Hiatus

This humble “weblog”—humble as it is—has never gone on hiatus. Until, that is to say, now. We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” find ourselves up to our armpits in work, and thus we simply cannot keep up with our quotidian musings. Let us hope, however, that we can return to form soon.

To those who read our ridiculous animadversions, we thank you for your support.

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The End of the Semester as We Know It (and We Feel Fine)

Oh, it’s getting to be that time of the year, dear reader. You know what we mean: For countless undergraduate students at American colleges and universities, crunch time is soon upon us.

Yep, it’s final examination time, and our dipsomaniac collegians probably don’t like it one bit. It’s putting a cramp in their acquaintance rape schedule, which is a real downer.

We mean, come on: The poor parents of the college-aged child didn’t very well pay thousands upon thousands of dollars for their little Johnny or Suzie to work, did they? The university life shouldn’t be devoted to higher learning, should it?

Not as far as most undergrads are concerned, of course. Thus the typical sophomore is currently in something of a tizzy, since he simply can’t fathom completing all the mounds and mounds of work that have piled high during the course of the semester. (He never bothered to do those mounds and mounds of work when they were actually due, of course, but that’s another matter.)

Oh, the humanity! Little Steven has two five-page papers to write! How the heck is he going to manage that Herculean task?

Has anyone ever accomplished so much in such a short period of time? Sure, Truman Capote wrote In Cold Blood in something like two weeks, but that book isn’t terribly long, was it?

Nope: As far as they’re concerned, no one in the history of the world is as busy as the typical undergrad at exam time. And, naturally, no one would dare trade places with him.

It’s far better to be, say, a coal miner than a college student, after all. Hey: At least coal miners needn’t write any papers. And they get those helmets with the lights on them, those lucky bastards.

So, parents, we urge you to treat your collegiate son or daughter with great kindness in the days ahead. Sure, you may have 80-plus hours of work to do a week, myriad financial commitments, and lots of annoying errands.

But, hey, you don’t have a two-page history paper to write at the last minute—you lucky, lazy jerks.

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One Down, All the Others To Go

Thanks to the hard work of the level-headed folks at CNN, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” have finally determined that there is one presidential candidate for whom we shall not plump. No matter how compelling his arguments about taxation and foreign policy may be, we just can’t vote for him.

Now, by referring to said candidate as “him,” you already recognize that we cannot be speaking about Sen. Hilary Rodham Clinton (D-Pants Suit), since she is—seemingly—female. Nor, we suppose, could we be referring to former Sen. John Edwards (D-Hair), for the selfsame reason.

And it’s true: Both Hilary and Johnny are still officially in the running. But Fred Thompson (R-Trophy Wife) can’t get our vote. No way, no how, as he might say in his folksy manner.

Why, you may reasonably wonder, can we not vote for former Sen. Thompson? He was awfully good on “Law and Order.” And he was pretty decent in a few two-star films as well. Heck, he’s a better actor than Ronald Reagan was, and the Gipper turned out to be a political success, eh?

Well, we wish it were that simple. But, not to put to fine a point on it, it isn’t.

You see, dear reader, the geniuses at CNN have just informed us of one important datum about ole’ Freddie that doesn’t sit well with us one bit. Fred Thompson (R-Aw Shucks) doesn’t have a hunting license.

Shock of all shocks! How could this happen? Fred Thompson looks like his mother wrapped him in Smith & Wesson diapers, for crying out loud. He’s the personification of an ammunition belt.

Yet it’s true. Fred sheepishly admitted it to CNN. And, as you might well imagine, no hunting license means no vote from the crack young staff.

As far as we’re concerned, if you don’t have a hunting license, we can’t trust you at all. Our president need only be a few things: American flag lovin’; snuff sniffin’; big game huntin’; chaw spittin’; and New Criterion readin’.

Is that too much to ask?

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Kumbaya, Iran, Kumbaya

Well, isn’t that a bit of a change? Thanks to our friends responsible for this year’s National Intelligence Estimate, Rip Torn is more of a threat to America than Iran is.

Not exactly, of course. Yet, as has oft been mentioned in the press of late, the NIE folks now believe that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. If we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” had any faith in American intelligence, we’d be overjoyed.

