IRIS Blog

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Governor Sarah Palin has given two mainstream media interviews. In both, she made multiple statements about the importance of multilateralism in foreign policy. In both, these comments were deleted by the news organizations.

After both interviews, a furor has broken out afterwards because of her hawkishness.

At two points in the video (2:58 and 5:39), segments have been removed from the official transcript.



Here are the missing pieces of the transcript:

(2:58) Couric: What, specifically, in your view, could be done to convince the new government in Pakistan to take a harder, tougher line against terrorists in that country?

Palin: At a time when new leadership comes in, that is the opportunity to forge better, tighter, more productive relationships and that’s what we’ll take advantage of with new leadership in the US and in Pakistan. And I’m sure that President Zardari, too, will agree with us as we commit to the support that Pakistan needs, that other nations in the region need, in order to win this war on terrorism. (3:32)


(5:39) Couric: But what lessons do you think you have learned as you’ve watched this unfold in terms of implementing the democracy and the challenges inherent in that goal?

Palin: Well, one is that America cannot be counted on to do this solely, to be the savior of every other nation, but we need friends and we need allies and we need this nation-building effort and we need to forge new alliances, and that is what a new election will provide opportunity to do.

Couric: What happened if the goal of democracy, Governor Palin, doesn’t produce the desired outcome, for example in Gaza, the US pushed hard for elections and Hamas won.

Palin: Especially in that region, though, we have got to protect those and support those who do seek democracy and do seek protections for the people who live there. And you know, we’re seeing today, in the last couple of days here in New York, a speaker, a President of Iran, Ahmadinejad, who would come on our soil and express such disdain for one of our closest allies and friends—Israel—and we’re hearing the evil that he speaks. And if hearing him doesn’t allow Americans to commit more solidly to protecting the friends and allies that we need, expecially there in the Mideast, then nothing will.

If Americans are not waking up to understand what it is that he represents, then nothing is going to wake us up and we will be lulled into some kind of false sense of security that perhaps Americans were a part of before 9/11.(7:25)

What do each of these three Palin answers have in common? They portray her as a foreign policy moderate who seeks multilateral coalitions with allies and who advocates for human rights, caring about better lives for Middle Easterners.

Interestingly, ABC News also edited out the same kind of moderate, multilateralist comment in order to more effectively promote the misinformation that Palin was advocating a new, warmongering approach to Russia.

Katie Couric clearly hasn't learned much from the previous CBS News scandal, Rathergate.

Technical note: There may have been further editing of each of the two interviews. In both instances, we only know about the modifications because of sloppy editing. In one, the transcript is the smoking gun for the discrepancies; in the other it is the video.

Here's an analytics perspective on the deletions:

In the Gibson (ABC News) interview:

7 instances were deleted of "allies"
5 instances were deleted of "countries"
5 instances were deleted of "democracies"

In the Couric (CBS News) interview:

4 instances were deleted of "allies"
3 instances were deleted of "democracies"
3 instances were deleted of "friends"
3 instances were deleted of "nations"

(A few word variants were included.)

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Europe will likely turn Muslim much quicker than demographic forecasts suggest. White flight will accelerate as more incidents like these occur:

A forty-year old homeless man almost died when he was beaten up in Brussels by a man and his father, both Muslims, because he was drinking beer during the Ramadan. Rachid, the 19-year old culprit, beat his victim Serge with an iron bar with nails.

A few days ago Serge had an appointment with a doctor in a policlinic in Blaes Street. He arrived early and, since he had to wait, Serge opened a can of beer. At that moment an elderly Muslim who lives above the policlinic came downstairs. He objected to Serge drinking a beer in public during Ramadan, the Muslim fast. Things escalated when his son Rachid came downstairs, too.

Father and son beat up Serge. They threw him out of the building on a pile of rubbish bags. Amidst the rubbish Rachid found an iron bar studded with nails. He seized the bar and smashed it in on Serge. The tramp tried to protect his face with his arms, but could not prevent the bully from hitting an artery on his legs. Blood poured from the wound.

