Israeli occupied territory

The American Israeli Political Action Committee (AIPAC) held its conference, attended dutifully by "more than half of the U.S. Congress". Bodily evicted from that meeting were a number of Americans who opposed AIPAC's support for Israeli occupation of Palestinian land and the recent brutality against women and children in Gaza. To have over half of the American congress sit by and watch this assault on democracy is outrageous. It appears to support a statement of Pat Buchanan's that Congress is just Israeli occupied territory.

Pop Goes the Weasel

Sometimes people take niceness for weakness and then one has to set them straight. So it was with Ed Henry of CNN whose main question was answered carefully and graciously, but whose impulse to show off set him up. "Goading" (Tom Shales word choice) President Obama like a grade school bully, he insisted on getting an answer for why the president took a couple of days to demonstrate his anger over the AIG bonuses. With a cool and dismissive tone he got the answer: "I like to know what I am talking about before I speak". Pop goes the weasel!

Let me understand the letter policy of the NYTimes: Today 3/24/09 they printed three letters in response to Roger Cohen's column, From Tehran to Tel Aviv in which he says "One of the strategic issues of the Obama presidency will be a painful but necessary redefinition of America’s relations with Israel as differences over Iran sharpen."

Each of the letters printed today were written by those with a religious connection to Israel rather than an historic view or one that reflects the imbalance in U.S. foreign policy vis a vis Israel.

A large part of the death and destruction that continues in the Middle East can be laid at the door of the Bush administration and its misguided support for Israel. Roger Cohen speaks to that reality and is far more supportive of Israeli security than the hawks both American and Israeli who see violence as a solution.

Of the hundreds of letters the NYTimes received regarding Roger Cohen's column, who decided that only those who spoke against Cohen should be printed?