Responsible Cable News Outlets To Devote Sensible Amount Of Airtime To 10th Anniversary Of 9/11

September 5, 2011 | ISSUE 47•36

• God Legally Changes Name To Jake Steele
  09.08.99

NEW YORK—Promising to cover the event responsibly and with the kind of delicate restraint it deserves, the nation's cable news outlets announced Monday that while they would be devoting some airtime to the 10th anniversary of 9/11, they "certainly wouldn't be going overboard with it."

The major networks confirmed their coverage would "of course" be tasteful and brief.

According to the news providers, they only intend to devote 15 minutes of coverage to the anniversary, tops, saying it is their obligation as professional journalists to do justice to the victims' memories as opposed to using the occasion for their own ratings gain.

In addition, network representatives admitted it would be lazy news reporting to use the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks as an excuse to fill up hundreds of hours of programming with repetitive video packages and anchors repeatedly asking their guests, "How did 9/11 change America?"

"We're planning to send one reporter to Ground Zero, have him tape a couple of two-minute segments, nothing too crazy, and that should pretty much do it," said CNN's senior vice president of programming Katherine Green, adding that the 24-hour news channel would not be making 9/11 the focus of every single program on the network because, according to Green, "What more is there to say, really?" "We'll also briefly check in with Anderson Cooper at the Pentagon, and that will be the only time we hear from him during the entirety of our coverage."

"Then our plan is to do what other American cable news providers presumably will be doing," she added. "We'll go back to reporting that never panders to viewers, but instead challenges them and forces them to step outside their own bubble by making them aware of all the truly newsworthy events happening in the world."

Along with Green, representatives from MSNBC, CNBC, HLN, and Fox News immediately ruled out doing an entire week of pre-anniversary coverage, calling it a waste of time, resources, and potentially exploitative to family members who lost a loved one on 9/11.

The networks also said they would not be designing an "America Remembers" graphic to be constantly plastered across the bottom third of the television screen; wouldn't even think about conducting "trite, unoriginal, and what basically amounts to filler" man-on-the-street interviews that ask citizens where they were on 9/11; and, calling it "sensationalism just for the sake of sensationalism," wouldn't repeatedly show archived footage of airplanes colliding into the Twin Towers and New Yorkers running away from the collapsed buildings.

Sources at Fox News confirmed that at no time during their coverage would they use the anniversary as an excuse to paint the Obama administration as weak on terrorism.

"I would imagine some might think that because it's the 10th anniversary, we would latch on to the whole '10th' aspect and blow it completely out of proportion," MSNBC national news director Derrick Lipton said. "But we're smarter than that. Our viewers are smarter than that. If anything, we'll maybe cut back to Ground Zero when Presidents Obama and Bush leave the memorial service. And then maybe we'll have Tom Brokaw on to talk about what it was like covering the event 10 years ago. If we do that, we'll probably do commercial bumpers where we show images of the two beams of blue light shining up into the night sky, footage of Bush with his bullhorn saying, "Well, I can hear you," and maybe something that represents the human side of the tragedy, like people tacking up pictures of their loved ones. That's it. But then I suppose we could also have [former mayor Rudy] Giuliani on because, well, I don't know why. He won't say anything he hasn't said before, but it just feels like we should have him on, especially if Fox has him on. We could probably fill a bunch of time with the whole anthrax thing that came afterward, maybe do an entire terrorism retrospective that would look big and flashy but add no new information whatsoever, and just rerun that over and over and over again. Maybe throw in some of that mosque stuff. And then, oh, this would be perfect, we do profiles on the families who lost their loved ones on the Pennsylvania plane. We'll act as if we're shining a light on something that's been ignored, but really it hasn't been ignored, because over the past 10 years there have been 4,000 similar segments done about the circumstances surrounding that flight."

"But that's not what we're all about," he added. "We're better than that."

