"Courtesy should be shown the person in the office, if for no other reason than they are the President of the US."

Chief, I appreciate your reply, but I respectfully disagree with you. Although I'm a Democrat, I vowed to repect Mr. Bush as President when he was elected, even though I voted for someone else. However, George W Bush has demonstrated that he is a traitor to his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution. In fact, he has never demonstrated any understanding or even basic awareness of said Constitution, and he has long since lost any claim to my respect. He broke his oath, and I broke mine. As far as I am concerned, he is a dog, and the more shoes headed his way, the better.

"Globalization is bad."

Thanks for the huge insight, but it's maybe thirty years out of date, and the Civil War references are even less relevant. US demographics are different from those of the Asian countries, and we decided long ago to fund our retirees in grand style. Mitt Romney is correct, when he says that bailing out Detroit will only ensure and prolong its eventual demise.

Also, the author has heard the phrase "race to the bottom", but obviously doesn't know what it means.

Why is Obama doing this? Because he's about to become the leader of a nation of several hundred million ignorant barbarians, and he needs to cozy up to us. Let me ask you: if we were rational people, why would we not have generated at least an equal level of outrage over Obama's vote for immunizing the telecoms for assisting Bush and Cheney in demolishing the US Constitution? It's because we don't care that much about how government actually works. All we really care about is the symbolism.

Kerry Kennedy isn't just Caroline's cousin, she's also the former Mrs. Andrew Cuomo. They famously came to a parting of the ways five years ago, when she apparently got caught stepping out with a boyfriend, and subsequently became highly displeased when his divorce lawyer mentioned the allegation publicly. Now Kerry is leading the fight to make sure her ex doesn't get the appointment.

"See, I wasn't particularly thinkin' 'bout pardonin' Mister Libby, until I reckonnized that the good people of Amurrica are clamorin' for him to be treated fairly. My thanks to the good people at the Wall Street Journal for helpin' me see that justice was did."

Makes perfect sense to me....

Let's have the coronation first, and worry about appointing her afterward....

Any sentient being should understand (as another commenter posted here some time ago) that the new senator will most likely be Cuomo. If Cuomo doesn't get the job, Paterson will be facing a tough fight against him in the 2010 gubernatorial primary. How hard a choice is that?

... but why else would anyone want to be the Lieutenant Governor?

sysprog quoted a 2006 article by a Professor D'Amato:

In April 2002, Israeli soldiers, preceding an invasion by ground troops, lobbed explosive artillery shells into the crowded Jenin refugee camp located in the West Bank.

I have never heard any other allegation that artillery was used at Jenin since the PLO's "massacre" claims during the battle were discredited, shortly after the battle. I think the claim of "lobbing" artillery is simply disinformation. From a CNN.com article about a month after the battle:

Palestinians accuse the Israel Defense Forces of a massacre in Jenin, saying Israeli troops killed 500 Palestinians. The Israelis deny that claim. They say that their attempts to limit civilian casualties included the IDF's decision not to use air power and artillery in the operation's early stages -- even at the risk of increased Israeli casualties.

The Israeli assertion was buttressed by the humanitarian watchdog group Human Rights Watch, which investigated what happened at the Jenin camp and said this week that there was no evidence of a massacre by the IDF. Their report concluded that 52 Palestinians were killed in the operation.

Unfortunately, I agree that the war is probably a mistake for Israel. They are in a position of waiting for Hamas to press for a cease-fire, which may never happen. As someone noted below, Israel is held to a completely different standard by world opinion, and therefore the outcome is likely to be positive for Hamas.

It seems to me the Israelis may have taken this step for internal political reasons, because Likud has been strengthened by the continuing rocket fire, and elections are coming soon.

Anyway, the long-term solution is to find some way of passively defending against the rocket attacks. Ariel Sharon was correct to implement the separation barrier. The point of doing so was to eliminate the Palestinians' ability to dominate media attention with terror attacks. The chink in the armor has been the rockets. If Israel can invent a way to shoot them down (probably some laser-based technology), then the barrier will succeed, and the world can finally, thankfully, forget Hamas.

Glenn,

I lost count of the number of times you used the word "blind" in this post, as in "blind, uncritical support of Israel". It is obvious that your opposition to anything the State of Israel does is equally blind. You appear to know almost nothing of Israeli history or culture, or that of the Middle East in general, so what can your attitude be, besides classic leftist antisemitism?

Thanks - I think I will have your response framed and hang it over my mantle.

It's not just Glenn, though. The entire progressive left seems to be knee-jerk anti-Israel. Anyone else in the world has the perfect right to keep their kids safe from terrorists, except the Jews.

"The entire progressive left seems to be knee-jerk anti-Israel. -> Why is that? I mean, what has Israel ever done to deserve such criticism??? It must because they are all antisemites who secretly love Hitler."

Or perhaps they are very-poorly-informed ideologues, who are happy to glom onto anything that sounds anti-establishment or revolutionary.