by Gary Bauer
The brutal attack on television reporter Lara Logan is the most powerful evidence yet that the Western media's portrayal of the Egyptian revolution has been too optimistic at best, and deceptive at worst.
Logan, CBS News' chief foreign affairs correspondent, was reporting from Cairo's Tahrir Square when she was attacked by a group of as many as 200 male protesters. She suffered, according to the network, "a brutal and sustained sexual assault" that lasted 20 to 30 minutes.
The New York Post reported that the attackers screamed, "Jew! Jew!" as they assaulted Logan (who is not Jewish). CBS waited five days to break the story, doing so only after other news agencies threatened to go public. Even after news of the attack broke, much of the mainstream media buried the story.
It is reasonable to wonder whether the media downplayed the brutal attack because it did not fit the predominant media narrative about the Egyptian "revolution."
Since the crisis began last January, most of the Western media have portrayed the Egyptian people as peace-loving democrats. The crowds in Cairo were characterized as friendly and boisterous. As Michael Graham noted, "Even CBS' own statement said Logan was 'covering the jubilation' and was attacked 'amidst the celebration.' "
New York Times op-ed columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote from Cairo, "The lion-hearted Egyptians I met on Tahrir Square are risking their lives to stand up for democracy and liberty, and they deserve our strongest support and, frankly, they should inspire us as well."
"Today," he concluded, "we are all Egyptians."
President Obama even compared the protests with those surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall and the American Civil Rights Movement.
I don't doubt that millions of Egyptians want economic opportunity, free elections, and other basic human and political rights. We should do what we can to help them.
But just because Egyptians are clamoring for change does not mean they all embrace Western notions of freedom and democracy. Just because the protesters are using the latest social networking technology such as Twitter and Facebook does not mean they all hold modern views on religious pluralism and women's rights.
In fact, there is ample evidence that millions of Egyptians are sympathetic to the worst elements of radical Islam, including anti-Semitism, hatred of the U.S. and Israel, intolerance of people of different faiths, and, as the sexual assault of Logan demonstrated, hatred of, and hostility toward, women.
Everywhere radical Islamists are in control, "infidel" women are not safe. There are whole neighborhoods in Paris where a French woman can't walk down the street safely. Australian women who sunbathe on the beaches of their country are repeatedly harassed by young Muslim mobs who call them "whores" and "sluts."
Rapes of Scandinavian women by Muslim immigrants are a growing problem in Europe. And, of course, in traditional Muslim societies, Muslim women are deprived the basic rights that American feminists take for granted.
A much-discussed December Pew poll found that huge majorities of Egyptians support forcing men and women to be segregated in the workplace, and favor death sentences for adulterers, and those who convert from Islam to another faith.
The popular perception is that Egyptians are yearning for democracy and freedom. Many are. But the poll found that nearly 60% of those who see a struggle between the country's modernizers and fundamentalists associate with the latter. And a majority supports suicide bombing in at least some circumstances.
Just a couple days ago, hundreds of thousands of people gathered at Tahrir Square to listen to the raving of Yusuf al-Qaradawi, a prominent Muslim scholar who routinely attacks Christians, Jews, the U.S., Israel, and Muslims whom he deems insufficiently committed to jihad.
These views set millions of Egyptians distinctly apart from the Judeo-Christian values of Western civilization. The leaders of Europe's three great powers—Great Britain, France, and Germany—have all recently denounced as failures their nations' experiments in multiculturalism. But American liberals continue to promote the idea that Western and Islamic values are wholly compatible.
This delusion not only leads to serious foreign policy mistakes—it has also cost lives right here in the U.S.
A new report from the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs highlights the role multiculturalism played in the Fort Hood massacre. Titled "A Ticking Time Bomb," the report details how the gunman, U.S. Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, was repeatedly promoted by superiors who chose to ignore his increasingly Islamist and anti-American beliefs.
Hasan was unfit to serve and a danger to his fellow soldiers. But, the report found, his superiors were paralyzed by political correctness and multiculturalism. They failed to act, because as journalist Dorothy Rabinowitz has written, "In the multiculturalist world, there is no taboo more powerful than the one that forbids acknowledgment of realities not in keeping with the progressive vision."
In his 2009 visit to Cairo, President Obama elaborated the progressive vision regarding Islam, asserting that it, "has a proud tradition of tolerance." Obama said he had come to Egypt "seek[ing] a new beginning between the United States and Muslims around the world. One based on mutual interest and mutual respect, and one based on the truth that American and Islam are not exclusive, and need not be in competition."
"Instead," Obama insisted, "they overlap, and share common principles—principles of justice and progress, tolerance and the dignity of all human beings."
Expressions of solidarity with those seeking to be freed from the grip of autocracy and oppression are understandable. But we shouldn't assume that most Egyptians want the same things we do. Nor should we assume they will prevail against those elements who would replace Mubarak's autocratic rule with radical Islamist oppression.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Former presidential candidate Mr. Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families.
Showing posts with label Gary Bauer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gary Bauer. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
Constitutional Empathy
by Gary Bauer
In 2005, Barack Obama was one of only 22 senators to vote against John Roberts for Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. In explaining his vote against Roberts, Obama outlined his criteria for a judicial appointee, ending with his view that in tough cases he would look for a judge that would apply “the depth and breadth of one’s empathy.”
