This Just Makes Us Cry  
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/release/view/?id=1962 
 
Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has tapped Rep. Alcee Hastings, 
a Florida Democrat, as a "national campaign co-chair," the campaign 
announced yesterday: 
 
*** QUOTE *** 
 
Rep. Hastings said, "When we elect the next President Clinton, this 
country will be a much better place for the African-American community, 
Floridians and all Americans." . . . 
 
"I am delighted that Debbie and Alcee will take on leadership roles in 
my campaign," [Mrs.] Clinton said. "With their help, we will bring our 
message of change throughout Florida and across the country." 
 
*** END QUOTE ***
 
Who is Alcee Hastings?  Ed Morrissey  
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/010178.php  reminds us: 
 
*** QUOTE *** 
 
Hastings got appointed to the federal bench by Jimmy Carter in 1979. In 
less than two years, he got indicted for soliciting a bribe in an FBI 
sting. In 1983, he won an acquittal, but a subsequent House 
investigation found that he had committed perjury in that trial. The 
House 
Judiciary Committee authorized a whopping seventeen counts for 
impeachment 
against Hastings in 1988. . . . 
 
Now Hillary has embraced Hastings, and indeed has made the former 
perjurer and corrupt judge as her campaign's national representative. 
She 
says that with Hastings' help, her "message of change" will get rolled 
across the country. The message is that the Clinton campaign has its 
own 
idea about the culture of corruption--they want to pursue it.  
 
*** END QUOTE ***
 
We're so disillusioned. We really thought the Democrats were going to 
be different!  

This from opinionjournal.com.  


The response from America's detractors (e.g.,  Glenn Greenwald  
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/06/01/al_qaeda/index.html ) 
to our point about al Qaeda's actual torture vs. phony accusations of 
American torture was, essentially this: Well, of course al Qaeda 
tortures people! What do you expect? America is supposed to be better. 
 
To this way of thinking, terrorists are wild animals--violent, yes, but 
that's just the way they are. Americans and Israelis are human and 
obliged to treat "animals" humanely because we are better than they 
are. It 
is this double standard--holding America or Israel to an impossibly 
exacting moral standard while holding their adversaries to no moral 
standard at all--that dehumanizes the enemy. 
 

From opinionjournal.com.  This is what the very liberal NY paper feels should be done.
Remember they feel that they should be the ones to decide what classified National 
Security information should be released.


Today, the Times has yet another  editorial  
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/06/opinion/06wed1.html?ex=1338782400&en=
7fe0a5b02bce0d9e&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss  
demanding that enemy combatants be afforded full rights under the U.S. 
Constitution: 
 
*** QUOTE *** 
 
Congress should shut down Guantánamo Bay, as called for in bills 
sponsored by two California Democrats, Representative Jane Harman in the 
House and Senator Dianne Feinstein in the Senate. Both lawmakers are 
intimately familiar with the camp and have concluded it is beyond salvaging.  
 
Their bill would close Gitmo in a year and the detainees would be 
screened by real courts. Those who are truly illegal combatants would be 
sent to military or civilian jails in the United States, to be tried under 
time-tested American rules of justice, or sent to an international 
tribunal. Some would be returned to their native lands for trial, if 
warranted. The rest would be set free, as they should have been long ago. 
 
The Guantánamo camp was created on a myth--that the American judicial 
system could not handle prisoners of "the war against terror."  
 
*** END QUOTE ***
 
The attitudes expressed by Daley and the Times editorial board are 
quite typical of elite liberal thought. They share a premise that the 
threat of terrorism has been greatly exaggerated. But on closer analysis, 
there is a contradiction, one that reveals why liberal thinking on 
terrorism is dangerous not only to American national security but also, in 
the long run, to liberal ideals. 
 
Every time law-enforcement authorities announce that they have stopped 
a terror plan, we hear Daley-like pooh-poohing from the left: The plot 
wasn't really that serious, it was nowhere near being carried out, the 
suspects were just a bunch of losers, that sort of thing. (The battier 
Bush-haters add that the announcement is a publicity stunt to stoke 
public fear or serve some political purpose.) 
 
If this is true, then the Times's blithe assurance that the 
criminal-justice system is sufficient for dealing with the terror threat is 
utterly fatuous, is it not? 
 
Of course, newspaper editorialists don't make policy, so their fatuity 
is cost-free. But the Times's ideas are well within what passes for the 
mainstream of the Democratic Party. The Times carries a  news story  
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/06/washington/06gitmo.html?ex=1338782400&en=
149c6acceffcea2b&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss  
today titled "Democrats Hope to Expand Rights at Guantanamo." They are 
unlikely to succeed as long as George W. Bush wields the veto pen, but 
if a Democrat is elected president next year, all bets are off. 
 
John Edwards has endorsed the view, which the Times expressed with 
those scare quotes above, that the war on terror isn't real. Barack Obama, 
in a  CNN  
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0706/04/sitroom.03.html  forum 
the other night, declared, "I believe Guantanamo, the decision to detain 
people without charges, is unjust"--never mind that under international 
law, even legitimate prisoners of war may be held without charge for 
the duration of hostilities. 
 
