Comments On The "Birther" Conspiracy: A Response To James Taranto

[Dear Readers: For the following comments to make any sense, they need to be placed in context. Please read James Taranto's first entry in yesterday's column, "Birthers Lay An Egg." What follows here is what I posted in the comments thread at Mr. Taranto's Wall Street Journal blog.]

Dear Mr. Taranto,

I hope this note finds you well.

Re: "BIRTHERS"

Again (though this is a new topic), I don't see what you seem to see. Now let me jettison this whole theory about Mr. Obama's place -- or places -- of origin. He's a natural-born US citizen. Fine.

How, pray tell, does it help ANYONE, particularly Mr. Obama himself, to have “The 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii” included in a non-binding resolution honoring Hawaii's reception into the union? If this whole "birther" thing is simply a wacko conspiracy fit for madness, doesn't this resolution bring madness into the very heart of the US House? The blogger you quote, a Mr. Sargent, thinks this little tack was to force "birthers" to shut up or crash into a contradiction. But if this is true, then the powers in the House really thought that the "birthers" arguments had some merit; and if not merit on rational grounds, at least merit on political grounds: they believed some political hay could be made by Republicans sowing doubt and fear. But can you recall ANY non-binding resolution drafted as a trap to catch those congressional Democrats who might be prone to thinking that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney devised 9-11 for oil? No, you can't, because the "truthers" arguments were dismissed as utterly and completely preposterous. By your own admission the "birthers" argument is sheer madness, and yet you countenance, with something of a chuckle crossing your keyboard, that this resolution is a birther's smelly egg. Interesting.

You have consistently pointed out in your column that certain words are considered to be racially charged in large part because the fusspots among us keep reviving dying and/or dormant racial innuendoes and stereotypes each time they protest about those very words. I am surprised that you don't see how this resolution has only revived and enlivened the whole "birther" conspiracy. Don't you see that Mr. Sargent, the blogger, has opened the door to suspicion, i.e., that Democrats have used a sneaky clause in a non-binding resolution to hide something? Here, at a moment when Barack Obama's poll numbers are slipping, a congressional resolution is passed in part to silence those who doubt Mr. Obama's birth certificate. Is this funny? Is this brilliant? I think it is neither. And it surely does not help Mr. Obama's slide into the abyss of the ordinary. MORE attention, not less, will now be directed at his "phony" birth certificate. Or so I suspect.

Lastly, there are those who believe that sowing seeds of doubt about Mr. Obama's nationality or lack thereof make him vulnerable to those who would seek to harm him in some way. Doubts about his legitimacy only fuel hatred and invite violence. Fair enough. But what about sowing seeds of doubt about another president's legitimacy? What about theories that posit George W. Bush orchestrated 9-11, that he killed 3,000 people in September 2001? What about asserting that same president rushed into an illegal war, resulting in the deaths of thousands of Americans, 100's of thousands of Iraqis; that he made us "less safe" with his war of "distraction"? What of his penchant for spying on Americans and his fetish for torture? Did these sorts of charges not make Mr. Bush vulnerable to harm?

It seems that the non-binding resolution touted by blogger Sargent and yourself as something ironic and even amusing has only exacerbated the problem of Barack Obama's origins. Or so I will guess.

Peace to you,

Bill Gnade

[A note to Contratimes readers: It seems that Mr. Sargent, the blogger mentioned above, has REALLY elevated the "birther" movement by contacting the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Michael Steele. Sargent has Steele's spokesman announcing that Mr. Steele believes this is all a distraction and that Mr. Obama IS a "US citizen." All this proves my point that instead of tamping down an issue the US House, Mr. Sargent, and Mr. Taranto have actually elevated it. I am sure Mr. Obama is grateful for all the help.]

©2009/Contratimes. All RIghts Reserved.

Why Black Women Are Fat? Mere Perceptions?

In yesterday's Best of the Web Today, published by the Wall Street Journal online, James Taranto addresses a new study linking obesity with racial oppression. As usual, his analysis is trenchant and pointed; the study is replete with hidden assumptions and non causa pro causa fallacies where causality and correlation are confused. Mr. Taranto ably points out many of the deficiencies of the study (some of the conclusions drawn from the study are truly laughable).

Ostensibly, the study -- if one can call it that -- proves that black women who are victims of racism respond to such abuse by putting on a few pounds. Mr. Taranto is right to note that the women in the study only perceive that they are victims of racism; the racial component is not actually empirically proven by the study, though it is obviously inferred from the results of a series of questionnaires.

