Monthly Archives: March 2015

Presstitutes & Politicians: Seamlessly Unseemly

As was noted in “Brian Williams: Member Of Media Circle Jerk,” America’s presstitutes are “no better than the lobbyists and the politicians they petition, they move seamlessly between their roles as activists, experts and anchors; publishers and authors; talkers and product peddlers; pinups and pontificators.”

And their wives follow the gravy train.

In the tradition of keeping you in the loop of the corrupt conflict-of-interest unseemliness that typifies the American media—I’m glad to report that Chris Matthews’ “queen” (no, it’s not Barack Obama) is running for office. The anchor promised that if Kathleen Matthews “runs for office her campaign will be covered fairly by the network.”

That’s not the point, pinhead: The point is that the male Matthews’ access has likely facilitated his wife’s access.

The queen of conflict on interest is Hillary Clinton (and the subject of this week’s column). Just one of her infractions had to do with enabling Anthony Weiner’s long-suffering wife, Huma Abedin, to get “status in June 2012 as a “Special Government Employee,” enabling her to hold down multiple jobs in the private sector while she also collected a State Department paycheck.”

Israel: Why So Safe

Crime, Israel, Neoconservatism, South-Africa

The positions advanced by the “American” Israel Firster, neoconservative fifth column are riddled with contradictions. On his Facebook Timeline, Jack Kerwick points to one of many such gaping inconsistencies.

Jack Kerwick: I don’t speak much of Israel. It’s just not one of my interests. But to hear some movement “conservatives” in the so-called “conservative” media speak, you’d swear that Israel is infallible, for never, ever, do they utter a so much as a peep’s worth of criticism of it. And any criticism aimed at it is abruptly dismissed as a function of “anti-Semitism.” Israel, we are incessantly told, faces an “existential threat” to its existence. But then such ardent Israel supporters as Dennis Prager and Mike Gallagher, while encouraging listeners to sign up for the trip to Israel that they will be hosting later in the year, swear that Israel is among the safest places on Earth, and certainly far safer than many AMERICAN cities. But I thought that it faces an “existential threat?” Can someone please tell me: What’s really going on here?

My reply:

The Israeli state protects its own, unlike the US. I suspect it’s because even politicians can’t emigrate with ease; and their kids must serve in the army as well. No exemptions. Israel, in fairness, is not like the US, where elites and dynastic families, as opposed to the natural aristocracy, run the show to their advantage. Moreover, crime rates are very low. Last I checked, for my book, death-by-murder rates in Israel were 3.7 per 100,000 for civilians only; 4.3 when soldiers were included. That is dazzlingly low—read “Exodus from SA to Israel”—a function, in part, of population composition; its homogeneity, etc., although this too is changing.

Media’s Hillary Straw-Argument Strategy

Democrats, Hillary Clinton, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media, Republicans

Not for nothing are they called the Stupid Party. Republicans (at least someone is now copy-editing S. E. Cupp’s piss-poor prose, which has improved slightly) have fallen for what I suspect is not so much a deliberate tactic on the part of the liberal media, but a reflexive strategy:

Hound Hillary Rodham Clinton for lesser, technocratic offenses, allowing her to evade responsibility for serious crimes: the crime that was the war on Libya, Hillary’s special project, for one. Benghazi is another.

Hillary Clinton, the woman who cracked the whip at Foggy Bottom at the time, had clearly resolved to run the U.S. embassy in Benghazi, Libya, as one would an open community center. This was meant to signal that her war on Libya had been a success, when in fact Hillary’s adventure there had as much “host-nation support” as George Bush’s faith-based forays into Iraq and Afghanistan.

The hyperventilating over Hillary Clinton’s unorthodox email account is probably overblown and certainly suspect. Hint: Look at the many left-liberals leading the “charge” against the former secretary of state for conducting the affairs of state via a non-governmental e-mail address.

The New York Times, President Obama’s first press secretary, Robert Gibbs, CNN groupies Brianna Keilar and DANA BASH, who huffed:

I think concern is an understatement. There is a lot of fretting going on right now. I’ve been talking on the phone, I’ve been e- mailing with Democratic lawmakers, with other Democratic sources because, you know, she’s their horse. She’s it. And, obviously, a concern among Democrats has been about her, her baggage. There’s no other way to put it. And as Jake was just talking about with Chris, what this exposes isn’t just some troubles about these e-mails, but it took, maybe not unlike Mitt Romney and his 47 percent problem, that was a problem because it fed a narrative. And this feeds a narrative that the Clintons feel like they are above everything else. They can get around the laws, fair or not. Perhaps in this case it is unfair if we get all the information. That’s what Democrats are very, very concerned about.

