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Dec. 3, 2008

Steven Emerson: Yes, the terrorists are winning

Don Terry: Lifetime, no see

Dec. 2, 2008

Melanie Phillips: The Mumbai atrocity is a wake-up call for a frighteningly unprepared world

Stratfor Geopolitical Intelligence Report: Strategic Motivations for the Mumbai Attack

Dec. 1, 2008

Max Freidlander, as told to Jacklyn C. Wadler: India Inkings

Mark Steyn: Whodunit!?

Nov. 28, 2008

Rabbi Ahron Rapps: An evil seed that didn't have to be

Melanie Phillips: Carpe diem --- or can we all relax now?

Nov. 26, 2008

Michael Feldberg: Meet the Orthodox Jew who laid groundwork for scientific development of ordnance that undergirds America's current world leadership

Andrea Simantov: Shades of life

Nov. 25, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Getting Emotional For Influence

The Kosher Gourmet by Ethel G. Hofman : Thanksiving feast!

Nov. 24, 2008

Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg: 'I just Became a grandchild!'

Barry Rubin: Don't flatter your enemies, protect your friends

Nov. 21, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: Money matters?

Caroline B. Glick: Civilization walks the plank

Nov. 20, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: Bronfman's blindness

The Kosher Gourmet By Linda Gassenheimer: Portobellos add a hearty flavor to pasta with pesto

Nov, 19, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Spread the wealth? Jewish tradition and income equality

Elliot B. Gertel: 'Mad Men': Tackling prejudices or reinforcing them?

Nov, 18, 2008

Dr. Debby Schwarz Hirschhorn: The End of the Age of Reason

Jonathan Tobin: Does Barack + Bibi = Disaster?

Nov, 17, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The End of the Age of Reason

Diana West: Gulling Americans into making terror legit?

Nov, 14, 2008

Rabbi A. Henach Leibowitz: The Power of Spiritual Inertia

Caroline B. Glick: The perils ahead

Nov, 13, 2008

Stratfor Intelligence Briefing: How Bush and Obama together could change the Middle East dynamic

The Kosher Gourmet by JeanMarie Brownson: Sweet and savory, crispy and meltingly tender bestilla

Nov, 12, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : Tyrannical Co-Workers

Michael Doyle: High Court to consider today donated monuments that may have religious messages in public parks

Nov, 11, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Will Obama stop government officials considering institutionalizing financial jihad?

Jonathan Tobin: They Will Decide Their Own Fate

Nov, 10, 2008

Rabbi Avi Shafran: $8 billion, modern-day Tower of Babel being built?

Barry Rubin: A letter to the president-elect from a Middle East realist

Nov, 7, 2008

Rabbi Francis Nataf: Of Children and Immortality

Caroline B. Glick: Livni's Obama strategy

Nov, 6, 2008

Rabbi Yonason Goldson: How I tricked a classroom of apathetic students into grasping the fallacy of moral relativism

The Kosher Gourmet By Gina Kim: Tips for making the perfect soup --- includes recipes

Nov, 5, 2008

The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Destitute Debtors

Bruce Weinstein: 'Religulos': Bad title,even worse movie

Nov, 4, 2008

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.: Treasury Dept. submits to Shariah law

Frida Ghitis: A surprise for Obama in the Middle East

Nov, 3, 2008

Jonathan Rosenblum: Who says Jews are Smart?

Jonathan Tobin: Was He Wrong About Everything?

March 22, 2007

J-Rhythms with Avraham Rosenblum: JWR's cutting-edge music program showcasing performers -- singers, song writers, musicians, and bands -- who learn and live the Torah lifestyle (OUR NEWEST IGODCAST !)

Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review April 22, 2005 / 13 Nisan, 5765

The Bolton Dirtfest

By Rich Lowry


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Whatever else you think of him, John Bolton is a serious person. Democrats could have acted on their disagreements with President Bush's pick to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations by making Bolton's confirmation battle a discussion of, among other things, his well-formed views on enforcement of the Biological Weapons Convention, or the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, or the International Criminal Court. Instead, they have gone after him with innuendo and misrepresentations.

Leading the way has been Senate Foreign Relations Committee ranking minority member Joseph Biden, one of the Senate's foremost authorities on taking himself seriously. He has been willing to shred his own credibility in taking the ax to Bolton. Consider his bad faith on procedural matters:

Biden had assured Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar two weeks ago that if Bolton's hearing was delayed a week for Pope John Paul II's funeral, both the hearing and the committee vote would take place last week. But when it came time to vote last week, Democrats objected. When it came time to vote again this Tuesday, Democrats objected again, forcing Republicans to take extraordinary steps to even allow the committee to convene. When it did, Democrats caterwauled for an hour until Ohio Republican George Voinovich buckled and supported another three-week delay on the vote.

This gives Democrats more time to smear and jeer. On Tuesday, Connecticut Democrat Chris Dodd said of Bolton's conduct in a routine bureaucratic dispute a few years ago, "This ought to be indictable." How ridiculous. Can we make senatorial hyperbole a federal offense? Biden at one point asked for a private hearing to air the allegations in a letter from a woman who said Bolton was abusive of her. Biden said he didn't want to harm Bolton's reputation — but according to The New York Sun, Biden's staff had already e-mailed the letter to journalists days earlier.

The main charges against Bolton are de minimis. He is said to have intimidated a State Department intelligence analyst who objected to Bolton's supposedly too-dire assessment of Cuba's bioweapons program. But Bolton aide Fred Fleitz has testified that the analyst in question, Christian Westerman, wasn't straight with Bolton or his staff. It was Westerman's responsibility to run language for a 2002 Bolton Cuba speech by the CIA, but when he did so he attached his own prejudicial language dissenting from Bolton's views. When Fleitz learned this, Westerman falsely denied having done it, understandably leading to a confrontation in Bolton's office. Two of Westerman's supervisors subsequently apologized for how Westerman handled the matter.

Democrats have made a scandal out of the fact that Bolton asked 10 times in four years to get the names of Americans — routinely blacked out — captured on National Security Agency intercepts of foreign conversations. It is perfectly legitimate to make such requests. During the same four-year period, other State Department officials made roughly 400 similar requests.

Finally, Democrats are retailing a charge from a partisan Democrat — founder of the Dallas chapter of Mothers Opposing Bush — that Bolton chased her through a Moscow hotel 11 years ago, throwing things and acting like a "madman." Bolton was working for a company for which the woman, Melody Townsel, was a subcontractor. The head of the company, Jayant Kalotra, says he doesn't believe it happened and that Bolton was always professional. Townsel's boss at the subcontractor, Charlie Black, also says he didn't hear of it at the time, even though Townsel was never shy about complaining.

As the Bolton-nomination fight drags on, even more criticisms of him will surface from the State Department. Bolton vigorously supported Bush's foreign policy at the incorrigibly weak-kneed department, earning him the enmity of its bureaucrats and their former servant Colin Powell, who appears to be feeding some of the anti-Bolton attacks. And the Democrats are willing to float any trash they are given — anything, anything to avoid discussing the substance of Bolton's views.

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© 2005 King Features Syndicate

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