Federal Judge Roger Vinson probably did not have Obama’s empathy standard in mind last week in ruling that ObamaCare is unconstitutional. Vinson’s decision nevertheless displayed a broad and deep empathy—for our Founders and our founding documents. A New York Times editorial called the ruling “a breathtaking example of judicial activism and overreach.” The White House responded that the decision was “out of the mainstream,” which is true only in the sense that the ruling was out of mainstream of left-wing judicial thought.
Liberals have historically used the courts to enact by judicial fiat laws that they could not persuade the public and its elected representatives to embrace. In striking down ObamaCare, Judge Vinson exercised his judicial discretion and affirmed the will of the American people over a recalcitrant governing party.
The case hinged on the constitutionality of the individual insurance mandate, which Democrats euphemistically refer to as the “individual responsibility” provision. Democrats insisted that the provision be included in the bill, which was odd considering that most liberal policies promote the exact opposite, personal irresponsibility. From no-fault divorce and abortion-on-demand to the industry bailouts and illegal immigration amnesty, liberal policies create moral hazards by compensating large groups of people and entire sections of the economy for reckless behavior.
It was also odd because not so long ago Obama himself argued against the individual mandate.
“If a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house,” Obama noted during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Since becoming President, Obama has been far less logical in his arguments for ObamaCare. In fact, the two-year effort has been full of lies and distortions—about taxpayer funding of abortion, about the law’s true costs, about whether the individual mandate is a tax, and about whether those happy with the insurance they have can keep it, to name just a few.
Democrats took all this only as seriously as they had to in order to pass the legislation. Even after they jettisoned the government insurance option, the bill gave 2,000 new or expanded powers to the federal government, according to the Center for Health Transformation.
Liberals pushed through ObamaCare without regard for the central question of its constitutionality.
When then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked during a 2009 press conference where the Constitution authorizes Congress to compel Americans to buy health insurance, she responded, “Are you serious? Are you serious?” The reporter’s question was serious, but Pelosi’s was clearly rhetorical.
Many on the Left regard the Constitution as an obstacle to the enactment of its policy agenda rather than as what it was truly meant to be: America’s owner’s manual. Every American politician and judge puts his or her hand on the Bible and swears to uphold the Constitution. But to modern liberals, the Constitution retains as much relevance to policymaking as does the Bible.
Judge Vinson actually took his solemn oath seriously.
As Vinson stated in his ruling, “This case is not about whether the act is wise or unwise legislation, or whether it will solve or exacerbate the myriad problems in our health care system. In fact, it is not really about our health care system at all. It is principally about our federalist system, and it raises very important issues regarding the constitutional role of the federal government. … Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the act with the individual mandate.”
The House of Representatives passed repeal legislation soon after the new Congress convened. A repeal effort was defeated along party lines in the Senate last week. But that loss at least ensures that ObamaCare will remain in the headlines and on the front pages in the buildup to Election Day 2012. As Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn said, “These are the first steps in a long road that will culminate in 2012, whereby we will expose the flaws and the weaknesses of this legislation.”
The ultimate fate of ObamaCare will probably be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. In a closely divided court, Justice Anthony Kennedy may end up as the ultimate arbiter of the law’s constitutionality. Kennedy’s unpredictability has both sides nervous.
Yesterday marked the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth. It would be an appropriate tribute to Reagan, and to the rule of law, if ObamaCare met its demise through Judge Vinson and Justice Kennedy, both of whom were appointed to their current seats by the Gipper.
President Reagan’s respect for limited government is a gift he left for all of us.
---------
Former presidential candidate Mr. Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families.
In 2005, Barack Obama was one of only 22 senators to vote against John Roberts for Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. In explaining his vote against Roberts, Obama outlined his criteria for a judicial appointee, ending with his view that in tough cases he would look for a judge that would apply “the depth and breadth of one’s empathy.”
Federal Judge Roger Vinson probably did not have Obama’s empathy standard in mind last week in ruling that ObamaCare is unconstitutional. Vinson’s decision nevertheless displayed a broad and deep empathy—for our Founders and our founding documents. A New York Times editorial called the ruling “a breathtaking example of judicial activism and overreach.” The White House responded that the decision was “out of the mainstream,” which is true only in the sense that the ruling was out of mainstream of left-wing judicial thought.
Liberals have historically used the courts to enact by judicial fiat laws that they could not persuade the public and its elected representatives to embrace. In striking down ObamaCare, Judge Vinson exercised his judicial discretion and affirmed the will of the American people over a recalcitrant governing party.
The case hinged on the constitutionality of the individual insurance mandate, which Democrats euphemistically refer to as the “individual responsibility” provision. Democrats insisted that the provision be included in the bill, which was odd considering that most liberal policies promote the exact opposite, personal irresponsibility. From no-fault divorce and abortion-on-demand to the industry bailouts and illegal immigration amnesty, liberal policies create moral hazards by compensating large groups of people and entire sections of the economy for reckless behavior.
It was also odd because not so long ago Obama himself argued against the individual mandate.
“If a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house,” Obama noted during the 2008 presidential campaign.
