Obama leaves his balls in his golf bag

"He that would make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself."-Thomas Paine

LAKE WORTH – A funny thing happened in the fascist nation of Iran last week.

An “election” for the Iranian Presidency was held. The people of Iran went to the polls to vote for hope and change.

Millions of voters waited many hours on line and cast their votes. It was a record turnout.

When the votes were allegedly counted, the rulers of this fascist nation quickly proclaimed the incumbent a winner by a landslide, even though it was a lie.

The funny thing is that the oppressed Iranian people refused to accept the results. They knew their government was lying. They hit the streets and staged violent protests against the Fascist government and the winner, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, one of the most dangerous men in today’s world.

The world watches with anticipation to see if the people of Iran, through protest in the streets, anticipated general strikes, and other action can overthrow their brutal theocracy.

Shamefully, the United States, lead by President Barak Obama, has basically said or done nothing to help or support them.

Thomas Jefferson once said that “The tree of liberty must be refreshed fromtime to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure."

The tree of liberty is attempting to take root in Iran and the blood of democrats is spilling in the streets there.

What is happening in the streets of Iran is a fight for basic human rights and democratic rule. It is also the rebirth of the hope and vision of democratic rule, this time in the Middle East.

Freedom from tyranny too often has to be fought for and born out of bloodshed.

President Obama, in his first real foreign affairs challenge, has chosen a very predictable cautionary approach. He says little-really, absolutely nothing at all.

President “Hope and Change” claims he does not want to give the Iranian dictatorship an excuse to blame the United States for meddling in Iran’s internal affairs.

Obama just doesn’t have the guts to take a hard stand. As usual, our politically correct President is afraid to offend other tyrants in the Middle East and the world with meaningful, harsh words of support for the demonstrators in their pursuit of freedom and human rights, something his predecessor to his credit was never afraid to do.

Obama rationalized his inaction, stating he did not see much difference between the present President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his opponent Mir Hossein Mousavi, despite the fact that Mousavi is viewed as a reformer in a contest of religious extremists.

While Mousavi is no Thomas Jefferson, he is a ray of hope that Iran can begin to transition itself from fascism.

The President has chosen to sit back and be guarded in assisting and encouraging the protestors, despite the fact that the present government of Iran has instigated violence by being the benefactor of terrorist organizations in Iraq and other nations in the Middle East.

What is Obama scared of? That the US will get blamed for instigating democratic change in a regime that is an enemy of not only our country, but every democratic principle this country stands for. We are going to get the blame anyway.

American soldiers are dying daily because of treacherous Iranian interference in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the nations of the world.

Why should be afraid of strongly supporting the efforts of people trying to overthrow a Fascist theocracy that is destabilizing the world? Why should we be afraid of telling the people of Iran that we strongly support an overthrow of their government and all that it stands for?

What would happen if our President got up and said that we strongly support the efforts of the oppressed to democratize their government?

With such words coming from the great Obama, it would electrify the effort in Iran. Would it put more people in the streets of Iranian cities? Absolutely. Would it help to destabilize one of our worst enemies in the world? Absolutely.

Most importantly, it would absolutely show that America did not sit back and say basically nothing at an historic moment when another country in the Middle East was starting down the road to democratic rule?

Would strong words in support of the street protesters from Obama make America look great again? Absolutely.

While our President was taking Father’s Day off to play some golf, the United States officially remained muted in its support for the bloodied protesting for their children’s future in the streets of Iran.

As he shut off his Blackberry and was teeing off, thousands and thousands of people in the United States and the world followed accounts of pitched battles and demonstrations on Twitter, a new messenger of the democratic dream-the American Dream.

Americans also tweeted back that unlike their government, the people of the United States were enthusiastic supporters of the protesters in Iran.

Next week, we will celebrate the day our American forefathers declared
independence from tyrannical rule, the day that officially began the American democratic experience that continues to be the model of freedom throughout our world.

July 4th would be a very good time for our President, who loves to give monumental speeches every week, to give another great speech, this one stating unconditional support for the street protesters in Iran.

President Obama needs to ignore safe polticial instinct and find the fortitude to proclaim our great moral support for those looking shedding their blood in the streets of Iran-drawing parallels to the same way the American experiment was ignited in the streets of Boston against the colonial British.

The least our President on July 4th before he goes to a barbeque or plays golf is grab his Blackberry and send a tweet proclaiming that our minds and hearts are with the Iranian demonstrators as we celebrate our Independence Day.

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Recent Kurlykomments Tweets:

On July 4th, 2009, you think Americans should be dedicating the day to the protesters in Iran & their fight to overturn fascism & tyranny?
Send following email to Iran at iran@un.int :"Free Iran from Islamic fascism-report and respect true result of Presidential vote-Free Iran"
Hungry and Prague revisited? How come Obama isn't forcefully showing support for those demonstrating in Iran-long live the Bush Doctrine! If you are thinking of a trip to Hawaii next week, you might want to check out the Army/Navy store for some accessories
Age Discrimination in workplace is rampant in recessionary times & SC was totally wrong to judicially legislate high standard of proof.
Minnesota senate debacle shows need for "do over"elections if results statistically even-if within 100ths of pt.Judges shouldn't decide race
More regulation w/o antitrust action by Obama is useless. Need to break up inefficient giants & allow more competiton-natural m/p regulation
Wondering if a starbucks drink has more calories than a Big Mac,
MDs want caps in malpractice cases, but what about better policing & elimination of bad doctors who continue to practice and hurt and kill? Tweeting/blogging stimulating revoltuion in Iran.Revolutionize biz by blogging. http://bit.ly/1ayrbv

Time for courts to decide a decent joke

www.stevenkurlander.com

KurlyReaders:

Since innuendos about Thomas Jefferson’s sexual behavior were circulated in newspapers at the turn of the 19th century, American politicians have had to endure defaming remarks about their private conduct. This week, I examine whether a recent sexual joke by David Letterman concerning a daughter of Governor Sarah Palin was slander. I argue that Palin should sue Letterman not only to right the wrong against her daughter, but to challenge the accepted mores of our society which tolerates jokes and messages of violent sexual behavior toward American women.

