Unsurprisingly, Lincoln Chaffee is one of them. As is Jim Leach (who supported sending Dhimmi Carter as an envoy to “broker peace” between Israel and the Palestinians). And Rita Hauser.
Wait a minute–who is Rita Hauser?
Glad you asked.
A professor coming to Columbia University this fall to head up a Middle East studies institute has said that killing armed Israelis is legitimate Palestinian “resistance” to occupation.
The money Columbia is using to pay the professor comes in part from Rita Hauser, a high-profile New York philanthropist whose former law firm was a registered agent of the Palestinian Authority. Also contributing was a foundation with close ties to Saudi Arabia.
So, a message to Team Obammesiah: You want these three self-loathing, mental midget clowns to head up your “GOP for Obama” contingent? Fine. They’re a great match for your self-loathing, America-blaming platform.
You can have them, with shouts of “good riddance,” to boot.
Take all the RINOs you want.
We never claimed them to begin with.
Tags: RINOs
August 16th, 2008 at 10:56am
Leo Pusateri
Just a bit amazing that such a person could be exposed enough to the Christian message to become a convert:
Masab-Joseph Yousef, a son of prominent West Bank MP Sheikh Hassan Yousef, has discussed his conversion to Christianity in an interview with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Praying that his family will “open their eyes to Jesus,” he expressed love for his enemies and claimed Muslims’ conversion to Christianity is the only way to have a chance for peace in the Holy Land.
Yousef, 30, said his first exposure to Christianity came in Jerusalem about eight years ago, when he was invited to learn about the faith. He converted four years ago, but did not tell his father. “For years I helped my father, the Hamas leader, and he didn’t know that I had converted, only that I had Christian friends,” he said to Haaretz.
His father, Sheikh Yousef, was a founder of the extremist group Hamas in the West Bank and was imprisoned for several years for his membership in the organization.
Masab-Joseph Yousef, the oldest of eight siblings, was expected to take an active role assisting in the political work of his father, whom he claimed is opposed to killing civilians. He characterized the Israelis’ arrests of his father as very influential events in his life.
“I only knew that the Israeli army had arrested my father repeatedly, and for me he was everything: a good, loving man who would do anything for me. He took care of us, bought us gifts, gave of himself, whereas the soldiers entered our house and took him away from me.”
Arrested at the age of 18 for his leadership role in his high school Islamic society, Yousef told Haaretz he discovered in prison that most Hamas members were not as admirable as his father.
“Their leaders in prison received better conditions, such as the best food, as well as more family visits and towels for the shower. These people have no morals, they have no integrity,” he said, alleging Hamas leaders also embezzle money meant for widowed families.
Yousef, who now lives in California, described how an invitation to learn more about Christianity led him to convert.
“I was very enthusiastic about what I heard. I began to read the Bible every day and I continued with religion lessons. I did it in secret, of course. I used to travel to the Ramallah hills, to places like the Al Tira neighborhood, and to sit there quietly with the amazing landscape and read the Bible.”
“A verse like ‘Love thine enemy’ had a great influence on me,” he continued. “At this stage I was still a Muslim and I thought that I would remain one. But every day I saw the terrible things done in the name of religion by those who considered themselves ‘great believers.’”
I am reminded of St. Francis’ project to end the Crusades by converting the Islamic world to Christianity, on the theory that it is better to make Christians than destroy Moslems - it didn’t work, of course, but not for lack of trying on St. Francis’ part. A very different world would it be had success crowned his efforts…
Aside from that, the story here is important because it shows that cross-cultural understanding between Islam and Christianity is possible. Someone looked past Yousef’s background and decided to introduce to him a new idea, and the courage that person showed has been rewarded by the development of a man who not only doesn’t kill for his religion, but can’t even comprehend the concept any longer. We need not fight each other forever, provided we recognise our common humanity and see in the other person another glorious creation of God, and not an enemy.
