Don Imus should quit.  If he had any common sense, and common decency, he would just quit.

Apparently he doesn't have either.  He'll be back after his severe two week suspension - Boy oh boy, they really threw the pamphlet at him!  His career has already outlasted its benefits to America and he should lose his soapbox permanently.

Featured Townhall commentator Kathleen Parker in her predictable column on this topic wrote:

Imus has said a few dumb things in a decades-long career -- as have we all -- but he also has raised many millions for charities.

As though that makes it all okay.  He's raised millions of dollars for charities.  The federal government, by making charitable contributions tax deductible, has raised billions of dollars for charity, but I don't read her praising the federal government and saying that it should be forgiven for its offences.  I bet she would not have let the Black Panther Party off the hook just because it provided breakfasts to poor children.  Does she want to give Al Qaeda a pass because the children at the madrassas they support get a free education?  I doubt it.

Have Don Imus's charity activities ever called him to make a true personal sacrifice?  I doubt that, too.  I'm sure that if he took my advice and quit his program he'd be able to jet off to a comfortable retirement.  He may have raised millions for charity, but we, as a culture, gave him far more than he has personally given away.

And couldn't someone other than Imus have raised just as much money for charity if that person had been given the platform Imus has abused for many years?  No doubt about it.

There are funny things about being human.  Some of those funny things have to do with who we are, who our ancestors were, and how we try to make sense of that.  But there are no "racist" jokes.  If a comment is racist, it is not a joke.

I just happened to notice that at the bottom of the Townhall blog composition screen is a list of the three top items sought through Townhall's search engine.  They are:

• saddam
• katie rees
• global warming

The name Katie Rees didn't immediately register with me, but a quick web search remedied that.

So, the generally very conservative bloggers on Townhall.com do most of their searching for: a) the dictator often decried on these pages and still condemned even after death for having weapons he didn't actually have; b) a young woman whose good looks far outweigh her importance in America, but for the fact that Americans more and more obsess over good looking unimportant women (Ann Coulter, take note); and c) something they don't believe in.

Have I found the very nexus of wackiness on this planet?

I cannot provide all the details here, the time is just not right, but I have the following announcement:
My wife is running for Father of Anna Nicole Smith's Baby.  She is not one to kiss and tell, and she is even less likely to kiss the dead and tell.  "That's just icky," she told me this morning.  You'll just have to trust us.

We were going to throw my hat into the ring, but decided that because I had a vasectomy decades ago someone would drag that up to prove that I couldn't have been the father.  Of course I could have played the cryogenics card, and maybe I should have.  But between the two of us we decided that my wife had a better shot at it.

There will be lots of questions, and in time lots of answers.  Until all the information can be made public just remember this: My wife is the father, not me.

 Tony Evans and Don Kroah focus on the negative.

Again.

This evening as I was driving home from work and listening to the Don Kroah Show, Don was talking with his guest, Tony Evans, about a case coming before the Supreme Court that deals in some way with the legality of the "faith-based initiatives" that President Bush has promoted. Both men were decrying the posibility that these initiatives would be cut off. Both men were reciting a list of services that would no longer be available to citizens in need if not provided by tax-supported "faith-based" groups. Both men were complaining that the government itself would be much less efficient in providing the services. Both men were declaring that God calls Christians to use the power and wealth of the government to deliver these services.

And both men were saying that if the Supreme Court strikes down the laws and orders which enable "faith-based initiatives," the Supreme Court will be making a big mistake.*

I think it is they who are making the big mistake.

One thing in particular that Dr. Evans mentioned was that as well-intentioned as it was, the Great Society endeavor made the mistake of allowing recipients to believe that the benefits should be coming to them forever. Yet, after less than six years of support from the government's tax coffers Dr. Evans seems to think that "faith-based" groups have a perpetual entitlement to managing the distribution of tax dollars to the poor and disadvantaged. Isn't that a little cockeyed?

On a somewhat deeper level they are mistaking the mission implicit in acting out one's faith. They talked about the services that would not be available without the "faith-based initiatives." But they did not challenge, as I believe the Christ would, all believers to work the miracles of giving regardless of whether the government is supplying the funds.

