a matter of the most acute public interest.

Update: In this entry I originally included the following quote from the American Expatriate in Indonesia blog quoted above: 'Another of Obama’s former classmates, Emirsyah Satar, now CEO of Garuda Indonesia, has been quoted as saying: At that time, he was quite religious in Islam but after marrying Michelle, he changed his religion.' It has been pointed out to me that comments posted on that blog claimed that this was a mistranslation, and that the quote attributed to Satar was written instead by the author of the article.