The Anchoress

:::UPDATE:::Okay, so after writing all the reasons why I believed Obama and his campaign meant his prayer at the Western Wall to be private…there comes word from the Israeli paper Ma’ariv - which came under attack for publishing the prayer - that the prayer was released to the press as Obama was leaving the hotel. Which throws everything into doubt. Was the prayer “stolen” or not? Was it ever, in fact, “personal and private” or not? Was the whole thing, after all, staged to gain the sympathy of the religiously inclined, who have been mistrustful of Obama? Am I a schmuck for choosing to believe the best of Obama and his campaign, and not the worst? Has cynicism really trumped everything? What is the truth of this story? Will we EVER know? Will the press EVER ask? Oy!

Big Lizards writes:

Numerous newspapers and other media outlets reported that Maariv claims that “Obama submitted a copy of the note to media outlets when he left his hotel in Jerusalem,” before visiting the wall. This is either true or false:

* If it’s false, why didn’t the reporting media who had reporters present with Obama in Israel say something like, “however, our reporter did not receive any copy of this prayer?” That would certainly have put the onus back on Maariv to prove their statement.

* Contrariwise, if it’s true, then shouldn’t the reporting media point that out in the story, thus putting the lie to the Obama campaign’s claim that this was a terrible violation of the privacy of his divine conversations?

Yet instead of providing the evidence they clearly had, evidence that would either have supported Obama or Maariv, every last media source chose to stand silent. Why?

Donald Sensing tries to make sense of this.

…Ma’ariv’s rather outrageous claim that prayer of non-Jews don’t enjoy privacy protection at the Wall simply will not hold up before rabbinic responses…Anyway, Ma’ariv’s statement that it published what was essentially a press release from Obama’s staff does change the entire tenor of the affair, and makes the seminary student’s confession and repentance somewhat curious.

Is there one mainstream reporter out there who understands that - if the Obama camp released his prayer (and then allowed to stand reports that it was only published because the thing was “stolen”) - this becomes very big deal to the very believers he wishes to court? Is there a reporter out there who will look into it? I won’t hold my breath.

If Obama abused the goodwill of those who wished to believe the best of him - and who decried the publication of his “private” prayer (and many believers did) - that will be pretty shabby, and needlessly cynical. So much for “change.”

I will not say I was wrong to want to think the best, and I’m still going to try to - because I think it’s really important to TRY to think the best - but if this is true…I’ll be incredibly disappointed in Obama, especially since I came down pretty hard - for his sake - on some who may have had his number, after all. Some of my rant - about people criticizing the content of the prayer and reprinting what we thought was private - is still valid…but we don’t know if anything else was.

I thought this was going to be the “candidate of clarity” the “transparency candidacy” - a little clarity here would be welcomed.

Jim Geraghty has more questions.:::END UPDATE:::

:::Original Post Below:::

The Seminarian who removed Obama’s prayer from the Western Wall has returned it:

The yeshiva student who pried Barack Obama’s prayer note from the Western Wall has apologized.

Identified only by the first initial of his name, Aleph, and with his face obscured, the student went on Channel 2 television Sunday to confess that he took the presidential contender’s note last week and passed it to the press.
…
“I’m sorry. It was a kind of prank,” Aleph said, his hands shaking as he fingered the tightly wadded-up sheet of King David Hotel letterhead. “I hope he wasn’t hurt. We all believe he will take the presidency.”

This weekend I received many emails - a few of them pretty insulting - from people on the right who either mocked me as naive, or castigated me as a stupid dupe for believing that this prayer was really stolen, and that the whole event was not a choreographed publicity stunt from the Obama camp, meant to garner sympathy from the religious right.

It must be said that the religious right - by and large, and to its credit - was horrified by this theft, and defensive of Obama’s right to private prayer. One cannot help wondering if - had the exact same circumstances occurred to President Bush - anyone on left, religious or otherwise, would have been able to manage even a sneeze of outrage on the president’s behalf.

