By Debbie Schlussel
As I’m sure you all did, I watched the Sarah Palin interview with Charles Gibson. Tonight, there will be an hour-long, extended interview on ABC at 10:00 p.m. Eastern. I’ll have to tape it and comment later on Sunday or Monday.
Overall, I think she did a good job. Charles Gibson’s smug, arrogant, almost angry demeanor was a huge turn-off and worked for her, contrasting starkly with her nice, homey demeanor. As some of you may know, I think there are a lot of drawbacks to Sarah Palin, but most of them were not evident in last night’s interview.
First, I’m not bothered in the least that she invoked the name of G-d regarding the war in Iraq–the video that has already been played over and over and over again, and was replayed in last night’s ABC/Gibson interview. As you know, I think we made a giant mistake handing Iraq to Iranian-backed Shi’ites. But that’s a different topic altogether. I don’t find any offense in Sarah Palin invoking G-d, and I’m glad she has such strong religious faith. That’s one of her strong points, which will provide a strong foundation in the areas in which she is weak and ignorant.

Many readers have sent me quotes from Palin and/or from her church. As readers know, I have a tremendous respect for evangelical Christians, and I’m not bothered at all by those things she and/or her minister has said. I am, though, bothered by the Jews for Jesus visitor that spoke once at her Church saying Israel deserved terrorist attacks. But he was a one-time visitor, and I don’t think he represents her views at all.
Back to the interview. I was glad she repeated that it’s not for us or anyone else to second-guess Israel in the steps it takes for its defense. However, when she repeated it, she also wouldn’t answer when he asked would you support Israel if they strike Iran. A simple, proud “yes”–which she declined to do–would have been good and more reassuring, but her answer was fine.
That she couldn’t enumerate the so-called “Bush doctrine” doesn’t bother me, since I think Bush frankly can’t either, not that Bush should be the base benchmark. I also noted that, like Bush, she, too, thinks it’s “New-Kyuh-ler.” It’s “nuclear.” Pronouncing it correctly does a lot for the image.
But as for the Bush doctrine, it doesn’t bother me that she couldn’t describe a doctrine. If she has the right sentiments–and it sounds like, after the McCain tutoring session she does–that’s what counts.
Doesn’t really matter whether or not she’s rarely traveled around the world or hasn’t met a foreign head of state. She seems to have the handshake and riding on an airplane stuff down.
During the portion of the interview at a portion of the Alaska pipeline, during which she talked about drilling in ANWR, I think she was spot on. That was her best portion of the interview.
Overall, I’d give her a B on the interview.
What do you think? How did she perform in your mind?

By Debbie Schlussel
Recently, I told you about Judge Diane Hathaway, the Detroit-area judge who sentenced avowed Hezbollah terrorist Houssein Ali Zorkot to probation. As you’ll recall, Zorkot was caught in a Dearbornistan park practicing maneuvers with his AK-47, and announced on his pro-Hezbollah website that he was beginning his personal jihad in the United States. As I noted, because Hathaway gave him probation, Zorkot–a medical student–can likely still become a licensed doctor in Michigan and elsewhere.
Well, Saturday, at the Michigan Democratic Party convention, Democrats nominated Hathaway as their candidate in November for the Michigan Supreme Court.
Unfortunately, Hathaway’s race is emblematic of many of the catch-22s in which those of use who care about freedom and fighting jihad find ourselves.

This was on Houssein Zorkot’s Now-Defunct Website . . .

