UPDATED: Palestinians Share Sweets And Tweets To Celebrate Synagogue Massacre (CNN, Making-Up The News)

Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Terrorism

Barack Obama shared not his moral outrage over the butchering of Israelis, but his penchant for moral equivalence. “The majority of Palestinians and Israelis overwhelmingly want peace,” he intoned (as the royal proboscis grew a bit). Not so. A preponderance of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza approve of attacks on Israeli civilians.

Duly, Palestinians shared sweets and tweets to celebrate the murder of four rabbis in prayer. A Druze Israeli policeman died of his wounds hours after he was shot in the gunfight that ended the attack. (Times Of Israel.)

MORE “sweet” images, via Powerline Blog.

“The Orthodox Jewish men were facing east,” reports the New York Times, “to honor the Old City site where the ancient temples once stood, when two Palestinians armed with a gun, knives and axes burst into their synagogue Tuesday morning, shouting ‘God is great!’ in Arabic. Within moments, three rabbis and a fourth pious man lay dead, blood pooling on their prayer shawls and holy books.”

UPDATE (11/19): CNN, Making-Up The News. On Tuesday, reports NewsBusters, “CNN initially broadcast to the world news that Israelis had shot two Arabs in a ‘mosque’ in Jerusalem. Only belatedly did they correct that false story and report that those terrorists shot in a synagogue had first murdered Jews worshipping [sic] peacefully. Those terrorists were armed with knives, axes, and a gun.”

CNN apologized, of course, and will doubtless defend themselves as reporting only the news as it first came to them. It is nonetheless the case that blaming the Israelis first is part of the “narrative” the Left employs whenever dealing with the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Keeping A Cool Head About Proceedings In Ferguson

Justice, Law, Race

I’ve described him as “a usually reserved, dignified, civil-rights attorney.” Writing in The Daily Beast, Paul Callan expatiates on those “ill-informed ‘experts'” who’re misleading the public on the grand jury proceedings in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown by Officer Darren Wilson. “There’s No Conspiracy in Ferguson’s Secret Jury”:

… If the evidence provides reasonable cause to believe a crime was committed, the grand jurors’ oath requires a vote to indict.

On the other hand, if Officer Wilson is found to have acted lawfully in his use of deadly force, then he deserves a dismissal and the right to salvage whatever scraps of a normal life will be left for him when the case is over. Only the facts of this case are relevant. The grand jury is not charged with resolving the issue of police brutality or even sending a message about it.

The law authorizes police officers to use deadly physical force in a wider variety of situations than permitted for ordinary citizens. It can be used not only in self-defense but also in certain cases to subdue a fleeing felon who poses a danger to the officer or the public. A police officer has no duty to retreat and can stand his ground even though an encounter with a potentially dangerous suspect might be avoided by backing off and waiting for help. The prosecutor will provide instructions on these and other important legal principles before the grand jury votes to indict or return “No True Bill,” precluding a trial.

Though the grand jury is an imperfect forum for resolving social issues, it works very well in finding truth. …

… The grand jury inquiry affords opportunity to test accuracy of witness accounts. If the witness did in fact witness such a terrible crime, the testimony will survive in the crucible of cross-examination. If true, it will have a discernable consistency with the forensic evidence. Was the witness really in the time and place to have made the claimed observations? Was the suspect raising his hands in a surrender gesture or could the arm placement have been viewed from a different angle as an aggressive “tackle” gesture? How close was Michael Brown to Officer Wilson when he turned in Wilson’s direction? How much time did the officer have to react? Do the varied autopsy reports support or contradict witness testimony? Did Michael Brown have a motive to violently attack the officer?

MORE.

UPDATE III: Rehabilitating Bush 43 (Remember W’s BLU-82Bs? Iraqis Do.)

Bush

Barack Obama’s cringe-factor is sufficiently high for conservatives to feel comfortable about dusting off an equally awful man, and presenting him and his dynastic clan to the public for another round: George Bush.

From the Fox-News crypt:

* Bush Says Some U.S. Forces Should Have Stayed in Iraq, Hasn’t Heard From Obama.

* Bush 43: Dad ‘Offered Me Love & Humor’ in My Presidency.

There was lots to laugh about during the Bush years.

UPDATED I: One man’s meat is another man’s poison. GOPers gravitate towards the Bush badness; Democrats toward the BHO evil. However, “George W. Bush was Bad To The Bone.”

UPDATE II: Remember Bush’s BLU-82s? Iraqis Do. On July 16, 2003, I wrote that “Bush [I]s the poster boy for ‘the degeneracy of manner and morals’ which James Madison warned war would bring—the same ‘bring ’em on’ grin one can also observe on the face of a demented patient with end-stage syphilis. …” Bush is evil. Ask the tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians cut down by W’s daisy cutters.

UPDATE III (11/18): Via Facebook:

Stephen James Bernier:

How is it when you point out the obvious faults of George W. Bush you are a “Bush hater”. When you point out the faults of Barack Hussein Obama you are a “patriot”?

IM:

Stephen James Bernier, You said it all. It’s the story of my “career.” My column’s syndication came to an end b/c I spent years heaping on that freak of morality and intelligence that is Bush. Yeah, a good guy who destroyed a country and a people including an ancient christian community. Yeah, he meant well. I prosecuted every aspect of his degeneracy, based in fact and analysis. And I do the same for BHO. But impartiality about evil has never worked in the US. You gotta be a partisan to succeed. As Craig Paul Roberts once wrote, after his own syndication was terminated for same reasons, the people want their perspective confirmed. The op-ed editors give them want they want; not want they need to be a moral, smart people. That’s all. But as Myron Pauli, who has been along with me for some of my bumpy ride, said, this debate is beneath warriors who’ve done all they can.

UPDATED: J-Grub Keeps Going (Republicans Reject 0-Care … For Themselves)

Healthcare, Racism, Republicans

Jonathan Gruber implies that critics of ObamaCare are misinformed and racist:

UPDATE: 0-Care: It’s good for thee, but not for me. Via National Review:

House Republicans last week voted down an amendment that would have required all of their staff members to purchase insurance from the federal health exchanges established by the Affordable Care Act.
The voice vote took place behind closed doors and has received little public attention. The dispute is one more rift between right-leaning members of the caucus and some members of leadership, albeit not a hugely consequential one.
In the Senate, a similar vote was kicked to next month or, potentially, next year …