"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." - John Kenneth Galbraith.
In a January 14 report on "Policies for Increasing Economic Growth and Employment in 2010 and 2011," the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) stated:
Policies that could be implemented relatively quickly or targeted toward people whose consumption tends to be restricted by their income, such as reducing payroll taxes for firms that increase payroll or increasing aid to the unemployed, would have the largest effects on output and employment per dollar of budgetary cost in 2010 and 2011.
According to a table in the report, CBO estimated that increasing aid to the unemployed would have the greatest effects on GDP per dollar of budgetary cost and the second highest cumulative effect on employment of the policy options considered.
If you want money to move around the system, it makes sense to give some to people who have to spend it.
Nancy Pelosi is utterly right when she states that Joe Barton's comments - where he apologised to BP for Obama's "shakedown" - are actually pretty near to the official Republican position.
Q: Do you think Mr. Barton should step aside as Ranking Member on the Energy and Commerce Committee? And do you think his sudden firestorm that's blown up around his comments represents kind of a turning point for the Republicans, and this attitude you describe of favoring big business?
Speaker Pelosi. A turning point for them supporting Big Business? They've always been on that track.
Q: Is this comment too far?
Speaker Pelosi. Well, let me just say that — that was one comment. I think it's important to note that it was not inconsistent with comments made the chairman of the Republican Study Committee — a part of the Republican leadership, Representative Tom Price. He said: "BP's reported willingness to go along with the White House new fund suggests that the Obama Administration is hard at work exerting its brand of Chicago-style 'shakedown' politics."
So I think that Mr. Barton's comments fit comfortably among the leadership of the Republicans in the House of Representatives. It's up to them to decide who's in the leadership of their committees. But he is not alone in his association with sympathy for the oil companies.
As I said before, people in the Gulf are suffering from BP's negligence and recklessness. Republicans in Congress are apologizing to BP.
The Republicans are always in the pockets of big business, the joke is that Barton has been made to apologise for speaking that Republican truth at a time when BP are facing a huge public backlash.
Limbaugh: BP hearings are a "show trial. ... This is what happened in Stalinist Russia." On the June 17 broadcast of his radio show, Rush Limbaugh said that "what Waxman and these other Democrats want" out of the BP hearings "is for [BP CEO Tony] Hayward and any other BP exec to say things under oath that they can't possible know one way or another. This is a show trial. If we were back in the era of Stalin -- this is what happened in Stalinist Russia. This is exactly how show trials work. If you translated this into Russian, folks, this is exactly what would be going on in the old Russia, the old pre-Soviet Union days." He added that the hearings are "purely and simply a fraud."
Krauthammer compared the BP hearings to "Inca ritual slaughter." During the June 17 edition of Fox News' Special Report, Krauthammer said that "these hearings are always just political theatre," but that he "kind of welcome[s] these rituals. We haven't had a good Inca ritual slaughter since the Goldman Sachs hearings." Krauthammer added that unlike with an "Incan ritual slaughter," "we have a scarcity of virgins," and so "we send up a CEO instead. They whack him around for a whole day and everybody goes home happy. The only difference is that our procedure has less blood, but a lot more talking. I'm not sure which is preferable."
Kristol is "open-minded to the notion that BP is being persecuted." During the same edition of Special Report, Bill Kristol stated that he was "open-minded to the notion that BP is being persecuted by a demagogic congressional committee chairman, Henry Waxman -- which they are being."
Savage: "The Democrats have held a Stalinist show trial against BP. ... They're very, very clever devils indeed." During the June 17 edition of his show, Michael Savage stated: "All these Congress vermin do is threaten people and sue people. Secondly, while these hearings have been very informative, I would now like to see an equal set of hearings with the government put on the stand." Savage added: "What they've done here is very clever indeed. The Democrats have held a Stalinist show trial against BP. Perhaps rightly so in part, but what they've really done here is pass the buck. They're very, very clever devils indeed. What they've done is put the entire blame -- that is 100 percent of the blame -- on BP rather than on the Obama administration."
Chuck Todd repeats the old Republican line concerning when does Obama stop blaming Bush for his problems. Pelosi answers him: "When those problems go away".
A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below. She shouted to him, "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am."
The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, "You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above ground elevation of 2,346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.
"She rolled her eyes and said, "You must be an Obama Democrat."
