| |
Blog of Adam Daifallah -- author, journalist, law student. Lover of politics, writing, golf, curling, fitness, fashion, bacon and maple products -- not necessarily (but probably) in that order. Partisan of the Anglosphere. Contact me via email at adam@daifallah.com. This summer I am joined by Keir Wilmut and Omar Soliman.
Monday, May 31, 2004
Chalabi hit job article #353,023
Jane Mayer has produced a mammoth work of journalism about Ahmad Chalabi for the New Yorker. It's likely to get a lot of play this week. The piece, titled "The Manipulator," is a classic hit job. But it's a good hit-job piece.
I haven't heard much about Mayer since her attempt (with Jill Abramson, currently the #2 at The New York Times) to vindicate Anita Hill. Mayer has done a lot of homework about Chalabi and the history of the Iraqi opposition. Unfortunately, the piece is tremendously biased against Chalabi and is a touch boring to read because of its repetitive style. The format:
X said Ahmad Chalabi did a lot of bad stuff. The bad stuff he did is A, B, C. (Y denies this.)
An example of what I'm talking about:
Chalabi has consistently denied having any personal political ambitions, or any desire to lead Iraq. As early as 1994, he told the Los Angeles Times, “Anyone who wants to take power in Baghdad is crazy. I’m just in this to get rid of Saddam.” In our conversation, however, Chalabi said that he could no longer uphold his promise that he would never seek office in Iraq. “Never is a very long time,” he said. Scott Ritter, a former weapons inspector for the United Nations, who has known Chalabi for seven years, said that Chalabi had confided to him his plans to run Iraq once America had liberated it. Ritter, who strongly opposed the war and produced a controversial documentary in 2001 asserting that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, also said that Chalabi spoke of benefitting financially from Iraq’s oil reserves, which are the second largest in the world. (Chalabi’s office denies this.)
There's nothing wrong with this stylistically, as far as I know. But she could have done a bit more research to present more from the denying side, other than just doing a four word denial sentence in parentheses at the end of the paragraph.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 12:40 AM
Mike Harris unplugged
Check out this very worthwhile but little-noticed interview with Mike Harris from a golf magazine. He shares some interesting perspective about his life and his politics, as well as his history with golf. Turns out he isn't that good a player (best he ever got was a 6 or 7 handicap.) I like what he said about cheaters:
Golf has been a big asset in your professional life.
...you've probably heard the saying so many times that you get to know a lot about a person on the golf course - if they cheat in golf, then they usually cheat in business and cheat in life.
It's an old saying, but you've found it to be very true?
Very true. And I don't consider them golfers if they don't respect golf for what it is, and the rules of golf. It shows how you handle adversity too. Are you a club thrower? Do you get frustrated very easily if you're having a bad day?
Good for Mike Harris. This kind of comment says a lot about him as a person. Of course, the most significant part of the interview is the very last question:
How badly did you want to be prime minister?
I actually didn't want to be prime minister. I had no desire to live at 24 Sussex and to host foreign dignitaries four nights a week, and deal with all that stuff. That's all the negative stuff to me. What turned me on was the opportunity to go and change things. So if I could be prime minister with a majority government, and cut taxes, and cut the civil service in half... There were things that I would like to see this country do: make Canadians proud again, proud of the military, proud that we can compete. That's what I wanted to do, and the only way you can do that is to be prime minister and have the majority government to do it. The drawback to doing that was being prime minister, and that's why I didn't want to do it. I'll encourage others to do it.
And there you have it. He didn't and does not want to Prime Minister of Canada.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 12:25 AM
Sunday, May 30, 2004
Who is Ayad Allawi?
Definitely not the right person to be leading Iraq if you want democracy, freedom and human rights to take root there.
Allawi's opposition group, the Iraqi National Accord ("Wifaq" in Arabic) was on the CIA's dole for many years, and may still be. (It certainly was up until the time of the war.) Allawi used to visit Washington DC for meetings with his masters at Langley. They would put him up at the Ritz-Carleton Hotel in Tyson's Corner, out in the Virginia suburbs. He is not a democrat, and although a Shiite Arab, is as close to a Sunni strongman type that you could get. He always favoured the CIA's "coup option": that Saddam Husein could be assissinated and that a new leader (presumably him) could be installed rather seamlessly. That idea was always unworkable. Allawi is an ex-Baathist, and his group tried to kill a rival opposition leader in 1996 (see above link).