Since becoming President, Obama has been far less logical in his arguments for ObamaCare. In fact, the two-year effort has been full of lies and distortions—about taxpayer funding of abortion, about the law’s true costs, about whether the individual mandate is a tax, and about whether those happy with the insurance they have can keep it, to name just a few.
Democrats took all this only as seriously as they had to in order to pass the legislation. Even after they jettisoned the government insurance option, the bill gave 2,000 new or expanded powers to the federal government, according to the Center for Health Transformation.
Liberals pushed through ObamaCare without regard for the central question of its constitutionality.
When then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was asked during a 2009 press conference where the Constitution authorizes Congress to compel Americans to buy health insurance, she responded, “Are you serious? Are you serious?” The reporter’s question was serious, but Pelosi’s was clearly rhetorical.
Many on the Left regard the Constitution as an obstacle to the enactment of its policy agenda rather than as what it was truly meant to be: America’s owner’s manual. Every American politician and judge puts his or her hand on the Bible and swears to uphold the Constitution. But to modern liberals, the Constitution retains as much relevance to policymaking as does the Bible.
Judge Vinson actually took his solemn oath seriously.
As Vinson stated in his ruling, “This case is not about whether the act is wise or unwise legislation, or whether it will solve or exacerbate the myriad problems in our health care system. In fact, it is not really about our health care system at all. It is principally about our federalist system, and it raises very important issues regarding the constitutional role of the federal government. … Congress exceeded the bounds of its authority in passing the act with the individual mandate.”
The House of Representatives passed repeal legislation soon after the new Congress convened. A repeal effort was defeated along party lines in the Senate last week. But that loss at least ensures that ObamaCare will remain in the headlines and on the front pages in the buildup to Election Day 2012. As Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn said, “These are the first steps in a long road that will culminate in 2012, whereby we will expose the flaws and the weaknesses of this legislation.”
The ultimate fate of ObamaCare will probably be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. In a closely divided court, Justice Anthony Kennedy may end up as the ultimate arbiter of the law’s constitutionality. Kennedy’s unpredictability has both sides nervous.
Yesterday marked the 100th anniversary of Ronald Reagan’s birth. It would be an appropriate tribute to Reagan, and to the rule of law, if ObamaCare met its demise through Judge Vinson and Justice Kennedy, both of whom were appointed to their current seats by the Gipper.
President Reagan’s respect for limited government is a gift he left for all of us.
---------
Former presidential candidate Mr. Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Sharia-Compliant in America
by Gary Bauer
Liberal judges are increasingly looking to the laws of foreign countries to help them determine the outcomes of the legal cases before them in U.S. state and federal courts. It may not be long before they begin to write their opinions with an eye on the laws of foreign cultures, too.
Lost in the “shellacking” that Democrats took on Election Day was news of a first-of-its-kind state constitutional amendment passed in Oklahoma. Voters there passed an amendment that prohibits courts from considering international or Islamic law when deciding cases.
At first glance, the part of the amendment that prohibits Islamic law might seem unnecessary. There was no great movement among Oklahoma’s 30,000 Muslims to institute Sharia law. But there have been cases in America in which Islamic law has been considered.
In New Jersey recently, a family court judge refused to issue a restraining order against a Moroccan Muslim who had raped his wife. The judge concluded that no sexual assault had taken place because Islam forbids wives to refuse sex.
“This court believes,” the judge wrote in his opinion, “that [the husband] was operating under his belief that it is, as the husband, his desire to have sex when and whether he wanted to, was something that was consistent with his practices and it was something that was not prohibited.”
Thankfully, an appellate court overturned this absurd decision.
The Oklahoma constitutional amendment, passed with 70 percent of the vote, was preemptive in nature. Preemptive of what? Perhaps that’s a question the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) could answer.
Its Oklahoma affiliate filed a lawsuit, and U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles LaGrange issued a temporary restraining order to block the new amendment. The order will remain in effect until a Nov. 22 hearing on a requested preliminary injunction.
Muneer Awad, executive director of CAIR’s Oklahoma chapter, suggested that the amendment discriminated against “religious minorities” and that it would “infringe on the constitutional rights of ordinary Oklahomans—including the right to wear religious head scarves in driver’s license photographs, choose Islamic marriage contracts, implement Islamic wills, or to be buried according to one’s religious beliefs.”
But Sharia means much more than the right to wear a headscarf. Most constitutions of the 57 members of the Organization of Islamic Conference Member States cite Sharia as a source of legislation. Not coincidentally, those countries’ governments are disproportionately represented among the world’s worst violators of human rights and religious freedoms.
Sharia was written into the new Iraqi constitution in 2005. It states that “Islam is the official religion of the state and is a foundation source of legislation. . . . No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.”
Iraq’s Chaldean and Assyrian Christians are on the verge of extinction because, as one Christian leader in Iraq put it last year, “It seems that Iraq is one step closer to becoming an Islamic state intolerant of non-Muslims.”
So-called moderate Muslims insist that Sharia means different things in different places. There’s truth to that. In Afghanistan, Sharia means stoning alleged adulterers. In Sudan, Sharia prescribes amputations for petty crimes. In Nigeria, Sharia means that blasphemers are burned alive in a ring of gasoline-soaked tires.