"I am," replied the man. "How did you know?"
"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically correct. But I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to me."
The man smiled and responded, "You must be a Republican."
"I am," replied the balloonist. "How did you know?"
"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you are going. You've risen to where you are due to a large quantity of hot air. You made a promise you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem. You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but somehow, now it's my fault."
Durbin calls Gingrich out, whilst Gingrich is demanding that Pelosi apologise for saying that the CIA lied, and points out that Gingrich himself once said that the CIA, "misled the American people".
Why do Rush Limbaugh's insane views not resonate with women the way they do with men? He gave us an indication of why this might be the case yesterday:
Limbaugh: We are going to learn very soon if women can finally break the glass ceiling. You know what the test is? Let me tell you what the test is. Will Nancy Pelosi resign as Speaker of the House? That's the test. Come on now, we've had two men resign -- maybe even three! -- we've had Fort Worthless Jim Wright resign as Speaker, we've had Mister Newt resign as Speaker, we had Bob Livingston resign as Speaker-elect, before he became Speaker. So if women really want equal treatment, if they really want to crash through that glass ceiling, there is no better benchmark than Nancy Pelosi taking herself and her place right alongside two men who resigned -- Fort Worthless Jim Wright, and Mister Newt.
That's right. Equality will be achieved by Pelosi stepping down.
What Limbaugh and the other right wing loons are ignoring is that they were attacking Pelosi in the hope of making an investigation go away. And Pelosi has called for an investigation, the very thing which they didn't want.
She's got nothing to hide it would seem. Limbaugh and the other right wing loons appear too stupid to realise that their bluff has been called.
Since when did the torture story become about whether or not Pelosi knew about it rather than should we prosecute the people who ordered it and carried it out?
I mean, even if she did know about it - and I tend to believe her when she says she was not informed - so what? It was not her policy and she would have been sworn to secrecy about it anyway.
It just seems to me as if the whole American media swing into whatever groove the Republicans set for them.
The Republicans are granted an enormous amount of leeway to steer discussion away from what is important. What matters surely is that the US tortured and that they sometimes did so, not to gain information, but to deliberately gather misinformation to enable an illegal war to be justified.
That's the scandal here. And yet there is all this utter bunkum about what Pelosi knew and when she knew it?
Viewed from the UK, this appears insane. Talk about losing a sense of perspective...
The latest Republican threat, regarding the Bush administration using torture techniques on prisoners, is that Democrats - like Nancy Pelosi - were briefed and knew all along that such techniques were being used.
Now Pelosi says that she was never told that people were being waterboarded. And she is also calling for a full investigation into the torture programme. It's hard to believe that she would be making this call if she was actually involved in such a procedure.
Even Bill O'Reilly can see that the Republicans are "rudderless" at the moment and that Rush Limbaugh is the nearest thing they have to a leader at this point in time.
But, of course, to even this up he has to claim that Pelosi and Obama are at loggerheads. They are already talking about Obama being a "one term president". This isn't reporting as much as it wishful bloody thinking.
This is interesting. I must admit that I began to suspect that perhaps the Democrats had been briefed on torture which, I assumed, was why they appeared so keen to give immunity to the Telecoms.
Pelosi however could not be more blunt. She says they were never briefed on this and certainly never told that torture was taking place as Bush and Co have implied.
UPDATE:
Nancy Pelosi is against immunity being offered to team Bush in return for testimony, although I notice that - whenever she is specific - she is talking about the firing of US Attorney's rather than prosecution for torture.
But it is interesting to hear her say that she opposes immunity. It would be a strange position to find yourself in, if you opposed immunity for the firing of US Attorney's, but granted it for war crimes.
In Washington, bipartisanship often seems to mean that the Democrats bend themselves to the Republican political agenda.
And the Republicans never seem to accept that they have lost the argument, which is why so many of them - despite losing the election - continued to argue that the US is a centre right nation. In their world, their policies must continue no matter what results any election yields.
So, it's a very welcome change to hear that Obama has reminded them - and his fellow Democrats - that "I won".
The American people listened to what both Obama and McCain had to say and they firmly came out supporting the position of Obama. The Republicans would like to proceed as if that hadn't happened. But it did.
And Obama is right to remind them of it. Perhaps Obama's version of bipartisanship isn't rolling over and playing dead after all.