And that is the point.

As I responded to many of these emailers, there were several reasons why I rejected the notion that the Obama camp had staged the theft, the most obvious being that the campaign would have to realize that such a “choreography” would immediately be suspected, as we are all too savvy and too cynical to be “taken in” by much these days. Consider how many people dared to criticize the content of the prayer, either because it was too vague and “safe” sounding, or because it did not whistle The Stars and Stripes Forever upon opening, and you realize that no campaign would be stupid enough to stage something so bound to be a lose/lose for their candidate, where “too much” or “too reverent” a prayer would offend the left and too little would offend the right.

Secondly, the reaction of the Obama campaign told me that the theft was real. Had it been manufactured, the campaign, which sometimes seems like it employs a roving “Outrage of the Day Department” was quiet about it. I know that had my prayer been stolen and published, I would not wish to add to the abuse of that prayer by making statements and drawing further attention to it. I’d simply let it go, and that’s what Obama did. (There is something to be said for heeding the advice of Atticus Finch, and walking around in the other guy’s shoes for a while.)

Thirdly - as some of you know from our email exchanges - I refused to think the matter was staged because I did not want to become like the Bush-haters I know, who are incapable of naming “one good thing” about the man. I refused to give up that much of my own humanity, in order to de-humanize Barack Obama.

That is the trend, these days, of course. Name-call, deride, mock, disbelieve and in all ways go negative - on every issue, in every instance, unto perpetuity - on any politician with whom you disagree, and any pundit you don’t like, and any blogger who does not see things the way you see them. In that way, they immediately become less human to you, and the less human they seem, the easier they are to hate, and continue to hate.

We see it all the time, all over the blogosphere: repellent hate. It begins with calling someone a nasty name, which seems like nothing. But it is the beginning of the whole process of dehumanization, and it is why one of my rules about comments is that name-calling of presidents is off-limits. Bush becomes “Chimpy.” Obama becomes “O-Bambi.” Rosie O’ Donnell becomes “Rosie Oaf Donnell.” Cindy McCain becomes “the pill-addict Cheerleader,” (ah, the tolerant and compassionate!) and John McCain becomes “McShame,” and from there, it’s a very short walk onto the endless and descending pier of hate, which leads you to a place where we can no longer see anything good in “the other,” because you have made yourself willfully blind, and willfully hard-hearted.

When you reach that point, you are no better than the person you hate; you may be much worse.

I believed Obama’s prayer had been stolen and I would not give in to the easy suspicions of cynicism, because I realized that as long as I could name “one good thing,” about Obama - and in this case it would be that he left a real prayer, in real humility, at the wall - I could still see him as a real person and not an object of revilement.

And it would mean I hadn’t completely lost my humanity, either.

I can name other good things about Barack Obama, but for now, let’s concentrate on naming “one” good thing. It is a helpful gauge - a way to keep some perspective.

Early in this blog - to my everlasting shame - I found myself treading the “everyone on the other side is vile” pier, and I did not like where it led.

There be monsters, all reflecting myself.

In a two-year election season we see a lot of ugliness, and a lot of boundaries pushed, and the publishing of Barack Obama’s prayer at the Western Wall - the holiest site in Judaism - is seriously out-of-bounds.

I’m kind of appalled that anyone took his prayer out of that wall, more appalled that it was made public, and incredibly appalled that some a faith-based site is “fisking” the prayer while a few bloggers (and forum commenters) are daring to mock it or to judge its content as being insufficient because it does not mention his country, or Israel.

To which I have to reply - to anyone enjoying or exploiting the theft of this prayer, or judging it: “screw that. You don’t get to decide on or judge another’s prayer.”

If that seems uncharacteristically harsh, well…I never said I was a saint. In fact, it is precisely because I am no saint that I am so offended by the idea of anyone glomming on to someone else’s prayer - particularly for the very basest of reasons: to make political hay of it.