Tags: Christianity, Hamas, Islam, Israel, Masab-Joseph Yousef
August 16th, 2008 at 08:48am
Mark Noonan
THere is much speculation - and much conservative heartache - over this concept. As for me, I’ll quote that really clever guy, myself, from January 2, 2006:
The United States has many problems facing it over the next ten yeas. In spite of assertions to the contrary in some quarters, we must reform Social Security and Medicare before they go bankrupt, or bankrupt the nation. We must get a handle on our energy shortages - both expansion of current sources and development of replacements demand our attention. We have to figure out what sort of immigration policy we are going to have. These are just some of the bigger issues we face - there are, of course, scores of lesser issues which also must be given their due time - but the most important issue facing the United States over the next ten years is the War on Terrorism. Literally millions of lives are at stake, as well as having the liberty of the world hanging in the balance. The War on Terrorism is a war we must win, and it is a war which will take at least another 5 to 10 years to win.
In five years, it will be January 2nd, 2011…President Bush will have been out of office for nearly two years. We know that President Bush will keep fighting this war no matter what right up to the end…but the end for President Bush comes on January 20th, 2009. Who shall take over on that day? Will that person be as determined upon fighting until victory? God help us all if he is not…
…McCain is just about my least favorite Republican and while Joe Lieberman is my favorite Democrat, he is quite the liberal, and this conservative doesn’t agree with either man all that much. But one thing we can know with fair certainty is that both men have the guts and determination to see this war through to victory. A man who spent time in the Hanoi Hilton isn’t going to quit when the going gets tough, and Joe Lieberman has stood up to his Party’s leftwing base when most center/liberal Democrats have cravenly given into it. So, I propose a ticket with John McCain and Joe Lieberman.
It is my view that a McCain/Lieberman ticket is not only just about unbeatable, but is a ticket which any smart politician will recognize as unbeatable. Only a full-blown fanatic would think of running against them - and that, in the end, is precisely what we want.
You see, it isn’t good enough in 2008 that a pro-victory candidate wins: he must win convincingly. War is called politics by another means, and there is massive truth in that. The politics of this war are that we must, as far as possible, show a united face to our armed enemies - this is the only way we’ll ever convince them of the hopelessness of their cause. Right now, outside observers could easily believe that there is a massive anti-war movement in the United States which, any day now, will force America to withdraw from the war and hand our enemies a victory. Truth is, the anti-war movement isn’t that large, and no amount of old hippies out there demonstrating are likely to change President Bush’s mind…but this does make fighting the war harder, and it’d be a lot easier if the President and Vice President on January 20th, 2009 can claim a mandate from a large majority of Americans.
While a McCain/Lieberman ticket might upset some of my fellow conservatives, I don’t think the political bleeding on the right will be even close to the number of centrist Democrats who will flock to a McCain/Lieberman ticket…
…Victory in war and the health of our political system may end up requiring a McCain/Lieberman ticket - and if we secure a crushing victory for pro-victory liberals, centrists and conservatives, then we will have entirely marginalized the left. Eventually, of course, a political contraption which includes Joe Lieberman and Jon Kyl will fly apart due to internal contradictions - but we only need such a thing to work for 6 years or so. This would allow us time to win the war - or do so much that even a defeatist couldn’t lose the war - as well as purging the left from our political discourse. Eventually the more liberal part of the new coalition splits off to form a replacement party for the Democrats, while the more conservative elements of the GOP remain in charge of the Party.
I don’t like the idea of President McCain all that much - he is too easily swayed by elite opinion makers (the guy is a major camera-hog and it gets him into trouble with the right time and again), while Joe Lieberman adheres to too many economic liberal positions. But this isn’t about winning one for the Party or even winning one for conservatism - this is about ensuring that the United States government has the leadership necessary to secure total victory. For the sake of the nation, all men of good will can certainly swallow a bit of gall and get on with the important things - we can always start arguing about levels of taxation at a later date; I’m a member of an organization which stands for God and Country - and that is motto I hope to genuinely live up to. Much as I like clear victories for my particular side, the fate of my nation is far more important.
Do keep in mind that this is the official position of no one but myself - I owe the concept to no one, and I am unaware of anyone other than my father who agrees with the idea. Nothing which has happened in the 2 years, 7 months since I wrote that has caused me to change my opinion about the worth of a McCain/Lieberman ticket.
Tags: Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Veepstakes
August 16th, 2008 at 01:55am
Mark Noonan
Lie down with dogs, come up with fleas:
The couple hosted a naked rally for presidential candidate Barack Obama and naked karaoke nights. A friend’s “mobile sex dungeon” — created in a small cargo truck — was parked alongside the house.