His fellow Democrats would do well to emulate the steel which he is showing.
Polls also showed rising support for centrist parties, with significant jumps in the approval ratings for the Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni, outgoing premier Ehud Olmert and Defence Minister Ehud Barak. However, the right-wing Likud, headed by Benjamin Netanyahu, still remains in the lead.
Israeli troops backed by helicopters advanced into Gaza today, a Palestinian witness and the Israeli army said, in the first ground action of an eight-day offensive against Hamas in the Palestinian enclave.
Public opinion in Israel was firmly behind the air strikes, but is more lukewarm about Olmert and Livni's latest vote winning tactic:
An opinion poll this week in the Haaretz newspaper showed support of 71 per cent among the public for continuing air strikes, while 21 per cent backed ground operations as well – the same number who supported a ceasefire.
Keen as Olmert and Livni are to out prove themselves even more hawkish than Netanyahu in order to win the election, it would appear that the Israeli public remember the danger of employing ground troops from the war in Lebanon even as their leaders choose to forget in the hope of winning re-election.
The IDF Spokesperson's office issued a statement, emphasizing that this stage of the operation will further the goals of the eight-day offensive as voiced by the IDF until now: To strike a direct and hard blow against the Hamas while increasing the deterrent strength of the IDF, in order to bring about an improved and more stable security situation for residents of Southern Israel over the long term.
An "improved security situation... over the long term". Could you set the bar any bloody lower?
At the beginning of this assault we were told that they were going to "eliminate Hamas" and now all these Palestinians have to die so that Israel can bring about "an improved security situation... over the long term"?
So they are not even promising to end the rocket attacks anymore, simply that the situation will be "improved", and not even improved immediately, but improved "over the long term".
The US, obviously, are offering the usual unconditional support for anything that Israel does, but protests are erupting throughout Europe at this latest Israeli assault on the people of Palestine with the British now adopting the same method of protest as the Iraqi journalist who had enough of listening to Bush.
Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in European cities on Saturday against Israel's bombardment of Gaza, including protesters who hurled shoes at the tall iron gates outside the British prime minister's residence in London.
In London, at least 10,000 people, many carrying Palestinian flags, marched past Prime Minister Gordon Brown's Downing Street residence to a rally in Trafalgar Square. Outside Downing Street, hundreds of protesters stopped and threw shoes at the gates that block entry to the narrow road.
Shoe-throwing has become a popular gesture of protest and contempt since an Iraqi journalist pelted U.S. President George W. Bush with a pair of brogues in Baghdad last month.
And protests were occurring all over the place:
The London protest was one of 18 that took place across the UK yesterday. There were also rallies in Paris, Berlin, Rome, Athens and several Asian cities.
France last night was swift to condemn the invasion, which it described as a dangerous military escalation that "complicated efforts by the international community to end the fighting, bring immediate aid to civilians and reach a permanent ceasefire". In London the foreign secretary David Miliband said the intensification of the Israeli assault would cause "alarm and dismay" and renewed calls for a swift cessation of violence.
But all of this protest at Olmert and Livni's cynical attempt to improve their electoral chances by battering the Palestinians will be meaningless as long as Bush is in the White House. This is a man who has never, ever, had even the slightest rebuke for any Israeli action, no matter how severe; so it would be a fool who would expect him to change his tune so late in his presidency.
Not only does Rasmussen find that Americans generally "are closely divided over whether the Jewish state should be taking military action against militants in the Gaza Strip" (44-41%, with 15% undecided), but Democratic voters overwhelmingly oppose the Israeli offensive -- by a 24-point margin (31-55%).
Of course, the fact that a majority of Democratic supporters oppose this recent Israeli action will not be reflected in anything we hear from Pelosi and the others. It's a very strange democracy where the views of the political class are so out of step with their own supporters. Indeed, where the views of the political class show the kind of uniformity which one would usually expect from the politburo or a parliament headed by Saddam.
We can hope that Obama can bring about change here, but the biggest battle he would face would be amongst the upper echelons of his own party where any criticism of Israel is seen as heresy.
UPDATE:
There are also protests within the United States, although the Israeli Federation are calling for demonstrations like this to be "condemned".
