September 06, 2008
Biden and AIPAC
Sometimes I speak for AIPAC. Other times I speak to AIPAC. Yet other
times I speak about AIPAC. I also contribute to AIPAC. And there
are even times when I speak against AIPAC. In the next ten days I
will speaking at two events sponsored by AIPAC, no actually three. I
know AIPAC very well. It is made up of deeply patriotic Americans who
have a passion for and a stake in the security of Israel, God bless
them.
I don't know who ginned up this false spat between Joe Biden and
AIPAC. But even I, bound to
AIPAC in so many ways and over many years, don't believe that the
organization is the only one from which you can get an intelligent and
politically astute reading of where the American-Israeli relationship
should be going. There are also the Washington Institute for Near
East Policy, CAMERA, the President's Conference of Major American
Jewish Organizations, the Shalem Center, dozens of others.
In any case, Joe Biden has proved that his friendship for Israel is
axiomatic, as axiomatic as our friendship with England.
And here is an article I wrote on this matter ast week in the
Jerusalem Post.
September 06, 2008
...And Now We Hear from a Lubavitcher Rebbe
Wherever you go they are there. Go to Kinshasa and you'll find an
emissary from Chabad. Go to La Paz and you'll find another one.
There are hundreds of them around the world. And sometimes they are
welcome welcomers, like when thousands of Israeli and other Jewish
young people gather in Kathmandu for the Passover sedar.
Now a rabbi from the Hassidic movement of Lubavitch, Yosef Greenberg,
the head of the branch in Alaska, where there might be 5000 Jews (more
or less the the number of everybody on Wassila), has spoken up to
testify that Sarah Palin is a good friend of the Jews and a great
friend of Israel.
There is scarce evidence on this matter, one way or another. I
certainly don't attach much significance to the rumor that she was
once seen wearing a Pat Buchanan button. Even if she did that doesn't
make her an anti-Semite. It's more serious that MSNBC still carries him
as a network commentator, him and his rancid feelings about Jews.
But the fact is that Palin has not been involved with Jews at all, and
less so with Israel. How could she been otherwise? So this Lubavitch
endorsement or, to be more accurate, the endorsement from the
Lubavitch apparatus in Alaska is simply fatuous. abbi Greenberg, why
don't you just go back to saving young Jewish souls on their post-
adolescent treks through Alaska? And leave politics to the ordinary
citizenry who don't need clerical guidance about how they should vote.
September 05, 2008
My Daughter on Biden
I am deep in the Berkshires where, believe it or not, wi-fi internet service is very dicey. I am exasperated in not being able to discuss with you my thoughts and feelings about John McCain last night. I will do so as soon as my online service rights itself.
In the meantime I want to point out a very clairvoyant story by my daughter writing on the Vanity Fair website. She is the author of many articles, two of which I am especially proud of. One is an article on the UN and Iraq and the second is about Gore and the press in 2000. But the particular piece is about Joe Biden when he was being ignored by everybody.
September 04, 2008
Please God, Do Bless America and Rescue Us From These Swilly People!
The Republicans have always done well in the culture wars, and the Democrats have quite often been directly responsible for the dim and dreary consequences.
But this is not at all the case during the current election season, and it has not been the case for years. The Democratic opposition has actually been quite modest in its economic proposals (much too modest, I believe) and it has retreated a bit from its isolationist and soft power fantasies (but not retreated enough). Frankly, Barack Obama is no radical but a measured and scrupulously honest liberal. (By the way, I prefer the "liberal" label to the "progressive" one which still reeks of Communist Party politics). And so for that matter is Jospeh Biden a liberal, deeply knowledgeable and deeply rooted.
Given all this, I am still reeling from last night's malign hysteria at the Republican convention. This is a rotten crowd, even the pious Christian Huckabee and certainly Mayor Guiliani and the aspiring vice president, Sarah Palin.
It was a lilly white congregation when it is increasing rare to see that in our society any longer. Virtually no blacks. It didn't have many Hispanics either. Nor, for that matter, did I notice many Asian Americans. The assembly was in a trance about a politics there never was in America.
The uglier the remark the uglier the smile on Rudy's face. If Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi had been decked out like soccer mom Sarah last night the G.O.P. would have called them tramps. Why, a hem two inches below the knee! So risque! I giver her her due: she is pretty like a cosmetics saleswoman at Macy's.