Hooray, hooray! Iran isn’t attempting to build nuclear weapons anymore. We always guessed that this was the case: We don’t mean to jump on the bandwagon, but Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has always struck us as a man of peace. (Or is that “man of piece”—piece of Israel?)

Surely Lee Bollinger owes President Ahmadinejad a few words of apology—if he didn’t already. Boy, there’s egg all over President Bollinger’s face, eh? It turns out that the brutal dictator Bollinger excoriated is actually a Muslim Mother Theresa.

In addition, Israel must finally be able to get a little rest and relaxation. No need for vigilance now: Iran doesn’t have the bomb, and thus can’t wipe the dreaded Zionist Entity off the map.

Further, we imagine that President Bush’s domestic political critics are crowing. Aha, they think: Our Moron-in-Chief oversold the threat the mad mullahs pose, just like he exaggerated the evils of that charming and enlightened philosopher-king, Saddam Hussein.

Another victory for Harry Reid’s brand of “aggressive diplomacy”? More evidence that America should come up with more “diplomatic surges,” and fewer of the bellicose variety?

Hardly. After all, according to this year’s NIE, Iran halted its nuclear ambitions in 2003. If this is true—if—it strikes us that the date that this happened is somewhat significant.

But what other foreign policy decision also occurred in 2003? Gee: Nothing comes to mind.

Oh, wait: The US and its allies liberated Iraq then. Huh: We wonder if that’s connected to the Iranian government’s decision to forgo its typical pugnacity.

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Shock of All Shocks

CNN has just reported it. We hope, dear reader, you are sitting down when you read this news. It’s a real shocker. Hold on to your hats.

Iran, it turns out, refuses to cave in to pressure to abandon its incipient nuclear program. Yep: We told you it was mind-blowing news. We hope you’ll recover soon. (Of course, if you believe the latest NIE report, Iran is nothing but rainbows and smily-faces anyway.)

After all, the Europeans, the UN, Russia, and the United States have been attempting to halt Iran’s dangerous progress in nuclear technology for years now. And somehow those loveable mullahs in Iran just won’t give in. Crazy, isn’t it?

Accordingly, once every two weeks, it seems, CNN bestows upon us a resplendent new headline that reads “Iran Refuses to Budge on Nuclear Plan,” or some such. And, to the realist establishment, this must be some surprise. They refuse to budge? How very odd.

We mean, come on: Our anti-neocon friends can’t stop bleating about the cardinal virtue of diplomacy, soft power, and the like. And yet, when we try our best to rein in Iran through a variety of carrots and sticks…nothing happens.

Gee, it’s as if a horrible despotic regime doesn’t bargain like democratic nations do. It’s as if a horrible despotic regime partially backed by Russia and China doesn’t fear the sorts of watered-down sanctions the UN can throw at it.

Who would have seen this coming?

Now, we, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” don’t pine for conflict with Iran. It would be hunky dory with us if there were some massive uprising in the country, which overthrew the mad mullahs.

But we shouldn’t allow our disdain for military conflicts drift us into un-reality. Barack Obama appears to believe that a nice Oprah-style chat with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will clear everything right up.

And he’s a fool. Tyrannical regimes do not uphold agreements. They must be dealt with forcefully.

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Textbook Madness

Albert Einstein once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Well, according to that plumb definition, we’ve happened upon a prime example of insanity—in the letters to the editor section of The New York Times of all places.

We know, we know, we know: The New York Times? How can that offer a prime exemplum of madness? Especially the letters to the editor section, which is normally chock-a-block with carefully grounded sanity?

Well, somehow it happened, dear reader. We can’t explain it either.

Don’t believe us? You don’t have to, since we’ve taken the liberty of reproducing this fine missive to the editor below:

To the Editor:

Re “Israel and Palestinians Set Goal of a Treaty in 2008” (front page, Nov. 28):

Imagine what might have happened if, after the attacks of Sept. 11, President Bush had dedicated his administration to peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians with the vigor he is displaying now.

Imagine if he had recognized then, as he appears to now, that a peaceful settlement of that dispute, more than any issue, is essential to stamping out the root causes of Al Qaeda and the forces of extremism.

