Josh Marshall makes an interesting statement in his comment on my recent post about Mr. Clinton’s friends and business associates.

He states, as though it were a fact, that:

The post (on another blog) lists Marc Rich, the McDougals, and even people like David Hale, who, if you actually follow these things, you know had little if any actual connection to Clinton — as opposed to fictive connections manufactured later, etc. etc. etc.

I will grant that Marc Rich was probably not a close associate of Mr. Clinton, since he wasn’t allowed in the country (as far as we know)–Mr. Clinton simply received money in exchange for a pardon, on at least the appearance.

And it is possible, if one wishes to engage in extreme wishful thinking, to believe that Mr. Clinton was technically innocent of any crimes in Whitewater (though it strains the credulity of anyone truly familiar with the record). But to think that nothing shady occurred, or that Mr. Clinton had little or no connection to David Hale or the McDougals, who were his documented business partners, is delusional.

My respect for Mr. Marshall’s opinions has diminished considerably.

I don’t think so, but Yasser “Jihad” Arafat apparently does.

Responding to harsh criticism by US officials, Arafat also made an appeal yesterday to the American people in a program on the Qatari satellite channel Al- Jazeera, asking them to compare the Palestinian struggle against Israeli occupation to their own against British forces in the American War of Independence.

“Did you ever accept the British occupation of the United States,” Arafat asked. “Didn’t George Washington fight, along with his people, until they freed the United States?”

Obviously, my education of colonial history is deficient. I can’t recall reading about that part where England had millions of people living in cities on the east coast, and George Washington had the colonials strap black-powder balls to themselves and walk into New York shops to set them off.

I also must have been asleep in class on the day when they described how George Washington made speeches in English feigning conciliation and victimhood, and different speeches in colonialspeak urging his followers to drive all English men, women and children into the Atlantic.

And I must have cut class the day they explained how Washington, listening to the wise council of the French, and Spanish and Italians, urged him and his followers to withdraw from their own land to Mexico, and wait for the ultimate war that would defeat those evil Englishpeople living in America, after which they would be able to have all of the territory, even that part of it which had been legally granted by treaty. And that when that war was launched, and ignominiously lost, that George Washington started up bands of terrorists to kill innocent English civilians.

I was apparently taught by some historical revisionist that George Washington was fighting an empire across the sea, and that he waged war on the armed forces of that country, many of them mercenaries–not on innocent civilians in Philadelphia.

But I’m sure that now that Yasser has straightened us out, he will receive appropriate respect from world leaders. Maybe he’ll even get another well-deserved Nobel Peace Prize…

[Update at 3:30 PM]

UPI Columnist Jim Bennett provides an alternate point of view:

Actually, there were millions of English people living on the Eastern seaboard. Washington was one of them. The equivalent of the Arabs were the Indians, who did try terrorist tactics for a long time. In fairness, that was the way they always fought. And the surrounding powers did try to aid the Indians, while mostly exploiting them for their own strategic purposes.

But I don’t suppose Arafat would find the analogy of use in appealing to
Americans. It’s also not hopeful to the Palestinians.

Apparently, the International Space Station is going to serve as a poster child for government waste.

And they said it wouldn’t be useful for anything…

Apparently there are still a few unrepentent socialists left in the former Soviet Union. Cosmonaut Valentin Lebedev isn’t very happy about this new-fangled free-enterprise Russian space program, in which people can travel into space by simply (horrors!) paying money.

It is a frightening trend; why, if this keeps up, it might eventually lead to free enterprise in that last proud bastion of socialist manned space programs–the USA.

[Thanks to Jim Bennett for the link]

Apparently there are still a few unrepentent socialists left in the former Soviet Union. Cosmonaut Valentin Lebedev isn’t very happy about this new-fangled free-enterprise Russian space program, in which people can travel into space by simply (horrors!) paying money.

It is a frightening trend; why, if this keeps up, it might eventually lead to free enterprise in that last proud bastion of socialist manned space programs–the USA.

[Thanks to Jim Bennett for the link]

Apparently there are still a few unrepentent socialists left in the former Soviet Union. Cosmonaut Valentin Lebedev isn’t very happy about this new-fangled free-enterprise Russian space program, in which people can travel into space by simply (horrors!) paying money.

It is a frightening trend; why, if this keeps up, it might eventually lead to free enterprise in that last proud bastion of socialist manned space programs–the USA.

[Thanks to Jim Bennett for the link]

According to this article, Johnny Jihad wanted to have four wives, per the custom of the particular sect of Islam that he’d adopted.

Sheesh, why didn’t he just move to northern Arizona?

An official of the Palestinian Authority (i.e., in Arafat’s pay) made a fiery speech at a mosque denouncing the US, and declaring us infidels.

Hmmmm… wasn’t one of the lessons that we were supposed to learn from 911 was that, if someone says they want to kill you, believe them?

As someone who originally hails from the Land of Big Sea Waters, I particularly enjoyed Will Warren’s latest masterpiece.

Financial Times informs us that some of the mullahs aren’t happy with a US presence in Afghanistan, and view Karzai as “an American stooge.”

Well, I’m wondering why we should care if a bunch of Islamofascists are unhappy.

So, they don’t find our presence acceptable? Well, we don’t find flying airplanes into our inhabited skyscrapers acceptable either, and they’d better realize that we’ll stay there as long as we think we need to in order to prevent future recurrences. And if there’s a split developing within the Iranian power structure, as this article implies, we need to encourage it.