Let's face the truth: If Bristol were Joe Biden's daughter or, worse yet, Barcak Obama's, the epithet "slut" would be on everyone's tongue in St. Paul. But since she is Palin's daughter she has been treated as if she were a saint, maybe Mother Theresa incarnate. But, of course, Mother Theresa wouldn't have had a child. Now, this pregnancy of an unmarried daughter could have happened to any of us, and it probably has to many of us. We would be accused of sexually loose morals and of not bringing up our daughters in the fear of both God and ourselves. Sex before marriage, a shame and a scandal.
None of this approbation, at least in the open. So it is good to see that the Palin family didn't torture poor Bristol, at least in the open. And Levi will actually marry her girl. Good for him. For her. Still, the public celebration of a private happening repels. This premature open baptism may actually ruin all three of their lives.
Is there nothing private anymore? Why was the softly adorable five-month old Down's Syndrome baby also presented for hours on hours to the television audience, passed from Cindy McCain to anyone near and then back to Cindy?
This is not really about politics. It is about culture, private morals and honesty. They have turned the tables on us: pretending tolerance but being as phobic as it takes to win an election. Yes, please God, do bless America and rescue us from these swilly people.
September 02, 2008
You Came By Boat? Leave By Boat
Tony Blair, who has been relegated to a message boy in the Middle East (shik yingel, as they say in Yiddish), has a sister-in-law who arrived in Gaza on two boats with 43 other so very idealistic meddlers. Their mission: "to break the siege of Gaza." Now apparently neither Egypt nor Israel will let Lauren Booth leave the strip by land. She came to make trouble and she made trouble for herself. Poor Lauren, she says she wants to "free Gaza," the slogan of the boaters from Gaza. Let her work to free Gaza from inside. And, if she wants to leave, let her leave by boat.
September 02, 2008
The Company Abbas Keeps
Yes, I know we're supposed to think of Mahmoud Abbas as a moderate. It may be the case that he actually does not have blood on his hands. So, given that Hamas is his sworn enemy (both ways), he is for all intents and purposes the moderate of the moment. But, then, all the folk now reassuring us of Abbas's moderation also assured us that Arafat, yes, Yassir Arafat, was a moderate, too. Given what Abu Amar (his nom de guerre meaning "father of war") did eight years ago in rejecting what Ehud Barak offered him and what more Bill Clinton squeezed Barak into offering him I conclude that he was not a moderate at all. He was a lunatic. No surprise, really. So what is Abbas?
Anyway, the Israelis have been trying to strengthen him and his forces. General Keith Dayton and his team -- small in number, proficient in soldiering -- have been trying to build a Palestinian security force that will keep Abbas and the Palestinian Authority alive...and even well.
But the fact is that, every few days, Abbas does something so egregious that I feel like a fool trying to fit the moderate square into the fanatic circle.
Abbas went to Beirut. He must have had urgent business there. Of course, he's the president of the Arab state of Palestine. And in the Arab state of Lebanon there a few hundred thousand Palestinians. Plus: maybe he can learn from Lebanon's government, which is not much of a government, how he can make the government of Palestine more like a government. Arab governments are a lot like a merry-go-round but not with golden rings. They live by bullets and bombs.
So what did Abbas do in Beirut? Well, we know one thing he did. He met with the demonic Samir Kuntar, one of the terrorists released to Hezbollah in exchange for the bones of kidnapped Eldad Regev and Ehud Godlwasser. Recall only one of his crimes: Kuntar is the luminary who smashed the skull of a 4-year-old girl while also murdering her father. He was welcomed by hundreds of thousands of cheering Beirutis, not an inaccurate picture of the gruesome politics now overwhelming the Arab world.
Kuntar and Abbas are now sparring over who asked for the meeting. Abbas says Kuntar; Kuntar says Abbas. It hardly matters. We now know with whom Abbas is comfortable having coffee.
Abbas's visit with Kuntar, the president of Palestine meeting with a killer for Palestine, reminded me of another visit by the real head of a real Arab state, the Kingdom of Jordan. When a crazed Jordanian soldier killed six Israeli school girls on a visit to Jordan, the monarch, King Hussein, a descendant of the Prophet, came to Israel for condolence calls, shiva calls, to all of the bereaved families.
I don't know about you. I'd never had been able to sit down with Kuntar under any circumstances. And, frankly, I wouldn't sit down with Abbas either.
