JamieWeinstein.com

We were told again and again by the likes of Shaquille O’Neal, Claire Huxtable (Phylicia Rashad), and Ed Asner that Reading is Fundamental. In public service announcements on television and on the radio, these celebrities conveyed to us the importance of learning to read. But last week, congressional Democrats told us that those celebrities were lying. Reading is not as fundamental as we were led to believe, Democrats said, in actions if not words.

House Democrats, with the support of eight Republicans, passed a 1,200-plus-page climate-change bill on Friday. 300 pages of amendments were added to the bill less than 24 hours before the vote. This is hardly sufficient time for members to read and fully understand what the complicated piece of legislation they were asked to vote on stipulated.

Translation: No, America, reading is not fundamental.

This Democratic assault on reading began before last week’s climate-change vote. In February, Congress passed a 1,100-page stimulus bill that authorized something like a zillion dollars to be spent to supposedly jumpstart the economy. That’s an awful lot of money. One would imagine it would be important for legislatures to pour over the bill to understand what they were voting on. Not so, said the Democrats in power.

It is troubling that the Democrats’ savage war on reading has prevented legislators from reading major pieces of legislation in their entirety before they come up for a vote. But a better question is whether we should be crafting pieces of legislation that run over 1,000 pages in the first place? During his second stint as British Prime Minister, the great Winston Churchill was presented with a mammoth report on housing. When asked whether he had considered the report, Churchill retorted that “this report by its very length defends itself against the risk of being read.”

The same goes with these outrageously long pieces of legislation. Even if the Democrats were not launching a ruthless war against reading, the fact of the matter is that many congressmen probably wouldn’t actually read a 1,000-page bill. Congressional legislation should be streamlined. There is no reason whatsoever that Congress needs to be considering bills that are as long as the Bible.

Until such streamlining occurs, let us hope that President Obama implores his friends in Congress to end the unenlightened war being waged against reading – if not for members of Congress, then at least for the children.

[This post was adapted from my North Star column President Obama Needs to End the Democrats’ Sinister War on Reading]

People who long for change in Iran are upset that it appears that the presidential election Friday was stolen from the supposed reformer Mir Hossein Mousavi. But the truth of the matter is it is probably good that incumbent Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was “elected” over Mousavi—at least for those who are concerned about the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran. Had Mousavi won, there would have been the impression that Iran had made an important change for the better and relations with the West would be just spiffy now the Holocaust-denying Ahmadinejad was no longer the Iranian president.

Such an impression would have likely have been a mirage. Mousavi may have sincerely sought change (though his record is not all that exemplary), but he would have had only limited power to bring it about. It is Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni who is the power center in Iran. The Supreme Leader wields the power to determine the direction of Iranian foreign and domestic policies. The Supreme Leader is the man with the ultimate power to determine whether Iran continues with its nuclear program or whether it suspends it. In terms of Iran’s nuclear program, it really doesn’t matter too much whether Ahmadinejad is the president or whether Mousavi is the president.

Sure, Mousavi probably wouldn’t gallivant around the world, like Ahmadinejad, spouting inflammatory rhetoric and vocally threatening to wipe a sovereign country off the map. But as a practical matter, is there any indication that a change in president would have caused the Iranian regime to reconsider moving forward with its suspected nuclear weapons program? There is little indication that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameni is excited to shut the shop down.

So the reason it is good that Ahmadinejad “won” is because, as I mentioned several weeks ago in a column, his inflammatory rhetoric will make it harder for the West to become complacent with regard to the Iranian nuclear threat. Without Ahmadinejad’s continual stream of hostile noise, Western leaders may get lured along by insincere, unproductive and interminable negotiations that only bring the Islamic Republic closer to its ultimate goal of developing a nuclear weapon.

Ahmadinejad is the Iranian Joe Biden in terms of not being able to shut his mouth. As the face of the Iranian regime to the world, he shocks people awake through his outrageous orations and thus makes the prospect of an Islamic Republic with nuclear weapons capability appear as dangerous as it ought to.

[This post was adapted from my North Star column It’s Probably Just as Well Ahmadinejad ‘Won’ Iran’s Sham ‘Election’]

The June 1 issue of Newsweek magazine is provocatively titled “Everything You Know About Iran is Wrong.” Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria writes the marquis article for the issue, trying to set the record straight on what he sees as common misrepresentations about everyone’s favorite Islamic Republic.

Zakaria takes on several “myths,” but his most important target is the “myth” that the Mullahs running Iran are suicidal and apocalyptic. Zakaria suggests that they are not. He writes that the Islamic Republic operates in a “shrewd, calculating manner” in “advancing its interest when possible, retreating when necessary.” Furthermore, Zakaria argues, Iran’s leaders are mostly concerned with keeping power and acquiring wealth. It seems a bit odd that a regime primarily concerned with keeping power and acquiring wealth would go out of its way to constantly goad the United States, the world’s largest economy (see the acquiring wealth part) and most powerful country militarily (see the keeping power part).

But even Zakaria, who is so convinced that Iranian leaders are deterrable, would likely admit that there is at the very least a 10 percent chance he is wrong. A chance that when President Ahmadinejad says he wants to “wipe Israel off the map,” it isn’t just campaign rhetoric. A chance that when former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani says the Islamic world can withstand many nuclear bombs while Israel can be destroyed with only one, he wasn’t just engaging in idle thought. A chance that when Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini says that Israel is a “cancerous tumor of a state” that “should be removed from the region,” Iran’s most powerful official would actually like to put some muscle behind his words.

