by Don Klein
In a few days the new year will be upon us making it appropriate to look back on the noteworthy year of 2009. It was historic for a number of major reasons, but I also see a healthy (or rather, unhealthy) quantity of the good, bad and ugly when I recall the happenings of the past 12 months.
Let’s take the ugly first in order to end on an upbeat. We had more than the usual share of ugliness in the country this past year. Sadly I feel the prize for the ugliest goes to former senator and Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards. He was at the controls of his own woeful political train wreck.
I place him on the top of bad boys because he was the one who promised us the best for the future in public service and responsibility. He was a man who as a lawyer fought for the little guy all his life. He was a man of great ideals, was presidential in his bearing and spoke convincingly and intelligently about a new vision of national caring. In short he was beguiling.
But he had feet of clay and proved in the end to be much more than just a disappointment. He was deceitful in concealing an affair of passion with a film contractor who worked for him during the primary campaign and had apparent little regard for the public he would have served if elected by hiding the illicit relationship. All this while his ailing wife, Elizabeth, battled Stage IV breast cancer.
When it came to people with zipper problems, Edwards was not alone. There was Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina, who let everyone believe he was hiking in Appalachia when actually he had ran off sniffing after his Argentine paramour.
Even worse, there was Senator John Ensign of Nevada, who cuckolded his own assistant while pillow cuddling with the subordinate’s wife, who also worked for the senator. How low can you get having sex with the wife of a staff member, then try to buy them both off when the scandal broke. Ensign has to be the sleaziest of the sleazy.
Then there was the since-impeached Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich allegedly attempting to sell the senatorial seat vacated when Barack Obama was elected president.
There also was what is becoming run-of-the-mill congressional criminal conspiracy and bribery cases as former Congressmen William J. Jefferson of Louisiana and "Duke" Cunningham of California were convicted and imprisoned for selling their legislative influence.
Perhaps the wickedest of all frauds were perpetrated by Bernard Madoff, the Wall Street insider who bilked scores of gullible people and organizations, including some giant well-known charities, out of billions of dollars in an elaborate Ponzi scheme. He is now where he belongs – in jail.
So much for the ugly, how about the bad. I can think of lots of bad. The recession was, of course, the worst. Then there was the wide scale unemployment that threw millions out of jobs. There was the inexcusable obstructionist behavior of Congressional Republicans who earned the title "Party of No."
How any self-respecting political party can hold its head up and be proud of being against everything, especially in these terrible times of stress and conflict, is beyond me. I must agree with the argument that not only did eight years of Republicans in power put this country in the ditch, but now the GOP won’t even lend a hand in digging us out of the hole they placed us.
And who is calling whom un-American?
On the good side of the ledger we can all be happy that George W. Bush was only president for 20 days during 2009. That was a positive for the rest of us. President Obama stepped into one of the worst times to be chief executive in the history of the US, probably only surpassed by Abraham Lincoln facing a civil war and Franklin D. Roosevelt starting off in the midst of an expanding depression.
Right after being sworn in Obama struck down torture as US policy, promised to close Guantanamo, signed into law a bill giving women equal pay and launched into hopeful solutions to the economic crisis with a monumental stimulus program. In the summer he won the Nobel Peace Prize.
The most gruelling accomplishment was the passage of different health care bills in the House of Representatives and the Senate. The legislation raises a serious problem since there are some glowing differences – public option in the House and not in the Senate and a variance on abortion restrictions. The major battle on this measure is yet to come in 2010.
In the end, 2009 was not that great a year. Paul Krugman, of The New York Times, dubbed the entire first decade of the century "The Big Zero," but that’s not entirely true. Good things did happen, perhaps not enough to outweigh the bad. The decade ended with the historic election of the first non-white president of the United States and with the country on a moral rebound from eight years of deceit and international disfavor.
Unfortunately 2009 was the year of the emergence of absurd off-the-wall TV commentaries by Glenn Beck, the year they buried Ted Kennedy, the year of the phony emergencies like the balloon boy and Tiger Woods stonewalling himself into disfavor. It was the year that Kate and Jon Gosselin and their brood of eight gratefully disappeared from the TV screens, hopefully forever.
My vote for man of the year is Barack Obama. For woman of the year, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. My vote for scoundrel of the year, Sen. Joe Lieberman. Recurring Pest of the year, Sarah Palin. Dolt of the year, Rush Limbaugh.
It was a year (with apologies to Clint Eastwood) of the good, the bad and the ugly. Whether you agree or not with these assessments, standby. The new year is almost certain to bring another version of the same. It’s the human condition.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Saturday, December 12, 2009
When did we lose democracy?
By Don Klein
The British Parliament enacted legislation that will tax bonuses to employees of financial institution to the tune of 50 percent. The French are planning to do the same. They refuse to allow banking leeches who were largely responsible for the financial crisis under which millions suffer to continue to draw blood from a suffering society.
Don’t expect any restrictive action vaguely resembling our overseas friends ever happening in the US. We have a Congress that doesn’t represent the people. The national legislature is bought and owned by the bankers and large corporations. It is not the land of the free and home of the brave we learned about in grade school.
Land of the free? Home of the brave? Really? If you think that describes today’s America, humbug. To Congress there’s a new definition. The term "land of the free" means that big concerns have the free use of the American economy sans penalty or restrictions. And "home of the brave" refers to the rest of us who have the painful right to suffer silently while the greedy bask in unearned rewards.
The parasites that inhabit Wall Street take their immense payoffs whether they make profits or not. They earn money with the thanks of the American taxpayer who bailed them out of tragic circumstances and then the ingrates raise interest rates on credit, boosts prices for services and pay their own flunkeys unconscionable bonuses.
They thumb their collective noses at the rest of us by using every bit of pressure (spelled: money) they can muster to impair corrective Congressional action. They payoff key members of Congress with campaign donations to insure they remain in office. That is their interpretation of the Constitutional right to petition the government -- also known as bribes. But they never use that word.
It’s a crime. It’s an injustice. But don’t expect anyone to go to jail for it. Why? Because Congress is in cahoots with the bankers, the insurance giants, the business barons who have as much public concern, community goodwill and personal honesty as a pile of rocks.
Not only do these bloodsuckers, who were on the edge of disaster when the taxpayers saved their skins, show no gratitude or restraint in overpaying themselves for not doing the right thing in the first place but they underwrite every campaign to destroy any hope for the country to improve life for the average citizen.
They oppose health care and fund the Republican political machine which opposes any reform in Congress and they fund the Blue Dog Democrats who see no reason to support their own party’s high minded resolve to help millions of the country’s uninsured. They underwrite the cost of fighting any effort to thwart global warming. All they care about is making as much money as they can no matter how many innocent people go without adequate medical care or how dangerous the world will be without pollution controls.
They are the most shortsighted people that ever existed. They don’t care about the future. They only live for the profits of the moment. They pay off Congress and fatten the wallets of government leaders in order to protect their bloated incomes. My desire is they live long enough to see how much damage they have done to their children’s and grandchildren’s worlds.