An eye-witness called the police. Meantime a group of youths had joined in beating up Serge.

'Youths' is a common euphemism for Muslims.

The victim was immediately taken to hospital. He had lost two liters of blood. The doctors confirm that it is a miracle that Serge survived his ordeal. The police arrested Rachid. His father tried to take his place, but that did not happen.

Before Governor Sarah Palin made her historic speech at the Republican convention, I studied her background and made some bold predictions. Among those was probably the only published source that accurately predicted that the speech would be "wildly successful." Additionally, I called that "she will turn out to be Israel's best friend since the founding of the state." (I write this not to brag, but only as a way of demonstrating credibility for the rest of what is written on this blog.)

She has started to make good on that prediction, writing the strongest possible case for Israel now, a speech on the threat by Iran to inflict a nuclear Holocaust.

As you likely heard, the invitation to give that speech was rescinded in one of the most ignominious decisions by the American Jewish establishment in recent memory.

Caroline Glick has penned an absolute must-read eviscerating that decision.

But first, consider that Obama has spoken out against sanctions when the Senate was applying them, saying "now is not the time for saber-rattling towards Iran." Also consider that Iran has endorsed Obama's National Security Advisor, the anti-'AIPAC' Zbigniew Brezezinski.

Here is the Glick piece:

American Jews have good reason to be ashamed and angry today. As Iran moves into the final stages of its nuclear weapons development program - nuclear weapons which it will use to destroy the State of Israel, endanger Jews around the world and cow the United States of America - Democratic American Jewish leaders decided that putting Sen. Barack Obama in the White House is more important than protecting the lives of the Jewish people in Israel and around the world.

On Monday, the New York Sun published the speech that Republican vice presidential nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin would have delivered at that day's rally outside UN headquarters in New York against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and against Iran's plan to destroy Israel. She would have delivered it, if she hadn't been disinvited.

The rally was co-sponsored by the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, the National Coalition to Stop Iran Now, The Israel Project, United Jewish Communities, the UJA-Federation of New York and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Its purpose was to present a united American Jewish front against Iran's genocidal leader and against its genocidal regime which is developing nuclear weapons with the stated intention of committing the second Holocaust in 80 years.

Palin's speech is an extraordinary document. In its opening paragraph she made clear that Iran presents a danger not just to Israel, but to the US. And not just to some Americans, but to all Americans. Her speech was a warning to Iran - and anyone else who was listening - that Americans are not indifferent to its behavior, its genocidal ideology and the barbarity of its regime. Rather, they are outraged.

After that opening, Palin's speech set out clearly how Iran is advancing its nuclear project, why it must be prevented from acquiring nuclear weapons and why and how the regime itself must be opposed by all right thinking people - not just Israelis and Americans - but by all people who value human freedom.

PALIN'S SPEECH was a message of national - rather than simply Republican - resolve against Iran's nuclear weapons program and its active involvement in global and regional terrorism. She made this point by quoting statements that Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton has made against the Iranian regime.

The speech detailed Iran's past and current attacks against the US, beginning with its bombing of US servicemen in Lebanon in 1983 and continuing with Iran's proxy war against US forces in Iraq and against Iraqis who oppose its intention of taking control of their country.

By discussing Iran's role in Iraq she not only made a convincing case for why an American victory there is essential for defeating Iran. She also made clear that Iran is actively making war against the US, not just Israel.

From Iran's war against Israel, the US, and freedom loving peoples worldwide, Palin's speech turned to the regime's war against its own people. She attacked the regime for its systematic repression of Iranian women. She applauded the extraordinary bravery of women like Delaram Ali who risked their lives and their families to demand basic rights for Iranian women. Ali, she noted, was sentenced to 10 lashes and three years in prison for having the courage to speak out. An international outcry has temporarily suspended her sentence.