The Iraqi Governing Council apparently approved the nomation of Allawi by a unanimous vote. I'm sure there was some serious strong-arming going on behind the scenes. We'll have to see how this all unfolds, but it's getting harder to see any kind of silver lining in this dark cloud over Iraq.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 1:32 PM
Saturday, May 29, 2004
As if we needed more proof that Joe Clark has no principles
No, but in case you did check out Greg Weston. Apparently the Libs and Tories conspired in the 2000 campaign to get Joe Clark and Anne McLellan elected. Not too surprising, but that doesn't make it any less wrong.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 6:56 PM
Friday, May 28, 2004
Foot-in-Mouth Watch, #1
It was only a matter of time. It took four days.
We have our first gotcha quote!
I was hoping against hope that this distinction would go to someone other than a Conservative, but who was I kidding? The honour goes to MP Scott Reid, who really said nothing at all offensive, but of course the media is all over him. Something along the lines of "bilingual services should be tailored to demand community by community." A politically incorrect no-no, Scott! And with the Conservatives trying desperately to not veer from the script and be as inoffensive as possible, this was the top news story tonight.
Let's see how many days this lasts in the news cycle. I'm betting only tomorrow, but possibly into Saturday if no one else trips up until then.
NOTE: This blog will be keeping track of foot-in-mouth quotes like this. (At least the ones the mainstream media deems to be foot-in-mouth screw ups. As stated above, I don't think what Reid said was particularly egregious.) At the end of the campaign we'll do a tally to see which party had the most instances of them. I have a feeling it will be the Tories, but that might be just because the liberal media reports their screw ups more than the other partys'. We'll soon see.)
UPDATE: SCOTT REID DEATH WATCH: Reid has resigned his post as the Official Languages critic of the Conservative Party to blunt the effects of his supposed indiscretion. The story has now had legs for 24 hours. Will it now wither away?
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 12:19 AM
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Ed Broadbent, John Crosbie, who's next...?
OK, the election is starting to get a tad more interesting. First it was Ed Broadbent announcing he was making a political comeback, and now John Crosbie? Big boost for the Harper Conservatives in Newfoundland, and the whole Atlantic region. I am very surprised by this, as I know Crosbie has had some health problems. But I think it's great.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 2:06 AM
Tuesday, May 25, 2004
TV tomorrow night
If you are in the areas that get Crossroads Television, (on cable in Toronto, Ottawa, London) I will be on Michael Coren Live tomorrow night at 10PM ET discussing the federal election.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 10:55 PM
The Canadian federal election: who cares?
Ya, that's right. I haven't written anything substantive about it yet because, to be frank, I'm having a tough time getting interested. I'm sure I'll be more into it soon when things get a more combattive. (I'm also working on some book reviews that are taking up a lot of time.) But for now, what's going on in Iraq seems to be a little more consequential. And, really, what is there to be interested in? Watching the fight between the three parties over who loves socialized medicine more? Over who will do more to expand official bilingualism faster? Over who will be the least anti-American, or the least anti-Iraq war? The Conservative Party is proposing a 25% tax cut -- sounds great --but it's only for the middle class! Resembles something the U.S. Democrats might propose. I know, I know, Harper and his people don't want to look too extreme because they can smell power and are thus running to the centre. So all this makes sense strategically.
But at what cost?
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 8:38 PM
The stench grows
Eli Lake has another important dispatch on the Chalbi situation in today's New York Sun, the little paper that continues to punch well above its weight. Reports Mr. Lake:
The raid on Ahmad Chalabi’s house and offices came as the Iraqi National Congress leader was preparing a potentially devastating audit of how Iraq’s oil resources and seized assets were being disbursed by the chief of the Coalition Provisional Authority, L. Paul Bremer.
The audit of the Development Fund of Iraq was scheduled to be finished in October by the firm of KPMG, the same company the Iraqi Governing Council hired to review Saddam Hussein’s management of the U.N. oil-for-food program.
Its checks are signed exclusively by Mr. Bremer and it includes Iraq’s oil revenues, the remainder of unspent funds from the U.N. oil-for-food program,and any assets seized by coalition forces after the liberation.