But 77 percent of American Jews voted for Barack Obama in the November elections. Jewish Americans are divided on the strikes on Gaza, as they are on the Palestinian issue in general. But the Democratic Party doesn't want to undermine their reputation as a reliable defender of Israel. Therefore, the Democrats take the position of uncritical support for whatever Israel does.
The Republican Party's position is equally simplistic. It might seem to defy reason that the GOP would pander to a population that makes up roughly three percent of the electorate (mostly in solidly Blue States) and which votes against them at an over three-to-one clip. But the Republicans aren't pandering to Jewish voters (except those that live in purple Florida), they're pandering to evangelical voters that believe Israel must remain in Jewish hands for Jesus to return and bring Armageddon.
That doesn't explain why the Democratic party ignore the wishes of the majority of the other 97% of their supporters who are not Jewish. And it doesn't address the issue of how immoral it is to support another country no matter what action it takes.
When President Bush told us that an urgent financial package was needed to prevent the entire collapse of the American financial system, there were very few of us who were happy with the idea that, once again, profit was private but any financial loss became public debt.
However, angry as the idea of bailing out Wall Street made me, there were people who knew far more about economics than I did arguing that the choice was this or the complete financial collapse of the markets. In my mind I came to the conclusion that it was better to save the markets and vow that no company should ever again be allowed to become "too big to fail".
Both the presidential candidates delivered the same message with McCain going further than Barack Obama by suspending his campaign and flying to Washington to make sure the deal went through.
Yesterday the Democratic caucus delivered 66% of it's members to support a Republican bill and the Republicans, despite McCain's dramatic dash to Washington, delivered only 35% of it's members. 140 Democrats voted for the bill, despite it's unpopularity amongst the electorate, with only 65 Republicans also putting their necks on the line.
Astonishingly, despite the fact that this was a Republican bill, pushed by a Republican president, voted down by a majority of Republicans, that same party sought to push the failure of the bill to pass on to the heads of Democrats.
As recriminations began, Republican leaders blamed the Democratic speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, for framing the crisis as a consequence of recklessness by the Bush administration. "The speaker had to give a partisan voice that poisoned our conference," said Republican leader John Boehner. This drew ridicule from Democrats. Barney Frank, chairman of the House financial services committee, said: "Somebody hurt my feelings so I'll punish the country? That's hardly plausible."
Don't get me wrong, I was only willing to support the bill once oversight had been inserted into it. I had no idea, and as I write this I still have no idea, whether or not the entire $700 billion would ever have had to be used, but the important thing we were told was that the markets needed to see urgent action to prevent imminent financial collapse.
At that moment, appalling as bailing out these people was to me, I thought that we couldn't take the risk that the markets might collapse and that we should put a clothes peg over our noses and vote for this thing. With oversight assured, we would only see the spending of what was necessary to calm the markets and avoid financial Armageddon.
The Republicans, fearful of voting for an unpopular bail out so soon to an election, have put their re-election in front of the country's good, despite the dramatic intervention of McCain into the middle of this negotiation.
The markets have reacted swiftly.
The Mortgage Bankers' Association reacted by warning of job losses as banks curtail credit to small businesses. Larry Fink, chairman of a leading US investment management firm, BlackRock, said critics had been wrong to characterise the plan as a bail-out of Wall Street. "This is a bail-out of Main Street," he said. "Banks have no ability to lend at the moment because their balance sheets are so gummed up."
The financial fallout was swift and brutal. Shares in leading US banks slumped: Bank of America by 16%, Citigroup by 12% and Goldman Sachs by 11%. Oil plunged by $10 a barrel to just over $96 as traders bet on a slump reducing the need for fuel. The dollar fell sharply and the price of gold surged close to record territory.
Peter Morici, professor of business at the University of Maryland, said: "Things are going to get so bad something will have to be done in the next few weeks. Banks will sink, credit markets will seize, the economy will go into something much worse than a recession."
When I listen to every complaint that the Republicans make about this bill, their main objection is that this is "socialism". That is what they object to. Democrats who object tend to do so because they question whether or not this intervention will work or whether or not it is necessary. Republicans fear that this will work and fear that this is necessary because it undermines their entire ideological belief system.
To that end they really are prepared to take the risk that the entire financial system might collapse, despite McCain's dramatic intervention to steer the bill through.