I’ve had a few emails from people niggling at the fact that he used hotel stationary (so what? - it was supposed to be private and unseen!) or that he used a yarmulke from the box provided, instead of bringing his one of his own (so what? - he went to the Wall and he did it reverently!) or that he did not capitalize the Y in “your” (SO FREAKING WHAT? What shames God more - an uncapitalized Y or the ugliness you’re allowing to feast within yourself? You hate when the Bush haters get unhinged and ugly in their hate, why are you allowing yourselves to succumb to all of the same temptations? How is that glorifying God?)

I probably shouldn’t be writing, because I’m pretty angry right now, and whenever I write angry, I end up regretting it. But you know…shanty Irish, over here…must bellow a bit.

Obama’s prayer seemed to me to be a deeply personal prayer - and one I have prayed myself, as have countless others; it is a petition for protection, forgiveness, help with personal weaknesses and for wisdom. It expressed a willingness to be an instrument of God’s will. St. Francis prayed like that. I do. Everyone I know does. And, again, can’t be said enough - the prayer was private.

And for heaven’s sake, had the prayer included a reference to the country - or Israel or the world - these same critics would probably be the first to crow that the prayer and its theft was a choreographed event meant to appeal to the religious right. Or, they’d be saying, “look, more proof that he’s a megalomaniac! He’s praying for countries and the world!”

A megalomaniac Obama may well be…but who among us has no fault, no weakness, no neuroses? And how dare anyone step on a man’s prayer?

Someone wrote to me:

Campaign posters do not belong at the Kotel

No, they don’t. But private prayers are not yours or mine to judge!

I know that sometimes our prayers are open-hearted intercessions for friends, strangers, nations, etc. But sometimes our prayers are simply about those concerns nearest our hearts; they are simply “me, me, me, mine, mine, mine, please, please, please.” So what?

None of us are perfect - none of us pray perfectly - and good heavens most of us would not like the deepest parts of our prayer put out there for public judgment and mockery. I know I wouldn’t. My prayers, unless I’m clearly sharing them with others, are between me and God, and they’re no one else’s damn business.

There is no man so good that if he placed all his actions and thoughts under the scrutiny of the laws, he would not deserve hanging ten times in his life. - Michel Monataigne

If you’re a human person trying to live in the world with other human persons, you have to remember their humanity, and you have to maintain a little bit of your own. You have to have some appreciation for boundaries, too.

As Reason writes: this is a foulball, badly played. I’m glad now, that President Bush did not go to the Western Wall and leave a prayer, because undoubtedly something similar to this would have played out, because more and more people - on both sides - seem to have no sense of boundaries, and society itself seems to have lost its understanding of basic decency.

God, help us.

Donald Sensing is also writing on this.
Baldilocks

Ed Morrissey links, Thanks Ed.

“The Ambiguously American Candidate.” That’s what I thought yesterday when I saw this photo.

It is striking to note that Obama’s plane flys around the world sporting an iiiiittty bitty American flag (out of camera range when he walks down to tarmacs) and many prominent O symbols. I wrote to a pal yesterday:

“A tiny little flag near the serial numbers, the big Obama symbol everywhere - including, apparently, on HIS seat in first class.

It’s starting to really make me uncomfortable. Obama is clearly trying to send a signal that he is a “citizen of the world’ type before he is an American. That Obamaland is a state unto itself. Or a state of mind.

Apparently the Great Seal of Obama was not a mere glitch in his campaign. The O symbol takes precedence over the American symbol for this candidate, and - to his credit - he’s being really up front about his priorities.

And I thought Bill Clinton was a narcissist.

In fairness - to some extent, you do need a big ego to run for the American presidency, but on the other hand, this pre-dominant O symbol begins to make me uncomfortable. Is all of this meant to instill confidence in a man who has only 143 days working experience in the Congress (with no signature piece of legislation to his name) a whisper thin resume and some dubious policy ideas?

Or is it a promise of things to come: Obamaland! - we don’t know what it means, yet, but it’s change, and it’s hope and we hope in change, because apparently, America is just not acceptable in its current hopeless form, so unchanged, these last 230 years.