And this is KEY:
"There was no oversight,” a former CPA official who had direct knowledge of spending from the DFI told the Sun. This source said that many of the Iraqi ministries were replete with inflated employee rolls, or ghost employees, meaning that when salaries were paid out of the fund for the reconstruction of Iraq, they would often go straight to the pockets of politically connected Iraqis. (my emphasis)
It's becoming more and more likely that we may never learn the truth about what really happened here. But these accusations, if true, are very serious and if Bremer really is implicated, devastating.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 6:30 PM
Monday, May 24, 2004
Beats "Rock the Vote"
Your tax dollars in the dumpster
Arabs and Muslims need to step up to the plate
An obviously very deep and personal reflection piece by Meyrav Wurmser on the current difficulties in the Middle East. Mey has been involved probably more than anyone else in trying to cultivate liberal democrats in the Middle East, especially in the Palestinian terrorities. I have great respect for her and admire the work she does greatly. I think what she says here is basically true: that if change is ever to come to this troubled region, it must start coming from within. And it is time for those who agree with this agenda to start speaking out and be counted.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 10:32 AM
Nice website
Sunday, May 23, 2004
Continuing to smear Ahmad Chalabi
I was going to write a long rambling post about the whole Chalabi affair, but its late and I'm tired and you probably don't care that much anyway. After viewing Chalabi's interview today on Meet the Press and reading transcripts of some of the others, I'm pretty convinced that this whole thing is related to Chalabi's conducting the probe into the Oil-For-Food program, which may or may not implicate high-level people like Kofi Annan's son and even Iraqi envoy Lakhdar Brahimi himself. I'm thinking of writing up a piece on this.
I wish people would just take a step back for a moment, inhale, and remember what the point of all this is. The Bush administration (indeed, all of us who supported the war to liberate Iraq in the first place) should go back to first principles. The goal of this war was to remove a tyrant who was a security threat to the U.S., and to install a democracy in Iraq that could serve as a beacon of hope in the Arab world. That was the hope in Iraq and it should still be. But that goal is slipping away. The Bush administration, desperate to take the current mess away from John Kerry as an election issue, is trying to wash its hands of it by ceding control to the U.N.
It made no sense to raid Chalabi and publicly embarass him in this way. If the principle is to establish some kind of democratic regime, the U.S. ought to be propping up guys like Chalabi, not treating them like criminals. Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress are the most Western-friendly, non-conventional Arab politicos in the world today. It is my view that America has made a big mistake in alienting a staunch ally like this.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 10:14 PM
Friday, May 21, 2004
On Chalabi
It's tough to come to any sort of conclusion based on what was reported today about the raid at Ahmad Chalabi's house and the INC's headquarters in Baghdad. (This blogger would love to be in Baghdad right now!) Reports tonight about what was really going on only make matters more confusing: some are saying Chalabi is spying for for Iran, passing on sensitive information and preparing a Shiite coup (this source is unrealiable); some are saying it is financial corruption by Chalabi and the INC; still others believe it is part of a sinister plot by Chalabi and the Pentagon to distance Chalabi from the Americans and thus bolster his political standing amongst Iraqis.
Chalabi himself is accusing the raid of being a Baathist plot to ruin him.
Two important facts about this story that some are leaving out but that are very important:
1. The raid was not U.S.-led. It was led by the Iraqi police, which are run by Iraqis. CPA spokesman Dan Senor: "To my knowledge, Mr. Chalabi is not actually being pursued for anything. And I don't think the INC is, either." Referring questions to Iraqi police, Senor said: "My understanding is they are the ones who seized any documents. It was an Iraqi-led investigation, it was an Iraqi-led raid."
2. According to CNN, Chalabi was not even named in the search warrant, making it even more curious that his house was raided.
UPDATE: On point 1, The New York Sun's Eli Lake is reporting that the actions were approved by the National Security Council. Lake also reports that U.S. intelligence officials visited Iraqi freedom fighter Kanan Makiya, asking him about documents. This just gets curioser and curioser.
UPDATE II: The Sun has editorialized today drawing parallels between what happened to Chalabi yesterday and the raid I was part of last year (see below post). Very good editorial.
UPDATE III: The Daily Telegraph is reporting today that one reason for the raid might be that Chalabi "is in possession of "miles" of documents with the potential to expose politicians, corporations and the United Nations as having connived in a system of kickbacks and false pricing worth billions of pounds" relating to the corrupt and totally discredited UN Oil-for-Food program.