But there are more difficulties with the study that Mr. Taranto fails to note. Obviously he hasn't time to delve more deeply into the study's weaknesses, but we do, and several things seem very much worth noting here.

First, if the women involved in the study infer from their perceptions of being slighted by shopkeepers or dissed by restaurant waitstaff that these improprieties are racially motivated, it must be asked whether such an inference is at all justified. How do these women know that the person allegedly speaking condescendingly to them is not patronizing them solely because they are overweight? Perhaps skin color has nothing to do with any of this; perhaps overweight women become even more overweight in a response to the prejudice other people have about overweight people. And perhaps overweight women perceive slights that are not slights at all, and, believing these perceived slights are real, decide that it is not weight but race that motivates such slights. But why would an obese woman do such a thing? Perhaps because obesity is embarrassing and perceiving racism where there is none keeps the obese person from addressing the real causes of that embarrassing problem. It's all a defensive mode, a shifting of blame. Perception, one must remember, is not to be confused with reality. Hence, perception can be used as a false cover precisely because it is so vague, elastic and subjective. The study in question has NOTHING to say about false covers.

Second, the study fails to explain why white women are overweight and even obese. What social evil pushes white women toward corpulence? Are white women also responding to bigotry as they pack on the pounds?

Black women involved in a study regarding race and weight may actually be victims of a sicker combination of social factors, namely, a complicated paranoia created by social scientists and researchers who suggest to these women that every slight in the world is racially motivated. Perhaps these dear obese black women are not victims of direct racism at all. Instead, they are unable to properly socialize precisely because they've been led to believe that racism is poised to rear its ugly head in every public place and social encounter. Perhaps the actual cause of the obesity in these black women was the latently racist study itself; according to the report all the women -- all 43,000 participants! -- got heavier during the eight-year-long study. And since this study cannot ever answer why white women are obese -- since white women can't perceive racial slights and insults -- it seems that the study's conclusions prove my point: the study itself has reinforced an attitude that leads to unhealthy living. (And what was the control group, by the way, and how did it fare?)

As for white women and obesity, perhaps a study will show that such women who succumb to obesity are victims of a social pressure to be glamorous, lithe and preternaturally sexy. Perhaps that is in some part true; no doubt such women struggle with poor self-esteem. But imagine a study that really makes such a connection, and then note this phenomenon: that the study itself implies that women SHOULD have low self-esteem for the simple reason that women are so easily duped into thinking they must conform to certain images, including, ironically, the image of NOT BEING DUPED, which is the very image latently propagated by the study that proves women are obese because of their susceptibility to being duped. In other words, white women are fat because they can't conform to certain body images portrayed in the media, which proves that such women are too stupid or too intemperate to resist those images.

Really, thanks for the help with the self-esteem.

At the heart of this study on black women and obesity is a fixation on an external locus of control. The problem is "out there." These women are victims to externals. That there is no mention -- seemingly -- of the lack of internal coping strategies or habits to resist the wrong reaction to stress is truly indicative of the world in which we live: you are not to blame.

But the MOST startling thing about this study is that it purports to be SCIENCE. That non causa pro causa fallacies are considered scientific (and they are rather often) is truly disconcerting; this study strikes this writer as so utterly devoid of meaning that one might conclude that the future of science is actually in doubt: this study brings a whole new meaning to the genre of science fiction. But non causa pro causa fallacies are almost de rigueur for our society. Pick your issue -- CO2 levels and increasing average global temperatures; CEO bonuses and job layoffs -- and you'll see that the confusing of correlation with causation is endemic to this era. Being fallacious is utterly fashionable, even for epidemiologists researching the human condition. How sad.

Here's a question: Who can we blame for this?

©2009/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

[Expletive Deleted]

My thanks to James Taranto for his "Two papers in one!":

• "In Wednesday night's debate, John McCain warned that a group called Acorn is 'on the verge of maybe perpetrating one of the greatest frauds in voter history' and 'may be destroying the fabric of democracy.' Viewers may have been wondering what Mr. McCain was talking about. So were we."--editorial, New York Times, Oct. 17 [my emphasis]
• "Several F.B.I. offices are reviewing reports of fraudulent voter registrations submitted by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or Acorn, a liberal community organizing group that has been under fire from Republicans."--news story, New York Times, Oct. 17

________________

If the editorial board of the New York Times was not aware of ACORN and Republican allegations against that well-known and arguably infamous organization, readers may have been wondering whether the New York Times is at all reputable, reliable, honest and in touch. Of course, I jest. Contratimes readers are not like the editorial board of the New York Times: dishonest and deceptive.

