it's a celebrity appointment. mind you, her legacy has a lot to do with her celebrity, but it's the secondary factor here. there are quite a few quiet kennedys who would never be considered for the post; they have equal legacy but no celebrity.

as for the merits of that approach, well in an ideal world it would all be a meritocracy, but the past 8 years have made us all grow up quite a bit, and in the world of politics there are necessary slots for fund-raising and political clout and influence and so on. in the end, it all comes down to a question of relative value; will what she brings be more valuable than what anybody else suggested for the post brings, albeit in a different sphere.

that go into the american consensus; by coincidence the nytimes happened yesterday to print an oped analyzing last august's pew study regarding how american christians feel about the chances of getting into heaven if you were not of the proper religion; all denominations seemed to feel that jews stood a pretty good chance, whereas muslims' chances were way down with those of hindus and even atheists. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/12/27/opinion/27blowlarge.jpg

anybody who doesn't think that that has as much to do with "the american political consensus on israel" as the work of "the jewish lobby" does doesn't understand what passes for "political thought".

"you, or any of the other loud mouths who literally create their theory of Israel and Palestine from thin air. You've obviously formulated your ideas based on what you want to believe not on any data. You provided some quotes, but none of them have any bearing on the 'facts' that you create."

well, i see i haven't done much to bolster the spirit of conciliation and moving forward rather than retribution for past injustices, real and/or imagined. still and all, i am puzzled; if gaza was sparsely populated until the arrival of 200,000 refugees in 1948, as you say, where did the rest of the current 1.5 million residents come from? hard enough to multiply your population 7-fold in 60 years, but even harder when you are the victims of brutal genocide with starving babies, etc. as we are constantly being told.

i'd research the facts using the sources you provide, but my copy of the internet seems to have them deleted.

and as for my concerns vs egyptian poverty vs the gaza, etc., if it makes any difference, my non-local charity lately has been limited to microloans via kiva.org (recommended to all) kind of all over the map, so to speak, and outright contributions to outfits like the abraham fund (for instance, most recently, the abraham fund) so in a vague way i guess i'm doing something about world poverty in general, as well as israel/palestine but i have a dog in the race or an axe to grind or whaever you want to call it; certainly an interest in this particular conflict and its resolution, even though i recognize my own bias and attempt to account for it. but what's your interest in the matter? it always mystifies me why israel/palestine has to become the burning issue which is the one conflict in this otherwise peaceful world which commands the attention of anyone of any nation? in a world where things like darfur and rwanda exist, in a world where indians and pakistanis blow each other up with aplomb, in a world where at least a million people would reckon living like a gazan to be an unattainable dream, why do people who are neither israeli, nor palestinian, nor jew, or arab, or muslim so fascinated with the "palestinian plight"? are americans obsessed with it because america sends aid to israel (which, as pointed out, is just a means of whitewashing funds destined for american defense industries)? then why doesn't american aid to egypt justify equivalent attention to the worse plight of the residents of the cairo slums? if it's specific concern about abuses of military power, then anyone addressing the subject from america had best attend to the lumberyard in their own eye before wasting a second of effort trying to remove the mote in Israel's eye. concern about the rights of aboriginals? boy, nobody in america, australia, or europe had better pretend that that's what's driving them to look outside their own country for injustices to right. etc. etc. i don't know what's driving all this attention, but if you're not going to work towards a peaceful solution, perhaps you could point your righteous outrage elsewhere, because frankly, as long as you pick at it it's not going to heal.

the only reason bristol and levi couldn't get married was because gay marriage has so destroyed the sanctity of marriage in america.

Excellent point, and one which strikes to the situation of the teenage mother down near the poverty level even more than the Palins. One quibble; usually the baby will be covered under the mother's policy (which in this case is as a dependent of governor sarah) for 30 days. After that, good luck kid.

but nowhere near as much as women who had children! (^_^)

who still back the US' war in Iraq while giving lipservice to the uniform fedupness felt by the US population? Not to mention looking forward eagerly to our Big Afghan Adventure, but the people haven't gotten fed up with that yet.

oh yeah, i know, it's the israel lobby behind them wars too. it was their plan all along to weaken iraq so that iran would become a nuclear power.