UPDATE IV: The venerable Wall Street Journal editorial board has come out swinging for Chalabi.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 1:33 AM
Thursday, May 20, 2004
Scapegoating Chalabi
This is absolutely infuriating. It's much worse than this, which I wasn't even too angry about. This raid is going to be spun by the press as "another embarassment" for the Bush administration because Ahmad Chalabi was a favoured Iraqi political leader of the Pentagon.
When I was in Baghdad last May, I was part of a raid by the U.S. military on the INC's headquarters. I was briefly handcuffed and questioned, but no biggie. The troops, obviously knowing little or nothing about the minutia of Iraqi politics, claimed they had been tipped off (likely by some Baathists) that illegal guns were inside the INC's offices. The whole debacle lasted about an hour and a formal apology was later issued by the military for the misunderstanding. This latest raid seems much more serious.
It is mind-boggling the extent to which some forces within the U.S. government (State Department, CIA) are willing to go to ruin the INC and Chalabi. So far as I can tell, they are the only truly democratic political movement of any kind in Iraq today. But as has been documented ad nauseam, Chalabi has made a lot of enemies. This is just the latest example. I don't want to pass judgement on this before learning more information, but it reeks of the kind of bullshit that has marked the Americans' treatment of Chalabi and his allies for the past few years.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 8:04 AM
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
Liberal media bias is subtle
David Brock and assorted others are gallivanting around claiming that talk of "liberal bias" in the media is a myth. They might be right that conservatives use it as an excuse for their mistakes a tad too often, but that bias is unquestionably there. It is present somtimes in subtle ways that are hard to quantifiably document.
A case in point would be the comments made by Democratic Senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina about Jews. In a newspaper column, Fritz wrote:
“With Iraq no threat, why invade a sovereign country? The answer: President Bush’s policy to secure Israel.” He continued: Bush “came to office with one thought — re-election. Bush felt tax cuts would hold his crowd together, and spreading democracy in the Mideast to secure Israel would take the Jewish vote from the Democrats.”
In the face of bad media in his home state, Fritz has remained defiant, calling criticism of the column "ridiculous."
Now, if a Republican had made these comments, it would be a national story and high up on the sked on the nightly news. But Fritz is a Democrat. He gets the kid glove treatment.
When I type "Fritz Hollings AND Israel" at Google News I get TWO articles pertaining to this issue. (One is an AP dispatch, meaning it might have made a few more papers, but only one is showing at Google).
This is the liberal media bias. If a conservative had said this, it would be all the rage. He'd be forced to apologize or resign. But, as is the case here, if a Democrat says it, all is forgiven.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 8:46 PM
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
Blog Redux
I brought back the old design, at least for now. Several people complained about the new template and especially the new comments system. I'm back to the old comments now where you don't have to resgister.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 11:35 PM
Blows to freedom
Not a good day for freedom in my neck of the woods. First, the Supreme Court of Canada delivered a huge blow to freedom of speech in this country with its asinine ruling on the Liberal gag law. This legislation forbids individuals or third-party groups from spending more than $3,000 in a riding during an election, or $150,000 nationally. This is a travesty. You can't do anything with that little money. Today's ruling essentially guarantees that elections will now be fought only between formal political parties with little to no input or activity from lobby and interest groups. This will only help incumbents, and that's bad for democracy and debate.
Secondly, the Ontario Liberals have delivered their first budget. There's no good news, except maybe for the fact that more MRI scanners will be bought. It's big government liberalism's revenge. The McGuinty Liberals are imposing new health care premiums, on top of the taxes already paid to healthcare and on top of the surtax paid on top of that tax for high income earners. The Grits are even imposing the levies on low income earners: people earning as low as $20,000/year will have to pony up $300. Spending is going way up on education and healthcare, they are removing items such as eye doctor visits and physiotherapy from public health insurance and they're even raising the cost of filing a statement of defense in small claims court!
McGuinty is also going to break the Tories' Balanced Budget Act (thus incurring a pay cut) and they are going to actually repeal that law to replace it with a watered-down new version so they can run deficits for the next four years at least!
It's been a long, bad day.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 5:02 PM
Seymour Hersh's "reporting"
For all the fuss on Sunday and Monday about his latest revelations, there are now serious doubts emerging about its accuracy.
Of course, you can count on Rumsfeld's spokesman to deny the story. But its a bit more curious when you have the CIA types, who normally dislike the Pentagon, speaking out.
A senior intelligence official said the article contains "fantasy." The official added: "I haven't found any truth in it."
The unit described simply does not exist, the intelligence official said.