September 02, 2008
"Family is out of Bounds"
Barack Obama has set a standard for the rest of the campaign. “Family is out of bounds,†he said, and from the evidence he seems to mean it. Maybe the Republicans will also reject any ugly temptations that come their way in the two months that remain until the people vote.
It may be that public figures in eras past lived less scandalous lives, and their families, too. Or that the bounds of decorum kept the press (and perhaps even the clergy) from learning too much, lest their sense of responsibility to their publics persuaded them to tell all. Restraint is no longer even a virtue of the most decorous historians. We’ve already known for years that, in his pursuit of happiness, Thomas Jefferson slept with one of his slaves, Abe Lincoln slept with one of his male friends, FD.R. had a long “relationship†with one of his secretaries and Eleanor with two of her admirers (one male, one female), and J.F.K. commanded so many liaisons that even his gossipy court scribe Arthur Schlesinger couldn’t keep up with the numbers. “Junior,†as he was sometimes called, was so lap-dog loyal that he only told tales at parties with other intimates who probably already knew more than he did.
Now, working politicians are liable to be exposed if only their opponents can find journalists voracious enough to entrap for no other reason than to entrap.
Tom Eagleton was dropped as second to George McGovern only because he had received electric shock therapy. Gary Hart had to take himself out of his contest for the Democratic nomination because of happenings on “Monkey Business.â€
And on and on and John Edwards…and on. And on.I don’t know who leaked the original fake story about Sarah Palin’s daughter.
Maybe there was no alternative for the Palins other than to tell the whole truth now that the lie was out.
America is obsessed with gossip and even the most private gossip seems to become important news. It’s a shame.
This doesn’t mean I wish we were like France.
You can’t tell yet whether this episode will take a big toll on the McCain-Palin candidacy. I would much prefer it went down because Obama-Biden is politically a more venturesome and intellectually a more formidable ticket. And, as for Sarah Palin, she is simply a preposterous nominee, whatever her charms. Given a two month campaign nearly everyone would have recognized that. Now she may win some sympathy so that there’ll be a race after all.
For all the tut-tutting excitement over a pregnant unmarried daughter of a vice presidential candidate you have only the Republicans and the evangelicals to blame. They have no understanding and no compassion. If men and women are born in sin they, we deserve solidarity and compassion which, as it happens, we have less and less of in our society today.
September 02, 2008
Meshal Decamps for Sudan
Even Syria is now disposing of Khaled Meshal, the chief strategist of Hamas. You may recall that the Mossad once tried to kill him (by poisoning) on an Amman street but failed. Still, as he lay dying, Jerusalem was diplomatically coerced to provide the chemical antidote that would keep him alive. It's a shame: many Jews and Arabs now dead would still be alive. In any case, King Hussein wanted Meshal out. He went north where other exiled Palestinian terrorist chieftans had found homes and a capitol from which to order press releases and marching orders.
Let's speculate whom the expulsion from Damascus makes happy. Maybe Israel because it removes him from a neighboring state in which to do his mischief. Maybe Syria itself because revolutionaries, even revolutionaries whom one indulges, are also and always trouble-makers. Probably the war-front Gaza chieftain for whom, like for all warriors in the areas of strife, leaders in exile are always, well, leaders in exile. And certainly the U.S., at whose stressed urging President Assad must have broken with his long-time comrade. Poor Ms. Rice: in her eyes, this move will smooth the way for the peace talks between Lebanon and Syria. You will not be surprised I think it won't. Hasn't she noticed that the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority have suffered a terrible fate? Mahmoud Abbas has rejected two more than reasonable, in fact, more than generous offers from Ehud Olmert. You will also not be surprised that I think the offers are more than dangerously generous. When a president comes to realize that from now on he can't spend his winters in Antigua they panic. What have I accomplished? Quick: the Jews to the rescue. But it is not the Jews who are problem. It's the Arabs.
Oh, yes. And to where will Meshal go? Take a guess. Not any of the usual places. He will be the guest of President Bashir in Sudan. This is tell-tale. Sudan once hosted bin Laden, the chief of Al Qaeda. Now it will host the chief of Hamas. The symbolic symmetries cannot be clearer. But, of course, for the sake of peace and all other good things, Israel should negotiate with Hamas.