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Secret & Barbaro write: “Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg acknowledged on Sunday that he had concealed the domestic violence arrest of former Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, but said he would not apologize for his actions, even as Mr. Goldsmith said he regretted keeping the event secret. “

Columnist Michael Powell

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Michael Powell on government and politics.

report: “Now 10 years into his mayoralty, Michael R. Bloomberg still tends to view the office of the mayor as akin to a hallway at Bloomberg L.P.”

What Democrats can do about Obama

Sunday, Sep 4, 2011 08:45 ET

By Matt Stoller

• 
  

AP

President Barack Obama

From the debt ceiling fiasco to the recent rescheduling of a jobs speech at the behest of Speaker Boehner, it has not been a good summer for President Obama. Like Chinese water torture, Gallup's daily tracking poll has shown a steady and unrelenting drip of bad news. He has been in and out of the high 30s for his approval, and in the low to mid-50s for his disapproval.

George W. Bush's approval rating didn't drop this low until Katrina hit. And on the economy, 71 percent of Americans disapprove of how Obama is doing his job. Even among reliably Democratic groups -- union households, women and young people -- he's now unpopular.

No one, not even the president's defenders, expect his coming jobs speech to mean anything. When the president spoke during a recent market swoon, the market dropped another 100 points. Democrats may soon have to confront an uncomfortable truth, and ask whether Obama is a suitable choice at the top of the ticket in 2012. They may then have to ask themselves if there's any way they can push him off the top of the ticket.

That these questions have not yet been asked in any serious way shows how weak the Democratic Party is as a political organization. Yet this political weakness is not inevitable, it can be changed through courage and collective action by a few party insiders smart and principled enough to understand the value of a public debate, and by activists who are courageous enough to face the real legacy of the Obama years.

Obama has ruined the Democratic Party. The 2010 wipeout was an electoral catastrophe so bad you'd have to go back to 1894 to find comparable losses. From 2008 to 2010, according to Gallup, the fastest growing demographic party label was former Democrat. Obama took over the party in 2008 with 36 percent of Americans considering themselves Democrats. Within just two years, that number had dropped to 31 percent, which tied a 22-year low.

Of course, there are many rationalizations for Obama to remain the nominee. He's faced difficult opposition. He's passed major legislation. His presidency is historic. The economy is hard to resuscitate. But all such rationalizations evade the party's responsibilities to actually choose the nominee best suited to win votes. If Obama looks unlikely to get enough votes to win, he should not get the nomination.

If would be one thing if Obama were failing because he was too close to party orthodoxy. Yet his failures have come precisely because Obama has not listened to Democratic Party voters. He continued idiotic wars, bailed out banks, ignored luminaries like Paul Krugman, and generally did whatever he could to repudiate the New Deal. The Democratic Party should be the party of pay raises and homes, but under Obama it has become the party of pay cuts and foreclosures. Getting rid of Obama as the head of the party is the first step in reverting to form.

So why isn't there a legitimate primary challenger to Obama to make this case? Forty years ago, primaries were instituted in the Democratic Party as a response to party insiders having too much influence over nominations. These reforms were implemented before the prevalence of money in politics was as extreme as it is now. At this point, primary challenges are so expensive that a serious 2012 campaign would ironically require support of party insiders for viability. The party, inflexible as it was in 1968, is perhaps even more rigid today. As a result, no candidate has stepped up to challenge Obama in a primary, even though 32 percent of Democratic voters want one.

This is an institutional crisis for Democrats. The groups that fund and organize the party -- an uneasy alliance of financiers, conservative technology interests, the telecommunications industry, healthcare industries, labor unions, feminists, elite foundations, African-American church networks, academic elites, liberals at groups like MoveOn, the ACLU and the blogosphere -- are frustrated, but not one of them has broken from the pack. In remaining silent, they give their assent to the right-wing policy framework that first George W. Bush, and now Barack Obama, cemented in place. It will be nearly impossible to dislodge such a framework without starting within the Democratic Party itself.