Obama’s seeming ambiguity about his own citizenship, his own allegiance and his need to put his own self and his own symbol before the symbol of the nation he says he loves and wants to lead…it’s Un. Comfortable.

Shouldn’t the American President be - at the very least - unambiguously American?

And shouldn’t the future American President know what committees he is on, and what committees he is not on while he’s talking policy?

“Just this past week, we passed out of the U.S. Senate Banking Committee, which is my committee, a bill to call for divestment from Iran, as a way of ratcheting up the pressure to ensure that they don’t obtain a nuclear weapon.” Barack Obama, Sderot, Israel July 23, 2008 - [emphasis mine - admin]

He’s not on that committee. What’s that about?.

So, today - we learn that Obama really really wants photos of him amid an adoring crowd in Berlin. He wants it so badly, he’s distributing flyers in German to help bring out the adorers.

Big O symbol on the paper, nary an American flag in site. He is an American running for the American presidency, right?

Say this for Obama: he’s being very upfront about his preferences and his ambitions. If he wins, no one can say we didn’t see megalomania from, well…say this moment:

Generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal. — Barack Obama, June 2, 2008

And his wife has already promised us that if Obama wins:

Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

Every time I read that, I think of the opening of Orwell’s 1984, when Winston Smith gets out of bed to begin his compulsory exercises and - when he’s not quite attending and not touching the floor with his hands - the inter-active drill leader (who can see him) calls out to Smith by name, admonishes him and gets him re-focused.

Smith was certainly involved and informed.

But this is America. In America, you’re free to be uninformed, if that’s what you really want. It’s called personal liberty. Your choices may not be the best choices, but they’re your own. And that is invaluable.

“The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.” - G.K. Chesterton, Broadcast talk 6-11-35

If Barack Obama wins the White House, we can expect the return, I suppose, of the greatly mocked and quickly hidden Great Seal of Obama, in that slightly nauseating shade of UN-blue. And there will be lots of non-campaign campaign types of events, too, I’ll bet.

If the congress and senate remain in Democrat hands, and the SCOTUS gets a few new members - well, it’s going to be very interesting to see all the change.

UPDATE: More on Joe Klein’s meltdown, which is linked to above under “dubious policy”.

UPDATE: Was very interested (but only mildly embarrassed) to receive this picture from an Obama fan, showing McCain’s plane with the small flag by the registry numbers:


So, McCain does not have a prominent flag on his plane, either. But it must be said, McCain is also not passing out flyers for a big campaign speech in Berlin or designing his own “presidential seal.” McCain has not yet declared that his candidacy became the moment - FINALLY! - when America started to employ her millions of unemployed workers and began taking the old and sick off the teeming streets and bringing them into hospital. And his plane is not carrying around a guy who is an “ambiguous” American. McCain is unambiguous about his country, so perhaps his little flag is less jarring; we DO know who he is.

In fairness, it would be objectionable to see Obama use the flag merely as a “prop” when he has more than once suggested that he’s uncomfortable with the “flagwaving” stuff. He’s sort of roped himself into a corner now. If he doesn’t use the flag he’s ambiguous; if he does, he’s a “phony” - the flag has become a lose-lose for Obama, and I can appreciate that at this point he’s better off not waving one. He should probably find out what committees he is actually named to, in the Senate, though.

Still…there may not be - as I suggested below - a nefarious idea behind “pictures of Dear Leader exiting his plane without an American reference in sight.” I was writing late on three hours sleep as I mentioned to Rand, so I will plead only a half-addled, not fully-addled case.

MEANWHILE: Over at Maggies’ Farm, they’re looking at another quasi-religious-sounding quote from Obama and saying they don’t want Obama or any other politician trying to bring “meaning” into their lives via government.