September 01, 2008
Biden's Good Enough for Me
John Podhoretz who, mirabili dictu, by the time the season passes will have become editor of Commentary, had been preparing for real life at the New York Post. But the laws of primogeniture intervened and now here he is dispensing all kinds of insidious bits of gossip, not at this point about Barack Obama but about Joe Biden, the flimsy Obama file having already long ago been exhausted. See Contentions in Commentary on-line. There's a quote from an angry Menahem Begin but only a vague allusion to what Biden is said to have said to the Israeli prime minister. The entire story comes from another story by the former editor of Ma'ariv, an Israeli newspaper, in another Israeli newspaper, The Jerusalem Post. in 1992. Where, for God's sakes, is a citation from the official records of the committee hearings?
The committee meetings, however, were supposed to have taken place not in 1992 but ten years earlier, in 1982, exactly 26 years ago. Is it likely that a nasty exchange between the prime minister of Israel and a distinguished Democratic senator would not have been noticed? By anyone, by me, for example? Biden is alleged to have threatened to cut economic aid to Israel if the building of West Bank settlements was not curtailed. This was the line of the at once unctuous and crude James Baker, who stole the election from Al Gore in 2000 on behalf of George Bush before whom I assume Podhoretz, père et fils still genuflect after morning prayers.
Look, what is happening here is that a senator with a sterling record, an unexceptionable sterling record on Israel is now in the eyes of the snipers, a kind of political terrorism in which evidence has no place, history no relevance and real politics no standing. Joe Biden is one of the most astute and committed supporters of Israel in American politics.
Menahem Begin took easy umbrage at any question that was a real question. He would put down anyone who questioned where he put the comma in a sentence. "I am a proud Jew" was one of his favorite sentences, mostly used as retort to anything he thought questioned his wisdom. I have not the slightest idea as to whether Joe Biden ever did. But it is no sin, and it is certainly not evidence of hostility to Israel. And, frankly, would Israel be better off now if it had not built bivouac camps and outposts in the middle of the densely populated West Bank but instead had established real population centers in the Jordan Valley rift? And around Jerusalem?
Another allegation has circulated today about Biden having said somewhere, someplace that Israel may have to learn to live with a nuclear-armed Iran. Where did he say it and to whom? According to Israel Army Radio we don't know the answer to these questions. But it is said to have occurred three years ago in a secret conversation with Israeli officials. McCain supporters like Podhoretz are playing with fire when behave so as to restrain Israeli leaders from having candid conversations with American leaders. Both have to be able to speak honestly and openly with each other, putting to each other tough questions and answering them honestly.
In the meantime, we know that Biden considers himself a Zionist ("You don't have to be a Jew to be a Zionist") and considers Israel one of our country's most reliable and effective allies. Dayenu! That's enough for me.
August 31, 2008
Experience, Shmexperience
I suppose there is not much left to say about Sarah Palin. Or maybe there is a world to say.
But the first thought that comes to mind is how impoverished the Republican Party is. To have dug so hard and to have come up with such circumstantial assets as being a woman and an evangelical Christian is really not much. There are millions of them, even pretty ones, which speaks to another political asset.
I can't quite say of Governor Palin that she is jejeune. But there is little public evidence yet available that forbids me.
So let me focus on her political experience. Apparently, Senator McCain once toyed with asking Mayor Bloomberg to be his running-mate. Mike had the experience of building one of the most successful private businesses in the world, and nothing he did suggests that he was a pirate. More important, he has run New York for nearly eight years as mayor and he has done it in a way that puts the Democratic Party to shame.
Palin has also been the mayor of Wasilla, a tiny city of maybe 7,000 inhabitants. This is not really executive experience of any kind. It's no accident that no mayor of any city (I think) and certainly no mayor of what is really a small town has ever been nominated for such high office. And, frankly, the same insight applies to Palin's experience as governor of Alaska. Yes, she has been chief executive of one of the fifty states of the union, and it is not the lowest state in population. Behind Alaska stand North Dakota, Vermont and Wyoming, plus the District of Columbia.
Still, Alaska is a relatively special position. It is a jurisdiction that has no budgetary problems whatsoever. It has an enormous surplus of nearly $37 billion now managed by the Alaska Permanent Fund, and it is growing. In any case, this year every man, woman and child in Alaska will receive a dividend of nearly $3,900. This is not experience that can be transferred to Washington. It has no relevance to zillions of dollars in accumulated budget deficit.