You see, Hathaway’s opponent, sitting Michigan Supreme Court Justice, Republican Clifford Taylor, took campaign money from open Hezbollah supporter and key American Hezbollah agent Ali Jawad, who pleaded guilty in federal court to a giant insurance fraud scam involving various members of the Islamic community. In April, John McCain dumped Ali Jawad from his Michigan campaign finance committee.
If Clifford Taylor chooses to return the money he took from Ali Jawad, I will happily note that on this site. But until then (and I’m not holding my breath), I won’t be voting for either him or Diane Hathaway. And I recommend that, if you are a Michigan voter, you don’t vote for them either.
Yesterday, I was contacted via e-mail by a lawyer-lobbyist who worked for moderate Republican tax-and-spending Michigan Governor John Engler. The GOP lobbyist who works for the powerful Dykema firm in Michigan’s capital, Lansing, more than hinted to me that he and the GOP wish to use my info on Diane Hathaway in their campaign on behalf of Cliff Taylor and against Hathaway.
But I want no part of it. That’s because, in addition to Taylor taking money from Jawad, I’ve already noted repeatedly on this site that the Michigan Republicans are equally pandering to Jihadists and Islamists in Michigan.
In an e-mail to me, Michigan Republican Chairman Saul Anuzis unabashedly told me he would continue to reach out to Hezbollah-supporting Shi’te Muslims to try to get them to vote Republican. He also actively recruited openly pro-Hezbollah, anti-War activists Nasser Beydoun to run as a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Michigan. Beydoun calls Hezbollah terrorists–who murdered 300 U.S. Marines and civilians–“martyrs” and “freedom fighters.”
And as I’ve repeatedly noted, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, who also took at least $1,000 from Hezbollah agent Ali Jawad, repeatedly pandered to the pan-Hezbollah/HAMAS Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan and ADC, allowed illegal aliens to get driver’s licenses for five years, and refused to prosecute pregnant Islamic women who continue to fly into Michigan to defraud Medicaid and gain U.S. citizenship for their terrorist anchor babies.
In Michigan, the elephants are as whorish on America’s national security as the donkeys.

By Debbie Schlussel
Remember right after 9/11, when prominent American Arab and Muslim leaders–like Islamic House of Wisdom imam and regular Detroit News columnist Mohammed Ali Elahi and the Muslim Public Affairs Council’s Salam Al-Marayait–said the Jews and Israel were behind the 9/11 attacks? Around the Muslim and Arab worlds, phony stories circulated that no Jews died on 9/11, because they got the special “Kosher Memo”, telling them not to show up for work that day (many Jews were at work, and many of them died).
When they got their PR bearings in place, they changed their stories. But privately, they still blamed the Jews (per usual).

Imad Hamad, ADC’s Midwest Chief and “Former” Islamic Terrorist
(Hamadafat by Six Meat Buffet/Preston Taylor Holmes)
Well, now, seven years later, apparently, they feel they no longer have to worry about PR. Today, the nation’s largest American-Arab group, the Muslim-dominated, pro-HAMAS/Hezbollah American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, sent out a press release spouting the usual baloney, but also indicating it is unsure who “the real terrorists” are:

ADC Press Release:
ADC Joins Nation in Remembering September 11, 2001
Washington, DC | September 11, 2008 | www.adc.org | The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) joins the nation and millions of people worldwide in marking the seventh anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. ADC remembered the day by observing a coordinated moment of silence with its offices in Washington, Boston, New Jersey, and Michigan.
ADC National Executive Director Kareem Shora said, “We will never forget that horrible Tuesday morning seven years ago and today we join the world in honoring all those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001. ADC also reiterates its opposition to and condemnation of those who would attack our country or any innocent civilians regardless of whom the perpetrators may be.” Shora added, “ADC pledges to continue to be actively involved in protecting and strengthening our country and all the values for which it stands. ADC will continue to stand against anyone intent on harming our Constitutional values of due process, equal protection, and justice under the rule of law.”

“Regardless of whom the perpetrators may be“? Um, we know who the perpetrators were and are. There’s not “may” or “whom” about it.
Yup, looks like the ADC is endorsing the views of their HAMAS and Hezbollah brethren about the JOOOOOOS allegedly committing the 9/11 attacks.

By Debbie Schlussel

Check these videos, all good reminders for what really happened on 9/11 and what you don’t see in the liberal mainstream media:

By Debbie Schlussel
**** SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATE ****
Actually, the question is the opposite.
Reader “Infinite” asks it:

Why is it that China is fighting islamic fundamentalists the way we should be fighting Islamic fundamentalists especially during Ramadan?

That’s a great question. The answer is that China is far more fierce, these days, about protecting its country’s borders and national security than we are. And perhaps the Chi-Coms have a stronger will for their nation to survive than ours. Their students aren’t more concerned with what Lindsay Lohan and the kids on “The Hills” are gonna do next.
Oh, and also, the Constitution prohibits us from establishing a national religion or preferring one . . . unless it’s Islam.
“Infinite” is talking about this (about which he read on China Confidential):