In other words, party inflexibility has a price. If the economy worsens going into the fall, and the president continues as he has to attempt to cut Social Security, Democrats might be facing a Carter-Reagan scenario. Reagan, at first considered a lightweight candidate, ended up winning a landslide victory that devastated the Democratic Party in 1980. Carter wasn't the only loss; many significant liberal senators, such as George McGovern, John Culver and Birch Bayh, fell that year.

Today, it's clear that certain Democratic constituency groups -- unions especially -- are on their deathbed. A reinvigoration of debate over the nature of the American workplace is desperately needed, yet labor leaders seem to prefer supplicating quietly to politicians who betray them. This is not inevitable. People can show dignity.

So what can party leaders do? History offers one model. In 1892, the Democratic Party nominated Grover Cleveland, and with sweeping majorities in both houses, Democrats had control of the federal government for the first time since before the Civil War. Then a financial crisis, plus Cleveland's stubborn allegiance to banking interests, turned his presidency into a catastrophe for Democrats.

When taking state candidates into account, the 1894 midterm elections were comparable to the 2010 wipeout; Cleveland was disliked so ardently that party leaders pushed him out of running for reelection. Instead the Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan, who introduced many populist themes into the party and began the ideological transformation that would culminate with the election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932.

History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme. If a few of the key constituency groups in the Democratic Party publicly wondered whether Obama should run for reelection, rumblings would start. Some organized constituency groups -- say some components of the AFL-CIO -- would need to announce that their support is up for grabs, based on a clear set of criteria. Given the Obama administration's rampant anti-labor policies, this wouldn't be an unreasonable posture. And then a senior politician, like, say, a Tom Harkin, would need to decide that he would want to encourage robust intra-party debate about the party's future.

Harkin could run as a "favorite son" of Iowa, and encourage people in the caucuses to send a message to the party and to Obama by choosing him. Other candidates could then emerge in early primary and caucus states, as a way of repudiating Obama's leadership. Candidates wouldn't have to pretend to be running for president or be presidential quality; they could simply stand in as favorite sons or daughters of their own geographic area. This would immediately fire up a highly aggressive and needed debate about the direction of the Democratic Party and the country at large. It would build a new set of leaders, and elevate others who would like to distance themselves from the Obama policy agenda.

In a few months, we'll know better if Obama still looks like a loser next year. If he does, that does not mean the Democratic Party must follow him down the path to oblivion.

For Obama, the die is cast. He has put forward his economic program, and it will work to return jobs and income, and get the votes, or it won't. Knocking on doors won't change that, nor will a donation in a $6 billion election season. What can change the reality of 2012 is if Richard Trumka, the president of the AFL-CIO, begins to take his job of representing workers seriously, and one or two establishment Democrats who remember liberalism decide to model courage for the younger generation. Then a robust debate can happen. Only by shaking up the current political order will solutions emerge.

Such debates tend to create institutional reforms -- the vibrant antiwar blogosphere of 2002-2006, and eventually the Obama campaign itself, emerged out of such a series of debates. Such a debate would also force the Obama campaign to come up with some answers to questions it would prefer to defer until after the election: Where are the jobs, and what is the plan to stop foreclosures? It would allow millions of Americans who have been hurt -- and who have benefited -- from administration policies, to have their say.

I wish I could say I was optimistic that party leaders will step forward and start the debate Democratic voters need. As for many, the last few years have shattered my faith in the political process. Obama has basically endorsed every major plank of George Bush's administration, yet Democrats still grant their approval. What we're finding out is that Obama's pathologically pro-establishment and conflict-averse DNA was funded by party insiders and embraced by liberal constituency groups in 2008 for a reason.

Political parties need to be flexible enough to allow for new ideas to come into the process, or else third parties or civil disorder are inevitable. All it would take to provide this flexibility are well-known Democratic elders who understand that rank and file Democrats deserve a choice, and a few political insiders who realize that they can increase their own power by encouraging a robust debate. I don't think this will happen. But just imagine if it did.