McCain's intervention is now revealed as the empty political gesturing which we always suspected it was and those same Republicans who worried about losing their seats now face even more weeks with the economy at the forefront of the American electorate's minds.
It is to that end that the Republicans yesterday sought to feign outrage over Nancy Pelosi's comments in a pathetic attempt to duck responsibility for whatever happens next.
Make no mistake, the Republicans voted down this bill and they are now going to make an awful lot of noise in an attempt to disguise that brutal fact.
Neither Bush nor McCain could persuade them to put country before self. The Democrats delivered, under threat of dire financial consequences, 66% of their caucus to vote for a bill which appals all of us, but which we were told was a necessity to avoid financial meltdown.
I would be delighted if the threats turn out to be overstated, but - lacking the financial knowledge to know whether or not that is true - I would choose not to take the risk, deeming it, in the same way as we call for action on global warming, better to find out that I was wrong further down the road than to wait for the disaster to hit us before I had got myself up to speed.
The Republicans made the opposite call. And, having been too cowardly to vote for an unpopular bill which we were told was needed, they are now going to try and push the blame for that towards the Democrats. They must not be allowed to do that.
House Republicans led the way and will get most of the blame. It has been interesting to watch them on their single-minded mission to destroy the Republican Party. Not long ago, they led an anti-immigration crusade that drove away Hispanic support. Then, too, they listened to the loudest and angriest voices in their party, oblivious to the complicated anxieties that lurk in most American minds.
Now they have once again confused talk radio with reality. If this economy slides, they will go down in history as the Smoot-Hawleys of the 21st century. With this vote, they’ve taken responsibility for this economy, and they will be held accountable. The short-term blows will fall on John McCain, the long-term stress on the existence of the G.O.P. as we know it.
UPDATE II:
Taking partisanship to new levels, McCain says it's not the time to attach blame; but that he blames Obama.
Pelosi is confronted over her refusal to allow impeachment hearings against George Bush. Her response is actually rather bizarre.
She states that she took an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. What she appears to be missing is that, by refusing to uphold it when there are clear signs that it has been breached, is actually violating the very oath that she is quoting in her defence.
Taking the oath is not upholding the oath.
It's also nice to see that some Democrats retain their anger at her spinelessness towards Republican law breaking.
"God bless him, bless his heart, president of the United States — a total failure, losing all credibility with the American people on the economy, on the war, on energy, you name the subject."
I happen to agree with her reading of Bush's record, but the inability of the Democratic Congress to stand up to such a failure has been an eye opener.
And, leaving aside the fact that he is a failure, he has also broken the law, but it was Pelosi who insisted that he must never pay the price for that.
Pelosi appears to be falling over herself to make sure that George Bush is not impeached. The latest is that the House Judiciary Committee will hear arguments about impeachment but it won't vote on whether or not to impeach.
When history records the attack on the democratic process that this administration embarked on, it really should reserve a good few chapters for discussion of how the Democratic party wilfully assisted in the process.
Pelosi has made her mind up before even hearing the evidence of Bush's crimes.
Okay, now I'm officially confused. Obama had originally promised to back the FISA bill but to work when president to remove the proposed Telecom immunity clause from the bill. I had always presumed that the Democratic leadership had been advised by Bush of what he was actually doing and that this was why the Democrats were so keen to push to give immunity.
But now the Democratic leadership are saying that they will support a filibuster while Obama is continuing to support the bill.
He has stated:
"The bill has changed. So I don't think the security threats have changed, I think the security threats are similar. My view on FISA has always been that the issue of the phone companies per se is not one that overrides the security interests of the American people."
However, Sens. Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Russ Feingold (D-WI) have promised to do all that they can to remove retroactive immunity from the legislation and Harry Reid's office has issued a statement saying that he will do all that he can to help them:
Unfortunately, the FISA compromise bill establishes a process where the likely outcome is immunity to the telecommunications carriers who participated in the President’s warrantless wiretapping program. Sen. Reid remains opposed to retroactive immunity, which undermines efforts to hold the Bush Administration accountable for violating the law. Thus, he will cosponsor the amendment offered by Senators Dodd and Feingold to strip out the immunity provision, and support their efforts to strip immunity on the floor.
Even Nancy Pelosi has stated that it would be "healthy and wholesome" were the Senate to filibuster the bill.