Dr. Evans and Mr. Kroah, why don't you tell followers of the Christ that when these initiatives end, as surely they will, it becomes their challenge to join together in groups that do not promote a particular faith when providing these valuable services if they want to continue distributing federal tax mone? And beyond that, is it not the duty and privilege of all Christians and Muslims to give freely of that which God has entrusted to each of us?

The injuctions in Bible and Quran that make these responsibilities clear have no mention of relying upon the U.S. Treasury for the donations.

 

* I can hear James Dobson's anti-judicial activism engines starting to churn already.

Senator Warner,

The so-called compromise between you three courageous Republican senators (yourself, Sen. McCain, and Sen. Graham) and the president has a provision that gives me great concern.

This morning on CNN.com I read a report saying that under the terms of the agreement the president would have "the authority for the United States to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions."

History and court records, for that matter, reveal that time and again when this administration interprets the meaning of any law the outcome is a power grab by Mr. Bush and another hole in the monument of civil liberties that our founding fathers bequeathed to us. The erosion of our liberties through his interpretations and through his prolific signing statements are a blot upon his administration. Now, to give him license to interpret a treaty, both widely adhered to and crucial to the safety of captured Americans, potentially brings a blot upon our entire nation and is something for which we all might suffer.

I believe that President Clinton recently suggested that in an extremely unusual case in which it was known without doubt - without doubt - that a person in custody had information regarding a plan underway that would culminate in a catastrophic attack on the United States within two or three days a president could issue an executive order in which he personally takes responsibility for interrogation techniques that are otherwise illegal. I believe that in each and every case in which there is any blurring of the lines protecting a person in custody the president must - must - take personal and documented responsibility.

As I commented in a recent email to you, Americans are strong enough, courageous enough, and honorable enough to prevail against our enemies without shedding our core values of fairness and integrity.

Please reconsider this compromise and move to strike from it the opportunity for a president, particularly this president, to "interpret" the Geneva conventions.

Sincerely,

David Sackrider

At the conclusion of my last post, which criticized Israel for its repetitive brutality and its lack of imagination, I promised that I would at some future point level a critical eye toward the enemies of Israel. The time is now.

The Palestinian people continue to suffer. This in spite of decades of struggle, much of it violent, against the state and people of Israel, which struggle was supposed to bring an end to the state and expulsion of its people from this land with so many names.

[A quick disclaimer: I have lived almost as long as Israel has existed. In all that time I have never been any closer to Palestine than Cairo. The effect that Israel has had on me has only been indirect.]

Now, back to my lesson for the Palestinian people and their advocates.

The land with so many names upon which the state of Israel was created has all those names because of the many – dozens if not hundreds – regimes that have controlled that poor plot. From the beginning of recorded history people have settled this poor land and been uprooted by the next settlers, who in turn have been uprooted. It has gone on and on. A considerable amount of humankind’s very early writing has been devoted to this chronicle.

When European and North American governments established Israel after the conclusion of World War II it happened again. Many, but not all, Palestinians were uprooted as the new Israeli settlers shouldered their way in. A happy event for the new settlers, and unpleasant for the Palestinians. No, it was more than unpleasant. It was horrible. Yet it was not unprecedented.

For millennia people have been expelled from this land, and centuries later their descendents have returned. There will come a time when this land will be home to the children, or grand children, or great-great grandchildren of Palestinians pushed out in 1948. At that time, the land may have its current name, Israel, or it might have a different name. Who knows?

What I do know, is that the only way for this to happen is peacefully. Because when you get right down to it, no one, Hebrew or Palestinian, can be settled if there is no peace. By continuing an armed struggle, especially a struggle of seemingly indiscriminant violence against civilians, the Palestinians and their supporters delay the day of return. The struggle is not working.

Even as the struggle continues, the suffering of the Palestinians continues. Every one knows this. The root cause of the suffering probably is the inequity in treatment of the Hebrew people compared with the Palestinian people. Inequitable and unjust. And, yes, horrible.

This most unfortunate suffering, however, is not what occupies the mind of the part of the world that wields the most power – North America and Europe. As unfair as it may be, the armed struggle against civilians in Israel comes to mind more readily than the suffering caused by the unfair conditions under which the Palestinians live. And this will remain the case until the armed struggle stops.