The Republican Party, with its antipathy towards any change in the way health care, is standing boldly shoulder-to-shoulder with the insurance and pharmaceutical industries in opposition to anything offered in the realm of health care reform. They are joined by enough reactionary Democrats to stop meaningful progress.
When it comes to the area of stimulating jobs in our weakened economy all the Republicans can think of is their precious taxes. They keep singing that discredited song that tax cuts for business stimulates employment when we all know that the tax cuts given during the Bush Administration resulted in a near depression.
And the Democrats are not blameless. They cannot get together to write stiff new rules that would restrict banks and investment firms from hoodwinking the public in the future even after the financial chaos following the Bush Administration. It is difficult to believe there are realistic objections in the shadow of such a financial disaster. Even the watered-down bill passed by the House this week failed to gain a single Republican vote.
But neither party has serious objections to restricting entitlements to the poor and middle classes. It’s no harm if the lower income echelon of society cannot buy as much with food stamps as before, or afford a doctor’s regular care, or pay their mortgages.
It is all right for the lower income families to send their youths to fight and die in a questionable war as long as the investors in Haliburton (like Dick Cheney) and Blackwater make billions selling their inflated, non-bid services to the military.
The ugliness of the American political scene is heartless. We have a Congress hobbled into inaction by one party which can only say "no" to all proposals and by Senate rules that demolish the democratic concept of majority rule. We no longer have democracy in America, we have borderline anarchy fed by contentious politicians rejoicing in logjams and gridlock. The only time bipartisanship rears its head is when funding warfare.
And there is no relief for the electorate.
It is Christmas time and if you are looking for the traditional goodwill and peace of the season, you’d better look somewhere else. You won’t find it in the US Congress.
The British Parliament enacted legislation that will tax bonuses to employees of financial institution to the tune of 50 percent. The French are planning to do the same. They refuse to allow banking leeches who were largely responsible for the financial crisis under which millions suffer to continue to draw blood from a suffering society.
Don’t expect any restrictive action vaguely resembling our overseas friends ever happening in the US. We have a Congress that doesn’t represent the people. The national legislature is bought and owned by the bankers and large corporations. It is not the land of the free and home of the brave we learned about in grade school.
Land of the free? Home of the brave? Really? If you think that describes today’s America, humbug. To Congress there’s a new definition. The term "land of the free" means that big concerns have the free use of the American economy sans penalty or restrictions. And "home of the brave" refers to the rest of us who have the painful right to suffer silently while the greedy bask in unearned rewards.
The parasites that inhabit Wall Street take their immense payoffs whether they make profits or not. They earn money with the thanks of the American taxpayer who bailed them out of tragic circumstances and then the ingrates raise interest rates on credit, boosts prices for services and pay their own flunkeys unconscionable bonuses.
They thumb their collective noses at the rest of us by using every bit of pressure (spelled: money) they can muster to impair corrective Congressional action. They payoff key members of Congress with campaign donations to insure they remain in office. That is their interpretation of the Constitutional right to petition the government -- also known as bribes. But they never use that word.
It’s a crime. It’s an injustice. But don’t expect anyone to go to jail for it. Why? Because Congress is in cahoots with the bankers, the insurance giants, the business barons who have as much public concern, community goodwill and personal honesty as a pile of rocks.
Not only do these bloodsuckers, who were on the edge of disaster when the taxpayers saved their skins, show no gratitude or restraint in overpaying themselves for not doing the right thing in the first place but they underwrite every campaign to destroy any hope for the country to improve life for the average citizen.
They oppose health care and fund the Republican political machine which opposes any reform in Congress and they fund the Blue Dog Democrats who see no reason to support their own party’s high minded resolve to help millions of the country’s uninsured. They underwrite the cost of fighting any effort to thwart global warming. All they care about is making as much money as they can no matter how many innocent people go without adequate medical care or how dangerous the world will be without pollution controls.
They are the most shortsighted people that ever existed. They don’t care about the future. They only live for the profits of the moment. They pay off Congress and fatten the wallets of government leaders in order to protect their bloated incomes. My desire is they live long enough to see how much damage they have done to their children’s and grandchildren’s worlds.
The Republican Party, with its antipathy towards any change in the way health care, is standing boldly shoulder-to-shoulder with the insurance and pharmaceutical industries in opposition to anything offered in the realm of health care reform. They are joined by enough reactionary Democrats to stop meaningful progress.
When it comes to the area of stimulating jobs in our weakened economy all the Republicans can think of is their precious taxes. They keep singing that discredited song that tax cuts for business stimulates employment when we all know that the tax cuts given during the Bush Administration resulted in a near depression.
And the Democrats are not blameless. They cannot get together to write stiff new rules that would restrict banks and investment firms from hoodwinking the public in the future even after the financial chaos following the Bush Administration. It is difficult to believe there are realistic objections in the shadow of such a financial disaster. Even the watered-down bill passed by the House this week failed to gain a single Republican vote.
But neither party has serious objections to restricting entitlements to the poor and middle classes. It’s no harm if the lower income echelon of society cannot buy as much with food stamps as before, or afford a doctor’s regular care, or pay their mortgages.
It is all right for the lower income families to send their youths to fight and die in a questionable war as long as the investors in Haliburton (like Dick Cheney) and Blackwater make billions selling their inflated, non-bid services to the military.
The ugliness of the American political scene is heartless. We have a Congress hobbled into inaction by one party which can only say "no" to all proposals and by Senate rules that demolish the democratic concept of majority rule. We no longer have democracy in America, we have borderline anarchy fed by contentious politicians rejoicing in logjams and gridlock. The only time bipartisanship rears its head is when funding warfare.
And there is no relief for the electorate.
It is Christmas time and if you are looking for the traditional goodwill and peace of the season, you’d better look somewhere else. You won’t find it in the US Congress.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Depressed? Who me?
By Don Klein
A good friend of mind said he is worried about me. He thinks I am depressed. My wife disagrees. She thinks I am overwhelmed with stress. I don’t know who is correct.
I do know I am confounded, perplexed and bewildered. I feel some strange power has singled me out for a heavy dose of negativity over a very short period of time.
It all started a month ago when my dentist told me my teeth were in bad shape. Four of them had to be extracted. He yanked them out of the back of my mouth then informed me it would be some time before he could build partial bridges because he had to wait for the gums to heal. That immediately destroyed my eating routine. No steaks, no chops, no bagels – just soft food for a long time.
About that time my wife was diagnosed with an ailment that required surgeries in Baltimore by two specialists. We had to make arrangements for the trip and order referrals from our primary physician’s office. That’s the insurance imperative these days. The clerks promised to mail the sacred documents to the distant surgeons.
Meanwhile I got a call from my bowling team captain reporting that she had been hurt in a auto accident and wouldn’t be bowling that week and could I take over for her. I did. In the confusion of first finding a substitute bowler, then entering the names on the scorecard and the monitor screen, I noticed time was eluding me so I grabbed my ball for at least one practice shot. I landed flat on my face.