Then Palin returned to Iran's nuclear weapons program and its support for terrorist groups pledged to Israel's destruction and to the destruction of the US. She returned to Ahmadinejad's calls for Israel's annihilation. She reiterated Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain's solemn promise to work with Israel to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and she joined her name to his promise to stand side by side with Israel to prevent another Holocaust.

IF PALIN had been allowed to deliver this speech at Monday's rally, she would done just what the organizers of the rally, and what the Jewish people in Israel, America and worldwide need to have done. She would have elevated the imperative of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons and the implicit moral and strategic imperative of overthrowing the regime in Teheran to the top of America's national security agenda. Given the massive media attention she garners at all of her public appearances, Palin's participation in the rally would have done more to steel Americans - across the political spectrum - to the cause of opposing Iran than 10 UN Security Council sanctions resolutions could do.

It was a remarkable speech, prepared by a remarkable woman. But it was not heard. It was not heard because the Democratic Party and Jewish Democrats believe that their partisan interest in demonizing Palin and making Americans generally and American Jews in particular hate and fear her to secure their votes for Obama and his running-mate Sen. Joseph Biden in the November election is more important than allowing Palin to elevate the necessity of preventing a second Holocaust to the top of the US's national security agenda.

Read the whole thing...

Stanley Kurtz has pored through archived documents and has written an explosive piece today on Barack Obama's only executive experience. But first, here is a short video to place this in context:



Now back to the Kurtz piece:

Despite having authored two autobiographies, Barack Obama has never written about his most important executive experience. From 1995 to 1999, he led an education foundation called the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), and remained on the board until 2001. The group poured more than $100 million into the hands of community organizers and radical education activists.

The CAC was the brainchild of Bill Ayers, a founder of the Weather Underground in the 1960s. Among other feats, Mr. Ayers and his cohorts bombed the Pentagon, and he has never expressed regret for his actions. Barack Obama's first run for the Illinois State Senate was launched at a 1995 gathering at Mr. Ayers's home.

The Obama campaign has struggled to downplay that association. Last April, Sen. Obama dismissed Mr. Ayers as just "a guy who lives in my neighborhood," and "not somebody who I exchange ideas with on a regular basis." Yet documents in the CAC archives make clear that Mr. Ayers and Mr. Obama were partners in the CAC. Those archives are housed in the Richard J. Daley Library at the University of Illinois at Chicago and I've recently spent days looking through them.

The Chicago Annenberg Challenge was created ostensibly to improve Chicago's public schools. The funding came from a national education initiative by Ambassador Walter Annenberg. In early 1995, Mr. Obama was appointed the first chairman of the board, which handled fiscal matters. Mr. Ayers co-chaired the foundation's other key body, the "Collaborative," which shaped education policy.

The CAC's basic functioning has long been known, because its annual reports, evaluations and some board minutes were public. But the Daley archive contains additional board minutes, the Collaborative minutes, and documentation on the groups that CAC funded and rejected. The Daley archives show that Mr. Obama and Mr. Ayers worked as a team to advance the CAC agenda.

One unsettled question is how Mr. Obama, a former community organizer fresh out of law school, could vault to the top of a new foundation? In response to my questions, the Obama campaign issued a statement saying that Mr. Ayers had nothing to do with Obama's "recruitment" to the board. The statement says Deborah Leff and Patricia Albjerg Graham (presidents of other foundations) recruited him. Yet the archives show that, along with Ms. Leff and Ms. Graham, Mr. Ayers was one of a working group of five who assembled the initial board in 1994. Mr. Ayers founded CAC and was its guiding spirit. No one would have been appointed the CAC chairman without his approval.

The CAC's agenda flowed from Mr. Ayers's educational philosophy, which called for infusing students and their parents with a radical political commitment, and which downplayed achievement tests in favor of activism. In the mid-1960s, Mr. Ayers taught at a radical alternative school, and served as a community organizer in Cleveland's ghetto.