Perhaps this sounds impossible, but the Palestinians must stop their armed struggle. The fighting, on their part, must stop. Undoubtedly, this means that some recent and some future violent deaths of Palestinians must go unavenged. Suffering will continue – it won’t end overnight. It is the lot of the Palestinians to suffer at this time. And a better time will come. This, too, is not unprecedented.

I look at the transformation of the legal and economic status of African-Americans as a model for what might happen in the land of many names.

In a land of vicious racism, African-Americans of the middle of the last century began drawing attention to the cruel suffering they and their ancestors had endured. Over a period of about twenty years, even in a country that had Black slaves more recently than any other “civilized” nation, ordinary people stood up to say, “Enough!” Laws were changed. Opportunities opened. A generally peaceful transformation occurred. If it happened in my racist nation in an era of black-and-white television with no cell phones or faxes or internet, it can happen today in the land of many names.

If you Palestinians hasten the day without armed struggle, the world will sooner fix its sights on the suffering of the Palestinian people. That will begin an age of change during which the world will stand up to Israel and say, “Enough!”

At some point in time Israel will be unable to resist the peaceful force of the world demanding that it figure out how to stop the suffering that it has caused. When the world no longer sees Israel struggling to survive, the world will insist that it behave decently. Somehow, I don’t know the details, Israel and its neighbors will find an arrangement for sharing the considerable benefits that the Israeli people have brought to the land of many names.

So, I say to Palestinians: Suffering is your lot, and it will continue beyond the time you put down your arms, your rockets, your suicide vests. But it will end soon after. You, and perhaps your children, may not live to see it, but your grandchildren will live in peace with Hebrew and Christian neighbors in the land with many names. This is a gift you can give your descendants.

Peace

The State of Israel has once again stepped out of bounds with its attacks on the infrastructure of Lebanese civilians. The time is immediate for the United States to assume responsibility for reining in the spoiled child that we have enabled for so long in the Middle East. Since the unfortunate failure of President Clinton's final attempt at managing peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians the United States has done little to resolve the entrenched difficulties. Israelis have demonstrated a serious failure of imagination and tragic lack of patience in their attempt to live among a dogmatically hostile people.

My wish is that the state of Israel could survive as a decent member of the world community and as a partner with its neighbors for the benefit of all humans in the region. It must learn to recognize that the life of a foreigner is no less valuable than the life of one of its citizens, lesson, I am ashamed to say, the United States also needs to relearn. I am not optimistic that Israel will outlast the animosity that its behavior over the last thirty years has engendered.

I do not absolve the enemies of Israel of their responsibility for the continuation of violence. That remains another topic for another time.

I learned from today’s news that on a recent trip to neighboring Persian Gulf nations Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki took along his keeper, our ambassador to Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad.

If after two years of “self-rule” we still don’t treat their elected Prime Minister with enough respect to allow him visits to neighboring heads of state on his own why don’t we just admit that democratic elections were not what we had in mind to begin with. What we apparently wanted in Iraq is a puppet government.

That’s what we’ve got, along with all that comes with it: long term commitment of our troops, growing ill will among the colonial subjects, and the same glowing future as the European colonial imperialists of yore.

So far, in preparing for the November elections, the Republicans have sent up smoke signals on several pet issues: immigration clamp down; banning gay marriage by whatever means necessary; and, outlawing flag burning.

Immigration Clamp Down -- Was it a well engineered unbridgeable gap between the House and Senate versions that prevents anything from happening on this?  In any case, it looks like things are stalled with little resolution likely before the election.

Ban on Gay Marriage -- After a meaningless Senate debate the outcome was as everyone predicted.  Senators staked out the low moral ground pretending they were protecting my marriage.  Certainly no accomplishment the Republicans can point to here.

Outlawing Flag Burning -- Yet another meaningless debate, yet another meaningless outcome.  Oh, and yet another case of nothing getting done.

In all three cases, let's thank goodness that the Republican agenda stalled.

But really, shouldn't they have seen the handwriting on the wall and not wasted their time, and our taxes, yammering about these topics when it was clear from the outset that nothing would come of any of them?