Why? In the rush to do everything in the briefest time allotted I forgot to put my bowling shoes on and threw the ball wearing my street shoes. Advice to bowlers: Don’t ever do that. No traction. Splat.
The next day we learn that the referrals that were supposed to be sent to Baltimore, were not. At that time it was too late to mail them and besides we didn’t trust the clerks and did not want to travel 135 miles only to be turned away because of no referrals. So I drove in exasperation to our Salisbury doctor’s office to pick up the referrals personally after first revisiting my dentist for a checkup on my gums.
On the way back somehow I drove my car off the road and smashed into my neighbor’s house. The car was totaled. Miraculously there was no injury to me or severe damage to the house. That initiated a whole series of gut-wrenching routines that follow all accidents. First, arranging for towing the damaged car, then renting a car and dealing with the insurance people and finally negotiating for a new car. All in three days time.
A day later my wife’s car stopped running. Again a towing – to the dealer this time. Diagnosed as an engine computer failure, it took several days to repair. At the same time my prize possession, the Bose radio and CD player, whose music always cured my tension, also stopped playing for no discernable reason.
Now we were ready for the Baltimore excursion. Great friends in rural Clarksville put us up for the three-day stay there. We had never been to their house -- or that area of Maryland – so we traveled on unfamiliar routes reading directions as we roamed darkened roads. It rained all three days to add to the strain of driving.
We had to be at the two different doctors on two succeeding days before dawn. There were no good night’s sleep as a result.
Getting to Baltimore was weird, inside the city the travel was familiar enough though stressful. Trying to find our way among the myriad of structures on the Johns Hopkins Hospital campus is like trying to escape the clutches of the Blob that ate California. Hopkins has wrapped its unwieldy embrace over a sizable chunk of east Baltimore and turned what once was one of the dumpiest neighborhoods of the city into a widespread, confusing technological health complex even an employee would have trouble negotiating.
When my wife’s treatment was over we were free to travel back to Ocean City. It was Thanksgiving Eve, the worst travel day of the year. I stopped for a snack on the approach to the Bay Bridge, my wife was not hungry, and found out that bridge traffic had been greatly retarded because of heavy fog.
A half-hour later, safely on the Eastern Shore side of the Chesapeake Bay, I had to stop and close my eyes for a nap while parked in a county lot off the main highway determined not to repeat losing control of my driving again.
When we got home it was still raining. No food for dinner. Went out for pizza and stained the back seat of my new car with its drippings. Then I learned our oldest granddaughter, an 18 year old who was in tears a few weeks ago when she left her boyfriend in Virginia because of his bad treatment of her, had recanted. They left together to return to Virginia after Thanksgiving despite parental and grand-parental advice to the contrary.
Then to top off everything else, our newspaper whose delivery had be discontinued while we were in Baltimore, was not delivered for five days after the reinstatement date. The responsible circulation people at the paper couldn’t figure out why.
The American Psychological Association reports that 75 percent of Americans are experiencing moderate to high levels of stress, demonstrated by symptoms of irritability and anger. Why should I be different?
Am I depressed? No. Am I stressed out? Maybe. I just want to climb into bed, pull the covers over my head and stay there until they start redelivering my newspaper. I joyfully will open the tardy news sheet and look at the front page – then I’ll really be depressed.
A good friend of mind said he is worried about me. He thinks I am depressed. My wife disagrees. She thinks I am overwhelmed with stress. I don’t know who is correct.
I do know I am confounded, perplexed and bewildered. I feel some strange power has singled me out for a heavy dose of negativity over a very short period of time.
It all started a month ago when my dentist told me my teeth were in bad shape. Four of them had to be extracted. He yanked them out of the back of my mouth then informed me it would be some time before he could build partial bridges because he had to wait for the gums to heal. That immediately destroyed my eating routine. No steaks, no chops, no bagels – just soft food for a long time.
About that time my wife was diagnosed with an ailment that required surgeries in Baltimore by two specialists. We had to make arrangements for the trip and order referrals from our primary physician’s office. That’s the insurance imperative these days. The clerks promised to mail the sacred documents to the distant surgeons.
Meanwhile I got a call from my bowling team captain reporting that she had been hurt in a auto accident and wouldn’t be bowling that week and could I take over for her. I did. In the confusion of first finding a substitute bowler, then entering the names on the scorecard and the monitor screen, I noticed time was eluding me so I grabbed my ball for at least one practice shot. I landed flat on my face.
Why? In the rush to do everything in the briefest time allotted I forgot to put my bowling shoes on and threw the ball wearing my street shoes. Advice to bowlers: Don’t ever do that. No traction. Splat.
The next day we learn that the referrals that were supposed to be sent to Baltimore, were not. At that time it was too late to mail them and besides we didn’t trust the clerks and did not want to travel 135 miles only to be turned away because of no referrals. So I drove in exasperation to our Salisbury doctor’s office to pick up the referrals personally after first revisiting my dentist for a checkup on my gums.
On the way back somehow I drove my car off the road and smashed into my neighbor’s house. The car was totaled. Miraculously there was no injury to me or severe damage to the house. That initiated a whole series of gut-wrenching routines that follow all accidents. First, arranging for towing the damaged car, then renting a car and dealing with the insurance people and finally negotiating for a new car. All in three days time.
A day later my wife’s car stopped running. Again a towing – to the dealer this time. Diagnosed as an engine computer failure, it took several days to repair. At the same time my prize possession, the Bose radio and CD player, whose music always cured my tension, also stopped playing for no discernable reason.
Now we were ready for the Baltimore excursion. Great friends in rural Clarksville put us up for the three-day stay there. We had never been to their house -- or that area of Maryland – so we traveled on unfamiliar routes reading directions as we roamed darkened roads. It rained all three days to add to the strain of driving.
We had to be at the two different doctors on two succeeding days before dawn. There were no good night’s sleep as a result.
Getting to Baltimore was weird, inside the city the travel was familiar enough though stressful. Trying to find our way among the myriad of structures on the Johns Hopkins Hospital campus is like trying to escape the clutches of the Blob that ate California. Hopkins has wrapped its unwieldy embrace over a sizable chunk of east Baltimore and turned what once was one of the dumpiest neighborhoods of the city into a widespread, confusing technological health complex even an employee would have trouble negotiating.
When my wife’s treatment was over we were free to travel back to Ocean City. It was Thanksgiving Eve, the worst travel day of the year. I stopped for a snack on the approach to the Bay Bridge, my wife was not hungry, and found out that bridge traffic had been greatly retarded because of heavy fog.
A half-hour later, safely on the Eastern Shore side of the Chesapeake Bay, I had to stop and close my eyes for a nap while parked in a county lot off the main highway determined not to repeat losing control of my driving again.