Matt Stoller is a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute. His twitter feed is @matthewstoller and he can be reached at stoller at gmail.com.

Oakland Pot Expo Sets-up in Front of City Hall

Organizers of the International Cannabis and Hemp Expo set up a designated toking area, for medical marijuana users, in front city hall in Oakland, California. The marijuna street festival featured everything from bong sellers to bands.

El Diario documents the Latino Experience of Sept. 11th

leguizamospromo_2.mp3, ElDiario_911_Project_120x600.jpg, ElDiario_911_Project_300x250.jpg, ElDiario_911_Project_728x90.jpg

El Diario / La Prensa, the Spanish language daily newspaper in New York, has launched a multimedia project that documents the Latino experience of the Sept. 11^th tragedy.

"Sept. 11th...the Latino experience / Nuestra Experiencia" -available at www.eldiariony.com- offers portraits of Hispanic victims, their families, and of survivors and responders. Along with a two-week print series, the project also examines the impact of 9/11 on Latinos in multiple areas.

The public can share their own 9/11 stories by logging-on to the site, and clicking “¿Dónde estabas ese día?” (Where were you that day?) link. Testimonials can be recorded in English or Spanish language. In other interactive tools, users can also express how they feel 10 years after the 9/11 tragedy, and they can also add a tribute to individual Hispanic victims listed in the archive.

The editorial team at El Diario dedicated months to researching and reporting for the news project. The resulting archive of the Latino experience of Sept. 11 has major historic value, as it features the perspectives of individuals not found elsewhere. Woven together, the compelling testimonies and reports document the Latino experience of Sept. 11th.

That devastating day changed America forever. And in New York, it altered the course of an election that could have ushered in the first Hispanic mayor of New York City; it shifted the real estate landscape, which, in turn, affected Latino communities already struggling with gentrification; and it set off a chain of policies that have had far-reaching consequences for immigrants.

Special reports in El Diario's print edition started on August 30th and will culminate with a commemorative edition of El Diario to be published on Sunday, Sept. 11th.

The project also includes partnerships with other media outlets, including Spanish-language radio stations in NYC, and sharing content with WAPA-TV in Puerto Rico and WAPA-America in the U.S. for a one-hour television special about 9/11, “El Día que el mundo cambió – 10d”, hosted by Sonia Valentin. The special will air on Saturday, Sept. 10^th at 9:00 pm.

El Diario has lauched a public awareness campaign featuring actor John Leguizamo urging Latinos to document their 9/11 stories. For more information and to participate, visit www.eldiariony.com.

Hello all! /Hola a todos!

(YFP: To the friends and readers of this blog, I urge you to donate what you can afford, and support Eva Sanchis on her race in London next Sunday the 10th anniversary of 9/11 to helps the torture survivors obtain justice all over the world).

Hello all!

Next Sunday September 11th, I'll run a race in London to raise money for REDRESS, the NGO I work for. It helps torture survivors obtain justice in tribunals and courts around the world, including the International Criminal Court. My goal is to raise at least 100 pounds to help our lawyers with their work. If you wish, you can know more about my organization here: www.redress.org, and donate anything that you can afford in my page: http://www.justgiving.com/Eva-Sanchis I would also be grateful if you could share this message with your friends.

Your donations will help fund legal representation for victims, offer victims assistance so they can testify in court, help log formal complaints against the responsible institutions, etc. For example, we recently helped three Rwandan genocide survivors testify against a genocide suspect in the Netherlands. They were the only survivors who were able to testify. Apart from these victims, we are currently helping over 1,200 survivors.

Despite being forbidden by international law, torture is still widely used around the world, so believe, your help is really important.

Un abrazo,

Eva

Hola a todos!