“They want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives, something that will relieve a chronic loneliness or lift them above the exhausting, relentless toll of daily life. They need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them — that they are not just destined to travel down a long highway toward nothingness.“

Sounds like “these sheep” need a shepherd. I know a good one I can recommend! Hillary talked about the “politics of meaning” years ago and everyone said, “what does that mean?” Do we know, yet?

I got this in an email, and I appreciated reading it: a fellow named Sameh El-Shahat - writing in a “have your say” space in the UK Telegraph - writes (and videos, charmingly) of George W. Bush:

Whatever happened to leadership and honesty as presidential traits? I happen to believe that the only leader in the West to have these two admirable qualities in droves is the leader of the free world: George W Bush.
[...]
Take the Iraq war for example. OK, so he got us into Iraq in the first place. But for Pete’s sake, he’s the leader of the world’s only superpower. He needs to take decisions, even if sometimes they have nasty consequences - which is far better than we do in Europe, where we enjoy dithering not as a means to an end, but as an end in itself.

Something had to be done about Iraq and our government was all for attacking it too. So let’s not blame G.W. for the war.

And when things did go wrong in Iraq, and there were calls to pull out, Mr Bush just followed his own counsel and doubled his bet with the Surge.

And he was right because Iraq is in a relatively better shape today than it ever was and Al Qa’eda is a shadow of its former self in that country.

This is a man who has the courage of his convictions.

Let’s not forget how Europe does wars.

Usually we wait and wait until the enemy starts attacking, then we let them win a bit, then we fight until we are tired, then we just call the US to come over to clean our mess. That is what happened in WWI, WWII, and the Balkans.

Bush is just showing us what a bunch of dangerous ditherers we are and we hate him for it. Naturally.

Thanks, Mr. El-Shahat! It is awfully good to hear from someone over the pond, and it takes a deal of courage to write this (and make the video) in a world where it is so much easier (and requires no brave heart at all) to simply bash the man and not look at what he has accomplished. The press can’t do it; they have invested everything in their anti-Bush narratives. But regular people can do it.

Writes El-Shahat:

Hating George W. Bush is not only dull and unoriginal, but it shows a complete lack of understanding of the world in which we live in.

You want liberty but you don’t want to defend it… right. [emphasis mine - admin]

Ace O Spades (one of my several times a day stops) has more, and he even links to me (thanks, Ace) because I’ve been kind of insistent that Bush has been better for us than perhaps we may understand for a while.

He’s made mistakes, yes - some beauts - but President Bush has also promoted liberty non-stop and freed more people from tyranny in this generation than anyone else. He has done good things in Africa and for the environment (even the Iraqi environment) - things that have gone almost wholly unreported by the 14 year-olds running the mainstream media, because the narrative is “Bush dumb, Bush liar, Bush devil, Bush fascist,” and that narrative is not to be tampered with. He is automatically blamed for every bad thing, and given no credit for anything good or for any successes.

And some of what he tried to do, such as getting lumber companies to clear away underbrush in an effort to prevent the sort of forest fires currently devastating California, were simply mischaracterized as “corporate welfare” by the haters who prefer seeing acreage burn, apparently, to the sort of responsible logging and underbrush cutting Bush had in mind. Bush and underbrush are old enemies and my rank-and-file firefighter friends said it was the right thing to do, that Bush knew what he was talking about, but he’s a moronic-evil-genius, so they must have been wrong.

He’s been an abused gentleman, who has not returned-in-kind, and we’ll miss him more than we now realize, when he’s gone.

If it were possible, I’d vote for him again, but since it is not, I look forward to Bush’s leaving. He’ll naturally be blamed for everything that goes wrong over the next 6 years (I recall the Clinton’s blamed any bad news on “12 years of Republican rule” until about 1998) and he will continue to be hated, reviled and lied about by the people who have given themselves over to hate, but he’s earned his rest.

After him, the deluge.

What a long, strange trip it’s been, and here, some years later, we finally get someone in the press to tell it straight: Bush did not lie.