When we got home it was still raining. No food for dinner. Went out for pizza and stained the back seat of my new car with its drippings. Then I learned our oldest granddaughter, an 18 year old who was in tears a few weeks ago when she left her boyfriend in Virginia because of his bad treatment of her, had recanted. They left together to return to Virginia after Thanksgiving despite parental and grand-parental advice to the contrary.
Then to top off everything else, our newspaper whose delivery had be discontinued while we were in Baltimore, was not delivered for five days after the reinstatement date. The responsible circulation people at the paper couldn’t figure out why.
The American Psychological Association reports that 75 percent of Americans are experiencing moderate to high levels of stress, demonstrated by symptoms of irritability and anger. Why should I be different?
Am I depressed? No. Am I stressed out? Maybe. I just want to climb into bed, pull the covers over my head and stay there until they start redelivering my newspaper. I joyfully will open the tardy news sheet and look at the front page – then I’ll really be depressed.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Hopefully, a winning formula
By Don Klein
Finally, the Democrats seem to have come up with a winning formula for the highly contentious issue of providing health care for all. Senate majority leader Harry Reid has announced that the bill which will be presented to the full Senate will include a public option with a contingency for states to opt out of the program if they deign to do so.
It is more than just a political victory for liberals in Congress who fought so ardently for a public option in order to give teeth to the pending legislation. It also puts the Republican opposition as well as those Blue Dog Democrats on the spot.
It has thrust the issue of health care into the final crucial crunch.
Permitting individual states the right to bail out of the program is a clear boost to the concept of states rights, a point the opposition often uses to justify resistance to the concept of the bill. Now we will learn if the opposition is really opposed to health care legislation because it is unpopular among the residents in their states or if it is because the solons are satisfactorily impressed (paid off) by the powerful, well-heeled insurance lobby.
The Reid compromise is attractive because it ultimately allows the people to decide the issue. In states that accept the public option, which will be most of them, we should start seeing the uninsured becoming insured and further, the insurance premiums for all others to begin to show cost reductions. If for some strange reason this does not benefit the public, the states can always opt out.
In those states that opt out from the start there will be a different consequence. Their rates may remain where they are or might even increase because there will be no public competition on costs. Eventually the residents of opted out jurisdictions will realize they are paying a surcharge that others are not and they will demand to be included. State governments will not be able to resist these movements and still remain in office very long.
My guess is that many voices will be heard and soon all states, except the most stubborn, will rejoin the program which includes a public option. Give them five years and the public option will be uniform throughout the country.
So the opt out clause is good. To begin with, it will be hard to oppose because if you don’t like it you don’t have to accept it. And more importantly, it will be the first step towards affordable health option insurance for the entire country.
But Reid’s plan is still not the law of the land. There is a question whether it will pass Congress because of recalcitrant Republicans. There is another problem that needed to be faced from the very beginning. The Democratic caucus is still not unified behind the bill despite having a filibuster-proof majority of 60. There are still three or four Democrats (Sens. Landrieu, Lincoln, Nelson or Baucus) who are uneasy with the public option and one of the two independents (Sen. Lieberman) is a holdout.
No one expects any help from GOP senators despite Olympia Snowe’s positive committee vote recently. If she backs down, as she has threatened to do, so be it. This issue will come down to the effort put into it by President Obama using his immense patronage powers.
He must invite each of the unsure Democrats to the Oval Office, or send his envoys to Capitol Hill, and use gentle persuasion on them, reminding each marginal senator of what the power of the presidency can do in each of their home states. No politician in his or her right mind wants the president, especially of his own party, angry with them.
They will have to balance the benefits of an insurance industry which can provide funds to support their next political campaign against the extraordinary benefits to their states possible through White House largesse. This might even move rebellious independent Joe Lieberman, who represents the insurance industry-based state of Connecticut, to a positive position.
All that is needed is 60 votes to clear cloture then a simple majority of 51 is needed to pass the bill. The Democrats are certain of the latter number.
The opt-out concept makes a great deal of sense but you can bet it will not impress the Republicans. Even though it illuminates their states rights position on so many other matters, the GOP is only interested in one thing – how to make Obama appear to be a failure. They are afraid if the president succeeds they will remain a minority party for years to come.
If health care reform fails, they see the Democrats on the ropes during the 2010 elections. Winning or losing elections are more important than doing what is right for the public.
This entire issue of health care in America is loaded with ruptured axioms:
1. America thrives on competition – except when it comes to health care issues.
2. Rationing is bad -- except when insurance companies do it for profit.
3. States Rights are all important – except when providing for the needy.
4. Senior citizens enjoy a single-payer health plan, as does Congress -- but it is not good for the general public.
If this health care effort founders or is substituted with a feeble, industry-favored substitute which does not include any method to insert real competition into insurance charges I would be hopeful every member of Congress – Republican or Democrat -- who voted against the measure is justly defeated in the 2010 election because they dismiss the personal well being of their constituency as not important.
Finally, the Democrats seem to have come up with a winning formula for the highly contentious issue of providing health care for all. Senate majority leader Harry Reid has announced that the bill which will be presented to the full Senate will include a public option with a contingency for states to opt out of the program if they deign to do so.
It is more than just a political victory for liberals in Congress who fought so ardently for a public option in order to give teeth to the pending legislation. It also puts the Republican opposition as well as those Blue Dog Democrats on the spot.
It has thrust the issue of health care into the final crucial crunch.
Permitting individual states the right to bail out of the program is a clear boost to the concept of states rights, a point the opposition often uses to justify resistance to the concept of the bill. Now we will learn if the opposition is really opposed to health care legislation because it is unpopular among the residents in their states or if it is because the solons are satisfactorily impressed (paid off) by the powerful, well-heeled insurance lobby.
The Reid compromise is attractive because it ultimately allows the people to decide the issue. In states that accept the public option, which will be most of them, we should start seeing the uninsured becoming insured and further, the insurance premiums for all others to begin to show cost reductions. If for some strange reason this does not benefit the public, the states can always opt out.
In those states that opt out from the start there will be a different consequence. Their rates may remain where they are or might even increase because there will be no public competition on costs. Eventually the residents of opted out jurisdictions will realize they are paying a surcharge that others are not and they will demand to be included. State governments will not be able to resist these movements and still remain in office very long.
My guess is that many voices will be heard and soon all states, except the most stubborn, will rejoin the program which includes a public option. Give them five years and the public option will be uniform throughout the country.
So the opt out clause is good. To begin with, it will be hard to oppose because if you don’t like it you don’t have to accept it. And more importantly, it will be the first step towards affordable health option insurance for the entire country.
But Reid’s plan is still not the law of the land. There is a question whether it will pass Congress because of recalcitrant Republicans. There is another problem that needed to be faced from the very beginning. The Democratic caucus is still not unified behind the bill despite having a filibuster-proof majority of 60. There are still three or four Democrats (Sens. Landrieu, Lincoln, Nelson or Baucus) who are uneasy with the public option and one of the two independents (Sen. Lieberman) is a holdout.