Some Muslims insist that Sharia would apply to Muslims only. In Great Britain, for example, numerous Sharia courts have been established to settle certain disputes among the country’s growing Muslim population.
But in Muslim-majority countries, Sharia is often applied not only to Muslims but to non-Muslims too. A Christian woman in Pakistan was recently sentenced to death for blasphemy after being convicted of defaming the Prophet Mohammed.
A woman in Iran faces stoning for alleged adultery. After an uproar ensued, Iran deputy foreign minister, Hassan Ghashghavi, said, “We live in an Islamic country and we act according to the Koran’s sentences. Even if 100,000 must be executed, we will carry out the Koran’s sentences.”
And what would happen to Muslims like the New Jersey rape victim who wish to be tried under civil rather than Islamic law?
It’s telling that at a time in America when Christian doctors are being ordered to set aside their religious beliefs in order to perform abortions, Muslims may be close to gaining more rights to elevate their religious precepts over civil law.
And at a time when American courts agonize over whether lethal injection may be too painful for coldblooded killers to endure, the religion of peace prescribes punishments aimed at inflicting as much pain as possible, often against the innocent.
Liberal judges have used foreign law in their decisions on everything from upholding race-based admissions at public universities to legalizing sodomy.
They are wrong to do so. We are a society based on Judeo-Christian principles of civilization. Neither modern Europe’s secularist bias nor the world’s Sharia-based Islamic regimes have anything better to offer than our own founding ideals.
____
Former presidential candidate Mr. Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for W orking Families.
Liberal judges are increasingly looking to the laws of foreign countries to help them determine the outcomes of the legal cases before them in U.S. state and federal courts. It may not be long before they begin to write their opinions with an eye on the laws of foreign cultures, too.
Lost in the “shellacking” that Democrats took on Election Day was news of a first-of-its-kind state constitutional amendment passed in Oklahoma. Voters there passed an amendment that prohibits courts from considering international or Islamic law when deciding cases.
At first glance, the part of the amendment that prohibits Islamic law might seem unnecessary. There was no great movement among Oklahoma’s 30,000 Muslims to institute Sharia law. But there have been cases in America in which Islamic law has been considered.
In New Jersey recently, a family court judge refused to issue a restraining order against a Moroccan Muslim who had raped his wife. The judge concluded that no sexual assault had taken place because Islam forbids wives to refuse sex.
“This court believes,” the judge wrote in his opinion, “that [the husband] was operating under his belief that it is, as the husband, his desire to have sex when and whether he wanted to, was something that was consistent with his practices and it was something that was not prohibited.”
Thankfully, an appellate court overturned this absurd decision.
The Oklahoma constitutional amendment, passed with 70 percent of the vote, was preemptive in nature. Preemptive of what? Perhaps that’s a question the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) could answer.
Its Oklahoma affiliate filed a lawsuit, and U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles LaGrange issued a temporary restraining order to block the new amendment. The order will remain in effect until a Nov. 22 hearing on a requested preliminary injunction.
Muneer Awad, executive director of CAIR’s Oklahoma chapter, suggested that the amendment discriminated against “religious minorities” and that it would “infringe on the constitutional rights of ordinary Oklahomans—including the right to wear religious head scarves in driver’s license photographs, choose Islamic marriage contracts, implement Islamic wills, or to be buried according to one’s religious beliefs.”
But Sharia means much more than the right to wear a headscarf. Most constitutions of the 57 members of the Organization of Islamic Conference Member States cite Sharia as a source of legislation. Not coincidentally, those countries’ governments are disproportionately represented among the world’s worst violators of human rights and religious freedoms.
Sharia was written into the new Iraqi constitution in 2005. It states that “Islam is the official religion of the state and is a foundation source of legislation. . . . No law can be passed that contradicts the undisputed rules of Islam.”
Iraq’s Chaldean and Assyrian Christians are on the verge of extinction because, as one Christian leader in Iraq put it last year, “It seems that Iraq is one step closer to becoming an Islamic state intolerant of non-Muslims.”
So-called moderate Muslims insist that Sharia means different things in different places. There’s truth to that. In Afghanistan, Sharia means stoning alleged adulterers. In Sudan, Sharia prescribes amputations for petty crimes. In Nigeria, Sharia means that blasphemers are burned alive in a ring of gasoline-soaked tires.
Some Muslims insist that Sharia would apply to Muslims only. In Great Britain, for example, numerous Sharia courts have been established to settle certain disputes among the country’s growing Muslim population.
But in Muslim-majority countries, Sharia is often applied not only to Muslims but to non-Muslims too. A Christian woman in Pakistan was recently sentenced to death for blasphemy after being convicted of defaming the Prophet Mohammed.
A woman in Iran faces stoning for alleged adultery. After an uproar ensued, Iran deputy foreign minister, Hassan Ghashghavi, said, “We live in an Islamic country and we act according to the Koran’s sentences. Even if 100,000 must be executed, we will carry out the Koran’s sentences.”
And what would happen to Muslims like the New Jersey rape victim who wish to be tried under civil rather than Islamic law?
It’s telling that at a time in America when Christian doctors are being ordered to set aside their religious beliefs in order to perform abortions, Muslims may be close to gaining more rights to elevate their religious precepts over civil law.
