Here is a preview of this week's column. Contrary to the conventional take on the Obama-Farrakhan Debate Moment, Sen. Obama did not reject Farrakhan's support. See for yourself below.

OBAMA'S TRUTHINESS ABOUT FARRAKHAN

Transfixed by the two-candidate "horse race," maybe we didn't focus precisely on what happened in the home stretch of the last Democratic debate when Barack Obama tried to pick and nuance his way through a straight-ahead question from MSNBC's Tim Russert.

Q: Do you accept the support of Louis Farrakhan?

The question arose because the longtime racist and anti-Semitic leader of the racist and anti-Semitic Nation of Islam had delivered a two-hour speech devoted mainly to praising Obama's candidacy.

Here is Obama's answer: "You know, I have been very clear in my denunciation of Minister Farrakhan's anti- ...

Britain's Prince Harry has been fighting the Taliban--in secrecy, as far as the rest of the world (including the Talbian) was concerned until Matt Drudge broke the story today. The Daily Express reports:

The 23-year-old Household Cavalry officer has spent the past 10 weeks serving in war-ravaged Helmand Province.

The deployment had been cloaked in secrecy under a news blackout deal agreed across the UK media to prevent details reaching the Taliban and endangering Harry and his comrades.

But the arrangement broke down today after news was leaked out on the US website the Drudge Report.

Which was a lousy thing to do.

    After William F. Buckley, Jr. died this week, I was asked if I would be writing about him in Friday’s column. No, I replied, realizing I didn’t feel I had much to say about him that wouldn’t be much more vividly expressed by those who had known and worked for him. I never had the pleasure of meeting him; I have never written for National Review. I did attend Yale—and as a student with conservative views—so I feel some loose connection to what I know of the ideas expressed in God and Man at Yale. Still, my first editorial job was working for Irving Kristol at The Public Interest, which placed me on the neoconservative side of opinion journalism, even if that is not where I ...

Picked up on Hollywood's latest mass perfidy--Oscar-chic, orange lapel-ribbon solidarity for Gitmo jihadists--at the always-invigorating Atlas Shrugs. The Miami Herald spotted so many stars wearing their terror-sympathies on their Oscar outfits it was able to put together a slide show. It starts with Julie Christie (below).  Time to watch your favorite John Wayne  (Robert Montgomery, Robert Taylor, Jimmy Stewart, Ginger Rogers...) movie.

Will The Washington Times under its new editor John Solomon (late of the Washington Post) remain DC's "conservative" newspaper? Here are some new style rules:

"Hillary" must be called "Clinton" when she merits a headline. (By golly, this is a Serious newspaper, and Hillary, I mean, Clinton is a Serious senator....)

There is to be no further use of stylistic markers indicating political and cultural controversy over same-sex marriage.

And, most indicative of the new PC, the paper has determined that the untold millions of "illegal aliens" flouting this nation's laws (and effectively transforming an English-speaking people into a Spanish one) deserve a  significant euphemistic promotion: From hereon in, such "illegal aliens" are to be reported on as "illegal immigrants." What strikes me about the implication ...

Today is the birthday of Tex Avery (1908-1980), famous for producing Dat Wabbit (above), among other pop immortals. According to lore (does Wikipedia count as "lore"?), his catch-phrase as a student at North Dallas HIgh School (Class of 1927) was "What's up, doc?" The rest is cartoon history.

I've been reading Peter Brock's Media Cleansing--a white-hot excoriation of media malfeasance, laziness, gullibility, and mendaciousness in reporting the civil wars in what we came to know of in the 1990s as "the former Yugoslavia." The elemental, systematic misreporting of these wars that he uncovers at least rivals the misreporting of the Tet Offensive, and seems to have a more indelible quality, still defying revision all these years later.

While wondering what he might have to say about Kosovo--couldn't find anything--I came across this 2006 piece by Julia Gorin  weaving together  (shockingly) related topics including Musharraf, Daniel Pearl, Bill Clinton, MI-6, Serbia, Israel, OBL, being o ...

Stuart Taylor considers the question in thought-provoking detail, kicking off from Sen. Obama's 2007 statement that his own daughters should be regarded as "folks who are pretty advantaged" by college admissions officers--and not as applicants requiring racial preference. As Taylor explains, if Obama is the Democratic nominee, racial preferences could become a hugely significant issue in the presidential campaign.

Here is an excerpt:

[Taylor hopes] to see Obama at least acknowledge that it's time to start phasing out racial preferences and replacing them with special consideration for promising low-income kids without regard to race. Indeed, Obama might need to go at least that far to win the general election if the Republicans are smart enough to shine a spotlight on the logical implications of his response to Stephanopoulos and of his pos ...