No one expects any help from GOP senators despite Olympia Snowe’s positive committee vote recently. If she backs down, as she has threatened to do, so be it. This issue will come down to the effort put into it by President Obama using his immense patronage powers.
He must invite each of the unsure Democrats to the Oval Office, or send his envoys to Capitol Hill, and use gentle persuasion on them, reminding each marginal senator of what the power of the presidency can do in each of their home states. No politician in his or her right mind wants the president, especially of his own party, angry with them.
They will have to balance the benefits of an insurance industry which can provide funds to support their next political campaign against the extraordinary benefits to their states possible through White House largesse. This might even move rebellious independent Joe Lieberman, who represents the insurance industry-based state of Connecticut, to a positive position.
All that is needed is 60 votes to clear cloture then a simple majority of 51 is needed to pass the bill. The Democrats are certain of the latter number.
The opt-out concept makes a great deal of sense but you can bet it will not impress the Republicans. Even though it illuminates their states rights position on so many other matters, the GOP is only interested in one thing – how to make Obama appear to be a failure. They are afraid if the president succeeds they will remain a minority party for years to come.
If health care reform fails, they see the Democrats on the ropes during the 2010 elections. Winning or losing elections are more important than doing what is right for the public.
This entire issue of health care in America is loaded with ruptured axioms:
1. America thrives on competition – except when it comes to health care issues.
2. Rationing is bad -- except when insurance companies do it for profit.
3. States Rights are all important – except when providing for the needy.
4. Senior citizens enjoy a single-payer health plan, as does Congress -- but it is not good for the general public.
If this health care effort founders or is substituted with a feeble, industry-favored substitute which does not include any method to insert real competition into insurance charges I would be hopeful every member of Congress – Republican or Democrat -- who voted against the measure is justly defeated in the 2010 election because they dismiss the personal well being of their constituency as not important.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Learning a lesson the hard way
by Don Klein
I was a rabid Yankee fan when I was a Bronx teenager. That was before George Steinbrenner took over the team in 1973 and bought pennants by corralling every available top free agent around. He became famous as baseball’s free spender who drove up player’s salaries to absurd levels.
That’s when I became an anti-Yankees fan.
Today I became a Yankees fan again. And I’ll tell you why. They took a prudent step to discourage ethnic aspersions by people associated with the team.
Irish tenor Ronan Tynan was scheduled to sing "God Bless America" during the opening game of the American League Championship series at Yankee Stadium last Friday. Amazingly he was told not to bother. That was extraordinary since Tynan had become a fixture around the team singing the patriotic song with great zeal on endless occasions for ten years.
But the day before the current series began he admitted making a stupid anti-Semitic remark. Tynan was introduced to a potential tenant in his Manhattan apartment house by an agent who said, "Don’t worry, they are not Red Sox fans." He responded with "I don’t care about that as long as they are not Jewish."
When word got back to the Yankees they withdrew the invitation for him to sing on this occasion. Howard Rubenstein, a spokesman for the Yankees, said Tynan apologized to the offended party, but the team said he would not sing the famous refrain for them the rest of the playoff series this year.
No one knows what was in Tynan’s mind when he made the insulting remark which could have been meant as a joke or it could have been his true feeling. I’ll give the tenor the benefit of the doubt and say he was trying to be cutesy and that he really doesn’t care if a Jew moves into his building or not.
Even if that was the case, the Yankees did the right thing by barring Tynan from singing under their auspices. Ethnic slurs may be funny to some people but it should never be tolerated. There are enough other innocent approaches to poking fun at people. It is especially unacceptable in Tynan’s case.
Here is a man -- once was an integral part of the famous Irish Tenors – who is loved and admired by all ethnic groups. He lost both his legs in a tragic automobile accident when he was 20 but went on to star in numerous paralympics and at 33 he took up singing. He was already a medical doctor at the time. He knew strife and conquered adversity at many levels.
For him to sink to a reviling ethnic joke is inexcusable. Yet others have been punished more for what I think was a lot less.
Remember of 1988 case of Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder’s remark on CBS Sports. He said African Americans dominate sports because they were bred for strength. Snyder claimed that slave owners bred black slaves to be strong, that black athletes have bigger thighs which allow them to fun faster and jump higher.
Whether his comments were accurate is not important (there is so much inaccuracy flung around in sports talk) but certainly the comment in itself was not derogatory. Yet Snyder was dumped by CBS as it reacted too swiftly to the resentment felt in some black quarters.
That was a lot less offensive than the words of Jesse Jackson, a man who claims to be a great spokesman for minorities, when he referred to New York City as "Hymietown" during a 1984 interview with a black Washington Post reporter. He assumed the remark would not get into print because of his racial bond with the newsman. Hymietown was his way of demeaning the strong Jewish political influence in New York.
To this day many Jews never forgave Jackson for that remark. Neither has many members of the press who felt Jackson maligned them with his false argument accusing the press of deliberately misquoting him.
There is no way that should be the result of Tynan’s relations with American Jews or the press. He was man enough to stand up immediately, apologize to the injured party and take his medicine from the Yankees without passing the blame on to others.
The lesson here, given that Tynan was just joking, is we all must be a lot more sensitive to the feelings of others. I never quite got the point of indelicate ethnic jibing. Years ago in the Army I heard fellow GIs of Italian extraction call each other Wops and Dagos and who hasn’t witnessed black comedians, especially on cable TV, refer to themselves and others of their race as Niggers.
We have to make it clear to all that such language is not welcome in modern civilized company. I am sure Tynan is embarrassed by the whole incident and wishes he never had opened his mouth. It is certainly hard to understand since many of his Yankees admirers and top executives are Jewish and the song that thrust him to favor among Americans was written by a Jew.
We must remember in our criticism of Tynan that this is a man of great fortitude and courage. He never gave up despite his horrible youthful injuries and not only did he become a practicing doctor, a tough enough achievement for able bodied men and women, but also an accomplished performer and singer with an enchanting powerful voice.
So even though the Yankees were correct in disciplining him to the extent they could, he should be given the benefit of the doubt and be welcomed at future events as a man of considerable good nature and stature who made a puddingheaded mistake.
I was a rabid Yankee fan when I was a Bronx teenager. That was before George Steinbrenner took over the team in 1973 and bought pennants by corralling every available top free agent around. He became famous as baseball’s free spender who drove up player’s salaries to absurd levels.
That’s when I became an anti-Yankees fan.
Today I became a Yankees fan again. And I’ll tell you why. They took a prudent step to discourage ethnic aspersions by people associated with the team.
Irish tenor Ronan Tynan was scheduled to sing "God Bless America" during the opening game of the American League Championship series at Yankee Stadium last Friday. Amazingly he was told not to bother. That was extraordinary since Tynan had become a fixture around the team singing the patriotic song with great zeal on endless occasions for ten years.
But the day before the current series began he admitted making a stupid anti-Semitic remark. Tynan was introduced to a potential tenant in his Manhattan apartment house by an agent who said, "Don’t worry, they are not Red Sox fans." He responded with "I don’t care about that as long as they are not Jewish."
