Category Archives: Media Criticism

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

More On The “Student Of History”

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Michael Ledeen points out more alternate history from the president’s speech:

On the other hand, there were so many errors of history that I was left wondering if there is anyone in the White House that checks facts. “Islam has a proud tradition of tolerance. We see it in the history of Andalusia and Cordoba during the Inquisition.” But the Muslims had been driven out of Spain by the time of the Inquisition. The Inquisition was Catholic, after all. What was he thinking? And even if he was thinking about an earlier epoch, the so-called Golden Age, “tolerance” is hardly the right word. Yes, non-Muslims were permitted to live, provided that they submitted to Muslim rule and paid their rulers. Yes, Jews were better off in Muslim lands than in Christian areas during the Middle Ages. But “toleration” it wasn’t. One of my best professors used to argue that the word, in its contemporary sense, only began to make sense in the seventeenth century.

He credited Muslims for inventions of others, from the magnetic compass to algebra to pens, arches, and even to printing. It’s as if there were no ancient Chinese inventions, and the Romans had to await the Prophet before they could build the Pantheon. And someone really should tell him that printing came from the Orient, was rejected in Muslim domains, and then developed in Europe. It was introduced into the Middle East in the 15th century by Jews, who were not permitted to publish in Arabic. So the first printing press in the region was brought by Jews who then published in Hebrew.

The absolute worst part of the speech was the mush about Iran. He could have talked about the great Persian contributions to Western culture, or credited Cyrus the Great for issuing the first known document dealing with human rights. He didn’t do that (Cyrus wasn’t a Muslim, after all). Instead, he regretted American meddling in Iran in 1953, and then moved on to assure the mullahs that they were fully entitled to have a (peaceful) nuclear program. As if nobody knew (Bushitlercheney had made the same point, let us not forget). Not a word about Iranian killers around the world. Not a word about the dreadful repression of the Iranian people. Not a word about any possible consequences if, as everyone expects, Iran builds atomic bombs.

That’s because he expects there to be none. I suspect that the Israelis have a different idea.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

So What’s It Done For Us Lately?

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Obama, in Cairo:

As a student of history, I also know civilization’s debt to Islam. It was Islam – at places like Al-Azhar University – that carried the light of learning through so many centuries, paving the way for Europe’s Renaissance and Enlightenment. It was innovation in Muslim communities that developed the order of algebra; our magnetic compass and tools of navigation; our mastery of pens and printing; our understanding of how disease spreads and how it can be healed. Islamic culture has given us majestic arches and soaring spires; timeless poetry and cherished music; elegant calligraphy and places of peaceful contemplation.

So far, so good (though I’ve never seen much evidence that he’s really a “student of history”). But this next seems like a stretch:

And throughout history, Islam has demonstrated through words and deeds the possibilities of religious tolerance and racial equality.

Note that he provides no examples of this, and the world abounds with counterexamples to the proposition. For example, I always find it either amusing or appalling that African-Americans who embrace the religion don’t understand that it was Arab traders (Muslims) who sold their ancestors into slavery to the Europeans.

This next bit is even more amazing, though:

I know, too, that Islam has always been a part of America’s story. The first nation to recognize my country was Morocco. In signing the Treaty of Tripoli in 1796, our second President John Adams wrote, “The United States has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Muslims.” And since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, served in government, stood for civil rights, started businesses, taught at our Universities, excelled in our sports arenas, won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic Torch. And when the first Muslim-American was recently elected to Congress, he took the oath to defend our Constitution using the same Holy Koran that one of our Founding Fathers – Thomas Jefferson – kept in his personal library.

Now, when I see the words “Islam has always been a part of America’s story,” and “Tripoli,” the Treaty of Tripoli is not the first thing that comes to mind. What comes to mind is the Marine Corps anthem, which talks about “the shores of Tripoli.” Because that was the first foreign war in which we engaged after gaining our independence and becoming a constitutional republic — a war against Muslims resulting from their continual piracy and kidnapping of American sailors. And of course, they didn’t restrict their kidnapping to ships at sea — many people (and many women and children) were plucked from the shores of Europe and the British Isles, and sold into slavery. By Muslims. They were equal-opportunity slavers, enslaving both blacks and whites. Perhaps this is what Obama meant by their promotion of “racial equality.”

Anyway, anyone familiar with the actual history of relations between the young United States and the Barbary Pirates would be astonished to read the above paragraph coming from a supposed “student of history.”

Now, I’m not saying that he should have peeled that particular scab off the old wound– just that it’s bizarre to talk about our early relations with Islam without mentioning it. It would have been better to simply avoid discussing that particular period in history at all.

I guess that this must be a result of studying history in the US public school system. Maybe he should have gotten vouchers.

And of course, there is nothing particularly Islamic about wearing a “hijab.” It’s a recent fashion (and part of the religion’s long-time subjugation of women). I hope that he doesn’t plan to have the US government defend the right to cover the face for driver’s license photos, or to not require Muslim nurses to wash their hands before and during surgery, as has occurred in the UK.