And at a time when American courts agonize over whether lethal injection may be too painful for coldblooded killers to endure, the religion of peace prescribes punishments aimed at inflicting as much pain as possible, often against the innocent.
Liberal judges have used foreign law in their decisions on everything from upholding race-based admissions at public universities to legalizing sodomy.
They are wrong to do so. We are a society based on Judeo-Christian principles of civilization. Neither modern Europe’s secularist bias nor the world’s Sharia-based Islamic regimes have anything better to offer than our own founding ideals.
____
Former presidential candidate Mr. Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for W orking Families.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Explaining Islam to the Islamists
by Gary Bauer
Liberal elites seem to relish trying to explain the meaning of belief systems to their most passionate adherents. Cafeteria Catholics like Nancy Pelosi has lectured Catholics and evangelicals, telling them that immigration amnesty is the “manifestation of our living the Gospels,” but that God gave women “free will” to abort unwanted children.
Leftists who spent the 1960s burning their draft cards and defaming American troops as baby killers lecture today’s soldiers that real patriotism means deserting the military and paying higher taxes.
And so it is with radical Islam. After each terrorist attack carried out in the name of Islam, liberal elites rush to assure the nation that Islam is a religion of peace and that the Koran promotes peace not violence.
John Brennan, the Obama Administration’s top counter-terrorism advisor, recently claimed that the word “jihad” has nothing to do with terrorism or holy war. Instead, he instructed, “jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community.”
But the Left has had a difficult time convincing Christians that abortion is a Gospel value and that real patriots root for military defeat. Similarly, liberal elites’ denial that terrorism has anything to do with Islam is looking increasingly absurd. Two recent events underscore the Left’s deepening disconnect.
Last week I participated in a special edition of ABC’s program “This Week” with Christiane Amanpour. The show was billed as a townhall discussion about Islam in America. The audience was stocked with people sympathetic to the Islam-is-under-assault narrative.
I knew how things would go as soon as Daisy Khan, wife of the would-be Ground Zero mosque imam, entered the stage, and the audience broke out in a raucous cheer. When Franklin Graham and I walked in, we were greeted with stony silence.
The audience was clearly not a random sample of residents of New York, a city with the world’s second-largest Jewish population and where, according to polls, 70% of residents oppose the Ground Zero mosque.
Representing Islam were three women (two Muslims and a New York leftist), who predictably argued that the vast majority of Muslims are moderate and that American conservatives have created a climate of fear and hatred of Islam. All through the evening, “moderator” Amanpour sided with the Islamist apologists.
To its credit, ABC did invite one devout follower of Mohammed to join the discussion. Imam Anjem Choudary appeared via satellite, and he did a better job of explaining the reality of radical Islam in a two-minute rant than the rest of the panel did in two hours of arguing.
He called the panel of “moderate” Muslims “false Muslims,” saying of Khan, “This lady in your studio, she should be covering with the hijab. She’s obviously not practicing.”
Then Choudary contradicted the assurances of the panel’s “moderates” by saying, “If you’re a Muslim, you submit to the Sharia. We do believe, as Muslims, the East and the West will one day be governed by the Sharia. Indeed, we believe that one day, the flag of Islam will fly over the White House.”
Choudary’s “This Week” performance underscored that to truly understand the link of Islam to terror one needs to pay attention to its most ardent followers.
Last Tuesday, Faisal Shahzad was sentenced to six consecutive life terms in prison for attempting to detonate a bomb in Times Square. In his remarks before the court, Shahzad was full of bluster, boasting about what he and his fellow jihadists have in store for Americans, promising that “the defeat of [the] U.S. is imminent.”
“Brace yourselves,” he warned, “because the war with Muslims has just begun. Consider me only a first droplet of the flood that will follow me.” Shahzad made it clear that his Muslim faith was what inspired him to terrorism. And he warned that our only hope of avoiding death was to convert to his faith.
But Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum went out of her way to explain to Shahzad that she knew his religion better than he did.
According to the New York Times, the judge, “repeatedly interrupted the defendant … to spar with him over his interpretation of the Koran, his invocation of a Muslim warrior in the Crusades and, above all, the relevance of any of it to the life sentence that hung over him like the dozen United States deputy marshals who guarded the prisoner in court.”
At one point, according to the Times, Shahzad said, “‘Blessed be’ Osama bin Laden, ‘who will be known as no less than Saladin of the 21st-century crusade, and blessed be those who give him asylum.’” The article continued:
“The judge stopped him again. ‘How much do you know about Saladin, as you called him?’
“He is known in the Middle East as Salahuddin al-Ayubi, but commonly known in the West as Saladin, the Muslim leader who took Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187. He is remembered in biographies as being a lover of peace who waged war reluctantly.
“‘He didn’t want to kill people,’ the judge told the defendant. ‘He liberated,’ Mr. Shahzad continued. ‘He was a very moderate man,’ Judge Cedarbaum said.”
Cedarbaum then admonished Shahzad to “spend some of the time in prison thinking carefully about whether the Koran wants you to kill lots of people.”
Shahzad will have plenty of time to re-read what I presume is his already well-thumbed Koran. But I suspect his defiance won’t soften. As he told the judge, “If I am given a thousand lives, I will sacrifice them all for the sake of Allah, fighting this cause, defending our lands, making the word of Allah supreme over any religion or system.”