Andy McCarthy sees through some of the conventional confusion on Pakistan at The Corner: specifically, about Sen. Obama's alleged Bomb Pakistan's Jihadist Regions policy (which McCarthy guesses is completely insincere) and conservative scorn for said policy against "our ally Pakistan," which McCarthy notes is completey inconsistent with anti-jihad doctrine. This is particularly true now that Musharraf is on his way out (thanks to "democracy") and what McCarthy  calls "an amalgam of pro-jihadists and Leftists, united by their mutual legacy of corrupt governance" and willingness to enter into "dialogue" with jihadists is now taking power.

Addressing another Cornerite, McCarthy writes:

What you, Senator McCain, and others who spout this "our ally ...

After police in Denmark discovered a plot to assassinate Kurt Westergaard, one of the 12 Danish Mo-toon creators (his is above), he and his wife had to abandon their home last November. Earlier this month, after Danish police arrested his three potential assassins, Westergaard and his wife were asked to leave their police-protected hotel. Now, reports Der Spiegel, they are HOMELESS.

That's right. In the heart of Europe, an artist's life is threatened, his home-life destroyed, and now his sanctuary disrupted by what? Islam in the heart of Europe. And why? I'm going to answer by pulling a paragraph out of

I ask this question after reading a report at Politico.com on her thesis written as a senior at Princeton. What did she write about? Well, not U.S. diplomacy between the World Wars;  Milton's heroic sonnets; or even female artists of the High Middle Ages. Four years at one of the finest liberal arts institutions in the world, and Michelle Obama comes out still examining her navel in an excercise called "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community."

I suppose it's become required reading (download links available within the Politico story), given its deeply political nature--one that appears to strike a harshly discordant note with her husband's campaign message of post-racial unity. 

From Politico:

 My experiences at Princeton have made me far more aware of my 'blackness' than ever before, ...

At least the Obama campaign actually released Michelle's thesis.

Not only are we all still waiting for Hillary Clinton's White House records, but, as a sharp reader reminds me, her own college thesis has never been released. The late and lamented Barbara Olson writes in Hell to Pay:

The contents of HIllary's thesis, and why she would want it hidden from public view, have long been the subject of intense interest. Most likely, she does not want the American people to know the extent to which she internalized and assimilated the beliefs and methods of [infamous Marxist radical] Saul Alinsky...

Bright college years just ain't what they used to ...

Two pieces on The Surge today, one by Michael Kinsley, one by Charles Krauthammer. Bascially, Kinsley wonders what's so great about the surge if, by next summer we are only able to withdraw to the same troop levels we were at before it started. (Good question.) Krauthammer, on the other hand, sees the surge-wrought improvements in security and indications of what we know as "political progress" in Iraq and wonders why Democrats can't admit the surge is working.

Kinsley's bottom line:


So the best we can hope for, in terms of American troops risking their lives in Iraq, is that there will be just as many in July -- and probably in January, when time runs out -- as there were a year ...

From Victor Davis Hanson:

Barack Obama may have gone to exclusive private schools. He and his wife may both be lawyers who between them have earned four expensive Ivy League degrees. They may make about a million dollars a year, live in an expensive home and send their kids to prep school. But they are still apparently first-hand witnesses to how the American dream has gone sour. Two other Ivy League lawyers, Hillary and Bill, are multimillionaires who have found America to be a land of riches beyond most people's imaginations. But Hillary also talks of the tragic lost dream of America.

In these gloom-and-doom narratives by the well off, we less fortunate Americans are doing almost everything right, but still are not living as well as we deserve to be. And the common culprit is a government that is not doing enough good for us, and cor ...

Patrick Poole provides a perfectly appalling preview of  the kind of answers Rep. Wolf should expect from Georgetown University about exactly what Saudi millions have bought from the school. The extent to which our universities and other institutions have been corrupted by Islamic oil wealth is a national scandal and dire security threat--not that anyone bothers to notice ("hope!" "change!" glug, glug).....

What is the expression...Behind every good man is a good malcontent?

Meanwhile, back at the Obama foreign policy shop, The American Thinker finds reason not to hope" but to shudder.  

Sen. Obama is now playing interpreter for his wife's revealing comments about lacking pride in the USA ... until now.

Here's what she said :

"For the first time in my adult lifetime, I am really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change."

When asked about her comments by a Texas radio station, he said:

 "What she meant was, this is the first time that she's been proud of the politics of America," he said. "Because she's pretty cynical about the political process, and with good reason, and she's not alone. But she has seen large numbers of people get involved in the process, and she's encouraged."

Oh, Happy Day! Michelle Obama is "encouraged" by   ...

Douglas Farah takes note of a most significant letter from Rep. Frank Wolf (Virginia Republican) to the president of Georgetown University, John DeGioia. Rep. Wolf writes that he was perturbed by a December 2007 Washington Times story that reported on the millions Saudi "Prince" Alwaleed bin Talal--the same Saudi chieftain whose check Rudy turned down after 9/11--has bestowed on American universities. (Talal's oil-y largesse includes $20 million apiece to Harvard and Georgetown.) In the rest of the letter, Rep. Wolf is basically inquiring into whether Talal has gotten his (hush) money's worth from Georgetown.