Experience, shmexperience. Nothing.
August 31, 2008
Thoughts on the Convention
I write from Telluride, Colorado where I arrived just before Barack
Obama began to deliver his convention address. Of course, I watched
it and, more importantly, heard it. That is, I heard one of
the most artfully crafted speeches I recall. He did not use the
phrase I've been pressing on my friends in the campaign. But it was
really about the rebuilding of the "social contract" among Americans.
That social contract has been in tatters for a long time, as early as
Bill Clinton's second term. And, while the evidence for this could be
felt palpably by increasing numbers of Americans, even increasing
numbers under George Bush, it was also sensed psychologically and
spiritually in the sullen lives of many in the citizenry and
especially by way of contrast to the indulgence of smug super-rich.
The fact is that I did not really appreciate the convention, aside
from a few particular speeches: that of Al Gore which I heard the day
after it was given; that of (I have sheepishly to admit again) John
Kerry; and, of course, Ted Kennedy's farewell, may God grant him
health and life.
I came into politics -- we called it the "new politics" then -- against a
very young Kennedy in 1962 when I (for my sins) was active in the
Democratic primary campaign of putative "peace candidate" and Harvard
historian H. Stuart Hughes, grandson of the late Chief Justice of the
United States and a veteran with those in the Office of Strategic
Services (O.S.S., prelude to the C.I.A.) who were ready to accommodate
each and every ambition of the Soviet Union. The third candidate in
the race was Eddie McCormack, nephew of the then Speaker of the House. In any case, the Hughes campaign expired with about 1 1/2% of
the vote almost all of whom were actually pro-Castro, another station
on the cross of fellow-traveling. It's a long time ago. But the
rancor against Teddy took many seasons before it passed.
It was actually exacerbated when Robert Kennedy barged into Eugene
McCarthy's presidential campaign in 1968 and brought with him the
relentless momentum of the clan and its blindly ambitious hangers-
on. 1968 ended in the spring, first with the assassination of Martin
Luther King and then with the killing by a Palestinian terrorist of
Bobby himself. (Yes, do not forget that.) Gene when into St. John's
seminary to punish himself, I think. But the ragged edge of the
relationship between the Kennedy Democrats and the McCarthy Democrats
did not get smoother,
Indeed, I never publicly admitted my admiration for Teddy until after I saw him at Gene's funeral in the National
Cathedral. No, I do not admire his foreign policy. And, yes, that
means we have on this broad matter shifted sides. But I do admire,
very much admire, his insistence that American liberalism needs be
rigorous and vigorous, impassioned and inspired. He probably is the
most morally attuned member of the Senate, and I want to pay tribute
to him here again and to apologize for all the shabby thoughts I had
about him in the past.
I believe that Barack Obama carries Teddy's torch.
So why didn't I much like the convention?
First of all, I still recall when Democratic conventions (I had and
have no interest in Republican ones) were a context for intellectual
argument, moral confrontation and political decision-making above and
beyond the choosing of the candidates by acclamation. In that sense,
I was for a brief moment sympathetic to Hillary's demand for a roll
call. But then it became perfectly obvious that she was bargaining for
deference and nothing more, except trying to make the Obama people
crawl, which they did. Go back and read about the 1948 convention and
the ones of 1960, 1964, 1968, 1972. This is not nostalgia.
My second objection was to the sheer quality of the speeches and the
speakers. The fact is that both talks and talkers, most of them, were
simply dreary, uninspired, repetitive, treacly. The "real folk" were
not the worst, that category belonging to the office-holders whose
dull utterances made my wonder how they ever won an election in the
first place. But the real folk made the party look like a collection
of losers, burdened by pathos as much as by policy. Should the
convention not be an opportunity for us Democrats to show that we are
a party of achievers? Lawyers, theologians (not hack preachers),
doctors, university professors, inspiring scientists, a philosopher or
historian, intrepid business people and social visionaries. Maybe
even an economist or two who, although maybe disagreeing with one
another, might have taught the nation a thing or two, say Larry
Summers and Robert Reich, not at one with one another, but both
fervent Democrats.