Hopefully more information about what really went on will come out in the coming days.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 7:13 AM
Sunday, May 16, 2004
Gotta love Kathy Shaidle
In response to a column by Toronto Star media reporter Antonia Zerbisias about how pro-war bloggers have been apparently conspicuously silent of late, Kathy writes:
I am silent now, but next week I'll be blogging again. You will still be a Leftist dupe.
Bold, Kathy, bold!
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 11:04 PM
Stange Sunday talk show happenings
The main one was this. Apparently a press aide to Colin Powell literally moved the camera away from the state secretary's face to try and force an end to an interview with Sunday talk king Tim Russert. Bad, bad move. Russert aired the pre-taped interview unedited, showing the indiscretion. Just what the Bushies needed -- more bad PR!
And in a separate ocurrence, Seymour Hersh, the anti-Bush journalist who's all the talk over his latest New Yorker piece, was on CBS this morning with Bob Schieffer and made a victorious fist action at the end of the interview, apparently believing (wrongly) that the interview was over and that the cameras were off.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 10:52 PM
Saturday, May 15, 2004
Sloppy quoting at The Globe & Mail
In a fawning profile of muckraking journalist Seymour Hersh in Saturday's Globe, the paper's new Washington correspondent, Alan Freeman, gets an important quote from American foreign policy hawk Richard Perle wrong. It's impossible to know whether the slight was intentional or not; we'll see if there's a correction printed in the coming days.
Freeman writes:
Such digging often puts him [Hersh] on the wrong side of establishment figures. Last year, he exposed the questionable business dealings of Richard Perle, an important Bush adviser, forcing him to resign as head of the Defence Policy Board. Mr. Perle lashed out, calling Mr. Hersh "the closest thing America has to a terrorist," and vowing to sue the journalist for slander. The lawsuit never came.
But Perle did not say that. The actual quote, if Freeman had checked the CNN transcript, was:
"Look, Sy Hersh is the closest thing American journalism has to a terrorist, frankly."
(Emphases added)
It is obvious that Perle was speaking sarcastically, and that he was referring to Hersh's penchant for character assassination and his frequent reliance on sources from only one side of a story. But by removing the "American journalism" part from the quote, (and by not inserting ellipses, ie. "...", which would have been poor journalism but still stylistically acceptable) Freeman made Perle's quote look worse than it actually was.
Musings: Holding the Globe to account.
(A footnote: While it was not directly relevant to this profile and therefore did not technically require mention, Freeman, and most of the media, in fact, never reported that Perle was cleared of any wrongdoing after a Pentagon inspector general investigation into the "questionable business dealings" Hersh "exposed.")
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 9:21 AM
"The Last Word" -- Global National News
Check out my commentary from earlier this week on the Abu Ghraib controversy and why the prison should be torn down.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 1:52 AM
Friday, May 14, 2004
The CBC eats crow
A small but noteworthy victory for the good guys. They don't come often, so when they do, it's nice to note them!
Due at least in part to an editorial in Saturday's National Post, the CBC is changing its editorial policies. From CBC lover Antonia Zerbisias' column today:
CBC News is re-working its practices to avoid any future journalistic "mistakes" that may give its audiences the impression it has an "anti-Israel bias."
The changes stem from a report by Washington correspondent — and former Middle East bureau chief — Neil Macdonald on the May 4 edition of The National.
The report provoked criticism from CBC watchdog groups, as well as organizations that monitor the media for what they deem to be an anti-Israel bias.
"Viewers have every right to expect more from The National and CBC News," said editor-in-chief Tony Burman in a statement yesterday. "More care should have been taken on this story, and — as of this week — we have modified our editorial processes and procedures to ensure that this situation is never repeated."
That last bit is key. It is very rare indeed to hear such frank penitence from the Mother Corp. But let's not get too excited just yet. We have to wait and see if there is any sort of discernable difference in the next few weeks in months. I really hope so, but I somehow doubt it.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 6:34 PM
Thursday, May 13, 2004
Let the joyous news be spread, the TV show CounterSpin at last is dead!