There’s no question that the administration, and particularly Vice President Cheney, spoke with too much certainty at times and failed to anticipate or prepare the American people for the enormous undertaking in Iraq.

But dive into Rockefeller’s [Intelligence Committee] report, in search of where exactly President Bush lied about what his intelligence agencies were telling him about the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, and you may be surprised by what you find.

On Iraq’s nuclear weapons program? The president’s statements “were generally substantiated by intelligence community estimates.”

On biological weapons, production capability and those infamous mobile laboratories? The president’s statements “were substantiated by intelligence information.”

On chemical weapons, then? “Substantiated by intelligence information.”

On weapons of mass destruction overall (a separate section of the intelligence committee report)? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.” Delivery vehicles such as ballistic missiles? “Generally substantiated by available intelligence.” Unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to deliver WMDs? “Generally substantiated by intelligence information.”

As you read through the report, you begin to think maybe you’ve mistakenly picked up the minority dissent. But, no, this is the Rockefeller indictment. So, you think, the smoking gun must appear in the section on Bush’s claims about Saddam Hussein’s alleged ties to terrorism.

But statements regarding Iraq’s support for terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information.” Statements that Iraq provided safe haven for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and other terrorists with ties to al-Qaeda “were substantiated by the intelligence assessments,” and statements regarding Iraq’s contacts with al-Qaeda “were substantiated by intelligence information.” The report is left to complain about “implications” and statements that “left the impression” that those contacts led to substantive Iraqi cooperation.
[,,,]
After all, it was not Bush, but Rockefeller, who said in October 2002: “There has been some debate over how ‘imminent’ a threat Iraq poses. I do believe Iraq poses an imminent threat. I also believe after September 11, that question is increasingly outdated. . . . To insist on further evidence could put some of our fellow Americans at risk. Can we afford to take that chance? I do not think we can.” [all emphasis mine - admin]

One reads this and thinks…it’s really too bad that when this story of Dems on the Intel Committee plotting against Bush broke in 2003, the mainstream press ignored it, taking umbrage that anyone would leak a memo (!) and ignoring its content. Why, suddenly, is the WaPo deciding, after 5 years of supporting and promoting the “Bush lied” meme, to clarify?

1) Perhaps they see things improving so much in Iraq that there is going to be a slow turning around of the narrative - like turning around the Titanic - so that Democrats can stop pretending they never voted for the action, and get ready to claim a share in victory. Then it gives room to the presumed Democrat president to settle the Iraq matter with an American “presence” in Iraq - comparable to our presences in Germany, and elsewhere - so that he can get on with the business of “changing” America domestically. After all, the WaPo editorial board warned Obama just last week that he needed to update his thinking on Iraq.

2) Perhaps they see that the relentless pounding the press has given Bush for the last 5 years has impacted him negatively enough that there is no risk of his having any sort of rehabilitation, either in the polls or in history, and so they figure they can put away the flamethrowers.

3) Perhaps there are still some journalists who are more interested in telling the whole story than in framing and enshrining a narrative.

I want to believe it’s #3.

The article’s writer, Fred Hiatt, acknowledges that at this point, people will believe what they’ve been told for the past 5 years, and this report is unlikely to change anyone’s opinion on anything - we’re too far gone for that - the narratives have been erected in stone, but he writes:

…the phony “Bush lied” story line distracts from the biggest prewar failure: the fact that so much of the intelligence upon which Bush and Rockefeller and everyone else relied turned out to be tragically, catastrophically wrong.

The phony “Bush lied story line…

Pinch me, I’m dreaming. Say it with me: The phony “Bush lied story line…

There, in black and white, in The Washington Post. Imagine that. The Emily Litella Press says “nevermind”. I’m stunned. And even, a little…dare I be…hopeful.

Martin Luther King said that “a lie won’t stand forever.”

Bush did not lie. Others did - lots of others - but Bush did not lie. All he ever said was the same thing Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Jay Rockefeller, John Kerry, John Edwards, Madeline Albright and so many others said, over, and over, and over. Either they were all lying, or none of them were, and our intelligence (and much of the world’s and the UN’s) was a catastrophic failure.