El próximo 11 de septiembre correré una carrera para recaudar fondos para REDRESS, la organización para la que trabajo, que irán destinados a ayudar a víctimas de tortura a obtener justicia en tribunales y cortes de todo el mundo, incluida la Corte Penal International. Mi objetivo es recaudar al menos 100 libras para apoyar el trabajo de mis abogados. Si podeis y os viene bien, por favor mirar nuestra página web: www.redress.org y donad cualquier cantidad que os venga bien en esta página: http://www.justgiving.com/Eva-Sanchis. También os agradecería si pudierais compartir este mensaje con otros amigos.

El dinero estará destinado a facilitar representación legal a víctimas, ayudarlas para que puedan testificar en un juicio, presentar quejas formales contra los organismos pertinentes, etc. Por ejemplo, hace poco ayudamos a tres víctimas de Ruanda para que pudieron testificar en Holanda contra un acusado de participar en el genocidio de 1994. Fueron las únicas víctimas que pudieron testificar en el proceso. Además, estamos ayudando a 1,200 víctimas más.

A pesar de estar prohibida por la ley internacional, la tortura sigue usada con frecuencia en decenas de países del mundo, así que vuestra ayuda, creedme, es muy importante.

Un abrazo,

Eva

Obama, Democrats Losing Labor Union Support

SAM HANANEL 09/ 4/11 10:31 AM ET

WASHINGTON — In the early days of the Obama administration, organized labor had grand visions of pushing through a sweeping agenda that would help boost sagging membership and help revive union strength.

Now labor faces this reality: Public employee unions are in a drawn-out fight for their very survival in Wisconsin, Ohio and other states where GOP lawmakers have curbed collective bargaining rights.

Also, many union leaders are grousing that the president they worked so hard to elect has not focused enough on job creation and other bold plans to get their members back to work.

"Obama campaigned big, but he's governing small," said Larry Hanley, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union.

Labor remains a core Democratic constituency and union leaders will stand with Obama in Detroit this Labor Day, where he will address thousands of rank-and-file members during the city's annual parade Monday.

But at the same time, unions have begun shifting money and resources out of Democratic congressional campaigns and back to the states in a furious effort to reverse or limit GOP measures that could wipe out union rolls.

The AFL-CIO's president, Richard Trumka, says it's part of a new strategy for labor to build an independent voice separate from the Democratic Party.

Union donations to federal candidates at the beginning of this year were down about 40 percent compared with the same period in 2009, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Last month, a dozen trade unions said they would boycott next year's Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., over frustration on the economy and to protest the event's location in a right-to-work state.

"The pendulum has swung a long way," said Ross Eisenbrey, a vice president of the liberal Economic Policy Institute. "In the next year, I think all unions can really hope for is to keep more bad things from happening and to get as much of a jobs program enacted as possible."

Unions fell short last month in their recall campaign to wrest control of the Wisconsin Senate from Republicans. That fight was a consequence of Gov. Scott Walker's proposal to eliminate collective bargaining rights for public-employee unions as a part of a cost-cutting effort. Now they are spending millions more in Ohio, where they hope to pass a statewide referendum in November that would repeal a similar measure limiting union rights.

It's a far cry from the early optimism unions had after Obama came into office. Back then, unions hoped a Democratic-controlled Congress would pass legislation to make it easier for unions to organize workers. But business groups fought that proposal hard, and it never came to a vote.

Union leaders grew more disappointed when the president's health care overhaul didn't include a government-run insurance option. Then Obama agreed to extend President George W. Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy.

Obama came out in favor of trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama that most unions say will cost American jobs. Despite campaigning in favor of raising the minimum wage from $7.25 to $9.50 an hour, Obama hasn't touched the issue since taking office.

It didn't help that Obama declined union invitations to go to Wisconsin, where thousands of protesters mobilized against the anti-union measure. Candidate Obama had promised to "put on sneakers" and walk a picket line himself when union rights were threatened.

Obama has handed labor smaller victories that didn't have to go through Congress, like granting the nation's 44,000 airport screeners limited collective bargaining rights for the first time. The National Labor Relations Board and other agencies filled with Obama's appointees have made it easier for unions to organize workers in the airline, railroad and health care industries.