The subtitle of the ABC’s “This Week” program was “Should Americans fear Islam?” We shouldn’t fear radical Islam, but rather defeat it. We should fear liberal elites whose self-deception about the true meaning of Islam seems to deepen with each Islam-inspired terrorist act.
______________
Former presidential candidate Mr. Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families.
Liberal elites seem to relish trying to explain the meaning of belief systems to their most passionate adherents. Cafeteria Catholics like Nancy Pelosi has lectured Catholics and evangelicals, telling them that immigration amnesty is the “manifestation of our living the Gospels,” but that God gave women “free will” to abort unwanted children.
Leftists who spent the 1960s burning their draft cards and defaming American troops as baby killers lecture today’s soldiers that real patriotism means deserting the military and paying higher taxes.
And so it is with radical Islam. After each terrorist attack carried out in the name of Islam, liberal elites rush to assure the nation that Islam is a religion of peace and that the Koran promotes peace not violence.
John Brennan, the Obama Administration’s top counter-terrorism advisor, recently claimed that the word “jihad” has nothing to do with terrorism or holy war. Instead, he instructed, “jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community.”
But the Left has had a difficult time convincing Christians that abortion is a Gospel value and that real patriots root for military defeat. Similarly, liberal elites’ denial that terrorism has anything to do with Islam is looking increasingly absurd. Two recent events underscore the Left’s deepening disconnect.
Last week I participated in a special edition of ABC’s program “This Week” with Christiane Amanpour. The show was billed as a townhall discussion about Islam in America. The audience was stocked with people sympathetic to the Islam-is-under-assault narrative.
I knew how things would go as soon as Daisy Khan, wife of the would-be Ground Zero mosque imam, entered the stage, and the audience broke out in a raucous cheer. When Franklin Graham and I walked in, we were greeted with stony silence.
The audience was clearly not a random sample of residents of New York, a city with the world’s second-largest Jewish population and where, according to polls, 70% of residents oppose the Ground Zero mosque.
Representing Islam were three women (two Muslims and a New York leftist), who predictably argued that the vast majority of Muslims are moderate and that American conservatives have created a climate of fear and hatred of Islam. All through the evening, “moderator” Amanpour sided with the Islamist apologists.
To its credit, ABC did invite one devout follower of Mohammed to join the discussion. Imam Anjem Choudary appeared via satellite, and he did a better job of explaining the reality of radical Islam in a two-minute rant than the rest of the panel did in two hours of arguing.
He called the panel of “moderate” Muslims “false Muslims,” saying of Khan, “This lady in your studio, she should be covering with the hijab. She’s obviously not practicing.”
Then Choudary contradicted the assurances of the panel’s “moderates” by saying, “If you’re a Muslim, you submit to the Sharia. We do believe, as Muslims, the East and the West will one day be governed by the Sharia. Indeed, we believe that one day, the flag of Islam will fly over the White House.”
Choudary’s “This Week” performance underscored that to truly understand the link of Islam to terror one needs to pay attention to its most ardent followers.
Last Tuesday, Faisal Shahzad was sentenced to six consecutive life terms in prison for attempting to detonate a bomb in Times Square. In his remarks before the court, Shahzad was full of bluster, boasting about what he and his fellow jihadists have in store for Americans, promising that “the defeat of [the] U.S. is imminent.”
“Brace yourselves,” he warned, “because the war with Muslims has just begun. Consider me only a first droplet of the flood that will follow me.” Shahzad made it clear that his Muslim faith was what inspired him to terrorism. And he warned that our only hope of avoiding death was to convert to his faith.
But Judge Miriam Goldman Cedarbaum went out of her way to explain to Shahzad that she knew his religion better than he did.
According to the New York Times, the judge, “repeatedly interrupted the defendant … to spar with him over his interpretation of the Koran, his invocation of a Muslim warrior in the Crusades and, above all, the relevance of any of it to the life sentence that hung over him like the dozen United States deputy marshals who guarded the prisoner in court.”
At one point, according to the Times, Shahzad said, “‘Blessed be’ Osama bin Laden, ‘who will be known as no less than Saladin of the 21st-century crusade, and blessed be those who give him asylum.’” The article continued:
“The judge stopped him again. ‘How much do you know about Saladin, as you called him?’
“He is known in the Middle East as Salahuddin al-Ayubi, but commonly known in the West as Saladin, the Muslim leader who took Jerusalem from the Crusaders in 1187. He is remembered in biographies as being a lover of peace who waged war reluctantly.
“‘He didn’t want to kill people,’ the judge told the defendant. ‘He liberated,’ Mr. Shahzad continued. ‘He was a very moderate man,’ Judge Cedarbaum said.”
Cedarbaum then admonished Shahzad to “spend some of the time in prison thinking carefully about whether the Koran wants you to kill lots of people.”
Shahzad will have plenty of time to re-read what I presume is his already well-thumbed Koran. But I suspect his defiance won’t soften. As he told the judge, “If I am given a thousand lives, I will sacrifice them all for the sake of Allah, fighting this cause, defending our lands, making the word of Allah supreme over any religion or system.”