And Ron Fournier of National Journal. He calls this email “scandal” “seedy, sanctimonious, self-important, slick.” Fournier is careful, however, to offer disclaimers.

I admire their intelligence and passion and empathy. They’ve [the Clintons] been good to my family. I’ve actually long thought that she has the potential to be a better president than he was.

Yes, major media are all part of one big “circle jerk.”

In any event, this line of attack on Hillary is not worth a straw. It lets her go scot-free for war crimes.

UPDATED: Rep. Steve Cohen On Bibi’s Bombast

Democrats, Ethics, Etiquette, Foreign Policy, Israel

“Lincoln Bedroom Or The American People’s House?” expressed my objection to the partisan practice of placing the American People’s House for hire by the foreign dignitary favored by the majority du jour. (The “Lincoln Bedroom” alluded to a practice Bill Clinton inaugurated of renting out this White House bedroom to big-time donors and political pals.)

As explained, “it was an abomination when Mexican President Felipe Calderon was allowed to address the Congress in May of 2010, and it is an abomination for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to have been permitted to issue forth before a joint session of the American Congress.”

Rep. Steve Cohen, Democrat from Tennessee, and obviously Jewish, had expressed similar disdain for the spectacle, in an official statement:

Speaker Boehner and other Republicans supporting the speech are giving a foreign leader the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives as a forum to present a counterargument to the foreign policy peace efforts of the President of the United States who has constitutional authority over foreign affairs. This speech is high theater for a re-election campaign in Israel and a political tool wielded against our President and his Administration by the Speaker of the House.

It is almost certain that, unlike this scribe, Cohen will have proven inconsistent: He likely objected not at all to the Democrats’ choice to pimp the Chamber to their pet client state of Mexico.

Nevertheless, Rep. Steve Cohen’s allusions, after the speech, to “political theatre” are reasonable too:

It was putting Netanyahu on an equal level with the president of the United States,” said Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn. “And that was wrong.”

UPDATE: Via CNN:

BLITZER: We’ve now just heard from the president of the United States. He’s in a meeting with the new secretary of defense, Ash Carter. And reporters were inside at the start of that meeting. The president said he did not have a chance to watch the Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech before a joint meeting of the United States Congress but he did say he read the transcript, and then added pointedly there was, in his words, “nothing new.” We’ll get that videotape, play it for the viewers as soon as that pool comes out of the Oval Office in the White House.

Let’s get more reaction, a different perspective. Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen is joining us from Tennessee.

Congressman, you didn’t want to attend the meeting. You didn’t attend the meeting. I assume you watched it, though, on television, right?

REP. STEVE COHEN, (D), TENNESSEE: I watched it with a group of AIPAC’s representatives from Memphis, about 15, in my office.

BLITZER: What’s your reaction? Did the prime minister convince you?

COHEN: It was a — no, he didn’t convince me. It was political theater and that’s why I didn’t attend. It used the chamber to put him in a position that the president is often in, address the Congress at the State of the Union. This puts him on equal footing with the president of the United States. I thought that was wrong. I wasn’t going to be part of it. I didn’t attend.

I think the political theater was worthy of an Oscar. It was a great speech for Prime Minister Netanyahu’s reelection in Israel, a good speech for Speaker Boehner connecting to the AIPAC and the Jewish republican force that was here, but it was not a good speech for the future of having a denuclearized Iran. That conversation should be taking place in Geneva, not here in Washington before the cameras. I’m afraid it created a greater schism between the president and the prime minister. And that’s not good for Israel and not good for world peace.

BLITZER: I’m sure that the relationship, which was bad to begin with, is a whole lot worse right now, that personal relationship between the president of the United States and the prime minister of Israel.

But on the substance, when he said, this current deal is really bad, will undermine potentially Israel’s very existence, what do you say?

COHEN: Well, he doesn’t know what the deal is. And he wouldn’t be in favor of any deal. He talked about a Persian bazaar and you walk away and they go back, and, oh, mister, mister, I’ll take this price. It’s not the same thing. If the Iranians have shown they don’t necessary make a deal. If they don’t make a deal, they’re not going to be down on their knees. They’re going to bend their back, straighten up their back and they may be tougher. I think it will hurt. 200 Israeli generals and security officials said this drives us further away from a good deal with Iran and I think it drove us away. BLITZER: Steve Cohen, the Democratic congressman from Tennessee,

[SNIP]