And hardly anyone noticed. I did watch the program last night, just for nostalgia's sake. Two conservative-minded pundits who seem to have occasionally mustered the nerve to brave the host, Carol Off, and the pugnacious studio audience, Andrew Coyne and Ruth Wedgewood, were on. The two leftwing guests were typical "Bush lied, people died" types. The topic was Abu Ghraib and the state of democracy in the world. I was actually looking for some kind of highlight reel toward the end from the last six years of CounterSpin but there wasn't anything. As I wrote back in March, the show had steadily declined in quality from its inception to its death, and it became just awful under the last host, Carol Off. The one thing to lament here is that there is now one fewer public affairs debate show on cable TV: CBC Newsworld is replacing it with an interview program.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 8:14 AM
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
Boy, you know election is in the offing when ...
...the Grits are going on a spending spree. In the last couple of days alone, they've announced better benefits for war veterans; more money for seasonal workers in Quebec and the Atlantic provinces in the form of fatter EI cheques; $100-million for AIDS (with an accompanying fawning endorsement from Bono) and now the latest scheme: they're going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars cleaning up the Sydney tar ponds. The province of Nova Scotia has been clamouring for years to get this done. But the funding is conveniently announced days before the writ drop. And Paul Martin was going to do politics differently? The more things change, the more they stay the same.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 3:11 PM
Tuesday, May 11, 2004
Links
Does anyone know how to put up links to other blogs with these new templates?
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 6:45 PM
New design
Whadya think?
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 6:36 PM
Bush still beating Kerry
The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto, whose Best of the Web column is mandatory daily reading, provides a concise and clear explanation as to why President Bush is still popular. This is something I've been attempting to explain to my mom, amongst others. Taranto says its because Bush has a stronger base, Kerry is a weak candidate, and the Dems are overestimating the anger over Abu Ghraib. All true. But when it comes right down to it, the ballot question is going to be who can best prosecute the war on terrorism. The answer to that question is clear, Kerry's Vietnam credentials notwithstanding. This November will be a replay of the Bush I/Dukakis race in '88. Kerry will be portrayed as weak and ineffective on the national security question and that bugbear will ultimately cost him the election.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 5:56 PM
Monday, May 10, 2004
What's the strategy here?
It's looking more and more like Stphen Harper is falling into The Conservative Trap. The Conservative Trap is what happens when conservative parties sense they are closing in on power and they veer left, thinking that by doing so, they might scoop up a few extra centrist voters, thus putting them over the top. The strategy has rarely worked yet it is oft-repeated.
The latest evidence is today's speech by Harper in Toronto in which he called for a government-run prescription drug plan. This is obviously an attempt to stifle Liberal attempts to slime the Conservatives on healthcare, what with their accusations of Harper wanting to make us to whip out our credit cards at the doctors office. But veering left of the Liberals and getting into a fight over who loves socialist healthcare more isn't the best way to do deal with that. It's just to be straight up and tell the truth.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 2:28 PM
Saturday, May 08, 2004
New article
Check out my piece in the Saturday Review section of the National Post here. (Sorry, subscription-only). The article is a profile of three candidates under age 30 running for parliament in the upcoming federal election -- one from each party.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 3:41 PM
Now all he needs is a blog
The head terrorist at Tehran, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has launched his own website. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, the mad mullah's decrees and fatwas page appears empty. Looking forward to seeing some online content there soon.
A few nuggets from his scintillating Friday sermon:
Commenting on the Zionist regime's policy of assassinating Palestinian leaders, Ayatollah Khamenei noted that the U.S. government, which is using its so-called campaign against terrorism as a pretext to exercise force and power, approves such acts through its overt and official support of the Zionist leaders' crimes.
...
He referred to the occupation of Iraq and the oppression of the Iraqi nation as an international crime and said that the occupiers justify their act by saying it is in defense of human rights, democracy, and freedom.
...
Stressing that the U.S. threats backed by the Zionist capitalists target the entire Islamic world and the vast wealth of the region, he said that the greater Middle East initiative was also formulated within the framework of that objective.
This is what we are up against.
(Cross-posted at The Shotgun and Across the Board. Still learning this blog etiquette stuff.)
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 2:34 PM
Saunders' conservative slight
In an otherwise well-done essay, the Globe and Mail's Doug Saunders makes one erroneous (and somewhat maddening) assertion. In profiling Canadian scholar Michael Ignatieff, Saunders writes: "Red-meat conservatives have no interest in his [Ignatieff's] language of human rights." It is a never-ending source of frustration how bien pensant leftist writers and academics like Mr. Saunders gratuitously assume that conservatives don't give a damn about human rights.
That simply isn't true.