Please give me feedback by emailing me at skurl@aol.com.

Have a great week. Kurly.

Time for courts to decide a decent joke

Any woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke. That's their natural and first weapon. -Gloria Steinem

LAKE WORTH – Last week, David Letterman once again made a not so funny, indecent “joke” at the expense of Governor Sarah Palin-actually, this time, it was about her 14 year old daughter Willow.

After attending an autism event near New York City, Governor Palin and her husband took her daughter Willow to a baseball game at Yankee Stadium. A snide Letterman told his audience that the Alaska governor suffered an awkward moment while attending the game:

“During the seventh inning, her daughter was knocked up by Alex Rodriguez.”

Palin rightfully called the joke an insult to young women and Letterman in turn stated that he had meant to joke about Palin’s older daughter Bristol, who recently had a baby out of wedlock.
When Palin basically called Letterman a dirty old man, he argued back that he would have never made an obscene joke about a 14 year old.

So is a bad joke about the wrong daughter so bad and offensive that it deserves all the consideration it is getting?

Letterman’s joke and his defense that the wrong daughter was the butt of the joke are evidence of a conventional tolerance of indecency and cruelty toward political figures, particularly women. Often, as evidenced by Letterman’s joke, members of political families become derivative victims of despicable political pundits and comedians.

The Letterman joke has sparked a debate about a number of issues surrounding both Governor Palin and women in politics, including the fixation by liberal pundits to be totally unfair and cruel to Palin, the acceptance of the use of negative sexual connotations toward women in politics, and the hypocrisy of the leftist, feminist double standard that exists in regard to Palin and other conservative women when it comes to them being negatively attacked in chauvinistic rather than racist terms (it can be framed as the Imus v. Letterman syndrome).

But another major issue that arises from Letterman’s “comic” reference to Willow Palin is whether our libel and slander laws are outdated and inadequate when it comes to public figures being subjected to a lack of decency and sexuality appropriateness, even in the context of protections afforded to the press and speech by our constitution.

David Letterman has every right to make jokes, comments, and observations about Sarah Palin and every other Republican he may hate. Yet, he stepped over the line with the joke about Governor Palin’s daughter (either one ).

As guardians of Willow, Governor Palin and her husband Todd should sue Letterman for making such a vulgar, slanderous remark (so should A-Rod-while he may not be the most drug-free player or faithful husband, he is not a child rapist). The kid, and especially her sexuality, should be off limits to a national audience, no matter if the child appears in public with her famous mother. It’s called common sense decency.

The benchmark case in regard to this issue is New York Times v. Sullivan, which was decided in the early 1960s by the Warren Court. That case was decided in the context surrounding the media reporting of the civil rights movement, when libel and slander laws were used by segregationists to discourage reporting of civil rights events in the South.

The Sullivan decision stated that in order for a public figure to prevail in a defamation case, an “actual malice” standard must be proven, which requires that the public figure prove that the publisher or speaker of the statement must have known that it was false or acted in total disregard of its truth or falsity.

The standard is a very high one for a plaintiff to prove. The result has been that public and political figures have been basically free targets to brutal character assassination in this country for the last 45 years.

Palin has an important opportunity to change an outdated status quo in suing Letterman, CBS, and other companies involved in the production of his program. She should attempt to have the courts throw out Sullivan’s “malicious” standard.
Instead, Palin should seek the establishment of a common sense balancing test between basic decency and privacy concerns for public figures-and their families- and the right to free speech and press, particularly in terms of dialogue concerning sexual violence toward women.

If Letterman refuses to be decent enough to apologize about for the joke itself instead of not using the right name (and milk the controversy to get his ratings up), he needs to state in a court of law how the violent sexual nature of the “joke” was not indecent and slanderous as it pertains to Willow individually and women in general.

If Imus (who really did the correct thing right away by apologizing profusely) had to lose his livelihood for his really stupid racist, sexist remark, Letterman deserves to endure equal pain for his equally inane joke.

So on behalf of her family, all American women and public figures in this country (and Republicans too), Governor Palin needs to challenge the armies of the status quo by fighting back legally, challenging self righteous, nasty douche bags like Letterman in court so at least they, and their media parents, will think twice next time before telling an obscene joke about women and the sexuality of a politician’s child.

Isaac Asimov once stated that “Jokes of the proper kind, properly told, can do more to enlighten questions of politics, philosophy, and literature than any number of dull arguments.”
Letterman’s jokes, as well as commentaries by others, about Sarah Palin have always been nasty, overdone, and far from enlightening. It is time that political pundits like him were challenged. Good people don’t run for high public office because of the sleazy, slanderous crap they and their families have to endure from people like Letterman. Governor Palin should sue and eventually have the last laugh in this matter.

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