This is an excellent question--particularly since, a ...

A message to independent Kosovo from the Organization of the Islamic Conference--which, among other things, has brought the world the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam, a "human rights" document that, according to the theocratic dictates of  sharia (Islamic law), both sanctifies and institutionalizes the inequality of man:

The Islamic Umma wishes them success in their new battle awaiting them which is the building of a strong and prosperous a state capable of satisfying of its people. There is no doubt that the independence of Kosovo will be an asset to the Muslim world and further enhance the joint Islamic action.

No doubt.

In an excellent overview of the Kosovo-Serbian situation, Ruth King provides the background necessary to understand the significance of independent Kosovo (not provided by the MSM--naturally).
Implications? Not good. Here's one big fat reason:

Western leaders are blind to the danger to themselves in the principle they are establishing, namely that recent illegal immigrants from another state have the right to declare independence over territory long recognized as part of a different sovereign state whose inhabitants they have ruthlessly forced to flee.

As they say, read it all.

UPDATED:The world is indeed a far, far better place without arch-jihadist Imad Moughniyah, killed in Damascus this past week. Reading about the mourning and outrage his death has caused in the Middle East--a clanging exercise in culture clash for anybody without their PC earplugs on--I came across this:

Even Hizballah's political rivals, including U.S.-backed Sunni Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, Saad Hariri, son of the assassinated former prime minister Rafik Hariri, and the anti-Syrian March 14 group [see update below], offered condolences to Hizballah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.

How about if we make it a new rule that any group offering "condolences" on account of this mass killer of Americans and Jews (and no doubt some Americ ...

Robert Spencer wonders why this story isn't front-page news everywhere.

Here's the gist of it:

Saudi Arabia's rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday.

The word "outrageous" is inadequate to describe such foul blackmail.

Now, some details:

Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced "another 7/7" and the loss of "British lives on British streets" if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence.
&l ...

Power Line notes the weird absence of widespread media coverage, let alone curiosity,  concerning why representatives of both the Clinton and Obama campaigns visited Damascus this week. Meanwhile, the campaigns have clammed up about it. Thankfully, the New York Sun asks:

Why are advisers to Senators Clinton and Obama in the Syrian capital at a time like this? Are they pressing for a separate peace with the regime? It is something on which Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton will be challenged in the coming campaign, we have little doubt. Where do they stand in respect of Syria — and why can't they bring themselves to explain what their advisers are doing in the capital of one of the countries most hostile to America and Israel?

To date, presidential campaign foreign po ...

Who deserves the $5 million reward for bringing down criminal-against-humanity Imad Moughniyah? 

Claudia Rosett  has double-checked with Gordon England's office about whether Hesham Islam has been dismissed. "Heavens, no!" said the office (or something like that). Hmmm. Who is coming to bat for Hesham Islam? Steven Emerson takes a look at one HI defender: Louay Safi, the director of Muslim Brotherhood-linked ISNA, who goes into a lather over the supposed  "McCarthyite" campaign he says is out to smear dear, sweet, minding-his-own-business-ousting-Stephen-Coughlin Hesham Islam.

Then again, didn't Joseph McCarthy say the government was riddled with communists? And wasn't the government riddled with communists? "McCarthyism ...

The affront to British dignity caused by the Archbishop of Canterbury when he affirmed the arrival of  sharia into GB in a BBC interview last week  is something to behold. That is, while we hear stentorian tones about "only one law for Britain" and all that, it is still the case that one-law Britain has been vigorously making way for sharia for a long time. Recent news stories tell us, for example, that polygamous marriages are now eligible for welfare assistance (as in multiple wives will recieve benefits) even as polygamy is a crime in GB, while Prime MInister Gordon Brown--he of the one-law-for-Britain comment--has made it his mission to make London the global center of Islamic finance--namely, finance according to sharia. De facto sharia courts exist in every major British city, and the British government recently called off a corruption case involving arms sales and Saudi Arabia, which doesn't exactly sound like a validation of the Magna Carta to me.

Worldnetdaily.com reports:

In a stunning turn of events, a high-level Muslim military aide blamed for costing an intelligence contractor his job will step down from his own Pentagon post, WND has learned.

Meanwhile, his rival, Maj. Stephen Coughlin, a leading authority on Islamic war doctrine, may stay in the Pentagon, moving from the office of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the office of the secretary of defense. However, sources say a former U.S. ambassador to Turkey is trying to block his new contract.

The "high-level Muslim military aide," of course, is Hesham Islam. I heard something similar over the weekend--namely, that HI would "step down" in such a way as to avoid linkage between his departure and his efforts to silence Stephen Coughlin's legal teaching ...

I'll be CBC Radio's "Sunday Edition"  today, where host Michael Enright asks "two ultra-conservatives why their cause is on life support." (David Frum is the other.)

The Archbishop of Canterbury says sharia law in England "seems unavoidable."

Read and weep.