Support for human rights is not monopolized by the Left. Indeed, it is "red-meat conservatives" who included human rights in Iraq as part of the rationale for going to war. It is because conservatives do not rush out into the streets, holding placards complaining about the trampling of human rights in Colombia or "fair trade" coffee or any of these other leftist hobby horses that Saunders and his ilk dismiss us. Human rights are best secured in countries that have as fundamental values freedom and democracy. Freedom + democracy = human rights. That is a principal reason why I supported regime change in Iraq (don't send me emails about the shame at Abu Ghraib, I'm aware of it) and why liberalization in the Middle East is important. Indeed, you could even argue that the modern Left cares less about human rights than conservatives do. One need look no further than Iraq, and the U.N. refusal to deal with Saddam Hussein, or Kofi Annan's disgraceful obliviousness to what was going on in Rwanda in the early 90s as proof.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 1:33 PM
British Tories go negative, but in a good way
It would be great if the Conservatives in Canada were creative enough to produce an election ad like this (its a little long, though.)
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 11:32 AM
Neil MacDonald's bias
Much has been made of the CBC reporter and his anti-Israel/anti-American reporting. But when the CBC moved him from Jerusalem to Washington DC, some thought it would get better. It hasn't. Same old. MacDonald now does the exact same thing he did in the Middle East, but from his perch in the capital of the Free World. Is this what CBC Newsworld means when they say "Trusted. Connected. Canadian." ??? Hope not.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 8:32 AM
Thursday, May 06, 2004
The Hollywood Left is back...
...working overtime to raise money for John Kerry. Planned fundraising concerts will feature such heavyweights as Barbra Streisand, Neil Diamond, Bette Midler, John Mellencamp, Sheryl Crow, Robin Williams and Whoopi Goldberg.
The amount of cash these folks raise for the Democrats is astronomical. If you want to have some fun, check out this site. It tracks all political donations in the U.S. Try checking by zip code, and use something like 90049 (Brentwood) or 90210 (Hollywood) and just see what comes up. You'll be pretty amazed, not at who's giving but just the sheer volume of money. People give to a lot of out-of-state races as well as their own.
Of course, this is nothing new. Hollywood has been lined up four-square behind the Democratic Party since its birth. You could probably count the number of Republicans in Tinsel Town on one hand. Well, maybe two. Long live Charlton Heston.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 5:11 PM
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Thatcher's silver jubilee
Last night I co-hosted a little party in Toronto to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher's election as Prime Minister of Great Britain. The event was great. George Jonas gave a wonderful speech to the assembled and Peter White proposed the toast. I think a good time was had by all. As I looked around the room, I wondered whether we would ever get that large a crowd (about 50 conservatives) for an event celebrating a Canadian political leader. OK, maybe Sir John A. Or perhaps Brian Mulroney. But it says a lot about Thatcher's legacy that so many people would come on the same night as an important Leafs game and pay $15 just to honour her. To me, she is the most important conviction politician of our age.
It is also great to see Mrs. Thatcher in better health (last year she lost her husband, Denis, and suffered a stroke.) The British papers are reporting that the Iron Lady was in fine spirits at a dinner in her honour last night in London. She apparently even defied doctors orders and gave a speech to the crowd, launching an attack on Tony Blair. She is also reportedly planning a U.S. tour and to attend more events. Great to see.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 10:53 AM
Monday, May 03, 2004
Hating America is not patriotism
I went to a conference this weekend in Montreal and had a fantastic time. (Sorry for the lack of blogging.) The conference was "off the record" so nothing said there can be publicly discussed or sourced. But one comment, made by one person there during a presentation is going to stick with me for a long time. Speaking of Canada's faux nationalism, (which is essentially based on not being American), the person said: "Hating other people is not the same as loving yourself." Seemingly simplistic, yet powerful, isn't it? Pretending we are better than the Americans because we have "universal access" to "free" healthcare is no way to build an identity. Yet, for the past four decades that is what this country's elites have done.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 10:35 PM
Same old, same old
On my way home from Montreal this weekend, I stopped in Kingston, the town where I lived from 1998-2002 while attending university. First time I'd been there for quite a while. I happened to pick up a copy of the leftist/anti-globalization rag Pic Press. Nice to see nothing's changed. Same old crap. The headline story from their May issue: "STARBUCKS' ARRIVAL DOWNTOWN HAS SOME CONCERNED." I kid you not. That is the front-page headline.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 10:32 PM
|