Progressive Press Peeved Palin Prays?

File this under incredible.

Opinion Journal's James Taranto brings more clarity to Charlie Gibson's interview with Sarah Palin (see transcript). Recall that Mr. Gibson construed Sarah Palin's words in such a way as to imply she believed America's troops were just bellicose Blues Brothers on a "mission from God." Here's an excerpt of Taranto's post from Friday, Sept. 12, 2008:

Although she had spoken the words Gibson attributed to her, his rendition of the quote was a dowdification.[†] He took the words out of context to make a prayer that "the task is from God" appear to be an assertion that it is.

This misleading quotation might have been an error rather than a deliberate deception, and it did not originate with Gibson. Our Tuesday item noted that CNN had misrepresented Palin's words on Monday, and on Sept. 4 "AllahPundit" pointed to an Associated Press dispatch from the previous day that might have been the origin of the falsehood.

Yesterday the Associated Press, in reporting on the interview, relied on its own inaccurate reporting of a week earlier in claiming that Palin had "contradicted an assertion she made at her former church that 'our national leaders are sending U.S. soldiers on a task that is from God.' " This claim disappeared from later versions of the AP dispatch, although we haven't found any evidence that the wire service issued a correction.

ABC seems to have realized its mistake as well. The version of the interview that aired on ABC's "World News" last night (video here) edited out the lines in which Palin disputes the accuracy of Gibson's quote and Gibson replies, "Exact words." In their place is a YouTube clip of Palin speaking at the church. Again, as far as we know, ABC has not expressly acknowledged the error.

The journalists at AP, CNN and ABC who took liberties with Palin's quote might or might not have intended to deceive. But there can be little doubt that they intended to further a stereotype of Palin as some sort of religious nut. What's interesting is that in the course of doing so, they ended up disparaging her for praying.

As we noted yesterday, some of the less well-grounded members of the political media have been harshly attacking Palin for having a baby. Egads! Can we really have a heartbeat away a Christian who prays, or a woman who has borne children?

I do like Taranto's last line: "With friends like these, who needs Karl Rove?" My thoughts exactly.

†A dowdification is a fabrication or corruption of a quote, epitomized by the putative style of Maureen Dowd, the New York Times columnist who is to literacy what phone sex is to oratory.

©2008. All Rights Reserved.

Logic Lesson?

If you would like to see logic put to both good and bad use, then see James Taranto's "The Weisberg Fallacy" in yesterday's Opinion Journal. It will appear too academic to some who are inspired by the sort of fallacious argument Mr. Taranto dismantles; some might consider it pedantic. I find it jolly good fun (though I admit I did not closely check Mr. Taranto's proof).

In my opinion, Taranto is just about the best political blogger in the blogosphere. He plays ball in the majors, while I'd be lucky to make single-A. The guy is sharp and quick. Yesterday's post, through and through, is just solid stuff. In an amusing and effective way, well, Taranto can bring the high heat (sorry for the lame baseball metaphors).

Oh, and the Biden stuff is pretty good, too.

(And I note that he finds the DNC's convention theme, "One Nation," rather curious, as did I when the DNC emailed me with the news. What happened to the "Two Americas" meme?)

Peace.

BG

Lest I Forget? Well, I Did!

Once again, the inimitable James Taranto deserves praise here, especially for this rather apt reminder:

"The point is this: If you vote for Democrats on the theory that Republicans are a threat to civil liberties, caveat elector. Bill Clinton and his administration incinerated children at Waco, undertook the policy of "extraordinary rendition," used a grand jury investigation to intimidate journalists at The American Spectator, deported Elian Gonzalez to communist Cuba, and signed the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, which restricts the habeas corpus rights of American citizens."

How could I have forgotten?

Peace.

BG

That Paragon Of Opportunity

I am not a fan of Howard Dean. In fact, I am not certain I even like him. This sort of admission is rare for me; I make a real effort to like people. But there is just something about Mr. Dean's irrational pugnacity that I dislike; he evokes in me the same sort of reaction I get when I hear James Carville or Paul Begala speak: I sense that they will say ANYTHING in order to win.