In works like "City Kids, City Teachers" and "Teaching the Personal and the Political," Mr. Ayers wrote that teachers should be community organizers dedicated to provoking resistance to American racism and oppression. His preferred alternative? "I'm a radical, Leftist, small 'c' communist," Mr. Ayers said in an interview in Ron Chepesiuk's, "Sixties Radicals," at about the same time Mr. Ayers was forming CAC.

Read the whole thing...

Law professor Stephen Diamond also went through the document archive and claims to disagree with Kurtz's conclusions. He wholeheartedly agrees that Obama and Ayers were "comrades in arms" for years, but that their organization was "authoritarian," not only "radical." Here is how Diamond puts it:

Thus, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge was far more than just a chance for Ayers to engage in "radical" efforts to raise the political consciousness of young students. It was that but it was much more - it was a front in an important battle for control of the Chicago Public School system. In fact, according to the Ken Rolling, Daley himself tried to wrest control of the Annenberg grant money away from Ayers and Obama.

The Challenge was radical, but not the right wing's simplistic view of "radicalism." Rather it represented an authoritarian and bureaucratic agenda - a desperate attempt to use parents to control teachers through a politically correct curriculum, yes, but more importantly to use them as canon fodder in the battle to control teachers and administrators. This authoritarian approach is entirely consistent with Ayers' long held political views as he has consistently sided politically with the most undemocratic regimes available, including most recently that of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.

And at Ayers' side the entire time during this battle was his comrade-in-arms, Barack Obama, who served as President and Chairman of the board of directors of the Challenge.

Yet again, a jihad terror attack is ended because of an armed populace:

An Arab driver rammed his car into a group of pedestrians at a central Jerusalem thoroughfare late Monday night, wounding 15 people, before being shot dead, police and rescue officials said.

It was the third such attack in the city in recent months.

The 11:00 p.m. attack at the city's Kikar Tzahal near Jaffa Gate ended quickly after the Arab assailant was shot and killed by passersby, Jerusalem police spokesman Shmuel Ben-Ruby said.

Two of casualties were seriously hurt.

The area in question is adjacent to east Jerusalem and the Old City of Jerusalem.

The assailant, who was driving a BMW, crashed into pedestrians on the sidewalk, where his car came to a grinding halt.

The casualties were rushed to Jerusalem's Hadassah-University Hospital at Ein Kerem, and the city's Sha'are Tzedek Hospital.

The attack comes after two back-to-back bulldozer attacks in Jerusalem in July which left three Israelis dead and dozens wounded.

Update: The terrorist was an Arab resident of East Jerusalem, as were the perpetrators of the last two attacks were. Most of the injured were part of a group of off-duty soldiers touring the Old City. The attacker was shot dead "within seconds by an off-duty IDF officer who was touring the city with his unit."

Once there was a professional class of journalists exposing corruption. Today reporters are nearly all leftist partisans. Instead, bloggers are filling in the breach. Today's spotlight is on the Jawa Report:

Extensive research was conducted by the Jawa Report to determine the source of smears directed toward Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Those smears included false allegations that she belonged to a secessionist political party and that she has radical anti-American views.

Our research suggests that a subdivision of one of the largest public relations firms in the world most likely started and promulgated rumors about Sarah Palin that were known to be false. These rumors were spread in a surreptitious manner to avoid exposure.

It is also likely that the PR firm was paid by outside sources to run the smear campaign. While not conclusive, evidence suggests a link to the Barack Obama campaign. Namely:

Evidence suggests that a YouTube video with false claims about Palin was uploaded and promoted by members of a professional PR firm.

The family that runs the PR firm has extensive ties to the Democratic Party, the netroots, and are staunch Obama supporters.