What is annoying about this speech (even ignoring the utter whitewashing of the history of Islam), is that he’s once again, or still (though more subtly this time) running against George Bush, with the implication that Bush was at war with Islam, regardless of the painstaking politically correct steps he took to avoid that impression, to the point of having the FBI coordinate and cooperate with the terrorist-sponsoring organization, CAIR. This speech was unnecessary, at least as far as healing our relations with Islam or the world. But it will help reinforce domestically the false history from this “student of history” that the war (when they’re willing to admit that we are at war) is all Bush’s fault.

I’ll probably talk about the section on Israel and the “Palestinians” in another post, when I find time.

[Update a while later]

It’s worth noting, as it is in comments, that the Treaty of Tripoli was one of several, and basically a negotiation of how much tribute should be paid by the US to the Barbary Coast for a guarantee of unhindered passage by American ships through the Mediterranean and near Atlantic, after the loss of protection by first the British and later the French navies. It was basically a formalized extortion racket, which eventually (and it didn’t take long) broke down and resulted in the young US raising a Navy and engaging in the Barbary Wars, to avoid further tribute. Again, it seems a tender issue to raise in a speech addressed to Muslims.

[Update early afternoon]

Andy McCarthy has similar thoughts.

[Update a couple minutes later]

Platitudes and naivete. Robert Spencer dissects. Of course “platitudes and naivete” is a pretty good description of any Obama speech, so it doesn’t really distinguish this one.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Obama Has Nominated A Puerto Rican Nationalist

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…to the Supreme Court of the United States. Now, there’s nothing wrong with being a Puerto Rican nationalist per se — I find it a perfectly respectable political position albeit a minority one on the island, and the US would probably be better off without the commonwealth, since it is a net sink for taxpayer dollars. But do we really want someone who couldn’t bring herself to call the US Congress and US Supreme Court the US Congress and US Supreme Court to be an associate justice on the latter? At the very least, this deserves some serious questions at the confirmation hearings.

Media Criticism, Space

“Hate” Speech

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Mark Whittington seems to suffer from an almost autistic inability to properly gauge the emotions of others — the same malady as many self-described liberals seem to suffer, when they describe as “hate speech” or “racist” words with which they simply disagree. He often irrationally refers to my posts as “rants,” or “seething,” or “filled with rage,” though in each and every case I was perfectly calm when composing them, and no one else ever sees the supposed anger. And when called on it, he can never justify it, or point to the exact words that he finds so rage filled (and indeed, ignores requests to do so, usually simply repeating the slander).

Here’s an example (not of me, this time, fortunately):

Some interesting words of wisdom from Mike Griffin along with, sadly, words of hate in the comments section.

Well, I read those comments (only two of them at the time of this posting — I can’t speak for what might appear there in the future), and I saw nothing “hateful” about them. They simply pointed out inconsistencies in the former administrator’s words, and between words and deeds. One need not “hate” someone to point out flaws in their arguments. I wonder why Mark views the world in such emotional extremes?

[Thursday morning update]

Amazing. He’s still at it.

Mind, there are a few things about which one can criticize Dr. Griffin’s tenure at NASA, mainly by using 20 20 hindsight. But really, some of the posts I have read makes one wonder if he drinks the blood of virgins and eats the flesh of the young, so filled with rage they are.

Note that (as always) he can’t point to any particular “rage-filled” post or comment, and show us the “hateful” words. Just like his imaginary friends at the “Internet Rocketeers Club,” we are simply supposed to accept that such things exist in reality, and not just in Mark’s mind.

And of course, there, as he did here, he says that I accused him of being a liberal, once again indicating his apparent inability to comprehend written English. And no, Mark, there is nothing “hateful” about pointing out either that, or your apparent inability to properly gauge others’ emotional states. It is purely an unemotional, clinical observation.

[Bumped]

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Yes, There’s A Large Population In Each Of The Fifty-Seven States

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I’m not sure which is more disturbing — that the president believes that the US is a Muslim nation at all (let alone one of the largest ones, and while denying that we are Judeo-Christian), or that the Times is so uncritical in reporting such a belief. Kuwait probably has more Muslims (over three million) than the US does, and it’s a tiny Muslim country. We know what would be the press response had George Bush made such an egregiously nonsensical and innumerate statement.

[Update a few minutes later]

Respecting the faithful versus respecting the faith. Yes, the two can, and should be separated. And it applies to all religions, not just Islam. We can respect the right to believe something without respecting the belief itself. I for one respect no religion, other than my own, but I will defend the right to believe in any of them, at least until acting on such beliefs violates my own natural rights.

[3 PM update]

More thoughts from the Belmont Club:

By choosing to give his speech in Egypt, an authoritarian Middle Eastern country, instead of a more moderate country like Indonesia, he runs the risk of accidentally conveying the sense that democracy is on the back burner. What message does President Obama wish to project when he says “Les Etats-Unis sont “l’un des plus grands pays musulmans de la planète”? Is it of Islam as the future of America or America as the future of Islam? The President’s speech seems innocent enough, but emphasis is important. Didn’t he say, “don’t tell me that words don’t matter?”