When word got back to the Yankees they withdrew the invitation for him to sing on this occasion. Howard Rubenstein, a spokesman for the Yankees, said Tynan apologized to the offended party, but the team said he would not sing the famous refrain for them the rest of the playoff series this year.
No one knows what was in Tynan’s mind when he made the insulting remark which could have been meant as a joke or it could have been his true feeling. I’ll give the tenor the benefit of the doubt and say he was trying to be cutesy and that he really doesn’t care if a Jew moves into his building or not.
Even if that was the case, the Yankees did the right thing by barring Tynan from singing under their auspices. Ethnic slurs may be funny to some people but it should never be tolerated. There are enough other innocent approaches to poking fun at people. It is especially unacceptable in Tynan’s case.
Here is a man -- once was an integral part of the famous Irish Tenors – who is loved and admired by all ethnic groups. He lost both his legs in a tragic automobile accident when he was 20 but went on to star in numerous paralympics and at 33 he took up singing. He was already a medical doctor at the time. He knew strife and conquered adversity at many levels.
For him to sink to a reviling ethnic joke is inexcusable. Yet others have been punished more for what I think was a lot less.
Remember of 1988 case of Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder’s remark on CBS Sports. He said African Americans dominate sports because they were bred for strength. Snyder claimed that slave owners bred black slaves to be strong, that black athletes have bigger thighs which allow them to fun faster and jump higher.
Whether his comments were accurate is not important (there is so much inaccuracy flung around in sports talk) but certainly the comment in itself was not derogatory. Yet Snyder was dumped by CBS as it reacted too swiftly to the resentment felt in some black quarters.
That was a lot less offensive than the words of Jesse Jackson, a man who claims to be a great spokesman for minorities, when he referred to New York City as "Hymietown" during a 1984 interview with a black Washington Post reporter. He assumed the remark would not get into print because of his racial bond with the newsman. Hymietown was his way of demeaning the strong Jewish political influence in New York.
To this day many Jews never forgave Jackson for that remark. Neither has many members of the press who felt Jackson maligned them with his false argument accusing the press of deliberately misquoting him.
There is no way that should be the result of Tynan’s relations with American Jews or the press. He was man enough to stand up immediately, apologize to the injured party and take his medicine from the Yankees without passing the blame on to others.
The lesson here, given that Tynan was just joking, is we all must be a lot more sensitive to the feelings of others. I never quite got the point of indelicate ethnic jibing. Years ago in the Army I heard fellow GIs of Italian extraction call each other Wops and Dagos and who hasn’t witnessed black comedians, especially on cable TV, refer to themselves and others of their race as Niggers.
We have to make it clear to all that such language is not welcome in modern civilized company. I am sure Tynan is embarrassed by the whole incident and wishes he never had opened his mouth. It is certainly hard to understand since many of his Yankees admirers and top executives are Jewish and the song that thrust him to favor among Americans was written by a Jew.
We must remember in our criticism of Tynan that this is a man of great fortitude and courage. He never gave up despite his horrible youthful injuries and not only did he become a practicing doctor, a tough enough achievement for able bodied men and women, but also an accomplished performer and singer with an enchanting powerful voice.
So even though the Yankees were correct in disciplining him to the extent they could, he should be given the benefit of the doubt and be welcomed at future events as a man of considerable good nature and stature who made a puddingheaded mistake.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Catching up with a scoundrel
By Don Klein
What would you think of a man in his forties who plied with alcohol your 13-year-old daughter or granddaughter, then drugged her and finally took advantage of her impairment to have sex with her in numerous ways, including what many would consider to be unconventional?
Would he be candidate for Man of the Year? Or would he be a villain who you would hope the authorities would hunt down and send to jail?
Now let’s assume the rapist was not some back alley trash but an artistic genius, who was known near and far as the director of a collection great films in the US and around the world. Would his high esthetic achievements make him a figure of sympathy and admiration who deserves to be excused for his misbehavior and the recipient of your open support?
Sounds familiar? Yes we are talking about Roman Polanski, the peripatetic filmmaker who finally was arrested recently in Switzerland on a warrant from the United States in favor of the Los Angeles district attorney. He will soon appear in a Swiss court to fight extradition as a fugitive from American justice.
The announcement of his detention surprised many people, including myself, who concluded he had successfully alluded justice before sentencing on his admission of guilt in this 31-year-old case. Worse, it traumatize many of his admiring fellow creative artists. What was more shocking was the reaction of the Hollywood community and some preposterous European sophisticates who instantaneously came to the rapist’s defense.
British novelist Robert Harris, author of "The Ghost," which Polansky is making into a movie, said the news of Polansky’s arrest in Zurich on an outstanding international warrant made him "feel almost physically sick."
The news of his arrest made him sick? Not the crime to which Polansky pleaded guilty? What kind of man is Harris? "Mr. Polansky has become a good friend," Harris wrote in an op-ed piece in The New York Times. "Our families have spent time together. His daughter and mine keep in regular touch. His past did not bother me..."
Hollywood luminaries have expressed their support for Polansky, now 76. Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Michael Mann, Harvey Weinstein and 100 others are circulating a petition demanding Polansky’s immediate release.
Fortunately not all Hollywood is on this ridiculous bandwagon. Alison Arngrim, an actress known for "Little House on the Prairie," who had spoken out in the past about being molested as a child, said pointedly, "If Roman Polansky was a Catholic priest or a Republican senator, would these people feel the same way?"
Weinstein wrote a column in a London daily supporting Polansky and tried to whitewash the case. Apparently if the crime is more than three decades old it is no longer a crime in his eyes. "Whatever you think about the so-called crime, Polansky has served his time," he said.
Weinstein has got to be delusional. How could he define "served his time" if Polansky has been living in posh exile in France and traveling freely all over Europe pursuing his film career and basically thumbing his nose at the US judicial system? Is Weinstein saying that if you are a renown artist you have a right to flaunt the law that everyone else has to live up to?
Besides, as The Times reported, "there is nothing ‘so-called’ about the crime. The passage of years does not alter the allegations in the indictment, which included rape, furnishing a controlled substance to a minor, committing lewd and lascivious act upon a child and sodomy." Polansky pleaded guilty to the single charge of unlawful sexual intercourse. In other words, statutory rape.
The child victim, now in her forties and having received in the past a handsome settlement from Polansky, is no longer willing to prosecute. But when rape is committed it is a crime against society, not just a violation of one’s personal and protected rights. Besides Polansky already pleaded guilty and fled before sentencing.
I can’t help but wonder whether the writer Harris who noted that Polansky’s past as a rapist of a child did not bother him would be comfortable to leave his daughter, when she was 13, alone with the errant director. I would ask the same of Scorsese, Weinstein and the others who feel Polansky should not be extradited.
