ping
Like many American Jews, I was brought up to believe that if I pulled the Republican lever on the election machine my right hand would wither and, as the Psalmist says, my tongue would cleave to the roof of my mouth.
According to the Bible, of course, these are the feared consequences of forgetting Jerusalem. Now although there are many reasons one might want to vote for John F. Kerry, remembering Jerusalem &emdash; remembering to stand up for the state of Israel &emdash; is not among them.
It is true that Kerry's campaign pronouncements have been unexceptionable from the pro-Zionist point of view. Yes, he flip-flopped on the miles of trenches and fences Israel is building to defend itself from the plague of terrorism, first attacking the structure as "another barrier to peace," then accepting it as "a legitimate act of self-defense."
He has also floundered concerning what can be expected of Yasser Arafat. Just as Arafat was launching the second intifada in 2000, Kerry asserted optimistically that we must "look to Chairman Arafat to exert much greater leadership." Three days later, he portentously declared the obvious on CBS' "Face the Nation," calling the Israel-Palestinian conflict "an extraordinarily complicated, incredibly deep-rooted problem." What made this problem so extraordinary and incredible? "Arafat has forces around him, underneath him, close by him that don't want peace, that are working against what he is doing," Kerry said by way of exoneration. (And, to sustain the moral equivalence of the parties in his head, he added, "The same is true of Prime Minister [Ehud] Barak" &emdash; which was nonsense, as there wasn't a single such person in Barak's circle.)
By now, to be sure, Kerry thinks that Arafat's "support" for terrorism has already rendered him unfit as a partner for peace.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
This article has little to do with North Carolina.
Ed Koch was on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart (Monday night) and he flat came out and said he was supporting George Bush. Not for his domestic policies, with which Ed was completely at odds with, but because Bush will do far more to take the fight to the terrorists over there.
For this, the audience booed the former Mayor, and he turned around and scolded them for their intolerant attitude, saying that they would have demanded respect for their opinions, why could they not extend the same courtesy to those who held opinion different from theirs? I believe the Mayor thoroughly shamed them, if only for a moment.
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