By Andrew L. Jaffee

Some Senate Democrats are seeking to punish Joe Lieberman for being the independent, honest man he is. So Lieberman supported John McCain, an old friend. This is a crime? Lieberman “was re-elected in 2006 as an independent after losing his state’s Democratic primary. He remains a registered Democrat and aligns with the party inside the Senate.” It was his own state’s Democrats who tried to drum him out of the party. Some Democratic extremists recently wanted to strip Lieberman of his “chairmanship of the Senate Homeland Security Committee,” but it looks like Barack Obama wants to keep his promise of uniting the country:

… Anger toward Lieberman seems to have softened since Election Day and there’s strengthening sentiment that taking away his chairmanship might drive him from the Democratic caucus and send the wrong signals as Obama takes office on a pledge to unite the country. …

Obama has reportedly told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada it would hurt the message of unity that he wants for his new administration if Lieberman leaves the Democratic caucus. …

This is one “change I can believe in” from Obama, and I applaud his effort to rebuild unity.

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By Phyllis Chesler*

The Culture and Media Institute has just released a study entitled Character Assassination: How the TV Networks Have Portrayed Sarah Palin as Dunce or Demon. It documents that the mainstream media’s hostility to Governor Sarah Palin has been extreme, perhaps unprecedented. While the majority of the attacks have been launched by men, media women, including feminists on both sides of the aisle, have not been shy.

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by Daniel Pipes*

With Colin Powell now repeating the lie that Barack Obama has “always been a Christian,” despite new information further confirming Obama’s Muslim childhood (such as the Indonesian school registration listing him as Muslim), one watches with dismay as the Democratic candidate manages to hide the truth on this issue.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Barack Obama is desperately trying to distance himself from ACORN, but there’s no question that he is linked to the group. His campaign has even added a page to its website which denies all connections to ACORN, and makes it easy for visitors to copy and paste an obfuscatory sound-byte and email it to their friends. This blurb has already started to show up verbatim all over the Web.

ACORN is becoming an even bigger problem for the Obama camp, as it was revealed by The New York Times that, “Acorn’s top management is separately facing questions over its handling of the embezzlement of $1 million of its money by the brother of the group’s founder.”

Andrew C. McCarthy, writing for the National Review Online, pointed out today that Obama’s legal team has concocted a diversionary strategy to get out from under the big, heavy falling ACORN. These lawyers are twisting a supposedly legal issue into a purely political smokescreen meant solely to obscure the truth about the “grass-roots” organization’s nefarious activities. McCarthy provides a mountain of evidence documenting Obama’s relationship to ACORN, shows the extent to which the group has meddled with the voter registration process, and demonstrates how the Obama campaign is obfuscating, for example, trying to blur the lines delineating state and federal laws. The article also contains evidence of the Obama campaign’s disturbing funding sources. You should read the entire article, but I’ve selected some of the best sections below:

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

John Murtha, Democrat from Pennsylvania, has called his own constituents “racists.” In a story about Murtha’s foolishness, the AFP actually stated that he “… conceded his district is ‘racist’ but will still vote for Democratic hopeful Barack Obama …” Conceded? That is a highly-loaded term for a news agency to use, especially when describing such a subjective emotion like bigotry, and when applied to an entire region of America’s sixth largest state, with a population of 12,281,054. “Conceded” implies that Pennsylvanians in his district are in fact racist. (Concede: “To acknowledge, often reluctantly, as being true, just, or proper; admit.”) This is no less than an insult to his constituents, and a form of bigotry in and of itself as he and the AFP are stereotyping his people — and making a very serious accusation. Of course he provided no demographic study to prove his awful allegations. Furthermore, for Murtha to conclude that his district will vote for Obama is conceited and a stretch of imagination. Murtha is just acting inappropriately, which is par for the course for him.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

Barack Obama has found another inflammatory ally, Rep. John Lewis, Democrat from Georgia, to add to his long list of his extremely dubious supporters and connections. In a very ugly smear, Lewis today “likened the politics of Sen. John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin to segregationist Gov. George Wallace” and claimed that McCain and Palin were “sowing the seeds of hatred and division.” John McCain is no racist and has never fanned the flames of bigotry. In actuality, it is the Obama campaign which consorts with racists and seeks to create ugly racial divisions all in pursuit of the American presidency.