Am I being unfair? I don’t think so - it was the lefties who said this sort of thing was ok, not we conservatives…
Tags: Barack Obama
August 16th, 2008 at 01:42am
Mark Noonan
We’ll still probably be greatly outspent by the left since they have a large number of fat-cats who will donate to 527s, but we’re certainly not going into the fall campaign unarmed:
WASHINGTON - John McCain and the Republican National Committee started August with a hefty $96 million, financially flush and strongly positioned to compete with prolific fundraiser Barack Obama and (his) Democrats.
Republicans have been trying to even out the financial playing field after trailing Democrats in overall fundraising for most of the election cycle.
McCain has been a subpar fundraiser and has lagged the much-more adept Obama in monthly campaign tallies. But the RNC, with big-draw President Bush helping, has trounced its Democratic counterpart in collections. That has helped McCain and the GOP stay competitive financially with Obama and the Democratic National Committee.
The July numbers reflect how far McCain and the Republicans have come.
McCain raised $27 million in July, his largest one-month fundraising haul since clinching the GOP presidential nomination, and had $21 million available to spend, while the RNC brought in nearly $26 million, and had $75 million on hand to compete with the Democrats.
Money doesn’t win elections (just ask Hillary, who once had vastly more funds than Obama), but the fact that the GOP has managed, in this allegedly massively anti-GOP year, to have nearly $100 million ready for the fall campaign shows that, just perhaps, support for the GOP isn’t quite as anemic as the punditry and conventional wisdom claims. I think that a lot of illusions will be cleared away in November, on both sides (though I suspect that the left is in for a far ruder awakening than the right is).
Tags: fundraising, John McCain, RNC
August 15th, 2008 at 08:44pm
Mark Noonan
When your back is against the wall and your fundamental beliefs are challenged, just what do you do? McCain and the other residents of the Hanoi Hilton showed rare courage:
“There were many times I didn’t pray for another day and I didn’t pray for another hour — I prayed for another minute to keep going,” said McCain, who was brought up Episcopalian but now worships at North Phoenix Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist church. “There’s no doubt that my faith was strengthened and reinforced and tested, because sometimes you have a tendency to say, ‘Why am I here?’ “…
…The prisoners decided that every Sunday, after they had eaten their rice, the highest-ranking officer would cough loudly and say the letter ‘c’ for church. The prisoners would then say the Pledge of Allegiance, the Lord’s Prayer and the 23rd Psalm. The psalm was said in plural: “Yea, though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death we will fear no evil.”
Prisoners used diarrhea pills mixed with cigarette ash—or charcoal or dirt—to write lines of Scripture and surreptitiously share them.
The church riot erupted after U.S. Special Forces raided a site about 40 miles from Hanoi trying to rescue prisoners who, it turned out, were no longer there. The Vietnamese, fearing more such raids, rounded up American POWs and moved them from other outlying camps into Hanoi. That meant an end to isolation, as dozens of prisoners were packed together.
“We agreed that we were going to have a church service and told the Vietnamese, and they said no,” recalled fellow prisoner Bud Day. But on Feb. 12, 1970, the prisoners went ahead anyway, holding a service and singing songs.
“The Vietnamese broke in and seized the people who were standing against the wall doing the service,” Day said. “They marched them out of the room at gunpoint. So I stood up and started singing ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,’ ‘God Bless America,’ ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee’ and every song we could think of.”
The Vietnamese stormed back in, putting a definitive end to the service.
“We wanted to actually just have a chance to do what we felt was a fundamental human right … and we got spiritual comfort from being able to worship together,” McCain said. “We thought, look, if we’re going to be together, then we’re going to stand up. … They’d done so many bad things that we weren’t nearly as afraid of them as maybe we would have been if a lot of us hadn’t gone through what we’d gone through.”
There are some people who think that the act of saying something - like, for instance, giving an obscure speech against liberating Iraq - is an act of courage…but a real act of courage is when you do or say something which can put you in immediate risk of life and limb. John McCain has done this before, and so we can rely upon it that when its time to speak the truth and act upon it - regardless of how harsh - McCain will know that the worst thing that can happen to him, won’t happen. It already did. Character really does count in a President - all the intellect in the world is worthless if it isn’t joined with the simple courage to take a stand.
Tags: Acts of Courage, Hanoi Hilton, John McCain
August 15th, 2008 at 12:22pm
Mark Noonan
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