Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Some time also, prescient Vice President Joe Biden predicted that the Obama administration would be “tested,” presumably by someone other than Rush Limbaugh and former Vice President Dick Cheney, within his first few months of office. A few days ago, North Korea’s wacky president and film buff Kim Jong-il , who reportedly is ill, set off an underground nuclear explosion that is said to have rivaled the A-Bomb explosion at Hiroshima. The president, so full of apologies, has yet to bend the knee to the Japanese on that one. The analysts, according to a report in the British Guardian have it all figured out: “Analysts believe the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-il, hopes to use the test to shore up support from the military amid mounting speculation that he is about to name one of his three sons as his successor. “Kim, 67, appears to be re-establishing his grip on power since reportedly suffering a stroke last August. Today's test is a direct challenge to attempts by Obama to engage th...

The problem with Sen. Chris Dodd’s view of the world – and even more so his views on foreign policy – is that there is no “is” there. In foreign policy issues, Dodd proceeds as if the ideal universe he wishes to establish on earth, mostly by diplomatic means, is the reality; when, in fact, the real world, especially in the Middle East, is riven by religious zealots impervious to diplomacy whose world view is shaped by dreams of a Islamic caliphate that will extend from the shores of Tripoli to the halls of Montezuma. Improbable as it may seem, in the real world of Osama bin Ladin and his intellectual offspring, the Islamic revolution will not be complete until Dodd’s two charming daughters are wrapped in burqas and Dodd himself, a putative Catholic, is taxed for his non-belief. That is the way things were in the good old days of the 10th century, and terrorists in and outside of Iraq are striving to reestablish their supremacy over the West – which is to say, over everything to which D...

Dodd’s speech , a little outdated since he has modified his opinions several times since, was titled, “Moral Authority in the 21st Century: Lessons from Nuremberg.” During the past few weeks, Dodd's position on Iraq has evolved to meet changes in president Bush's strategy. He has, variously, agreed to increases in troop levels, and most recently proposed a bill that would restrict the president from increasing troop levels in Iraq. “In a time of war, I have come to our Council today to speak about peace. “Not the kind of peace that is merely the absence of armed conflict. “Not the uneasy and uncertain peace of adversaries warily eying each other over material and philosophical barricades. “Certainly not the false peace of slogans emblazoned on naval warships.” NB But it was precisely the naval warships of World War II, some of which were emblazoned with slogans, and aircraft also emblazoned with war-talk that brought a lasting peace to Europe. “Rather, I speak of a peace th...

There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet – The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Elliot The key to a successful campaign in Connecticut – if you are a Democrat – is to swing left in a primary and right in a general election. Primaries are songs sung to the Democrat choir. One of the reasons Sen. Joe Lieberman did not vigorously defend his principled position on the Iraq war during the primary was because the Democrat choir in Connecticut is unappeasable in its pacifism. What is the point in preaching to a choir of doves if you are a hawk? Lieberman’s opponent, Greenwich millionaire Ned Lamont, tacked left during the primary, and now he intends to move in an opposite direction so that he may capture what some have called “the vital center,” a simmering cauldron of dissident and doubtful voices. A tantalizing item from the Drudge Report to the effect that Lamont intended to make adjustments to his staff, the better to prepare for ...

The front page Associated Press picture in the Hartford Courant said a thousands words. It showed a somewhat cautious Ned Lamont being bear-hugged by Tommie Jackson, the pastor of Faith Baptist Tabernacle Missionary Baptist Church in Stamford, while the Reverend Al Sharpton stood to his left beaming, no doubt waiting for his papier-mâché hug or, perhaps better, a peck on the cheek and a whispered sweet nothing in his ear. Why so diffident? Well sir, hugs and pecks mean something in our politics. They are a way of branding a politician. A serious hug means: I’m yours, and you’re mine. In the 21st century, no politician will plight their troth for more than, say, fifteen minutes, just enough time for a quick dip in fame’s baptismal font. They will rent themselves out to all comers, for the price of a vote. Those who have committed themselves, whether to a person or a cause, will be followed about by a huge papier-mâché reminder of their indiscreet dalliances. It seems that Lowell Weicker...

To say that war is a continuation of diplomacy by other means is to say that diplomacy may be, when circumstances are ripe, a continuation of war by other means. The object of both war and diplomacy is – to get what you want in the long run; the short run is often tactically confusing. What does Israel want? Immediately, it wants an end to the death and destruction showered upon it from military emplacements in the southern part of Lebanon, land from which Israel withdrew as a part of a peace process several years ago because a) a long Jihad with Hezbollah, a terrorist organization supported by Syria and Iran, had exhausted it, and b) Israel had bought into “peace for land” arguments advanced by diplomatists who are now suggesting that further diplomacy is the solution to recent attacks by Hezbollah launched from territory surrendered to them. The highlands in South Lebanon were swapped for an illusive peace, and before you could say “diplomacy is war by other means,” missiles were rai...

Address of Grand Ayatullah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadhlullah On the Birth Anniversary of Imam al-Mahdi (aj) Allah says in His Glorious Book: {Allah only wishes to remove uncleanness from you, members of the Family, and to purify you} [3:33]. The first member is Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib ('a), while the last is Imam al-Mahdi (May Allah hasten his relief) whom Allah, the most exalted, has prepared to fill the earth with justice having been filled with wrongdoing. The struggle between Israel and Hezbollah – the Islamists would call it a jihad – probably will affect state campaigns only slightly. In Connecticut, where anti-war candidate Ned Lamont is challenging incumbent Senator Joe Lieberman, some subtle shifts in emphasis may be expected. Lieberman’s opponents have been unusually quiet of late. The conflict has been going on for more than a week and promises to continue much longer than that. Just as a picture is worth a thousand words, so is this portentous silence. The left in Connec...

Four years ago, the Daily Times reported that former U.S. President Bill Clinton would have been more than happy to put his life on the line for Israel. “The Israelis know,” Clinton told a crowd at a Toronto Jewish charity fund raising event, “that if the Iraqi or the Iranian army came across the Jordan River, I would personally grab a rifle, get in a ditch and fight and die.” Clinton’s remark, the paper noted, shocked many Arabs who may have thought he was “more even-handed on the Palestine question than his predecessors.” Since that time, the Iraqi army has undergone (ahem) reconstitution, but a Hezbollah army of terrorists backed by Iran that has found sanctuary in Lebanon and Syria recently pounded Israel with rockets, with predictable consequences, causing some in Toronto and elsewhere to wonder whether it might be time for the former president to leap into an Israeli foxhole. Former President Clinton’s wife, the artful and agile Hillary Clinton, is defending her seat as a New Yo...