And to curtail any criticism that I am partisan in my dislike, let me say I am also no adorer of John McCain. But I do find myself liking McCain more this morning precisely because of what Howard Dean said in a release sent to the Democratic Party faithful:

"The American people have been waiting for a president who understands the challenges they face, not another out of touch Bush Republican who promises four more years of the same failed leadership. John McCain can try to reintroduce himself to the country, but he can't change the fact that he cast aside his principles to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with President Bush for the last seven years. While we honor McCain's military service, the fact is Americans want a real leader who offers real solutions, not a blatant opportunist who doesn't understand the economy and is promising to keep our troops in Iraq for 100 years." [emphasis mine]

John McCain a "blatant opportunist"? Really?

One wonders how Mr. Dean can be so wrong. For surely John McCain was not being opportunistic when he made his apparent statement that the US would be in Iraq for a 100 years: this odd sort of opportunism can only be seen as a man who marches to the beat of his own very singular convictions. Isn't the blatant opportunist that guy who jumps on a sudden, popular mood-swing and shouts that he's been feeling similarly? Isn't a blatant opportunist that guy who embraces the popular, especially that padded by recent polls? What's so opportunistic in telling the American voter that Iraq might be a 100-year struggle? And what's so opportunistic about being a Bush supporter in matters of national defense? Isn't President Bush loathed by everybody on the planet? Does Howard Dean even know what it means to be an "opportunist"?†

Oops!

But the facts on the ground, as they might say in military circles, give the lie to Mr. Dean's over-wrought pronouncement. John McCain was not saying that American troops should or would be engaged in military conflict in Iraq for 100 years. He was saying that he could justify an American presence in that country for 100 years, a presence identical to that which the Americans have in South Korea and Germany, you know, a post-conflict presence as peace-keeper, humanitarian and deterrent. Amazingly, Howard Dean and many anti-war protesters forget or ignore the real fact that Harry Truman's troops are still in Korea and Germany (not that they are really Truman's troops, but you get the picture). Plus, it is clear Mr. Dean is choosing to mislead because he hears in Mr. McCain's words a real threat: McCain is telling the truth, while Mr. Dean and those he wants to influence not only stop their ears, they muzzle those who speak plainly, even those in their own party.

But thanks be to ABC News' Jake Tapper (and the WSJ's James Taranto), for directing me (indirectly) to this quote from Howard Dean from 2004, when Dean was stumping for John Kerry:

"The real issue is this: Who would you rather have in charge of the defense of the United States of America, a group of people who never served a day overseas in their life, or a guy who served his country honorably and has three Purple Hearts and a Silver Star on the battlefields of Vietnam?"

Dean, perhaps blinded by his own sycophancy, clearly gives us fodder for ridicule, for clearly his man in 2004, John Kerry, never rose above the level of a blatant opportunist, at least when it came to throwing up his war credentials as points of honor. If John McCain is an opportunist for reminding us that he has military street cred, then what was John Kerry in 2004? (Taranto makes this point to greater effect, by the way.)

But more importantly, nothing proves that the blatant opportunist in all of this is Howard Dean himself.

Oops!

And to top things off, Mr. Dean mocks Mr. McCain's apparent lack of economic erudition. That's rich, indeed.

Isn't it self-evident that when Americans consider the paragons of all things economic, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Howard Dean are not the first -- or even the second, fifth or tenth -- names that come to mind?

Oops, again.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

†(Special thanks to Mort Kondracke, who made similar points last night on "Special Report.")

Obama's "Plagiarism": Shouldn't This Matter?

[This post first appeared at RedState.com on 2.20.08, with slight differences.]

Barack Obama's alleged plagiarism of Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick's 2006 campaign speech has been rather easily dismissed by many pundits, which surprises me. On Monday night's "The Special Report with Brit Hume", for example, The Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer snickered at the notion that Mr. Obama's failure to make due attribution was at all significant. Others I've listened to have also been rather dismissive.

Thankfully yesterday, James Taranto, the master of the brilliant "Best Of The Web Today" at the Wall Street Journal's website, at least treated Mr. Obama's deed -- or misdeed -- with more than a cupful of glee. Mr. Taranto said that what some folks failed to notice was that Mr. Obama (and Mr. Patrick) defended himself against the charge that he was all wind and no sail by giving us more wind. That the Clinton campaign failed to properly jump on this Mr. Taranto also notes; he avers that Mr. Obama's critics failed to quickly and effectively make the case that Mr. Obama's reliance on someone else's words proves that he is -- as the Clinton campaign has charged -- something of a breeze (a "fresh, clean" one, no doubt, in Joe Biden's mind).

