I am sincerely curious as to what other DUers think in this regard...

I was driving to work this morning and listening to Morning Joe, and Chuck Rosenberg came on. That you understand I was listening not watching. I have found that they are two entirely different experiences.

I can best describe Mr. Rosenberg’s answer to a legal question when asked by Mika as thus in simplistic terms:

Question: “What is a synonym for miscreant?”

Answer: “ As you know, there are 26 letters in the alphabet. Some of those letters are used more than others, such as S, T, M, E and the like. I believe we can agree. Then, there are other letters which are used less frequently, such as X, Q, Z, and sometimes Y. Many of these letters are combined to form words which are then used in sentences, which may then be segregated within paragraphs. Now you need to be cautious because there are also entities called diphthongs, which differ from letters, but have a particular sound, and although one may think that one has mastered a fair combination of words, such that one can express oneself, it remains to be seen as to whether people truly understand them in the figurative, literal, and hypothetical senses. I have had experiences wherein I myself have searched for a word, and was unable to identify it promptly, leading to my difficulty in expressing my thought. This, of course, is not unusual, and has been a subject of many psychologists, psychiatrists, and those who analyze behavior for a living. That being said, it does not necessarily secure a conviction of another individual that I am incapable of expressing myself and, of course, they are entitled to their opinion, but history proves in most cases that the individual is simply distracted, as writers block, or is dissatisfied with his or her initial selection of verbiage.”

What I’m trying to say is that he restated when asked a question about a hypothetical outcome, all the facts which are known, ad nauseam, and, of course, never answered her question, because he was busy, giving us a brief, or not so brief, history lesson telling the audience what they already know.

If I am mistaken, please tell me. Perhaps I expect too much from people.

For your information:

Hey media stars and wannabes:

Remember Saddam Hussein? You used to quote him and imply his veracity as though he were Albert Schweitzer. “Today, Saddam Hussein stated that there were no political prisoners being held…”. And then of course it would come out that there were 20000 prisoners being held in jails reminiscent of those in the film Ben Hur. No retractions, no explanations for idiotic quotes without some decent amount of skepticism.

So yesterday, a hospital exploded and the MSNBC correspondent stated that this most certainly be a “turning point” and that it “changes everything”. Well, apparently Hamas bombed its own ammo dump, conveniently located next to a hospital, rather than a school this time, and I’m waiting for the “we screwed up once again” self-repudiations. I gather that I will be waiting a long time.

The statement may be distilled down as this: we believed Hamas when they told us of this horror but require proof beyond any reasonable doubt that Israel didn’t bomb the hospital. Intercepted transmissions, video, and satellite imagery may not be enough to persuade us. We will have to think about this. Don’t call us, we’ll call you.

Ya gotta "love" the sophistication of American media...

1. “What went through your mind when you heard that your child was kidnapped by terrorists?”

2. “Have you considered the fact that if you destroy Hamas, who would be able to manage Gaza?”

3. “How long is this going to last? You know, Americans have a short attention span and little stomach for any war which lasts more than a week or two.”

I swear I heard these questions today and came very close to losing my lunch over it. I think that these individuals think that you can have a two page typed summary of how to conduct a hostage rescue/termination of a terrorist organization. It doesn’t work that way.

I recall the Gulf War preamble, and all these individuals who claimed to be experts on military operations stating that the Iraqi Army, particularly the Revolutionary Guard was incredibly powerful and the Americans risked catastrophe. Well, the vaunted Iraqi forces were annihilated and vanquished in hours. Their army ceased to exist. General Schwarzkopf stated that there was no resistance between our forces and Baghdad. All these expert’s disappeared from tv until the War with Iraq at which time they were a mite more circumspect. Let’s wait and see what happens here -actually we have no choice. We are merely observers on a message board.

Fact: People die in war...

You don’t like it, I don’t like it, most sane individuals don’t like it but that irrelevant to the process. Non-combatants die in war wholesale: Vietnam, Germany, Japan,France, England, even the USA.

The Nazis dropped V-2’s on London and its environs nightly, was there a huge outraged protest when the Allies firebombed much of Germany? After Pearl Harbor the Allies were faced with an inevitable invasion of Japan which likely would have cost more than a million soldiers, so we dropped two atomic bombs on civilians. We massacred whole villages in Vietnam to no end, and I’m just talking about us being the “good guys”. The Axis powers murdered millions of Europeans and the death toll in China and other countries as a result of the Japanese invasions were gigantic and indiscriminate.

And I’m referring to just a couple of the wars and massacres which have occurred worldwide in fewer than the last hundred years. This is why war must be avoided if at all possible. Hamas in this case performed transcendent acts and thus made it impossible to avoid and it’s going to be a horror for both sides.