Obama's position makes no sense. He now says that going after the phone companies was never more important than finding out what actually took place here, which completely misses the point I think. Going after the phone companies was the only way we were ever going to find out what had taken place here.
And I had always presumed that he was reversing his position on the filibuster due to pressure from other Democrats, but with Reid and Pelosi now appearing to favour the filibuster I am left wondering why Obama is taking the position that he is taking.
Perhaps he is suffering from that continual Democratic fear of being portrayed as weak on national security by the Republicans going into an election, which is a great shame. Up until now Obama has been great at redefining these issues in a way that does not play into this Republican game plan.
Perhaps he's playing the long game, publicly supporting a bill that he knows will be filibustered by Dodd and Feingold, thus denying McCain the ability to label him soft on national security during the run up to the election. But, I freely admit, I'm grasping at straws here.
I previously thought I could see what he was up to, I have to now admit to myself that I don't.
OLBERMANN: Have the Democrats blinked or Mr. Feingold and Mr. Leahy are going to kill this in the Senate?
TURLEY: Well, this is more like a one-man staring contest. I mean, the Democrats never really were engaged in this. In fact, they repeatedly tried to cave in to the White House, only be stopped by civil libertarians and bloggers. And each time they would put it on the shelf, wait a few months, they did this before, reintroduced it with Jay Rockefeller‘s support, and then there was another great, you know, dustup and they pulled it back.
I think they‘re simply waiting to see if the public‘s interest will wane and we‘ll see that tomorrow, because this bill has, quite literally, no public value for citizens or civil liberties. It is reverse engineering, though the type of thing that the Bush administration is famous for, and now the Democrats are doing—that is to change the law to conform to past conduct.
It‘s what any criminal would love to do. You rob a bank, go to the legislature, and change the law to say that robbing banks is lawful.
The Democrats have gone along with this because any investigation into this would also have to look into their own actions.
As news is leaked of an Israeli military exercise, which many are proclaiming was a warning of their intent to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has said that any such attack would turn the region into "a fireball" and has warned that he would immediately resign were Israel to carry out this threat.
More than 100 Israeli F-16s and F-15s flew more than 900 miles, roughly the distance from Israel to Iran's Natanz nuclear plant. They were accompanied by refuelling planes and helicopters for rescuing any downed crews.
A source in Washington described the exercise as "sabre-rattling" and said he did not think an attack was imminent.
"If the Israelis were serious about it, no one would know about it until after it has happened," he said.
Nonetheless, the development sent oil prices higher after it was leaked to the New York Times by the Pentagon.
This really shouldn't be too surprising to anyone. After all, Olmert was said to have left the White House recently, after a meeting with Bush and Cheney, "quite satisfied" that the Iranian issue was not off the table and neo-conservative Daniel Pipes has gone as far as to say that Bush intends to carry out a "massive" attack in the window between the November elections and Bush's departure from office, particularly if Democratic Senator Barack Obama is his successor.
The notion that a president could launch an attack during the period between the election and the day he hands over to his successor is about as sick as it gets, but nothing would sum up Bush and Cheney's contempt for what ordinary Americans think better than that.
So, this recent Israeli show of power is another way of gearing the public up for a possible attack on Iran, despite the fact that no-one has to this day ever shown any proof that Iran are pursuing a nuclear weapon.
We are being asked to accept the hysterical estimations of the same people who told us that Iraq had WMD and, in a manner typical of neo-con disregard for international norms, we are being prepared for a breach of Iran's territorial integrity as if such a thing were routine. Mohamed ElBaradei, by threatening to resign, is trying to make us all aware that, not only is this far from routine, it is actually profoundly dangerous.
This week Ehud Olmert, the prime minister, repeated his warning that Iran remained the biggest threat in the region. "I don't think we deserve to live under the threat of a nuclear Iran," he said in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald published on Thursday.
Shaul Mofaz, a deputy prime minister and former army chief, provoked criticism this month when he told an Israeli newspaper that an attack was unavoidable. "If Iran continues its programme to develop nuclear weapons we will attack it," said Mofaz, who is in charge of Israel's strategic dialogue with the US over such issues as Iran.
