This Way Lies Madness

The Left's grasping at opportunism is mind-boggling (first example) and disgusting (second example).

From Jonathan Alter's essay in Newsweek (hat tip to Weasel Zippers):

Can Obama Turn Tragedy Into Triumph?

Saturday’s shooting spree could prove a turning point in the Obama presidency. How the White House should talk about the tragedy.

...This horrific event offers the president a chance to show leadership qualities that he’s inexplicably hidden away in some blind trust. The shootings and the resulting debate over the climate of incivility play to his strengths as a calm and rational leader. Just as Bill Clinton’s response to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombings helped him recover from his defeat in the 1994 midterms, so this episode may help Obama change—at least in the short term--the trajectory of American politics.

[...]

Whether or not he attends the funerals for the Tucson victims, Obama’s big chance to lead will come in his State of the Union address on January 25. He can both to speak to the moment thematically and confront the substantive concerns raised by the tragedy....

Some biographical information about Jonathan Alter, author of the above-cited essay, is HERE.

And more lunacy — or downright evil, if you prefer that term! Westboro Baptist Church (so-called church but really a hate group led by Democrat Fred Phelps) plans to picket the funeral of Christina Taylor Green, the youngest shooting victim of Saturday's murderous shooting spree in Tucson:

Christina Taylor Greene
September 11, 2001 - January 8, 2011

Yes, the Right can be shrill. I won't deny that fact.

But for downright insanity and meanness, the Left cannot be outdone.

REVEALING CAPITALIZATION

From this source quoting James J. Lee, who invaded the Discovery Channel's building today in Silver Spring Maryland, fired shots, and held hostages until the police shot him:

"Nothing is more important than saving ... the Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels. The humans? The planet does not need humans.”

Read Lee's entire manifesto HERE.

And who awakened Lee to the plight of the Planet Earth?

Why, Al Gore, of course!

Lee said he experienced an ‘‘awakening” when he watched former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental documentary ‘‘An Inconvenient Truth.”

Gore awakened Lee, and Daniel Quinn's works were apparently the basis of Lee's activism.

DISSENTERS ARE "POLITICAL TERRORISTS"

(graphic courtesy of GM's Place - disseminate freely)
According to business columnist Steven Pearlstein, who wrote the following August 7, 2009 essay in the Washington Post:

Republicans Propagating Falsehoods in Attacks on Health-Care Reform

As a columnist who regularly dishes out sharp criticism, I try not to question the motives of people with whom I don't agree. Today, I'm going to step over that line.

The recent attacks by Republican leaders and their ideological fellow-travelers on the effort to reform the health-care system have been so misleading, so disingenuous, that they could only spring from a cynical effort to gain partisan political advantage. By poisoning the political well, they've given up any pretense of being the loyal opposition. They've become political terrorists, willing to say or do anything to prevent the country from reaching a consensus on one of its most serious domestic problems.

[...]

Health reform is a test of whether this country can function once again as a civil society -- whether we can trust ourselves to embrace the big, important changes that require everyone to give up something in order to make everyone better off. Republican leaders are eager to see us fail that test. We need to show them that no matter how many lies they tell or how many scare tactics they concoct, Americans will come together and get this done.

If health reform is to be anyone's Waterloo, let it be theirs.

As one who always reads Pearlstein's columns, which typically often sound financial advice, I have to say that I'm astounded as the position he has taken in this essay.

Those with concerns about ObamaCare are "political terrorists"? Perhaps Pearlstein is a covert disciple of Cass Suntein and Zephyr Teachout....

Read the rest at Always On Watch.

RUBIN: ISRAELI LEFT DOESN'T SUPPORT OBAMA OR A SETTLEMENT FREEZE

Barry Rubin at the Gloria Center says that things have been changing with the Israeli left, and that now, they're indifferent to the whole issue of a "settlement freeze".