Local Chinese governments impose rules for Ramadan
BEIJING: Local governments in a Muslim desert region in western China have imposed strict limits on religious practices during the traditional Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, which began last week, according to the Web sites of four of those governments.
The rules include prohibiting women from wearing veils and men from growing beards, as well as barring government officials from observing Ramadan. One town, Yingmaili, mandates that local officials check up on mosques at least twice a week during Ramadan.
The local governments administer areas in the western part of Xinjiang, a vast autonomous region that is home to the Uighurs, a Muslim Turkic people who often chafe under rule by the ethnic Han Chinese. . . .
The Web site of the town of Yingmaili lists nine rules put in place to “maintain stability during Ramadan.”
They include barring teachers and students from observing Ramadan, prohibiting retired government officials from entering mosques and requiring men to shave off beards and women to take off veils. Mosques may not let people from outside the town stay overnight, and restaurants must maintain normal hours of business. (Many restaurants close during daytime hours over Ramadan because of the fasting, which is supposed to last from sunrise to sunset. Muslims observing Ramadan typically eat substantial meals at night.)
In nearby Xinhe County, the government has decreed that Communist Party members, civil servants and retired officials not observe Ramadan, enter mosques or take part in any religious activities during the month. Worshipers cannot make pilgrimages to tombs, so as to “avoid any group event that might harm social stability,” according to the Xinhe government’s Web site.
In addition, children and students cannot be forced to attend religious activities, and women cannot be forced to wear veils.
County rules also stress the need to maintain a strict watch over migrant workers and visitors from outside. Companies and families who have workers or visitors from outside the county are required to register the outsiders with the nearest police station and have the outsiders sign an agreement “on maintaining social stability.” . . .
The city of Artux is also preventing its teachers and students from observing Ramadan. As a result, schools have to keep serving food and water, city authorities said. As with the other governments, the overall goal is “to maintain social stability during Ramadan.”
In some parts of the world, militants see Ramadan as a good time to carry out attacks because they believe achieving martyrdom during the holy fasting month is an especially sacred act.

Well, here’s one thing we know from this article: China won’t become a Muslim country as fast as America does. Not even close.
**** UPDATE: Listen to Brett Winterble’s interesting Covert Radio interview about the Uighur Muslims of China and their involvement with Al-Qaeda.

By Debbie Schlussel
One of the almost 3,000 Americans murdered by Islamic terrorists was my cousin, Jon Schlissel. I’ve written about him on previous 9/11 anniversaries. I’ve also noted that, unlike me, he was a member of the ACLU and gay, and like me, he was a proud American and a proud Jew–everything Islamic terrorists (and most Muslims) hate. Well, except the ACLU part. We all know the Muslims, especially terrorists, looooove
On 9/11, Jon could have gotten out of the South Tower of the World Trade Center in time–everyone else in his office did. Everyone, except a heavy set woman and a man in a wheelchair. Jon stayed behind to try to help them make it out okay. All three of them were murdered as the Islamic terrorists drove the plane into the South Tower.
Sadly, Jon is one of the many Jewish-Americans who were murdered on 9/11 and put the lie to the Islamic BS that Jews knew about the attack ahead of time and stayed home from work. Jon didn’t get the “memo”.

Jon Schlissel Z”L: Murdered in the 9/11 Attacks
And, despite his heroism, Muslims tied to terrorism are happy my cousin died. In 2006, I received this e-mail from a member of the immediate family of Dearbornistan resident Osama Sobhi Abulhassan, a Hezbollah-supporting Shi’ite Muslim who was convicted of lying to police when they caught him buying multiple cellphones in Ohio for shipment overseas where they could be transformed into IEDs:

— Bassem Abulhassan bassemabulhassan@yahoo.com wrote:
Date: Tue, 15 Aug 2006 17:06:33 -0700 (PDT)
From: Bassem Abulhassan bassemabulhassan@yahoo.com
Subject: Dropped Charges
To: dschlussel@yahoo.com
By the way, how is your cousin Jon doing these days? Ouch. Did I hit a sore spot.

Yup, that’s the “Religion of Peace” that took Jon Schlissel’s life and that of almost 2,999 other Americans.
Jon and I were related back to the first Schlussel/Schlissel/Schlessel (we spell it different ways in English), a man in Poland in the 1700s, named Yoska the Holy One (a righteous, heroic man, who was murdered by the anti-Semitic Countess Tarnowski).
As my cousin Bruce Miller wrote:

For as long as the Schlissel Family and its extended family exists, Jon will be remembered by all on each and every anniversary of 9-11. May his name always be remembered as a blessing.

Jon Schlissel, Zichrono LiVrachah [Hebrew for “Blessed Be His Memory”].
***
Read More about Jon Schlissel, which features links to other articles about him.