Imagine if, rather than invading Iraq, he had only gone after Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and departed after eliminating it as a threat.

Seven years after mocking President Clinton’s “nation building” and peace efforts, President Bush has pushed aside the protests of his vice president, and is perhaps sheepishly beginning to throw himself into these efforts.

With luck, perhaps it’s not too late for President Bush and the world to build something from the ashes of his failed policies.

Philip M. Berkowitz
New York, Nov. 28, 2007

Can you spot the insanity, dear reader? Never mind the obvious tendentiousness of the letter. Only monocausal loons of the Michael Scheuer variety believe that Israel is the key issue driving Islamist terrorism. If so, what compelled the jihadis to wage war against the Russians, who were by then no friends of the Jewish state?

All one must do is read the speeches of Osama bin Laden to recognize that Israel is not his only whipping boy. The man yearns for an Islamic caliphate, sharia law, theocracy. Only a boob would think that an equitable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would stop al Qaeda in its tracks.

Furthermore, to bin Laden and his ilk, an “equitable solution” would be the utter annihilation of Israel. Anything short of this wouldn’t appease the Islamist nutters. (That we ought to be appeasing folks who engage in brazen acts of anti-American terrorism is yet another problematic assertion, but we can leave that to one side.)

According to the genius of Philip M. Berkowitz, George Bush should have done what Bill Clinton did regarding the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and everything would be hunky dory. And herein lies the insanity: If we recall our history correctly, President Clinton’s attempt was a big fat failure.

And it was a big fat failure for the same reason it would be a big fat failure today: Only one side—the Israeli side—actually wants peace. The other still pines for the destruction of its enemies. A quick examination of Memri.org will ably demonstrate that.

So, Philip M. Berkowitz wants President Bush to do the same thing over again, and expect different results. If you ask us, that “M” from his middle name must stand for madness.

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Another Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell

Well, our pals on the far Left have yet another gleaming example of liberal media bias to scoff at or ignore. As you undoubtedly know by now, dear reader, CNN flew in a fellow named Keith H. Kerr to ask a question about gays in the military at the recent CNN-Youtube Republican presidential debate.

And, as it turns out, Mr. Kerr is something of a shill, since he had been part of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s steering committee on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender issues. Thus he wasn’t exactly the sort of undecided Republican who ought to have been asking questions of the prospective Republican presidential nominees.

Nor, as it turns out, was Mr. Kerr the only ringer. According to Michelle Malkin, pretty much every questioner was either a John Edwards operative or Dennis Kucinich. One of them might even have been Joe Biden’s hair plugs.

Now, don’t get us wrong, dear reader. We, the crack young staff of “The Hatemonger’s Quarterly,” consider ourselves firm supporters of gay marriage, and believe that gays and lesbians should be able to serve openly in the military. In fact, we’d even contemplate a special draft exclusive to lesbians, if they’d allow it. As such, we’re sure entirely agree with Mr. Kerr’s perspective on these matters.

Yet he obviously ought not to have been asking a question at a Republican primary debate. Such an event, after all, offers an opportunity for registered Republicans to get a sense of the candidate they most esteem for the presidency. It ought to be geared toward those who would actually plump for one of the men on the stage.

The same is true of a Democratic debate. At a Democratic debate, Alan Keyes shouldn’t be asking questions about “Castro’s tyrrany” or “the radical homosexual agenda.” Ann Coulter ought not query candidates on “treason,” or whatever silly topic gets her dander up.

How can a reputable news network not do a little Googling before allowing this to happen? More to the point, how in the good Lord’s name did they think they could get away with such sloppiness?

We’re fully prepared to buy the notion that the lefty CNN folks picked out questions that suited their anti-Republican prejudices. Yet we didn’t think they’d be so stupid as to fail to discover whether these “gotcha” queries stemmed from real undecided Republicans or not.

“The most trusted name in news”? Oh, puh-lease.

Sure, Fox News is horribly titled to the Right. Worse yet, they simply won’t own up to it. But clearly CNN doesn’t shoot straight either. Eric Alterman may never admit it, but that shouldn’t stop sane people from doing so.

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