My third complaint is about the music which was about as distinctive
as the sounds you hear in your gym. Relentless and dumbing. The
party is fighting for the patriotic vote. Why not a chorus, maybe
even the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, singing the old traditional and
still inspiring "America the Beautiful," "The Battle Hymn of the
Republic" (yes, there wars worth fighting), "America the Beautiful,"
"God Bless America," "Lift Every Voice and Sing," "If I Had a Hammer,"
"This Land is You Land," "This is My Country," "Ballad for Americans,"
maybe Neil Diamond's "America." I bet each of you might add one or
two. Or, in concert style, Aaron Copland's "Fanfare for the Common
Man," something from Dvorak's "New World Symphony," maybe Leonard
Bernstein's "Kaddish," dedicated "to the beloved memory of John F.
Kennedy."
End of my reflections.
August 27, 2008
In Which I Say Something Nice About Bill
Bill Clinton gave a terrific speech. And it was the kind of terrific speech that Barack Obama wanted and needed. If Obama loses no one would be able to say "blame it on Clinton."
The fact is also that, after a hesitant beginning, John Kerry also gave a wonderful speech, and it was wonderful not only in rhetoric but in substance and content. Now, I would quibble with him -- no, I would quarrel with him -- about some of his formulations on foreign policy. But no one will be able to say that his speech was like most of the rest of them. And he delivered it well, too. I don't recall a speech of his as good as this one in 2004.
August 27, 2008
The Psychiatrically Malfunctioning Democrats
Treacly, treacly...that's Hillary
But what about the self-serving but ultimately self-demeaning story Hillary told about the single mom, sick from cancer, with (what else?) the name "Hillary" painted on her head made bald by chemotherapy?
I will always remember the single mom who had adopted two kids with autism, didn't have health insurance and discovered she had cancer. But she greeted me with her bald head painted with my name on it and asked me to fight for health care.
Frankly, there is something psychiatrically malfunctioning in the Democratic habit of reveling in human tragedy amidst the cheering and the rock music, the idol worship and the loss of simple common sense.
And the truth is that, even if Hillary were president (and Obama, too) the single mom would have had a bald head and two autistic children and maybe, even if with health care and Hillary's name emblazoned on her skull, her life would not be good. The president is no deus ex machina against the relentless ticking of fortune.
August 27, 2008
Bill Clinton's Lack of Subtlety
I know that, right after he said this, he denied it had any relevance to the current campaign. Ha, ha. ha. But wasn't Bill Clinton, in his slippery and underhanded way, telling us that it was o.k. with him if we voted for John McCain? What else could he possibly have meant?
"Suppose for example you're a voter. And you've got candidate X and candidate Y. Candidate X agrees with you on everything, but you don't think that person can deliver on anything. Candidate Y disagrees with you on half the issues, but you believe that on the other half, the candidate will be able to deliver. For whom would you vote?"
Then, perhaps mindful of how his off-the-cuff remarks might be taken, Clinton added after a pause: "This has nothing to do with what's going on now."
I used to think that the only time Clinton wasn't lying was when his mouth was shut. But, watching him in his box biting his lips, I am no longer sure. Obama has saved the country from a moral calamity.
August 27, 2008
Why is No One Talking About Georgia and Iran?
I haven't watched all of the convention thus far. So I'm not sure whether anybody else mentioned it but her. Still, Hillary Clinton did mention "Putin in Georgia," and it is good that someone prominent at the Democratic convention took note of this brazen attack on a free people by someone who seems to have a yen for the Cold War. And towards his other neighbors a yen for hot war, besides.
Maybe Joe Biden will explain to his fellow Democrats what the deeper meanings of the invasion of Georgia are. He certainly knows.
And unless I am mistaken no one has yet mentioned Iran or, for that matter, Israel. It could be that these are also on Biden's agenda, and in a few hours we will know. But if they are not...
We know what the domestic priorities of the Democratic Party are, that is, its domestic priorities, quite vaguely. But everybody realizes that we cannot pay for all of the promises thus far made at the podium in Denver.
I yearn for some definitive words on the American relationship with the world. Alas, that is the deep fault line in the party. Many Democrats don't want any relationship with the world except what comes after the Kyoto accord and, oh, yes, support for AIDS medicines, which the Bush administration did relatively well (yes, relatively), in any case. The Democrats won't be worse.
The fact is that most of the Democrats who we need to return to the fold are not about to permit the peaceful victory of 1989-1990 in central Europe to be overturned. I, too, am listening for an echo of Hillary Clinton...and more.
Next Page >>
Mowser