(ALERT: Response from the Obama campaign: "The wind bloweth wheresoever it willeth. So it is every one who is born of the spirit ...")

But why would I bother here with this story? Surely it has nothing to do with me; surely we are outside this discussion, no?

First, I believe it is important because of what smacks of a double standard. Call me paranoid, or simply call me annoyed; but my sense is that if Mr. Obama was a conservative, we'd never hear the end of this story. If Mr. McCain lifted words from anyone, there would be countless discussions about his competency, trustworthiness, or moral authority.

Second, I believe it is important because of what is quite clearly overlooked, namely, that the Clinton campaign has again injected the race card into the presidential race. Surely you've heard of that other plagiarist, Martin Luther King Jr., no? You know, the one who apparently fudged most of his doctoral thesis at Boston University or lifted major portions of others' speeches for use in his own? No doubt the Clintons are disparaging Mr. Obama's penchant for borrowing phrases when they throw out the key word "plagiarist"; but they are also suggesting, are they not, that "black" leaders have a history of doing this?

Imagine if a conservative opponent to Mr. Obama had made a similar sort of accusation against him. "Racist" would be somewhere in every (related) headline in every major paper in the country ... for days. But since the accusation comes from a Democratic campaign, well, the issue can be largely ignored.

Finally, what also concerns me is that this sort of thing reveals the man behind the curtain: who we often elect is really the speech writer we never see. I recently read former George W. Bush speech writer Michael Gerson's book, Heroic Conservatism; the book made clear to me that Mr. Gerson was at times far more presidential than any president. This aspect of politics is troubling for what it suggests, namely, that who we see is more often a front man (or woman); more phantom than fact. (It is noted that among Mr. Obama's chief advisors is Deval Patrick's former campaign manager, indicating that Mr. Obama is perhaps not his own man.)

I am quick to accept Mr. Obama's explanation of what transpired: that he and Mr. Patrick are friends (they are) and that they exchange and share ideas all the time. I also accept that Mr. Obama admits that he should have given Mr. Patrick credit (though in a speech like Mr. Obama's, that can be somewhat awkward). What I fail to accept without some struggle is that this whole thing is rather insignificant.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2008/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Peggy Noonan On The Hill

Last week I directed readers to an incisive comment posted by James Taranto of OpinionJournal. Today I can't resist directing readers to Peggy Noonan's essay comparing Hillary Clinton and Margaret Thatcher. And like Mr. Taranto, Ms. Noonan pens one of the most trenchant comments I've seen in a long time. Here's what she said regarding Mr. Barack Obama's campaign to secure the Democratic presidential nomination vis-á-vis Mrs. William Clinton:

I am not sure of the salience of Mr. Obama's new-generational approach. Mrs. Clinton's generation, he suggests, is caught in the 1960s, fighting old battles, clinging to old divisions, frozen in time, and the way to get past it is to get past her. Maybe this will resonate. But I don't think Mrs. Clinton is the exemplar of a generation, she is the exemplar of a quadrant within a generation, and it is the quadrant the rest of us of that generation do not like. They came from comfort and stability, visited poverty as part of a college program, fashionably disliked their country, and cultivated a bitterness that was wholly unearned. They went on to become investment bankers and politicians and enjoy wealth, power or both.

It is a brilliant, devastating comment.

Ms. Noonan's essay makes me cheer for Mr. Obama; and it makes me wish I had met Ms. Thatcher.

Peace.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

IN ORDER

THE HOME OF THE BRAVE

In the United States of America, it is dangerous to protest the Bush regime. Heinous repercussions abound. One hears every day of dissenters being called 'unpatriotic,' or even 'enablers' of the enemy. Such brutality! The repression shocks even the most politically obdurate heart. I can hear God now: The wounded pride of these martyrs cries out to me from the ground!

Last week, James Taranto discussed the heroic acts of a few dissenters of the Ahmadinejad regime in Tehran. Though these protesters have much to fear, their fears pale in comparison to those experienced by American dissidents who speak truth to the 'real' power, George Bush. So perhaps Taranto's trenchant remarks will fall on deafened ears, ears bludgeoned and tortured by American expansionism and tyranny:

[The Iranian protest is] a reminder, too, of just what phonies and blowhards our American 'dissenters' are. They know it takes no courage to oppose a democratic government that holds freedom of speech sacrosanct. So they spin lurid fantasies of authoritarianism in order to convince themselves of their own bravery. [emphasis added]

One cannot find a more incisive statement ever penned about American anti-Bush protestations.