The NLRB has taken a beating from Republicans after filing a lawsuit that accuses Boeing of opening a new plant in South Carolina in retaliation against union workers in Washington state.

"The field has tilted against labor so that whatever small victories they get are just tinkering around the edges and get tremendous pushback by conservatives," said Nelson Lichtenstein, director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

But labor's frustration with Obama reached new heights this summer as Trumka accused him of working with tea party Republicans on deficit reduction instead of "stepping up to the plate" on jobs.

Labor unions and other liberal groups want Obama to push a major stimulus bill with hundreds of billions of dollars in new spending on infrastructure projects like roads, bridges and transit systems. Even if it's rejected in the GOP-controlled House, unions want to see Obama show more leadership and take a bold stand in favor of stimulus spending.

That's not likely to happen. Constrained by budget cuts and a tight debt ceiling, Obama is expected to propose a limited package worth far less than the $787 billion stimulus passed in 2009.

The plan will call on Congress to extend current payroll tax cuts and jobless benefits, spend money for new construction projects and offer incentives to businesses to hire more workers.

James Hoffa, general president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, said Obama should challenge businesses with healthy bottom lines to spend more in the U.S. by hiring new workers, building plants and expanding operations. If they don't, Hoffa said, Obama should call them out as disloyal.

"I think the president should challenge the patriotism of these American corporations that are sitting on the sidelines," Hoffa said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union."

He added, "We've got to turn this around and say, `Hey, we are an American company. We owe an obligation to America. Let's put America back to work.'"

Labor Secretary Hilda Solis defended Obama from liberal critics, saying the administration has established many programs to create jobs, worked to extend unemployment insurance benefits and helped save the auto industry.

"The president is very concerned about job creation," Solis told reporters at the National Press Club. "That been our priority from day one."

Union face a tougher challenge in the states.

Walker wanted to patch the state's budget shortfall by requiring state workers to pay more for their health care and pension benefits. He said curbing bargaining rights was important in the long term to prevent unions from reversing the move in future negotiations.

Republican Wisconsin state Rep. Robin Vos said the big money spent by pro-labor forces in the recall elections shows "that they're not about protecting workers rights, they're about protecting political power."

"This is the last grasp of those political bosses to be able to showcase why they need to have the political power, and they lost," he said.

Conservatives say Walker's measure has done just what it promised, closing budget shortfalls without laying off teachers and other workers.

"As the changes have had time to sink in, people appear to be accepting it, and it appears to be part of the new status quo," said James Sherk, a policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation.

A measure passed in Tennessee this year ended collective bargaining for teachers unions in the state. In Oklahoma, lawmakers repealed a law that had required large municipalities to collectively bargain with municipal employees.

"The fact that you didn't see much pushback in those states, I think, is significant," Sherk said.

Union leaders see a more sinister plan not only to cut union benefits, but to crush unions altogether, along with their political largesse to Democrats. The Wisconsin law, for example, bans automatic withdrawal of union dues and requires public unions to hold annual votes to avoid decertification.

In Ohio, unions are more hopeful that they can win a November referendum to undo the state's collective bargaining law that passed this spring. A Quinnipiac University poll in July found that 56 percent of Ohio voters say the new collective bargaining law should be repealed, compared with 32 percent who favor keeping it in place.

"A victory in Ohio would be a tremendous shot against the bow of Republicans to not mess with the unions," Lichtenstein said.

It could also help unions show they are still a political force to be reckoned with at both the state and national level.

___

Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wis., and Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.

Mayor Bloomberg: I'm not sorry for hiding arrest behind Stephen Goldsmith's leaving office

BY Reuven Blau AND Katie Nelson
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Sunday, September 4th 2011, 10:40 AM

Jefferson Siegel for News

Mayor Bloomberg, seen here with Stephen Goldsmith in 2010, says he's not sorry for keeping real reason deputy mayor left office a secret.