Let’s take any remaining steps available, to see that the intel is more reliable in future.

UPDATE: Ed Morrissey fleshes the story out (Ed was, I think, perhaps the only person in America (besides Stephen Hayes) actually paying attention to the Iraq/AlQaeda links being discovered in the tens of thousands of documents out of Iraq). Also, read this from the New York Sun:

“We have hard evidence that al-Qaeda is operating in several locations in Iraq with the knowledge and acquiescence of Saddam’s regime.”

Guess who wrote that? If you have been following the Democratic Party’s narrative on Iraq, you might guess Ahmad Chalabi, Douglas Feith, Vice President Cheney or some neoconservatives hell bent on twisting intelligence to overstate the connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. But those words are from Carl Ford, assistant state secretary for intelligence and research, whose bureau was singled out for praise after the war for its dissenting assessment of Iraq’s nuclear program.

Martin Luther King was right.

Also, it might be difficult for President Lightworker to prosecute Bush for war crimes when his own party says…he didn’t lie.

Gateway Pundit - as ever - has more

UPDATE II: The Arkansas Democrat Gazette does a slash and burn on the Rockefeller report. Glorious stuff. H/T Ace - who never, ever links to me!

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
- Verse 1, The Second Coming, William Butler Yeats

What a useful poem Yeats concocted - so many applications. Today let’s look at some stories that flesh out the idea of the “widening gyre” - think of the falcon, tossed off the leathered glove, ascending ’round and ’round in ever-broader circles. Think of a cyclone. Think how hard it is for us falcons - as we mover further away, caught in all the noise of wind and air - to hear the voice of the Falconer who set us free.

There’s lots of noise today. I’ll write about Obama and Hillary later - I’ve got something specific in mind, but let’s see what else is swirling about us and lost in the cacophony.

The falcon cannot hear the falconer: The pro-censorship Human Rights Commission er, Tribunal, er Kangaroo Court, er Bastion of Liberal Fascism in Canada prosecutes thought crimes and suppresses free speech for the sake of hurt feelings. Writes David Warren:

…in a case designed to challenge freedom of the press. It is a show trial, under the arbitrary powers given to Canada’s obscene “human rights” commissions, by Section 13 of our Human Rights Act.

I wrote “obscene” advisedly. A respondent who comes before Canada’s “human rights” tribunals has none of the defences formerly guaranteed in common law. The truth is no defence, reasonable intention is no defence, nor material harmlessness, there are no rules of evidence, no precedents, nor case law of any kind. The commissars running the tribunals need have no legal training, exhibit none, and owe their appointments to networking among leftwing activists. -

Emphasis mine. Warren - one of my all-time favorite writers - makes one deplorable error there: he writes about “freedom of the press,” without noticing that the press has voluntarily surrendered its own freedom in order to advance the stifling cause of political correctness and the endless restrictions on liberty to which PC is dedicated. When Al Gore can tell the press not to report dissenting scientific opinion on global warming, and the press dutifully obeys, that press is no longer free. When the press silences itself rather than report good news, that press is no longer free.

I know this story is about Canada,, but Americans had better pay attention, this is not about a nation; it’s about a mindset. This story and the next one are about what you might call the United Far-Left States, which is multinational, borderless and faithful to no ideal but its own need to control. You can’t see if or hear it if you’re circling too far above it, in the noise and the wind.

Another Canadian writer - also one of my faves - Kathy Shaidle, shows us where the HRC is heading (and I predicted years ago that PC would be used against the churches and was called an alarmist): suppression of freedom of religion.:

a message posted to a popular Catholic internet forum has reportedly made its way before the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal. The alleged poster, who is an American writing from America, was commenting on an article written by Mark Steyn — a Canadian author who now lives in New Hampshire. The tribunal accepted this posting as evidence that Steyn promoted “hatred”
[...]
Canada’s human rights tribunals are now attempting to prosecute a case against an American resident, based upon what an American citizen allegedly posted to a mainstream American Catholic website. What passes for mainstream Catholic discussion in America is now the basis for a hate complaint in Canada.