The subtitle of the ABC’s “This Week” program was “Should Americans fear Islam?” We shouldn’t fear radical Islam, but rather defeat it. We should fear liberal elites whose self-deception about the true meaning of Islam seems to deepen with each Islam-inspired terrorist act.
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Former presidential candidate Mr. Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Hyper-Partisan Elena Kagan’s Road to the High Court
by Gary Bauer
In introducing his last Supreme Court nominee 13 months ago, President Obama gushed forth like an out-of-control oil spill about what he saw as Sonia Sotomayor’s main qualification—her “wisdom accumulated from an inspiring life's journey.”
Obama lavishly praised her “distinguished career,” which included having worked “at almost every level of our judicial system.” All this courtroom time, he assured us, provided Sotomayor “with a depth of experience and a breadth of perspective that will be invaluable as a Supreme Court justice.”
“Walking in the door,” he continued, “she would bring more experience on the bench and more varied experience on the bench than anyone currently serving on the United States Supreme Court had when they were appointed.”
Not surprisingly, in introducing Elena Kagan as his nominee to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, Obama spent a great deal less time touting her judicial experience—that’s because she has none. Obama did, however, refer to Kagan as a “trailblazing leader.”
And in one sense, he’s right. Kagan would be a pioneer of sorts, at least among the current justices. She would be the first Supreme Court justice who has spent his or her life not applying the law but rather crassly manipulating it for political ends.
Remember the to-do about John Roberts’ wife’s affiliation with the non-partisan Feminists for Life? Well, Kagan’s resume overflows with left-wing politics.
She’s worked in academia and as an advocate and policy advisor in two Democratic administrations and on Democratic political campaigns. And, as the Boston Herald put it, she’s been a “faithful Democratic donor over the past decade, lavishing nearly $15,000 on candidates from Barack Obama to Al Gore.”
Kagan’s professed heroes include Barack Obama as well as unabashed judicial activists Thurgood Marshall and Aharon Barak, the former Israeli Supreme Court president.
Given her partisan background, it is not surprising that Kagan spent all week promising that as a Supreme Court justice she would set her political views aside. “My politics would be—have to be—separate from my judging,” she assured Judiciary Committee senators on Tuesday.
No senator on the committee can believe her claim is credible. A justice Kagan would be a vote for same-sex marriage, a vote against the 2nd Amendment, a vote against religious freedom and a vote upholding Obama’s take-over of healthcare. She will vote this way not because the Constitution demands it but because her left-wing ideology does.
Her career has been defined by manipulating the law for political ends. And, as research by Americans United for Life shows, it is a tendency most evident in Kagan’s handling of abortion.
Kagan’s time clerking for Justice Marshall seems to have been about the closest she’s ever been to a courtroom. But she spent much of her time with Marshall, whom she called “a hero of American law” and whose constitutional interpretation she has described as “a thing of glory,” making political calculations.
In her confirmation hearing for solicitor general, she explained that her job as a clerk for Marshall was not to brief her boss on the law. Rather, she said, her job was to “enable him to advance his goals and purposes as a justice.” That’s revealing given that Marshall famously believed that the role of a judge was to “do what you think is right and let the law catch up.”
In 1988, Kagan wrote in a memo to Marshall that she believed lower courts were legally wrong in holding that female prison inmates could have their abortions paid for by taxpayers. But, because she thought the law was “well-intentioned” (read: would produce more abortions), she recommended that Marshall vote against reviewing the case because it “is likely to become the vehicle that this court uses to create some very bad law on abortion.”
And for her “bad law” meant law that did not advance abortion.
Partisanship also triumphed during her time working in the Clinton Administration. She assisted Clinton on his position against the Hyde Amendment and in favor of federal funding of abortion.
And she allowed politics to trump the law on partial-birth abortion. When Clinton offered tentative support for a very limited partial-birth abortion ban, Kagan argued that if he supported a ban that didn’t include a hollow “health exception,” “the [pro-abortion] groups will go crazy.”
She also advised Clinton that though she felt the partial-birth abortion ban was unconstitutional, he should support a compromise amendment for political gain, “in order,” she wrote to her boss, “to sustain your credibility on [the partial-birth abortion act] and prevent Congress from overriding your veto.”
Most egregiously, Kagan manipulated an opinion from a select panel of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) that stated that partial-birth abortion was never necessary to protect the life or health of a woman.
The initial draft stated that the ACOG panel “could identify no circumstances under which this procedure…would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman.” But Kagan noted in a memo that ACOG’s statement “would be a disaster—not the less so (in fact, the more so) because ACOG continues to oppose the [partial-birth abortion] legislation.”
So, as attorney Shannen Coffin has noted, Kagan wrote “suggested options” for modifying the ACOG position statement. These included having the Clinton Administration claim that partial-birth abortion “may be the best or most appropriate” option.
That crucial language was inserted into the AGOG policy statement, which the ACOG executive board then dutifully copied—word for word—into its final statement.
Kagan’s agenda-driven past is rejected by most Americans. Polls consistently show that vast majorities of Americans want judges who follow the law and are not driven by their own agendas.
There’s been much debate over the last few weeks about whether Elena Kagan is “in the mainstream of current legal thought.” But her record indicates that her thoughts aren’t principally about the law at all. Rather, after years saturated in partisan politics, they habitually focus on how she can exploit the law for political ends.