If the Democrats hold their congressional majorities and one of them 
becomes president, then, it is quite possible that the Times's view will 
prevail. 
 
What the Times is proposing is that all terrorists in U.S. custody be 
freed unless prosecutors can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they 
have committed a specific crime--and in making their case, prosecutors 
would be bound by all the restrictions on admissibility of evidence that 
protect ordinary criminal defendants in the civilian courts. 
 
What if the U.S. adopts such an approach and it turns out to be 
inimical to national security? What if, that is, President Clinton or 
President Obama or President Edwards signs the Harmon-Feinstein legislation, 
Guantanamo is emptied, and a few years later we see another 9/11 or 
worse? 
 
Would the American people accept the idea that serial mass murder on 
our own soil is just the price we have to pay to preserve some abstract 
concept of liberty--that is, that the Constitution is a suicide pact 
after all? We doubt it.  
 
It is much more likely that the political system would find it 
impossible to resist public demands for much harsher antiterror measures, 
probably involving genuine curtailments of civil liberties. There is no 
reason to think that liberal politicians would resist such demands. After 
all, Woodrow Wilson restricted free speech during World War I, and 
Franklin D. Roosevelt interned tens of thousands of American citizens during 
World War II, cheered on by then-Gov. Earl Warren of California. In 
both cases the Supreme Court ratified the president's excesses. 
 
By overreacting to imagined civil liberties threats today, American 
liberals may be setting the stage for future overreactions in the other 
direction. Guantanamo helps keep America free as well as safe. 
 

What is your most lofty aspiration? Death for the sake of Allah!"

That is the charming verse kindergarteners in a Hamas classroom chanted last week during their graduation ceremony. The girls dressed in butterfly costumes. The boys donned camouflage, black masks, green bandanas and toy semi-automatic rifles. The video aired by the Middle East Media Research Institute (www.memritv.org) features the children wielding swords and guns while mimicking paramilitary exercises.

And how are we preparing the children of the West to defend themselves against these little soldiers of Allah?

Scene 1: In New York City, one nursery school dragged 3-year-old toddlers to the office of Rep. Eliot Engel (D-Bronx/Westchester/Rockland), where they sang "It's a Small World" around a 12-foot "Tree of Peace." The New York Press reported last week:

"The handmade tree, crafted by 17 children during pre-school class time, was a statement against American troops remaining in Iraq, and a call to pursue peaceful paths to end all world conflicts. This gift, however, seemed more like a Trojan horse, designed to gain an invitation inside so that the children's far-left leaning parents could rail against the war and the congressman's initial vote in support of it."

The children's teacher, Valerie Coleman-Palansky, defended the stunt thusly: "I think it's appropriate for 3-year-olds to know that the world needs to be a peaceful place for everybody to live in and a safe place for everybody to live in."

Perhaps it's time for Ms. Coleman-Palansky to acquaint herself with the Palestinian Mickey Mouse. The chant of the little jihadists drowns out the Disneyfied reverie:

"What is your most lofty aspiration? Death for the sake of Allah!"

Scene 2: I have a pet peeve. It goes beyond the antiwar indoctrination rampant in American schools. At the playground and at the mall, I see 5-, 6- and 7-year-olds walking around with pacifiers in their mouths. Kids old enough to feed and dress themselves. Kids old enough to figure out the remote control and cell phone. Standing upright, suckling on brightly colored binkies.

Where are the parents to yank the rubber from their mouths and force them to grow up? When did child pacification usurp the responsibility of child-rearing?

Scene 3: America is not alone in immersing its future generations in the culture of coddling. British educators have now determined that "asking pupils to put their hands up when they think they know the answer to a question in class could make quiet children fall behind," according to the London Telegraph. To spare students from this awful terror, the British Department of Education is now recommending that children be given 30 seconds of "thinking time" before being asked to answer or told to discuss questions in pairs before answering. Instead of teaching students to conquer their shyness and stand up for themselves, educators will be encouraged to pamper them in emotional bubble wrap.

On a separate front, British schools will be administering "happiness tests" to children as young as 4 to ensure high self-esteem. The Telegraph reports that the government has spent 20 million pounds on an "emotional literacy initiative" that promotes activities such as "worry boxes," where pupils write down their anxieties and post them into a box, and "emotional barometers," which pupils can use to show classmates the strength of their feeling about a subject.

I return to the video of the Hamas kindergarten class. Their "emotional barometers" break through the roof as one toddler with plenty of self-esteem leads the rest in a bloodthirsty call and refrain:

"What is your path? Jihad!"
"What is your path? Jihad!"

Back in London, the tots are taking their mental health quizzes. Teacher asks: "How do you feel?" The sheeple answer: "I've been feeling optimistic about the future."

Pardon me while I go fill my worry box. It's a small world, after all.