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Nov. 19, 2009
Binyamin L. Jolkovsky: Please Listen to this Godcast (5 minutes)
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Nov. 18, 2009
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JWisdom.com: The (Jewish) Dating Game with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
Nov. 17, 2009
Steven Emerson: How Does the 4th Amendment Impact Terror Finance Investigations?
JWisdom.com: If Frank Sinatra married Edith Piaf with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein (2 minutes) Life lessons from what would be regarded as the most inappropriate lyrics ever sung
Nov. 16, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir : When borrowing is stealing
JWisdom.com: Deconstructing faith with Rabbi Warren Goldstein (9 minutes)
Nov. 13, 2009
JWisdom.com Sarah's subjective reality with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 6 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: Obama's failure, Netanyahu's opportunity
Nov. 12, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet By Marialisa Calta : A sweet sweet potato treat
JWisdom.com Does God get tired? with Rabbi Harvey Belovski ( 5 minutes)
Nov. 11, 2009
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Jews and money: When anti-Semitism isn't
JWisdom.com Marriages are not made in Heaven with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (VERY fast 15 minutes)
Nov. 10, 2009
Michael Doyle: Author of book exposing CAIR ordered to remove supporting documents from Web
JWisdom.com If the creation so loudly shouts the existence of the Creator, why aren't more people believers? with Rabbi Naftali Brawer (9 minutes)
Nov. 9, 2009
Mark Steyn: Shooter exposes hole in U.S. terror strategy
JWisdom.com It's never too late to have a happy childhood with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review April 20, 2009 / 26 Nissan 5769

Who's Laughing at the ‘Axis of Evil’ today?

By Byron York


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | There are undoubtedly people who have a more vivid memory of Will Farrell’s "Saturday Night Live" version of the "Axis of Evil" — the one in which Farrell, as President George W. Bush, denounced Iran, Iraq and "one of those Koreas" — than of the real thing from Bush's 2002 State of the Union address. A lot of comedians made a lot of fun of the "Axis of Evil" concept. But now, more than seven years later, it's looking pretty solid.

This is what Bush said on the subject of Iran, Iraq and North Korea:

States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.

You can argue till the end of time about Iraq's place in that group. But is there anything you would disagree with in the former president's assessment of Iran and North Korea? The last administration's comedy fodder is this administration's bipartisan consensus.

Recently I called David Frum, who is a friend and also the Bush speechwriter who came up with the "Axis" concept. (He originally wrote it as "Axis of Hatred.") Given the seriousness of the situations in Iran and North Korea today, I asked, why all the mocking of the concept, virtually from the very beginning?

"The thing I never cease to marvel at," Frum told me, "is that the phrase has become more and more of a joke even as the demonstration of the validity of the concept has become more extensive." Frum listed some of the things the public knows now that it didn't when Bush gave his speech — the A.Q. Khan network, the Iran-North Korea connection, the Iran-Hamas link. That's just the kind of thing Bush was talking about.

But why were people ever laughing? Well, a lot of them just liked to laugh at Bush. But Frum believes there's something else — the complicated nature of the word "evil." "It just seemed overtorqued," he told me. We use the word "evil," Frum explained, in two very different ways. One is the totally serious sense in which we describe a very, very small group of bad actors — a group that doesn't extend far beyond Adolf Hitler. The other is the sense in which we use "evil" as a light-hearted description for things that are at most a bit naughty — like saying we feel "evil" after ordering the chocolate cake. "If you're not talking about Hitler, you're talking about cake," Frum said. "That's why it was funny." But that incongruity made it difficult for people to take the "Axis of Evil" seriously, even though it was, and is, quite serious.

Now, it's not so hard. The Obama administration is trying to engage Iran on its nuclear program, and its allies in Congress worry there's little time left to talk. On March 26, a group of top House Democrats sent a letter to President Barack Obama warning that, "Engagement must be serious and credible, but it cannot be open-ended. &hellip We cannot allow Iran to use diplomatic discussions as a cover for continuing to work on its nuclear program." The Democratic lawmakers said Iran must stop enriching uranium "within, at most, a few months of the initiations of discussions."

On North Korea, U.S. diplomats were unable to convince the United Nations Security Council to pass a resolution condemning the country for its recent ballistic missile launch, even though U.N. Security Council Resolution 1718, passed in 2006, demanded that North Korea "not conduct any &hellip launch of a ballistic missile" and "abandon [its] ballistic missile program in a complete, verifiable and irreversible manner." Instead of a strongly worded resolution, the Security Council approved a weaker statement saying North Korea "must comply fully with its obligations under Security Council Resolution 1718." Which, of course, it didn't do before.

So two-thirds of the "Axis of Evil" are still at it, and still among the most pressing problems facing the United States today. And that's no "Saturday Night Live" skit.

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Previously:



04/14/09 Congress needs Google to track stimulus money
04/06/09 Beyond AIG: A bill to let Big Government set your salary
03/30/09 On Spending and the Deficit, McCain Was Right
03/24/09 It's Obama's crisis now
03/17/09: Geithner-Obama economics: A joke that's not funny



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