Those who believe it is imperative to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons do not suggest that it is a certainty that the Islamic Republic would use their nuclear arsenal if they acquired one. After all, by merely possessing nuclear weapons Iran could dominate the region and spark a destabilizing Middle East arms race – as a best-case scenario, this is trouble enough. But those who argue that a nuclear Iran is containable and deterrable are equally unsure of what the Mullahs would do if they woke up one day to discover that their scientists have had a nuclear breakthrough.

With the threatening comments Iranian leaders have made, is it really a wise idea to take a wait-and-see approach? What if everything we think we know about Iran is right after all?

[This post was adapted from my North Star column What if Everything You Think We Know About Iran Is Not Wrong?]

Much – though by all means not all – of the criticism surrounding President Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, has been centered on one sentence she delivered in a 2001 speech at the University of California, Berkeley. “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences,” Sotomayor said, “would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

Some have deemed the sentence racist for the obvious reason that Sotomayor seems to suggest Latino women are inherently able to come to better legal conclusions than white men. The White House, at first, didn’t really have any talking points to deflect criticism of the comment other than to say people should read the sentence in the context of the entire speech. Fortunately, some brilliant PR specialist in the White House has come forth with a new strategy.

Instead of defending the sentence by reinterpreting it, the White House is now saying that Sotomayor simply made a bad word choice. Ta-Da! This is only plausible if Sotomayor writes her speeches like Mad Libs stories.

As outrageous as the statement is, I personally doubt that Sotomayor is a racist. If Sotomayor were actually a racist one would imagine there would be more evidence than one sentence.

Unfortunately, such caution and reason is rarely afforded Republican nominees to the Supreme Court. Sam Alito, for instance, was condemned as a bigot and a misogynist by Democrats for much less when he was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Bush. The attacks by Democrats were so fierce that they ultimately brought his wife to tears during his confirmation hearings – despite there being essentially no evidence to prove he was anything but a decent and honorable man without a bigoted bone in his body. The immensely qualified John Roberts may be the best legal mind of his generation, and yet even he still got 22 Democrats to vote against him – including the current president and vice president.

Compare that to the way Republicans treated Bill Clinton’s nominees to the high court. In 1993, for instance, only three Republicans voted against Ruth Bader Ginsberg despite the fact that her judicial philosophy was anathema to most Republicans and conservatives.

So what to do? Republicans should praise Sotomayor’s inspiring American journey all the while they protest the offensive statements she has made and the entire notion that judges should make “policy.”

But Republicans shouldn’t appear to be obstructionists by pursuing a filibuster that won’t be successful and that most likely isn’t warranted. Once they register their protest, Republican senators should accept that Sonia Sotomayor will be on the Supreme Court for many years to come. This was an inevitable outcome of electing a liberal president.

[This post was adapted from my North Star column Challenge Sotomayor (With Wit If Possible), But Don’t Filibuster]

Since entering office, President Barack Obama has taken a conciliatory tone with rogue nations that the Bush Administration previously labeled as part of the Axis of Evil. According to Obama’s narrative, it was the Bush administration’s failure to engage these countries in meaningful dialogue that has brought about many of the problems we face today.

Yet, while Obama speaks niceties to Iran, Iranian President Mahmoud Amadinejad goes to international conferences to spit fire at the United States and its allies. While Obama seeks engagement, Iran provocatively tests long range missiles that put U.S. military bases within their reach. While Obama says that the Iranian regime shares common aspirations of “peace between nations,” the Iranian military just yesterday flexed its muscles by sending six war ships into international waters at the same time the always loveable Ahmadinejad rejected any talks with Obama over the Iranian nuclear program.

Meanwhile, North Korea continues to flout the United States and other civilized nations as they did during the Bush Administration. Despite the new era of international love and cooperation that supposedly dawned when Obama took office, North Korea continues to act provocatively by test firing missiles over Japan and, just yesterday, testing another nuclear bomb.

It appears that instead of taking Obama’s election as an invitation for dialogue, Iran and North Korea have taken his warm gestures as a sign of weakness. Sometimes talking resolves problems. But sometimes leaders of nations don’t want to be charmed. They have agendas and no matter how sweetly you talk or what you offer them in return for cooperation, they will continue pursuing their nefarious vision. Sometimes no matter how nice the host and how nice the tea set, some people just don’t do tea parties.

This isn’t to say that these problems are easy to solve. They are not. But all this nonsense that the Iranian leadership and North Korea’s Kim Jung-Il share common goals with the United States, that they just want peace and harmony, is silly. Obama hopes that he can offer North Korea and Iran some type of carrot that can make them abandon their nuclear programs. I would like that to be true as well. But it appears to be a fantasy—one that Obama should disabuse himself of as soon as possible.

While North Korea sticks its tongue out at us and Iran races to nuclear weapons capability, what is the best we can hope for? We can hope that Obama wakes up.

President Obama is a man of immense confidence and also immense pride. If his entreaties are continually spurned by Iran and North Korea, he is unlikely to handle such rejection well. This clear rejection of Obama’s outstretched arm will hopefully make Obama realize the character of the regimes he is dealing with.

As of now, we look like fools.

[This post was adapted from my North Star column The Axis of Evil and Obama’s Rude Awakening]