• Ally rips Bloomberg cover up of deputy's arrest
• Editorial: Arrested development

A defiant Mayor Bloomberg said Sunday he's not sorry he didn't reveal the arrest that led to Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith's sudden resignation.

"I make no apologies for either the fact that Mr. Goldsmith has left city service or or treating the Goldsmith family with basic decency as he left," Bloomberg said, speaking about the scandal for the first time.

Hizzoner acknowledged he always knew the truth would come out about his top deputy's domestic violence arrest. But it didn't keep him from maintaining a self-imposed seclusion since the news broke.

The usually available Bloomberg canceled a Hurricane Irene-related press conference on Thursday and then his regular Friday radio show. But Sunday he finally addressed the issue.

"Upon learning of Mr. Goldsmith's arrest I made two decisions, the first was that given the high standards we set for government and the serious circumstances surrounding his arrest, Mr. Goldsmith could no longer continue to work at City Hall," Bloomberg said outside a church service in Brooklyn.

"The second was that I did not believe it was right for our administration to put out a story about an incident that had potential to be even more suffering to the Goldsmith family."

Even so, the Mayor said he still believes Goldsmith would still be deputy mayor if it wasn't for the arrest.

Goldsmith left his post after his current wife Margaret, 59, called 911 from their Washington townhouse after a nasty argument late Saturday July 30.

His wife told cops Goldsmith smashed her phone and grabbed her when she threatened to call police, refusing to let go until she dug her nails into his arm.

She declined to press charges when the cops arrived, but Goldsmith, 64, the former Mayor of Indianapolis, was taken into custody because Washington law mandates an arrest in domestic abuse calls. Later she got prosecutors to drop the case.

rblau@nydailynews.com

Why Obama should speak here: A 9/11 family member urges President to speak at Ground Zero on 9/11

BY Robert Burke

Sunday, September 4th 2011, 4:00 AM

Todd Maisel/News

Firefighters search through rubble of World Trade Center after it was attacked on 9/11/01.

• Bloomberg outlines 9/11 ceremony plan

Imagine if at Gettysburg, President Abraham Lincoln was told he could not give a speech, because to do so would be too "political." Imagine if instead, he was handed a poem to read. America would be without the Gettysburg Address, which fundamentally defined who we are as a nation.

Yet at Ground Zero, on this 10th anniversary of the attacks upon America, as on the last nine occasions, no politician -- no governor, no mayor and not even our sitting President, Barack Obama -- will step forward to give a speech. Instead, at Mayor Bloomberg's wrongheaded direction, they must recite some poem or some past speech -- by another politician.

It's an abdication of responsibility, one that applies as well to Obama, who's repeatedly asserted the power of rhetoric to help define our times and unite the nation.

Rather than shrinking from history, he should insist upon rising to meet the moment. Bloomberg should welcome him, not silence him. Obama is our leader; he speaks for the nation. As other Presidents have done in their time, it is his burden to say something. It should be honest and real. He should risk offending some people in an attempt to give texture and meaning to the memory of that terrible day.

Otherwise, we will be left with precisely what ceremonies of the past nine years have given us: an empty, antiseptic aftertaste, remarkable only for its failure to offer the American people anything memorable.

This sad charade began on the very first anniversary, when we witnessed the bizarre scene of then Gov. George Pataki and Mayor Bloomberg doing karaoke versions of statesmen. Pataki recited Lincoln's Gettysburg Address; Bloomberg read excerpts from FDR's "Four Freedoms" address of Jan. 6, 1941. (That, by the way, was a very political speech attacking American isolationism and rallying the nation to prepare for war.

The speeches didn't fit -- but they were safe. The politicians took no risks. That, to them, is what constituted success.

What a sad commentary on our times, and on the quality of our leaders. Does not the anniversary of 9/11 -- especially the tenth -- demand more? The proper recognition of a speech? Don't the mayor, governor and certainly the President understand the significance of this day? How did it become proper etiquette for leaders to remain silent at such times? Are not our elected representatives, at times of great crisis, supposed to rise to the occasion and define for us the situation at hand; explain its significance and magnitude and provide for us a path to follow?

