Reporter’s Questions Put Intelligence Chair on the Spot
A reporter recently directed the questions about Islam to Texas Democratic Rep. Silvestre Reyes. Reyes failed, which would perhaps not be a big deal if Reyes were an ordinary congressman.
But he’s not. Come January, Reyes will chair the House Intelligence Committee, which oversees all U.S. intelligence activity, a good portion of which is directed toward the war on terror.
Reyes could not tell Congressional Quarterly’s national security editor Jeff Stein whether al Qaeda was made up of Sunnis or Shiites. From Stein’s scathing column on the exchange:
“Al Qaeda, they have both,” Reyes said. “You’re talking about predominately?”
“Sure,” I said, not knowing what else to say.
“Predominantly â?? probably Shiite,” he ventured.”â?? Congressional Quarterly
There really is no excuse for this. Every member of Congress should know the basic facts about the people who want to destroy our way of life. Are we at a point where that is too much to ask?
As an astute observer of the scene told me earlier tonight, I’m paraphrasing,
What’s even more appalling is that he was allowed before a microphone with so little basic knowledge of the situation. Didn’t they prepare him at all? Either way, you have to know the rudimentary aspects of this global struggle to hold that position, don’t you?
Silvestre Reyes is no Alcee Hastings. But he’s still not worthy of the title of Chairmen of the House Intelligence Committee. Pelosi should give Jane Harmon her job back. She should follow one of the recommendations of the 9-11 Commission she loves to cite, which was to keep members on the intelligence committee for long periods of time to accumulate institutional knowledge. I know she is still on the committee, but she was in line to chair it and Pelosi alone said no. The only people that don’t respect Harmon are the far left wing of the Democrat Party. For this, we almost get an impeached federal judge and we do get someone with no idea of what we are up against.
I feel safer already.
The US House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct [official website] concluded Friday that although Republican leaders did not break any ethics rules [PDF report] in addressing the misconduct of disgraced ex-Congressman Mark Foley [Congressional profile], they nonetheless failed to protect young pages from inappropriate communications. Following an investigation [JURIST report], the panel found that House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) [official website] most likely received at least two emails detailing Foley’s abuses, but did not act on the claims for fear of creating scandal.
entire story here
Now for the “irony.” Pelosi and the rest of the mentally unbalanced left proclaimed that they would “clean up the culture of corruption in Washington” when they regained control of Congress. I guess that it depends on what your definition of “corruption” is. The Foley scandal was supposed to be prima facie evidnece that the GOP alone was “corrupt.” Yet we now know that the Democrats conveniently outed Foley a month before the election to politicize this relatively harmless incident of some sexually explicit instant messages with a former page in order to score political points. Don’t accuse them of engaging in the “politics of personal destruction” though. Only “homophobic” and bigoted conservatives engage in such demagoguery. I wonder if any Democrats will apologize to speaker Hastert whom they demanded resign?
I also wonder if Speaker Pelosi will hold hearings on whether recently re-elected Congressman William Jefferson used the $90,000 the FBI found in his freezer to fund his campaign? Perhaps. But I will bet that the elite media will ignore this one. Jefferson will get the same treatment Studds and Frank got. Come to think of it, a guy like Jefferson would be perfect to sit along with that other criminal Barney Frank on the ethics committee. Perhaps Alcee Hastings too! Yep, those Dems are well on their way to cleaning up that “culture of corruption.”
For more on the ethics of the left feel free to read, “Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild
by Michelle Malkin” a former guest on our show.
To the moral relativists who have equated Israel’s lawful self defense with overt crimminal war crimes-acts of Islamic Terrorism by Hezbollah in the recent Lebannnon conflict we have this from today’s Wall St. Journal:
Now their videotaped interviews form part of a remarkable report by retired Lieutenant Colonel Reuven Erlich of Israel’s Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center. Relying heavily on captured Hezbollah documents, onsite and aerial photography and other first-hand evidence, the report shows how the Shiite group put innocent civilians at risk by deliberately deploying its forces in cities, towns and often private homes.
As for the leftist Human Right’s Watch claims of Israel’s military engaging in acts of “indiscriminate warfare” and “a disturbing disregard for the lives of Lebanese civilians.” :
Mr. Erlich demolishes that claim, and in the process shows the asymmetric strategy of Islamist radicals. The most persuasive evidence here is photographic, so we urge readers to access the report itself on the Web site of the American Jewish Congress (ajcongress.org). Hezbollah’s headquarters in Aita al-Shaab, for instance, sits in the heart of the village. Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s office and home are in a densely built neighborhood of Beirut. In the town of Qana–site of an Israeli bombing on July 30 that killed 28 and that Hezbollah’s apologists were quick to label a “massacre”–an arms warehouse can be seen adjacent to a mosque. There are photographs of rockets in the back seats of cars, missile launchers adjacent to farm houses, storage bunkers hidden beneath homes. There is also a trove of before-and-after photography demonstrating the precision of most Israeli bombing.