I wish at this time to relate something personal. My father was a small, not particularly physical fellow who was raised as an academic by peasant immigrant parents in Pittsburgh. On December 7, 1941 he was listening to the radio and decided to enlist the next day, knowing full-well that he was going to die in combat. Sure enough, he was in a combat division for four years and was “miraculously” the only survivor of several platoons. He was incredibly lucky: because he could type, he was held back at HQ twice when his entire platoon was eradicated. He was involved in battles for the Philippines and saw whole piles of dead civilians. He was never the same and he literally slept no more than three hours a night for the rest of his life and was unable to live a stable home life. He once told me when he was malarial, which he was in hot weather, that he was irreparably harmed by what he endured in war. But he insisted that it had to be done, no matter the cost…that he as an individual was irrelevant compared with the future of civilization. He meant that.

The Israelis have seen the future and the future is death and destruction if organizations which are formed to destroy the State of Israel are allowed to exist. You cannot coexist with those whose goal is to see you dead. Period.

As a final thought, I awakened this morning with a distant memory of an event. Many years ago an Israeli made the wrong turn down a street and was accosted by a gang of Palestinians. It wasn’t just that he was beaten and knifed to death that got to me: it was the look of joy on one young man’s face who then lifted his arms and showed them to be covered with blood of the dead Jew. His joy caused me more sorrow in my life than almost any other single moment. I am not being hyperbolic nor am I exaggerating. Recognizing this level of hatred was a true wake-up call for me personally. I want these miscreants terrorists dead and I hope that a better dawn comes to that region in the coming years, and that people of all faiths and backgrounds may awaken in the morning without the fear that his or her family may be killed ignominiously.

Bullcrap

My mother lived in Getmantown, a neighborhood of Philly. The bund was ongoing and strong there as it was elsewhere. Your statement is like saying there was no civil rights or black power movement after LBJ signed the Act. There were plenty of Nazi sympathizers, the media of the day chose to ignore them

WTAF Chris Hayes:

I believe he is actually a very bright guy, very verbal, very well educated and is no dummy.

So someone here needs to explain to me how he referred to the Iron Dome of Israel as “infamous“. Is it a misuse of the word such as the word “notoriety“? I don’t get how a device which prevents thousands of civilians from being killed or mutilated is somehow infamous.

I know I’m being picky, but that’s me…. actually, “that is I”.

Both-siderism is alive and well

My last sentences here will give you, quite possibly, more realization than you may wish to know about those with whom the Israelis are dealing.

You know, I don’t see these war crimes posts about our enemies when America goes into foreign tumult. I see a lot of reasons why some of us do not wish to go to war: death and destruction, etc. but I don’t see protestations of the potential for us committing war crimes. And that’s not because we’re nice guys, it’s because if the Jews are fighting, then they are invariably committing war crimes because… They’re Jews, right?

Oh, and one more thing: the Israelis identified and apprehended Adolf Eichmann in South America and brought him to stand trial in Israel in a judicial proceeding. Now, if it were up to people seeking revenge, they would’ve tied him to stakes on the burning hot desert ground and flayed the skin off him millimeter by millimeter keeping him alive with IVs as long as possible so he could endure a tiny percentage of the pain of the 6,000,000+ deaths which he engineered. But no, they treated him humanely which was much more than he deserved.

We Jews follow the law wherever we can, and try to do the right thing whenever possible. Sometimes it’s not possible, and there is not a country with a military in existence, which has not done things to win a war either of its own, making or another’s. Try to remember that when you think about the fact that when the Israeli team was held captive in Munich during the Olympics, at least one of them was castrated while he was conscious and alive. This is the enemy. Tell me again about why our morality is in question constantly. There is not a screenwriter in Hollywood, who would not see to it that individual who perpetrated that horror is killed in a most ignominious fashion, and the audience would stand up and cheer, because that is the appropriate fate of the malignant sadist. I understand why someone would not appreciate or approve of that, but what if it were their wife, their daughter, their entire family, who had been mutilated and murdered most horribly, then unless you’re an emotionless individual, you would approve reflexively.

Or perhaps you’d stand on your “principles”. Who the hell knows?

This is what the Nazis did...

Wholesale slaughter of everyone in the most ignominious ways possible.

As a Jew, I am angry beyond any comprehension of which I was personally aware. I lost both sides of my family in the Holocaust, the only people who remain were the one sibling from each of the four families who had moved here, married, and produced my parents. The entire rest of the families disappeared into the Ovens.

So mark my words, when we say “never again“ we fucking mean it. You have no idea, unless you’re Jewish, or were raised intimately with Jews, how viscerally angry this makes the vast number of us, and whatever it takes to eliminate the potential of this to happen again is what is going to be effected by the Israelis. Without question.

I am seriously considering going over there to assist in any way I possibly can. At this point in my life, I am willing to sacrifice utterly and totally for a just and moral cause. These terrorists must be annihilated. Period. Done. Finished.

A remarkable speech by the President.

Brilliantly written and delivered.