Freedom Line Blog

The Obama Administration continues its bizarre behavior in selecting targets for its wrath.

For reasons unknown, the Administration has ostentatiously and histrionically escalated its condemnation of Israel, our most loyal Middle East ally.  Why?  Merely because Israel announced preliminary approval (the fourth stage of a seven-stage bureaucratic planning process) to build housing units within its own municipal boundaries in Jerusalem.  Meanwhile, as The Wall Street Journal reminds us, the Obama Administration continues to treat such anti-American rogues as Libya, Iran, Venezuela and Syria with kid gloves.

Then yesterday, chief White House heavy David Axelrod characterized our First Amendment free speech and petition rights as “a threat to our democracy.” The First Amendment explicitly states that “Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech … or of the right of the people … to petition the Government for redress of grievances.”  Despite those protections, federal laws like McCain/Feingold literally prohibited, under penalty of imprisonment, political speech within 30 and 60 days of an election.  Fortunately, the United States Supreme Court struck a blow for First Amendment rights in January by overturning some of those restrictions in Citizens United v. FEC.

The Founding Fathers would not have taken kindly to McCain/Feingold’s unconstitutional restrictions on free speech and the right to petition Congress.  To them, abridgment of free speech was a threat to democracy.  In contrast, that towering intellectual and philosophical sage David Axelrod considers free speech itself “a threat to our democracy.”

For her Tea Party Convention speech, Sarah Palin wore a small lapel pin with two flags – that of the U.S. and that of Israel.

Call us the next time you see a liberal wearing one of those.

On most days, the New York Times’ opinion page is a gallery of liberal stereotypes. There’s Maureen Dowd, whose “liberating” neo-feminism somehow renders her as joyless as a puritan schoolmarm; Frank Rich, the kind of “tolerant” liberal whose Cliff’s Notes understanding of history leaves with him only three totalitarian regimes to compare Republicans to; and then there’s Thomas Friedman…

Friedman is inarguably the Times’ greatest success story. His books are consistent best-sellers and he’s a regular fixture on television and the lecture circuit. This mostly owes to the fact that Friedman substitutes enthusiasm for erudition. He’s an emotive presenter, but his ideas usually center around haute couture social engineering (his affection for “the green economy”) or aging conventional wisdom (how “The World is Flat” became a hit over a decade after globalization was a household concept is beyond me).

I introduce these criticisms as penance for what I’m about to say: Thomas Friedman has gotten something completely and commendably right.

In his new column, “Call White House, Ask for Barack” (a title that owes to a wonderfully direct James Baker quote featured in the piece), Friedman argues that it’s time to throw up our hands and leave the Israeli-Palestinian peace process behind … at least until an outside factor motivates the parties towards substantive work.  It’s a rare tour de force and an enticing look into what a significant public intellectual Friedman could be if he spent less time on fashionable shibboleths. Among the best passages:

It is obvious that this Israeli government believes it can have peace with the Palestinians and keep the West Bank, this Palestinian Authority still can’t decide whether to reconcile with the Jewish state or criminalize it and this Hamas leadership would rather let Palestinians live forever in the hellish squalor that is Gaza than give up its crazy fantasy of an Islamic Republic in Palestine.

A rare — but decisive — win.  Here’s hoping to more like this from Friedman.

True, February is still a few months away. When it comes to reporting the “news” in foreign affairs, however, there are some stories that just won’t go away.  Joshua Keating over at Foreign Policy has compiled a darkly humorous compilation of the stories that never seem to get old. (Or, at least never get a new angle.) Here are some of the headlines (see if you can pick the year): “North Korea to return to negotiating table”; “Pakistan finally getting tough with the Taliban”; “Israel preparing military strike against Iran”; “Dollar to be replaced as global reserve currency”; “Fidel Castro is dying”; and of course, “Israel and Palestinians reach peace deal.”