The American Spectator Responds

From Jeremy Lott:

No one has been purged. Bovard hasn’t written many articles for the Prowler
version of the website, but what he has written appears to have gone missing
in the search engine. These things happen; I’ll look into it and fix it.

On a related note: I bumped into Bovard at a party the other week and asked
him to write more regularly for the site. He said he’d like to do just that
and wondered if we could review his new book. I just got the review copy
in the mail today.

Looking forward to those new Bovard articles. By the way, his stuff has been, uh, missing from the TAS search engine for quite some time. I’ve searched several times before and found nothing. Glad to help correct this error.

War Street Journal: “Our Friends, the Serbs”?!

There’s that old canard that no press is bad press. Certainly, with everything that’s been written about them over the past decade or so, the Serbs should know that’s a lie. But sometimes “good” press is excruciatingly bad press, too. Consider an October 6 editorial by the War Street Journal (subscribers click here, the rest you will have to trust me), extolling the virtues of “better friends to America than the French.”
Welcome to the Dark Side. Continue reading “War Street Journal: “Our Friends, the Serbs”?!”

EU Seeks to Anull Loretta Lynn’s Marriage

Follow-up to the Romanian Gypsy child bride brouhaha:

The Romanian child protection agency has forced Ana-Maria to separate from her 15-year-old husband and has required both children to live at home with their parents in the Transylvanian town of Sibiu.

The Romanians caved to the EU, in other words. Thank God this horrible scourge has been defeated! Of course, the marriage was not a legally-sanctioned one to begin with, but who cares? Just so long as American and Western European do-gooders earn another badge. Not that their meddling is likely to do the young lady much good:

Although [the bride’s father, who arranged the marriage] has nominally complied, there is considerable doubt over whether the government edict is being obeyed, because the two families are next-door neighbours and there is a gate that links their properties.

Support Israel’s Attack, Or… Support It!

If you haven’t read my “Looking Behind Ha’aretz’s Liberal Image“, you may expect Israel’s “liberal newspaper” to stand up clear and loud against the recent Israeli aggressive escalation, in which Sharon, breaching a cease-fire that had lasted for some 20 years, sent his jets to bomb a target deep inside Syria.

Well, let’s see all what Ha’aretz actually had to say.

(1) Editorial, 7.10:

“The bone of contention is not Israel’s right to strike at those who operate against it under the cover of Assad. Israel has the right […]; but this does not testify to the wisdom of such moves. […] The Syrian president could, contrary to Israeli expectations, cause an additional escalation […] There is a need for tight control to prevent a move planned as minimalist from leading to a major escalation.”
-So now we know it: Sharon had the right to attack Syria, and his intentions were benevolently “minimalist”; at worst, if escalation occurs, it will be blamed on Syria.

(2) Columnist Amir Oren, 7.10, reiterates the same line in a nutshell, for readers who missed the point:

“Is that a shrewd plan, or a wild gamble? The answer depends upon Syria’s response.”

(3) From Gideon Samet’s column, 8.10 – a writer considered extremely dovish – the future historian would be able to assume that the attack was not uncontroversial in Israel:

“Criticism of the air force sortie into Syria behind the back of Bashar Assad was completely predictable”, Samet writes. He doesn’t even bother to reveal the arguments of that criticism. His own view is that “Syria deserved that little blow” – yes! – but he does warn, to maintain his critical image, that “The action in Syria may be a fragment of the regional strategy of a leader whose dangerous potential has been fulfilled on more than one occasion.”

-So here you have the entire spectrum that “liberal” Ha’aretz offers to its readers: Either you support Israel’s attack and warn (of) Assad; Or you support Israel’s attack and warn (of) Sharon. How did they say it in Latin? Tertium non datur – there is no third option.