-------
Former presidential candidate Mr. Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families.
In introducing his last Supreme Court nominee 13 months ago, President Obama gushed forth like an out-of-control oil spill about what he saw as Sonia Sotomayor’s main qualification—her “wisdom accumulated from an inspiring life's journey.”
Obama lavishly praised her “distinguished career,” which included having worked “at almost every level of our judicial system.” All this courtroom time, he assured us, provided Sotomayor “with a depth of experience and a breadth of perspective that will be invaluable as a Supreme Court justice.”
“Walking in the door,” he continued, “she would bring more experience on the bench and more varied experience on the bench than anyone currently serving on the United States Supreme Court had when they were appointed.”
Not surprisingly, in introducing Elena Kagan as his nominee to replace retiring Justice John Paul Stevens, Obama spent a great deal less time touting her judicial experience—that’s because she has none. Obama did, however, refer to Kagan as a “trailblazing leader.”
And in one sense, he’s right. Kagan would be a pioneer of sorts, at least among the current justices. She would be the first Supreme Court justice who has spent his or her life not applying the law but rather crassly manipulating it for political ends.
Remember the to-do about John Roberts’ wife’s affiliation with the non-partisan Feminists for Life? Well, Kagan’s resume overflows with left-wing politics.
She’s worked in academia and as an advocate and policy advisor in two Democratic administrations and on Democratic political campaigns. And, as the Boston Herald put it, she’s been a “faithful Democratic donor over the past decade, lavishing nearly $15,000 on candidates from Barack Obama to Al Gore.”
Kagan’s professed heroes include Barack Obama as well as unabashed judicial activists Thurgood Marshall and Aharon Barak, the former Israeli Supreme Court president.
Given her partisan background, it is not surprising that Kagan spent all week promising that as a Supreme Court justice she would set her political views aside. “My politics would be—have to be—separate from my judging,” she assured Judiciary Committee senators on Tuesday.
No senator on the committee can believe her claim is credible. A justice Kagan would be a vote for same-sex marriage, a vote against the 2nd Amendment, a vote against religious freedom and a vote upholding Obama’s take-over of healthcare. She will vote this way not because the Constitution demands it but because her left-wing ideology does.
Her career has been defined by manipulating the law for political ends. And, as research by Americans United for Life shows, it is a tendency most evident in Kagan’s handling of abortion.
Kagan’s time clerking for Justice Marshall seems to have been about the closest she’s ever been to a courtroom. But she spent much of her time with Marshall, whom she called “a hero of American law” and whose constitutional interpretation she has described as “a thing of glory,” making political calculations.
In her confirmation hearing for solicitor general, she explained that her job as a clerk for Marshall was not to brief her boss on the law. Rather, she said, her job was to “enable him to advance his goals and purposes as a justice.” That’s revealing given that Marshall famously believed that the role of a judge was to “do what you think is right and let the law catch up.”
In 1988, Kagan wrote in a memo to Marshall that she believed lower courts were legally wrong in holding that female prison inmates could have their abortions paid for by taxpayers. But, because she thought the law was “well-intentioned” (read: would produce more abortions), she recommended that Marshall vote against reviewing the case because it “is likely to become the vehicle that this court uses to create some very bad law on abortion.”
And for her “bad law” meant law that did not advance abortion.
Partisanship also triumphed during her time working in the Clinton Administration. She assisted Clinton on his position against the Hyde Amendment and in favor of federal funding of abortion.
And she allowed politics to trump the law on partial-birth abortion. When Clinton offered tentative support for a very limited partial-birth abortion ban, Kagan argued that if he supported a ban that didn’t include a hollow “health exception,” “the [pro-abortion] groups will go crazy.”
She also advised Clinton that though she felt the partial-birth abortion ban was unconstitutional, he should support a compromise amendment for political gain, “in order,” she wrote to her boss, “to sustain your credibility on [the partial-birth abortion act] and prevent Congress from overriding your veto.”
Most egregiously, Kagan manipulated an opinion from a select panel of the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) that stated that partial-birth abortion was never necessary to protect the life or health of a woman.
The initial draft stated that the ACOG panel “could identify no circumstances under which this procedure…would be the only option to save the life or preserve the health of the woman.” But Kagan noted in a memo that ACOG’s statement “would be a disaster—not the less so (in fact, the more so) because ACOG continues to oppose the [partial-birth abortion] legislation.”
So, as attorney Shannen Coffin has noted, Kagan wrote “suggested options” for modifying the ACOG position statement. These included having the Clinton Administration claim that partial-birth abortion “may be the best or most appropriate” option.
That crucial language was inserted into the AGOG policy statement, which the ACOG executive board then dutifully copied—word for word—into its final statement.
Kagan’s agenda-driven past is rejected by most Americans. Polls consistently show that vast majorities of Americans want judges who follow the law and are not driven by their own agendas.
There’s been much debate over the last few weeks about whether Elena Kagan is “in the mainstream of current legal thought.” But her record indicates that her thoughts aren’t principally about the law at all. Rather, after years saturated in partisan politics, they habitually focus on how she can exploit the law for political ends.
-------
Former presidential candidate Mr. Gary Bauer is president of American Values and chairman of the Campaign for Working Families.
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