I look at this situation on two levels, neither one of which is favorable for
Polansky. Of course the first is the rape of a child. No one should ever get a free pass on that crime, but Polansky with his money and connections was able to flee and remain to ramble wherever he could as long as the long arm of the law did not reach out to nab him. I think he should have been collared years ago when he first fled justice and am not sure why he was not.
But later is better than never in this case.
The other unforgivable crime is his calculated brushing off of the judicial system of the country that made him a multi-millionaire. He thumbed his nose at every law-abiding American during the 30 years of making films outside the reach of the courts. And we Americans foolishly went to his movies in droves and made him richer during his self-imposed deportation.
Hopefully his flight will have finally come to an end and the scoundrel will pay for his crime by spending the rest of his sordid life in prison.
What would you think of a man in his forties who plied with alcohol your 13-year-old daughter or granddaughter, then drugged her and finally took advantage of her impairment to have sex with her in numerous ways, including what many would consider to be unconventional?
Would he be candidate for Man of the Year? Or would he be a villain who you would hope the authorities would hunt down and send to jail?
Now let’s assume the rapist was not some back alley trash but an artistic genius, who was known near and far as the director of a collection great films in the US and around the world. Would his high esthetic achievements make him a figure of sympathy and admiration who deserves to be excused for his misbehavior and the recipient of your open support?
Sounds familiar? Yes we are talking about Roman Polanski, the peripatetic filmmaker who finally was arrested recently in Switzerland on a warrant from the United States in favor of the Los Angeles district attorney. He will soon appear in a Swiss court to fight extradition as a fugitive from American justice.
The announcement of his detention surprised many people, including myself, who concluded he had successfully alluded justice before sentencing on his admission of guilt in this 31-year-old case. Worse, it traumatize many of his admiring fellow creative artists. What was more shocking was the reaction of the Hollywood community and some preposterous European sophisticates who instantaneously came to the rapist’s defense.
British novelist Robert Harris, author of "The Ghost," which Polansky is making into a movie, said the news of Polansky’s arrest in Zurich on an outstanding international warrant made him "feel almost physically sick."
The news of his arrest made him sick? Not the crime to which Polansky pleaded guilty? What kind of man is Harris? "Mr. Polansky has become a good friend," Harris wrote in an op-ed piece in The New York Times. "Our families have spent time together. His daughter and mine keep in regular touch. His past did not bother me..."
Hollywood luminaries have expressed their support for Polansky, now 76. Martin Scorsese, Woody Allen, Michael Mann, Harvey Weinstein and 100 others are circulating a petition demanding Polansky’s immediate release.
Fortunately not all Hollywood is on this ridiculous bandwagon. Alison Arngrim, an actress known for "Little House on the Prairie," who had spoken out in the past about being molested as a child, said pointedly, "If Roman Polansky was a Catholic priest or a Republican senator, would these people feel the same way?"
Weinstein wrote a column in a London daily supporting Polansky and tried to whitewash the case. Apparently if the crime is more than three decades old it is no longer a crime in his eyes. "Whatever you think about the so-called crime, Polansky has served his time," he said.
Weinstein has got to be delusional. How could he define "served his time" if Polansky has been living in posh exile in France and traveling freely all over Europe pursuing his film career and basically thumbing his nose at the US judicial system? Is Weinstein saying that if you are a renown artist you have a right to flaunt the law that everyone else has to live up to?
Besides, as The Times reported, "there is nothing ‘so-called’ about the crime. The passage of years does not alter the allegations in the indictment, which included rape, furnishing a controlled substance to a minor, committing lewd and lascivious act upon a child and sodomy." Polansky pleaded guilty to the single charge of unlawful sexual intercourse. In other words, statutory rape.
The child victim, now in her forties and having received in the past a handsome settlement from Polansky, is no longer willing to prosecute. But when rape is committed it is a crime against society, not just a violation of one’s personal and protected rights. Besides Polansky already pleaded guilty and fled before sentencing.
I can’t help but wonder whether the writer Harris who noted that Polansky’s past as a rapist of a child did not bother him would be comfortable to leave his daughter, when she was 13, alone with the errant director. I would ask the same of Scorsese, Weinstein and the others who feel Polansky should not be extradited.
I look at this situation on two levels, neither one of which is favorable for
Polansky. Of course the first is the rape of a child. No one should ever get a free pass on that crime, but Polansky with his money and connections was able to flee and remain to ramble wherever he could as long as the long arm of the law did not reach out to nab him. I think he should have been collared years ago when he first fled justice and am not sure why he was not.
But later is better than never in this case.
The other unforgivable crime is his calculated brushing off of the judicial system of the country that made him a multi-millionaire. He thumbed his nose at every law-abiding American during the 30 years of making films outside the reach of the courts. And we Americans foolishly went to his movies in droves and made him richer during his self-imposed deportation.
Hopefully his flight will have finally come to an end and the scoundrel will pay for his crime by spending the rest of his sordid life in prison.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Ghost of Leon Klinghoffer strikes
By Don Klein
It was one of the most depraved exploits in a century marked by appalling human evils. Leon Klinghoffer, a wheelchair-bound 69-year-old American Jew on a Mediterranean vacation, was murdered and thrown into the sea from the cruise ship Achille Lauro by Arab hijackers on October 7, 1985.
The world was horrified at first, then exhilarated when US Navy jets later intercepted the aircraft transporting the killers and forced it to land at a NATO base in Sicily. Then the balloon burst when inept Italians, who took control the perps, let them escape into friendly Arab confines.
That incident of 24 years ago was all but forgotten by most of us when Farouk Hosny, Egypt’s minister of culture, decided he would like to top off his public career by running for director general of Unesco, the world body’s educational, scientific and culture organization.
At least the Arabs were hoping everyone else forgot about the Klinghoffer murder and its aftermath because Hosny, 71, in the past had boasted of his role in helping to organize the escape from Italy of the Achille Lauro killers.
This was not an isolated xenophobic moment on Hosny’s part. On another occasion he demonstrated his anti-Semitism when he told the Egyptian parliament that he would personally burn every Israeli (Jewish) book in the library in Alexandria, his country’s most important depository of literature.
It is an interesting look into the Arab mind. Here was a man who admitted publicly to being complicit in helping hijack-murderers of a helpless old cripple to escape justice and later in his career declared he would gladly be a book burner if given the opportunity, was thought to have the proper credentials to become the director of an international cultural organization.
What a curriculum vitae! And yet until the last vote was taken this past week he was within a hair’s breath from getting the plum assignment. It was like someone who lived on a diet of beans and potato chips applying for the job of top chef at a leading gourmet restaurant.
Fortunately people did not forget. When the nations squared off in Paris to choose a new Unesco director the vote eventually came to a 29-29 tie between Hosny and Bulgarian diplomat, Irina Bokova, 57, a former Communist, now of the Socialist Party. Bokova picked up two votes from countries which switched from the Egyptian. The final ballot was 31 to 27 and Hosny was vanquished.