In the interview, President Obama says one of the goals his trip is to foster dialogue between the West and the Muslim world. Maybe some communications strategist or public diplomacy consultant has advised “rebranding America” as the sort of place Muslims can identify with. That way it will be an easy sell. What better way to do it than by saying, ‘America is one of the biggest Muslim countries on the planet’. Ich bin ein Mussulman, or however you say it. That won’t necessarily fly; it doesn’t seem to work too well for India, which has a genuinely huge Muslim population. But there’s a hidden danger. His audience can say right: just look at how advanced and rich America is, and it’s one of the largest Muslim countries on the planet. See nothing is broken in Islam. America is proof. There comes a point when rebranding may become misleading packaging.

But hey, “misleading packaging” is the man’s forte, after all.

Media Criticism

“A Conspiracy of Euphemism”

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Thoughts on selective self-censorship by the press:

The news reader, Nora Raum, outlined the incident and stated that the shooting appeared to have “religious motivations.” She did not name the suspect, Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, or tell NPR listeners what those religious motivations might be. In other words, it could have been a radical Unitarian who gunned down the soldiers, or possibly a violent Presbyterian.

Why the shyness? Why not tell people what is actually happening in the world? We saw this a couple of weeks ago, when the press only gingerly acknowledged that the malevolent though incompetent suspects in the synagogue bombing-conspiracy case in New York were converts to Islam. How is the public served by this kind of silence?

As noted, it’s only one religion that seems to be fair game for discussion as motivation for criminal behavior.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary

Sauce For The Gander

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The people complaining about Judge Sotomayor being called a racist, seem to have selective outrage.

[Afternoon update]

Here are more examples of Judge Sotomayor’s “misspeaking”:

In the lecture, she used a former colleague, Judge Miriam Cedarbaum, as a foil. Cedarbaum believes, according to Sotomayor, “that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices.” Sotomayor endorsed this view as an aspiration, but added, “I wonder whether achieving that goal is possible in all or even in most cases.” Darn! What she meant to say — if it hadn’t gotten so garbled — is that this aspiration can be achieved, certainly in most and perhaps in all cases.

In the next sentence, she mused, “I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society.” Not again! This sentence was entirely misspoken and shouldn’t have been included in the text, since — as a straight-shooting, just-the-facts judge — Sotomayor naturally wondered no such thing.

In the very next sentence, she raised the possibility that people of different races “have basic differences in logic and reasoning.” Oh, no! In this passage, Sotomayor was badly victimized by misspeaking. An appeals-court judge flirting with the existence of Black Logic, or White Logic, or Latino Logic, is preposterous on its face. Again, in an innocent mishap, she must have poorly chosen her words by choosing to include them.

In a curious coincidence, she misspoke the same way later when she posited different judging by different races and genders might result from “inherent physiological” differences. #@$%&! Sotomayor clearly couldn’t catch a break, with her serial misspeaking obscuring her inspiring vision of a nation of laws that is no respecter of persons.

She’s just so misunderstood.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary

The Book Stores Didn’t Get The Memo

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Many on the left predicted (usually without even reading it) that Jonah Goldberg’s book would end up remaindered shortly after publication (I even had such idiotic prophecies in my own comments section here).

Well, the new edition, in paperback (with a new afterword on the Obama phenom), came out today, and it’s #32 at Amazon.

There’s an interview with the author on the new edition over at NRO:

One of the points of Liberal Fascism isn’t to simply say “I know you are but what am I?” to the Left (though that’s definitely in there), it’s to point out that because we’ve made fascism into this cartoon villain we’ve allowed truly fascistic (or if you prefer, statist or progressive) assumptions to suffuse modern life on both the right and the left. I don’t think all of this stuff is evil or even necessarily bad. Rather, I think it advances without us questioning it. I have a chapter in the book called “We’re All Fascists Now.” I wasn’t aiming that purely leftward, but inward. People need to understand that these movements didn’t arise out of a society-wide desire to be villains. It arose out of a desire, a yearning, for progress. I think that’s one of the most basic points I failed to communicate as clearly as I should have.

LOPEZ: Speaking of Liberal Fascism’s endurance, what do you make of events since the book came out, specifically the election of The One?

GOLDBERG: Well, first of all I think I have to thank Barack Obama. Here I wrote a book, working on the assumption that Hillary Clinton would be the nominee (hardly a harebrained assumption at the time), about how contemporary progressivism is a political religion with its roots in German state theory, sharing a close family resemblance to fascism. Among the anatomical and genetic similarities: cult of unity, sacralization of politics, philosophical pragmatism, corporatism, relativism, Romanticism, hero-worship, collectivism, and so on. And out of nowhere comes a guy who campaigns as a secular messiah, spouting deeply spiritualized political rhetoric, claims the Progressives as his inspiration, and proudly sees himself as carrying out FDR’s mission. I haven’t counted them, but I’d guess I’ve received a couple hundred e-mails from readers telling me how they thought the whole book was written with Obama in mind, even though I finished it before he was even ahead in the Democratic primaries.

It does seem prescient now.

[3 PM Eastern update]

The book has moved up to #30…