By Debbie Schlussel
. . . How a “certain group” of people, now our “allies” for “peace”, reacted (cue the Van Halen version of “Dancing in the Streets”). All three videos are under a minute:

By Debbie Schlussel
The other day I watched a special of very short films starring Black actors or made by Black filmmakers. This one, “Date”, by liberal moviemaker Eva Saks, falls in the former category, and I thought it was good on many levels in putting our lives in the proper perspective to what happened on that fateful day seven years ago.
Still, it’s missing any reference to that major thing so many 9/11 movies miss: the “who”–as in the “who” that perpetrated it: Islamic terrorists. Still it’s very good. I liked it a lot and think you will, too. It’s just under three minutes until the credits.

By Debbie Schlussel
There is way too much hyperbole about Sarah Palin . . . on both sides of the aisle.
The worst is Congressman Steve Cohen. He’s the last person who should be calling Gov. Sarah Palin “Pontius Pilate.” As a Jew, he well knows this is an anti-Semitic slur. As a kid and in college (and sometimes still), I was called a “Judas” or “Pontius Pilate” or “Christ Killer” by anti-Semites (on the right AND the left). Joe Gelman of NeoCon Express, a fellow Jew, also acknowledges this bigoted remark as unacceptable. (And Obama is no Jesus, either, contrary to Cohen’s claim.)

Cohen was recently the victim, himself, of anti-Semitic advertising by a Democratic primary opponent, Black candidate Nikki Tinker who–in one ad–criticized those who “don’t attend our churches” and then tried to link him to the Klan–in another ad. He was justifiably upset about the vicious, bigoted, anti-Semitic and racist attacks. And it backfired. So, now, he feels called to engage in hypocrisy and use these anti-Semitic slurs on her? It’s a double standard of the vilest kind.
The second worst was a comment a reader sent me comparing the anti-Palin US Magazine article to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. Please. While totally biased against Palin, did the US Magazine cover story really rise to the level of propaganda that sent Six Million Jews to the ovens and other brutal deaths? Not even close. Not even in the same universe. Sorry, but Goebbels and his buddies sent people to the next world as lampshades. Don’t even go there and compare a magazine article about a woman who is alive and well and about to become Vice President to the PR machine for the mass murder of 11 million people.
And then there are the comparisons of Sarah Palin to Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Sorry, but she’s neither of these (and in Thatcher’s case, that’s partially good, since Thatcher was solidly in the back pockets of Islamofascists who basically own England).
What would be good–once and for all–is to stop comparing Sarah Palin to various personalities, bad and good, and look at her own record. That’s what I’ve tried to do on this site.
Outrageous, vicious attacks (on the left) and blind gushing (from the right) are completely useless. The woman deserves neither, though the former is far more outrageous than the latter.
Bottom Line: Rep. Cohen’s attack on Palin is absurd and uncalled for. As a Jew, I’m embarrassed.

By Debbie Schlussel
To me, this Presidential campaign is dumbed down on all sides. We’ve truly reached the age of “Idiocracy” (a must-rent movie), with the right side just a few decades behind the left side in the nadir category.
On the GOP side, we have a liberal RINO Republican at the top of the ticket along with a person who switched to six different colleges in six years and has a daughter who is a “Teachable Moment” now hailed by the right (But Mommy, the VP’s daughter is having a baby; why can’t I?). Yes, I know–I said college is a waste of time. And it is. But we must have some standard until it’s replaced, and even given how crappy and vapid college is (especially a “journalism” degree), this is a red flag.
On the Democratic side, we have far, far worse–a radical far-leftist sympathizer with American and Palestinian terrorists who employs extremists on his staff and wants to hang with Ahmadinejad. The majority of Obama voters don’t even believe that courts should be governed by the Constitution. This is completely disturbing. The latest Rasmussen poll of likely voters found:

While 82% of voters who support McCain believe the justices should rule on what is in the Constitution, just 29% of Barack Obama’s supporters agree. Just 11% of McCain supporters say judges should rule based on the judge’s sense of fairness, while nearly half (49%) of Obama supporters agree.

Yup, a WHOPPING 71% of Obama voters don’t think the Constitution should reign supreme.
I wonder how many of those are the Muslims who believe the Koran should replace the Constitution, as many CAIR officials have openly declared.
While I’ll be voting McCain-Palin, call me a member of the Disappointed Party.