I concur 100% with the Journal’s editorial board when they say today,
…it is Hezbollah, not Israel, that is guilty of war crimes here.
Pundit review’s friend Alan Dershowitz exposes the plethora of lies and distortions in Carter’s new anti-Israeli screed: “Palestine:Peace Not Apartheid.”
The Carter book is so filled with simple mistakes of fact and deliberate omissions that were it a brief filed in a court of law it would be struck and its author sanctioned for misleading the court. Carter too is guilty of misleading the court of public opinion. A mere listing of all of Carterâ??s mistakes and omissions would fill a volume the size of his book. Here are just a few of the most egregious:
Carter emphasizes that â??Christian and Muslim Arabs had continued to live in this same land since Roman times,â? but he ignores the fact that Jews have lived in Hebron, Tzfat, Jerusalem, and other cities for even longer. Nor does he discuss the expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab countries since 1948.
Carter repeatedly claims that the Palestinians have long supported a two-state solution and the Israelis have always opposed it. Yet he makes no mention of the fact that in 1938 the Peel Commission proposed a two-state solution with Israel receiving a mere sliver of its ancient homeland and the Palestinians receiving the bulk of the land. The Jews accepted and the Palestinians rejected this proposal, because Arab leaders cared more about there being no Jewish state on Muslim holy land than about having a Palestinian state of their own.He barely mentions Israelâ??s acceptance, and the Palestinian rejection, of the U.N.â??s division of the mandate in 1948.
Entire article Here
Like his book, Jimmy Carter is a phony and a fraud. Thanks to Professor Dershowitz for undressing the worst president this country has ever had (next to Clinton of course).
Our good friend Janet Levy of Jihadwatch has this piece on Frontpagemagazine.com in which she recounts a story of a Muslim woman in Dearborn Michigan (where else?) who filed a complaint at a Fitness Center claiming humiliation she purportedly suffered when her prayers in the womens’ locker room was interrupted by an intolerant member who had the nerve to get to her own locker that was being blocked by the prone Muslim women.
A Muslim woman in Dearborn, Mich., lodged a complaint Tuesday against Fitness USA for an alleged civil rights violation involving a fellow gym patron. According to Jodi Berry, executive director of Fitness USA, Wardeh Sultan was praying in front of another memberâ??s locker when the member wanted access to her belongings inside the locker. The inconvenienced patron tried to interrupt Ms. Sultan, but she remained prostrate in front of the locker and an altercation ensued. A manager was called into the locker room to intervene.
Ms. Sultan later complained that the Fitness USA management was unconcerned about the humiliation she suffered when her prayers were interrupted. She stated that the gym personnel were insensitive, rejected her complaints and did not satisfactorily intervene on her behalf. Ms. Sultan further reported that the manager told her, â??You have to respect her (the other patron), but she does not have to respect your god.â?Â
Janet then asks:
In the case of gym patrons, how far will the requests go before non-Muslim women are subservient to the whims and demands of Muslims? If a Muslim woman decides to spontaneously pray between the bench press and the treadmill are non-Muslims expected to alter their circuit in order not to disturb her? What if Muslims decide that they are uncomfortable with the immodest attire of non-Muslims exercising around them? Will they eventually demand that all gym participants dress according to a standard that they establish as appropriate? Once a Muslim-approved standard of dress is observed in the gym, would it be extended to cover shopping malls, post offices, other community locations and eventually an entire region?
Americans better wake up and realize how iherently dangersous the liberal ideology of “multiculturalism” is before it is too late. The Islamization will continue in this country until Americans get a collective backbone and say “enough.”
Read the entire article here.
What a week for Jimmy Carter. First, a 23-year director at the Carter Center resigns over the myriad of lies, bias and revisionist history in his new book Palestine: Peace, Not Apartheid
WASHINGTON �?? Former President Jimmy Carter faced new criticism Friday over his controversial book on Palestinian lands when a former Middle East diplomat accused him of improperly publishing maps that did not belong to him.
The new charge came as Carter attempted to counter charges from a former top aide that the book manipulates facts to distort history.
Ambassador Dennis Ross, a former Mideast envoy and FOX News foreign affairs analyst, claims maps commissioned and published by him were improperly republished in Carter’s book.
“I think there should be a correction and an attribution,” Ross said. “These were maps that never existed, I created them.”
After Ross saw the maps in Carter’s book, he told his publisher he wanted a correction.
When asked if the former president ripped him off, Ross replied: �??it sure looks that way.�?�
We are excited to announce that for the second year in a row, Pundit Review is a finalist in the Weblog Awards Best Media Blog category.
If you are so inclined, you can vote for us here.
Special thanks for to Kevin Aylward for all of the time and effort he puts into these awards.