As I said, this movement has no borders.

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold: Are you really ready for a planet tax based on a theory that is unprovable? The inconvenient truth is that we cannot predict what the weather will do next week, and we have no way of knowing whether in ten years the colder or warmer whether prevailing will be part of a cycle or an aberration, because the world is a lot wiser and older than our conceited generation and does not move by our schedules. Global Warming (aka “Climate Change”) is the scam that will keep on giving because no matter what happens it lets the alarmist claim “see, we were right!” If weather goes bad, “see, we were right!” If weather goes good, “see, we were right! We took away your liberties and wrecked your economy, but the planet lives, so we were right!” I’m losing patience with people who are ready to give up their freedom to drive, buy the lightbulbs they choose, and to allow the destruction of their economy and a culture for this suppressive, liberty-stealing flim-flam - a hoax which Obama paid homage to in last night’s speech.

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world:. Voters? what voters?, Political Intimidation? What political intimidation? Genocidal movements? What genocidal movements?

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned; Letting people die rather than accept aid (Condoms, they’ll accept!) Voting out a Kindergartener, Government over grief, Letting more people starve!, Hey, we’re atheists! you have to tolerate our sex in your confessional but we don’t have to be sensitive to your sensibilities! Assassination as Art-theme (well, at least that’s finally thought objectionable; it wasn’t for Bush.) I’m not starving my people! You are starving my people!

The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Soros: Screwing with economies is not my ethical conundrum. I’m just saying!

Obama: Israel? Why I’m Israel’s great Champion!, forget what I said about Palestinian suffering! Pull out of Iraq? yes, I’m calling it victory even if it sets chaos in motion in that region! Iran? C’mon, they’re not really dangerous but they’re pretty suddenly worrisome! Jesus? Yeah, Jesus is cool, but sin is when I distance myself from my own values! Earmarks? Don’t talk about my ears, I’m sensitive! Experience? Who needs experience when you’ve got oratory?

Press: Bill and Hillary? we never liked them!

The Right: In 2006 they sat out the election, lost the congress and weakened their president in a tantrum over illegal immigration, “the most important issue in America,” which (without the prompting of A.N.S.W.E.R-organized Mexi-marches) they’re barely discussing now, and on which issue nothing has changed. But some of them are still talking about sitting things out to teach the nation a lesson.

The Left: We don’t have to be right, our concerns and our feelings make us noble!

The Electorate: Experience and Character Schmaracter!

Who ya gonna trust?

A few glimmers of light:
South Dakota votes to drill!

The Global Movement to Jihad is Fractured

Yes, That is Why We Went to Iraq. Be proud, America!

Sarah Palin for GOP VEEP! Seriously. If McCain has any brains at all.

Young Men in Search of Civil Debate! I like this idea and will keep an eye on it!.

Maureen Dowd is hitting homers, although she should not be surprised that “Hillary is still here.” If her memory of January 2001 were not clouded by hate, she’d recall that on Bush’s Inaugural Day, Bill would not get off the stage, and at one point cooed into the microphone, “ah’m still here…” Still, after being lost in her wilderness of Bush Derangement Syndrome, which overwhelmed her writing and muddied it up, it’s good to see her back in control of her pen.

To close:

We must repeat, over and over, that Liberty is the means by which we created creatures are meant to live and to grow and be. That Liberty lives in the Truth. That Liberty lives where people can speak freely, without fear of injury or reprisals. That Liberty lives only when the press is free and unencumbered - when it is detached from events instead of entwined in them. That Liberty lives when people refuse to be intimidated into silence or acquiescence, whether in the workplace or within the community. That Liberty is the fragile thing that diminishes whenever one refuses to acclaim it for oneself. — Your Humble Blogress