Evidence suggests that the firm engaged in a concerted effort to distribute the video in such a way that it would appear to have gone viral on its own. Yet this effort took place on company time.

Evidence suggests that these distribution efforts included actions by at least one employee of the firm who is unconnected with the family running the company.

The voice-over artist used in this supposedly amateur video is a professional.

This same voice-over artist has worked extensively with David Axelrod's firm, which has a history of engaging in phony grassroots efforts, otherwise known as "astroturfing."

David Axelrod is Barack Obama's chief media strategist.

The same voice-over artist has worked directly for the Barack Obama campaign.

This suggests that false rumors and outright lies about Sarah Palin and John McCain being spread on the internet are being orchestrated by political partisans and are not an organic grassroots phenomenon led by the left wing fringe.

Read the whole thing...

This blog is about fighting misconceptions that damage Israel and Western society. One that we don't generally discuss is the damage caused to young women by the modern liberal notion that we should not tell our daughters about the many males who seek to exploit them.

Here is an interesting study in that regard. The conclusions have been demonstrated before, but this one claims to show that the effect is causal. (The problem with most studies is that cause and effect is hard to separate.)

YOUNG girls who are sexually active are far more likely to suffer from depression than those who remain virgins, according to a controversial study.

Mainstream news bias here. The conclusions would be scientifically controversial only if they contradicted previous studies, which they do not. They are only controversial in that they contradict the liberal conspiracy of trying to convince impressionable girls that they should be succumbing to peer pressure and acting as if it is no big deal.

Academics found that teenage sex leaves many girls with feelings of guilt and low self-esteem.

Following a study of more than 14,000 US teens aged between 14 and 17, researchers said the feelings could be directly ascribed to sexual activity, rather than outside influences.

The study, published in the Journal of Health Economics, found that having sex doubled the chances of girls becoming depressed, with 19 per cent of those who had sex exhibiting symptoms of depression, compared with 9.2 per cent who had abstained.

The study also found that the mental health of boys in the same age group did not correlate with sexually active.

Or as Jacob's sons would put it in Genesis:

ha-k'zonah ye'aseh et achoteinu?

Should our sister be treated as a harlot?

Here is a must-read on the topic.

Few have seen this viciously anti-Semitic video by Barack Obama's pastor:



Obama later covered up just how close he was to Rev. Wright. This video shows the truth--they were exceptionally close:

Ehud Olmert handed in his official letter of resignation today, but will remain as 'acting Prime Minister,' a position that could last for months:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert now is officially a lame duck head of government after he resigned Sunday night, but he remains in power until newly-elected Kadima party leader Tzipi Livni forms a coalition or is forced to go to the polls. His legal position has changed in that he cannot be suspended from office, but he still can fire Cabinet ministers.

President Peres invited all of the heads of the 13 Knesset factions for consultations, a formal act before asking Livni, as head of the largest party, to form a new coalition.

She already has gone into action to attempt to win over opposition parties although she has not yet received the formal go-ahead from the President, after which she will have 42 days in which to accomplish her task. If she does not, President Peres can ask another party to form a coalition, which would be highly unlikely, or call for new elections within 90 days.

Lipstick.



Although it now seems obvious that Tzipi Livni will be the next Prime Minister, it does not have to be that way for long if this joke catches on. It encapsulates everything insiders know about her.

Kadima exit polls show Livni beating Mofaz by 10-12%

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni was in the lead of the race for Kadima's leadership, with Transportation Minister Shaul Mofaz at least 10 percentage points behind, according to three exit polls published by the leading news channels shortly before the polling stations were closed at 10:30 p.m.

According to Channel 1, Livni earned 47% of the votes on Wednesday, while Mofaz earned 37%; Channel 2 had Livni with 48 percent of the votes, and Mofaz with 37%; and Channel 10 had the largest gap, with Livni holding 49% of the votes, and Mofaz at 37%.