Hosny’s defeat was certainly not by any means justice for Klinghoffer or his family because in a moral world he would be behind bars for being an accomplice in the escape of cold-blooded murderers. His book burning propensity, further, would also be enough to bar him from such a UN role.
But we do not live in a moral world. Too often we willingly ignore criminal activities and nauseating behavior. Sometimes we even reward the criminals. That’s why you have to be of a certain discernment to work in the diplomatic corp if it means having to operate side-by-side with villains of this nature.
The Bokova victory came on the fifth ballot when the Bulgarian benefitted from the switched votes of the Italian and Spanish delegations, according to The New York Times. I’d like to know what took them so long to see the light since both nations have been victimized by Arabs for decades?
Ask yourself why the Italians would ever consider supporting an Egyptian after being so insulted and embarrassed over the scandalous escape of the hijackers a quarter of a century ago. Do they have short memories or are they just cowards seeking to avoid commercial counteracts from the oil rich Arabs. I buy the latter reason.
And what about Spain? Think of the 191 Spanish commuters killed in that Madrid train bombing on March 11, 2004. Muslims were out to kill in brutal calculation men, women and children innocently riding a train one day. How could they have ever considered voting for Hosny? But both countries apparently were in his corner in early voting as they were later identified as having changed their stand on the last ballot.
Is it no surprise that so many Americans have no respect for many West Europeans. They sit around allowing themselves to be targets of terrorists and Arab miscreants and never act forcefully when they have the opportunity to do so. They are slaves to oil.
Let us not forget one thing. The defeat of Hosny at Unesco will never make up for aiding Klinghoffer’s killers to escape justice. Nor will the millions in settlement dollars paid to his family by the Palestinian Liberation Organization years after the incident. Money can never make up for murder.
It is good to know that the ghost of Leon Klinghoffer hurled a shadow over the Egyptian’s effort to move up the UN ladder. That perhaps is the biggest flaw in the United Nations. People with dirty hands benefit in many ways when the UN should be more discerning about who they put into key positions.
Bokova doesn’t come without demerits, though. "Those who do not like Communism in (Bulgaria) are not happy about her promotion," a political critic told The Times. "For people in this region, her appointment sends the message that the West can swallow someone’s Communist past very easily but cannot abide an Arab who is anti-Israel." Wrong. One protected assassins, the other did not.
At least we can relish small victories. The relatives of Klinghoffer (an American not an Israeli) and those anonymous 191 Spaniards who died at the hands of Arab terrorists can take some solace in Hosny’s trouncing. It’s better than nothing, but not much.
It was one of the most depraved exploits in a century marked by appalling human evils. Leon Klinghoffer, a wheelchair-bound 69-year-old American Jew on a Mediterranean vacation, was murdered and thrown into the sea from the cruise ship Achille Lauro by Arab hijackers on October 7, 1985.
The world was horrified at first, then exhilarated when US Navy jets later intercepted the aircraft transporting the killers and forced it to land at a NATO base in Sicily. Then the balloon burst when inept Italians, who took control the perps, let them escape into friendly Arab confines.
That incident of 24 years ago was all but forgotten by most of us when Farouk Hosny, Egypt’s minister of culture, decided he would like to top off his public career by running for director general of Unesco, the world body’s educational, scientific and culture organization.
At least the Arabs were hoping everyone else forgot about the Klinghoffer murder and its aftermath because Hosny, 71, in the past had boasted of his role in helping to organize the escape from Italy of the Achille Lauro killers.
This was not an isolated xenophobic moment on Hosny’s part. On another occasion he demonstrated his anti-Semitism when he told the Egyptian parliament that he would personally burn every Israeli (Jewish) book in the library in Alexandria, his country’s most important depository of literature.
It is an interesting look into the Arab mind. Here was a man who admitted publicly to being complicit in helping hijack-murderers of a helpless old cripple to escape justice and later in his career declared he would gladly be a book burner if given the opportunity, was thought to have the proper credentials to become the director of an international cultural organization.
What a curriculum vitae! And yet until the last vote was taken this past week he was within a hair’s breath from getting the plum assignment. It was like someone who lived on a diet of beans and potato chips applying for the job of top chef at a leading gourmet restaurant.
Fortunately people did not forget. When the nations squared off in Paris to choose a new Unesco director the vote eventually came to a 29-29 tie between Hosny and Bulgarian diplomat, Irina Bokova, 57, a former Communist, now of the Socialist Party. Bokova picked up two votes from countries which switched from the Egyptian. The final ballot was 31 to 27 and Hosny was vanquished.
Hosny’s defeat was certainly not by any means justice for Klinghoffer or his family because in a moral world he would be behind bars for being an accomplice in the escape of cold-blooded murderers. His book burning propensity, further, would also be enough to bar him from such a UN role.
But we do not live in a moral world. Too often we willingly ignore criminal activities and nauseating behavior. Sometimes we even reward the criminals. That’s why you have to be of a certain discernment to work in the diplomatic corp if it means having to operate side-by-side with villains of this nature.
The Bokova victory came on the fifth ballot when the Bulgarian benefitted from the switched votes of the Italian and Spanish delegations, according to The New York Times. I’d like to know what took them so long to see the light since both nations have been victimized by Arabs for decades?
Ask yourself why the Italians would ever consider supporting an Egyptian after being so insulted and embarrassed over the scandalous escape of the hijackers a quarter of a century ago. Do they have short memories or are they just cowards seeking to avoid commercial counteracts from the oil rich Arabs. I buy the latter reason.
And what about Spain? Think of the 191 Spanish commuters killed in that Madrid train bombing on March 11, 2004. Muslims were out to kill in brutal calculation men, women and children innocently riding a train one day. How could they have ever considered voting for Hosny? But both countries apparently were in his corner in early voting as they were later identified as having changed their stand on the last ballot.
Is it no surprise that so many Americans have no respect for many West Europeans. They sit around allowing themselves to be targets of terrorists and Arab miscreants and never act forcefully when they have the opportunity to do so. They are slaves to oil.
Let us not forget one thing. The defeat of Hosny at Unesco will never make up for aiding Klinghoffer’s killers to escape justice. Nor will the millions in settlement dollars paid to his family by the Palestinian Liberation Organization years after the incident. Money can never make up for murder.
It is good to know that the ghost of Leon Klinghoffer hurled a shadow over the Egyptian’s effort to move up the UN ladder. That perhaps is the biggest flaw in the United Nations. People with dirty hands benefit in many ways when the UN should be more discerning about who they put into key positions.
Bokova doesn’t come without demerits, though. "Those who do not like Communism in (Bulgaria) are not happy about her promotion," a political critic told The Times. "For people in this region, her appointment sends the message that the West can swallow someone’s Communist past very easily but cannot abide an Arab who is anti-Israel." Wrong. One protected assassins, the other did not.
At least we can relish small victories. The relatives of Klinghoffer (an American not an Israeli) and those anonymous 191 Spaniards who died at the hands of Arab terrorists can take some solace in Hosny’s trouncing. It’s better than nothing, but not much.
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