LIKE A BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATERS

I don't know about you, but I thought compassionate people care about children, especially children who do not have health insurance. David Limbaugh quotes the singular Paul Simon who recently spoke in favor the SCHIP legislation vetoed by President Bush:

The president's veto of the reauthorization of SCHIP appears to be a heartless act. I'm here today to ask those of you who supported the veto to reexamine your conscience, to find compassion in your heart for our most vulnerable and sweetest citizens, our children.

Heartless indeed. At least apparently. But I'm certain that Simon's statement proves that George W. Bush is not, nor was he ever, a compassionate conservative. After all, the ever-cerebral Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi put the whole thing in perspective yesterday:

And so my colleagues, we have a decision today to override the President's veto, which would be in my view the right thing to do for our children and for our country. It's not about compassion, it's about fairness…

And so I urge my colleagues to think about the children, to think about Bethany and the other children.…

The President is isolated in this. Don't join him in his isolation. Come forward on behalf of the children…

Let's give a vote for the children and against the President's veto. [emphasis added]

Since Ms. Pelosi is the supposed leader of the Democratic House, we can conclude from her remarks that her house is not about compassion, but fairness. That sounds fair to me. Compassion be damned, and so too compassionate liberalism.

Isn't it good to know that the household of the United States is in the hands of a person so capable of simplifying things?

GOOD NEWS FOR THAT 2006 MANDATE: It is SO last year!

Remember that mandate given to the Democrats after last year's mid-term elections? You remember -- when the Democrats gained control of both the Senate and the House? It's amazing how time flies when you lead so effectively. I mean, Congress currently has the lowest approval rating in the history of polling. Put another way, this is the worst Congress in history. Talk about squandering goodwill. But the best part of it all is knowing that Americans prefer ANY previous Congress -- even the "rubber stamping" Congress of 2005-06 -- to the Congress we now have in session. Stunning, isn't it?

And we thought Newt Gingrich was disliked.

But there is a bright side: My guess is that Europe loves this Congress. At least that is something in which we can take pride.

Peace.


©Bill Gnade/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

Prophet Of Bale

Supporters of atheist -- and ersatz philosopher -- Richard Dawkins have visited us at Contratimes. One supporter has even gone to rather great lengths to convince me that Mr. Dawkins is an original and compelling thinker. Today, I concede that he is:

A renowned atheist cited the "Jewish lobby" as a model for his campaign to promote atheism in the United States.

Richard Dawkins said he wanted to gain the same kind of influence as the Jewish lobby, saying it "monopolizes" U.S. foreign policy.

"When you think about how fantastically successful the Jewish lobby has been, though, in fact, they are less numerous I am told -- religious Jews anyway -- than atheists and [yet they] more or less monopolize American foreign policy as far as many people can see," Dawkins, a British evolutionary biologist who advocates atheism, told the Guardian newspaper. "So if atheists could achieve a small fraction of that influence, the world would be a better place."

Dawkins, an Oxford professor who wrote the best-seller "The God Delusion," told the Guardian that he wants to organize American atheists to counter the influence of religious groups.

"I think some sort of political organization is what they need," he said.

I wonder if Mr. Dawkins is the least bit suspicious that he might suffer from a Jew Delusion.

James Taranto, always wry and ironic, had this to say in response to Mr. Dawkins original thought:

Embracing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories does not seem the most effective way for atheists to expand their influence, at least not in America. Besides, to what end exactly does Dawkins seek to expand atheists' influence? Does he want to create a homeland for atheists, à la Israel? But there already was one--it was called the Soviet Union--and we all remember how well that worked out.

I concede that none of this destroys Mr. Dawkins' able arguments against the existence of God. Surely I can excuse his ignorance about America; I cannot expect him to know that a fairly large contingent of Christians in this country has vigorously defended Israel without any assistance from a "Jewish lobby." Consider Mr. Dawkins' ignorance of America excused. But I cannot absolve him of his blatant and public anti-Semitism; nor can I help him understand the capacious and able Christian mind he loathes. He may consider me deluded. But if his perspicacity leads to the type of thought quoted above, then I delight in the God Delusion.

(Perhaps Mr. Dawkins' remarks have been ripped from some justifying context. I would love to know.)

Peace.

BG

If you are interested in reading my starting points when discussing atheism, see my Letter to Christopher Hitchens.

©Bill Gnade 2007/Contratimes. All Rights Reserved.

HT: James Taranto/Wall Street Journal