It is, of course, true that Israel does not deserve to live under the threat of a nuclear Iran. However, it is also true that Iran and the rest of the Middle East does not deserve to have to live under the threat of a nuclear Israel. But that's the problem with all nuclear powers, they all seem to think that the NNPT is there to prevent others from acquiring what they already possess and they ignore the parts of the NNPT which requires that they disarm. Israel, of course, has gone even further and simply refused to sign up to the NNPT at all. Indeed, we are all supposed to pretend that we don't even know that Israel is a nuclear power at all as she sticks to her ludicrous stance of "nuclear ambiguity".
But only in a world where George Bush and his ilk have presided for seven years would we be hearing threats of imminent attacks upon other sovereign nations and be asked to react as if the good guys were finally going in to clean up that violent saloon.
America is supposed to a nation governed by laws, but Bush has frequently dismissed laws and conventions which he found tedious and the Democratic party has never pushed to make him accountable. Indeed, Nancy Pelosi went out of her way to state that impeachment was off the table and to reassure Republicans that, if her party won the mid-term elections, that Bush and Cheney would never be held accountable for the crimes they had committed.
So, any of us appalled at the notion that Bush could take part in, or allow Israel to spearhead, an attack on Iran in the period between the election and the new president's inauguration, would have to hold Pelosi and the Democrats at least partially responsible for allowing Bush to operate so far outside of international norms - for such a long period of time - that he could even consider such an action in the first place.
The Democrats have, time and again, handed Bush a Get Out Of Jail Free card. He's behaving as if he's untouchable because the Democrats, and most especially Nancy Pelosi, have told him that he is.
Nancy Pelosi has called on the world community to condemn China for the way it has crushed protests in Tibet, saying that the issue was a challenge for the "conscience of the world".
Nancy Pelosi, who leads the Democratic party in Congress, was the first foreign politician to meet the Dalai Lama since the bloody unrest spread across the roof of the world. Her appearance alongside the Tibetan spiritual leader at his home in the north Indian town of Dharamshala was condemned by Beijing, which accused her of meddling in China's internal affairs.
Pelosi's visit and strong language are the most serious breach in a western consensus that China's economic and strategic strength renders impossible any protest beyond verbal expressions of unease.
She did not call for an Olympic boycott, which the Dalai Lama has also opposed, but appeared to open the door to one if China maintained its crackdown in Tibet. She said the "world is watching" events there, and called for an international investigation into the violence, and access to the region for journalists and international human rights monitors.
Pelosi said it was incumbent on "freedom-loving people throughout the world" to speak out against China's "oppression". If they did not, "we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world".
With China so keen to have it's Olympics go well, there really has never been a better time to put pressure on the regime regarding Tibet.
George Bush has made it very clear that he intends to attend the opening of the Olympics and that he will not reconsider this. However, John McCain is speaking forcefully about this:
Yesterday, John McCain drew attention to Bush's caution on the subject, saying that Tibet was "one of the first things I would talk about if I were president of the United States today".
"The people there are being subjected to mistreatment that is not acceptable with the conduct of a world power, which China is," McCain said.
McCain does well to speak in this way, and he's certainly being more pro-active than Prime Minster Brown has been. The UK are anxious to maintain good relations with the world's latest emerging super power and have been largely silent on the issue of Tibet. Both McCain and Pelosi are to be applauded for having the courage to speak out when so many of their political counter parts are maintaining a diplomatic silence.
I understand that there is almost no chance of a boycott of the Olympics, or even of the opening ceremony, however at a time when the world's spotlight is on China, and at a time when China is so keen to be perceived in a good light, Pelosi and McCain are doing well to put pressure on the regime, to remind the Chinese that we can all see what they are doing and that - as a banner unfurled in Rome recently stated - "We are all Tibetans now".
The Chinese versions of the US-based websites MSN and Yahoo! have published a list of names and photographs of 24 Tibetans accused by the Chinese authorities of involvement in protests in Lhasa. The grainy pictures are apparently taken from video footage shot during the unrest. "It beggars belief that Yahoo! is acting as China's right-hand man in its brutal crackdown on Tibetan protesters," said Matt Whitticase, from the Free Tibet Campaign. "Yahoo! knows very well that these protesters will have no access to legal representation and that either execution or long prison sentences and torture awaits any protester arrested in Lhasa."
Pelosi and McCain may only have warm words to offer the Tibetans comfort, but that is a vast improvement on the silent complicity being offered by western governments.
That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another.
The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down.