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By Barry Rubin

So sang the Rolling Stones. But which side has time working in its favor? That’s one of the Middle East’s most intriguing and controversial questions.

Recently, Israeli leaders and well-wishers–sincere and hypocritical alike–have spoken in panicky terms that time isn’t on Israel side and it’s either peace in a few months or the Biblical flood.

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By Andrew L. Jaffee

I hope Barack Obama distances himself from Rep. Alcee Hastings and his very ugly remarks directed at Sarah Palin. From CNN:

Rep. Alcee Hastings told an audience of Jewish Democrats Wednesday that they should be wary of Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin because “anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks.” …

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By Andrew Whitehead

On 23 September, the executive director, Hussam Ayloush, and the staff attorney, Ameena Qazi, of the Council on American-Islamic Relations Greater Los Angeles Area Chapter (CAIR-LA), wrote an unsigned letter to Dr. Stephen Choi of the Irvine, California City Council.

In the letter, Dr. Choi, an incumbent for office, was accused of referring to CAIR as a “dangerous Islamic organization”.

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By Phyllis Chesler

Ah yes, my people, my nation, my burden, my glory, my J Street. The Jews of J Street have named themselves after an imaginary street in Washington, DC, a suitable name for the kind of imaginary but dangerous human engineering projects they have in mind both for America and for the Middle East. The J Street Jews would rather die at Ahmadinejad’s hands as long as a Democrat is voted into the White House than to live if a Republican gains control of the White House. … (Continue reading…)

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By Barry Rubin

How does AP cover Israeli politics? Generally speaking, much better than it covers issues relating to the Arab-Israeli or Israeli-Palestinian politics. One reason for this is that the reporters tend to be people living in Israel who don’t have more knowledge and less political preconceptions, at least when covering these stories. Perhaps, too, there is less pressure from editors to push the approve line on the conflict.

On September 17, AP issues, “Next steps after Kadima primary election,” a factual summary of the situation. (AP “factual summaries” on conflict issues are often remarkably biased.) This one is reasonable:

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By Barry Rubin

One evening you’re walking down a street. A robber jumps on you to steal your wallet. You fight back and after a protracted battle you injure him enough so that he flees the scene.

The next day newspapers report that you assaulted a poor innocent man to mug him. From pulpits, religious leaders denounce you as a bad moral example that should be punished. Politicians urge that the forces of the law be deployed against you. Your attempts to defend yourself are ignored and dismissed as lies and excuses. Most people never even hear your version.

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By Phyllis Chesler

I watched ABC News Anchorman Charlie Gibson interview Governor Palin last night and was horrified by his blatant disdain for her and by the grand inquisitorial nature of the interview. He was not there to draw her out but to trap, shame and expose her as an unqualified fraud. He never smiled. He never paused. He literally looked down at her as he peered through his half-lowered glasses. He grilled her relentlessly, on and on, and when he thought she did not have the right answer, e.g., as to what the Bush Doctrine really is, he “failed” her right on camera. … (Continue reading…)

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by Ali Alfoneh*

Almost three decades after the Islamic Republic’s founding, former Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) commanders are infiltrating the political, economic, and cultural life of Iran. Half the members of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s cabinet are former IRGC officers,[1] and he has appointed several IRGC officers to provincial governorships. The IRGC’s rise has been deliberate. Facing both external opposition to Tehran’s pursuit of an indigenous nuclear enrichment capability and internal pressures for political and economic reforms, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei considers the IRGC officer corps more apt at crisis management than the bureaucratic teams of either former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (1989-97) or Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005). IRGC chief General Mohammad Ali Ja’fari’s announcement of internal restructuring to prepare the IRGC to counter “internal threats to the Islamic Republic”[2] reflects the organization’s expanding role. The Council of Guardians, which screens candidates before elections, privileged IRGC veterans, who won the bulk of seats in the March 2008 parliamentary elections. Whereas there has always been tension within the Islamic Republic’s elite concerning whether the Revolutionary Guards’ political or military role should be dominant, recent shifts suggest the debate is concluding as the IRGC cements a commanding influence over political decision-making.

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By Barry Rubin

I read recently that Labour party leader and minister of defense Ehud Barak is trying to sell his luxury apartment for 40 million shekels which is, at current exchange rates…well, a lot of money. In fact it is about 10 times what the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s apartment sold for not long ago.

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