Far behind were the other two contenders in the race, Public Security Minister Avi Dichter and Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit, both earning no more than 7 percent of the votes in at least two of the polls.

The statistics were published in a poll and do not portray actual results.

(Hat tip: Dan Friedman)

This is really funny:

Consider Sarah Palin's national security argument for developing Alaska's energy supplies as a way of averting Middle East blackmail in light of the following stories from today:

Iran Boasts Its Forces Can Control the Gulf

Iran has the power to control the Gulf as no vessel can cross the vital seaway without coming in range of its sophisticated weaponry, a top aide to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Tuesday. Gen. Rahim Yahya Safavi, the former commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guards, told the official news agency IRNA: "Responsibility for defending the Persian Gulf has been handed over to the naval forces of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps." Their missiles can cover the entire width of the Gulf and "no ship can cross it without being within range."

IAEA Info Suggests Iran Worked on Nuclear Missile

The UN nuclear monitoring agency shared new photos and documents purporting to show that Iran tried to refit its main long-distance missile to carry a nuclear payload, said diplomats who attended the IAEA meeting Tuesday in Vienna. Iranian officials say the missile has a range of 1,250 miles, enabling a strike on Israel and most of the Middle East. The presentation "showed board members for the first time photographs and documents of work undertaken in Iran on the redesigning of the Shahab-3 missile to carry what would appear to be a nuclear weapon," said Gregory L. Schulte, the chief U.S. representative to the IAEA. He said the senior IAEA official doing the briefing "told us that information they have is very credible."

Italian PM Warns: Ahmadinejad Means What He Says

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi accused Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Tuesday of "lunacy" and warned against taking his words too lightly. "I think we must pay the utmost attention to the lunacy of someone who says, perhaps for internal reasons, that Israel must be wiped off the map," Berlusconi said in a speech to a Jewish organization in Paris.

What if Iran decides to turn the screws after something worse than Hurricane Ike, when much of the US domestic supply is temporarily knocked out? Wouldn't it make sense to have a backup in Alaska?

Consider the Democratic alternative on Iran: their foreign policy guru, Joe Biden, had this wisdom to dispense over the years:

In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, he was quoted floating this idea: "Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran." Another incident involves his telling Israeli officials that they would just have to reconcile themselves to a nuclear Iran.

Given today's large-scale terror attack in Yemen, it is worth noting that this is utterly predictable given that Yemen openly hosts and finances both Hamas and Hizballah. (By the way, how can that be--we've been told that it's critical for Sarah Palin to understand the earth-shaking implications of the fact that one is Sunni and one is Shi'ite?).

It is also worth reminding readers that two years ago, IRIS reported that the U.S. is assisting Yemen with its nuclear development.

Yemen is the country in which half of all married women are under 15. (In the West, by comparison, it's probably close to 50.)

No-nothings will crow on the news today about the 'return of terrorism,' ignoring the fact that this is just one of over 10,000 jihad terrorist attacks since 9/11:

Sixteen people, including six soldiers, six militants and four bystanders, were killed in the twin car bombing, the interior ministry said.

The US embassy says none of its staff has been hurt.

Witnesses said gunmen raked the Yemeni police detachment outside the heavily fortified embassy compound before a suicide bomber blew up a car right by the entrance, setting off a fire.

They spoke of a series of explosions as the embassy came under rocket as well as small arms fire, in what is the second attack on the US mission this year.

Yesterday the shocking news was reported that Barack Obama undermined US foreign policy during his Iraq trip. Allegedly, he lobbied Iraqi officials to delay drawing down the number of American soldiers stationed there. Today, the Obama camp released the most incompetent denial imaginable:

Obama’s national security spokeswoman Wendy Morigi said Taheri’s article bore "as much resemblance to the truth as a McCain campaign commercial."

In fact, Obama had told the Iraqis that they should not rush through a "Strategic Framework Agreement" governing the future of US forces until after President George W. Bush leaves office, she said.