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A President Adrift

Sep 2, 2011 7:16 PM EDT

Michael Tomasky

After a week of presidential humiliations and capitulations, Michael Tomasky suggests that Obama will soon pass the point where he can be taken seriously as a leader.

More dispiriting news, this time about the White House overturning the EPA’s proposed new rules on smog. That comes a few hours after the jobs report from Friday morning, one of the bleakest yet. And it comes a few days in advance of what everyone expects will be a small-thinking, modest, blah jobs speech by the president. It’s not only getting to the point where it’s getting hard to see him winning reelection. It’s getting to the point where it’s hard to imagine people taking him seriously for the remaining 14 months of his current term.

The smog decision is a real low. The story behind this includes the fact that, as Brad Plumer reports environmental groups were going to file a lawsuit in 2009 about Bush-era ozone rules, and the Obama administration told them, in effect, “Wait, don’t hassle us with a lawsuit, we’re going to propose stricter rules soon.” So the stricter rules were proposed, and the White House has now said, “Sorry, changed our mind.”

We can’t calculate yet how this will reverberate through the environmental world, but we can imagine. This is the kind of thing that sticks with people. A promise was made and broken. And you know how partisans say sometimes in anger that we’d have been better off with the other guy? They say it for effect and don’t actually mean it. But in this case, it’s literally true. Bush-proposed standards in 2008 were tougher than the 1997 standards under which companies will now operate. I doubt environmentalists will forget this one.

And not just environmentalists. Even the Center for American Progress—the leading Democratic think-tank, an organization that is very, very close to the administration—issued a statement criticizing this decision (apologies—it was emailed to me, but without a link). That may be a first for CAP, which called the decision “deeply disappointing” and said it “grants an item on Big Oil’s wish list at the expense of the health of children, seniors and the infirm.” And the timing of it could not be worse, coming at the end of a week that included a stupid unforced error (the speech fracas) and leaks indicating a set of small-bore proposals to be offered next week.

On the jobs front, as Matt Yglesias points out, things are going exactly according to Republican plan, insofar as massive public-sector layoffs every single month are helping to depress overall jobs numbers. These layoffs are of course the direct result of budget cuts—reductions in federal aid to states in various programs that have come under the knife since the spring. The deals Obama has made with the Republicans have therefore contributed to the jobs crisis. The Republicans of course know this and surely have a chuckle about it in private. Obama makes videos bragging about the single biggest budget cut in history.

Which of the Democratic Party’s big-money people can reach Obama? Who can pierce the armor of his inner circle and tell him he needs to change course in a hurry?

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

I keep thinking back lately to that candidate and team I watched in 2008. The candidate really had his finger on something. The team almost never made a serious mistake. When a mistake did happen, they did a respectable job of digging their way out of it. They had some fight in them. Well, I’ve learned something new from these folks: Up until now, I’ve thought that running a strong presidential campaign is a sign that one can probably govern fairly well too. But there appears to be little correlation between the two.

One wonders if there is concern now in the party’s higher echelons about the White House’s methods. Of course there must be. But what, for example, do seasoned Democratic senators say to one another when they chat in private? What about the party’s big money people? All of them must be dismayed. But which of them can reach Obama? Who can pierce the armor of his inner circle and tell him he needs to start doing business in a different way in a hurry?

This week has the feel of one that might become retrospectively pivotal. If indeed we are standing there watching as President Perry is sworn in two Januarys from now, and we’re forced to ponder the what ifs, space will be reserved on that list for a week in which the administration made a boneheaded political mistake, presided over a jobs announcement with zero growth, and turned on a key constituency group.

Believe me, I’d rather be writing positive columns. But if I were a sports columnist at The Washington Post and the Redskins had lost five in a row, I could hardly write, “Hey, gang, everything’s going according to plan.” It ain’t. I have little expectation that they’ll listen to me. I can only hope someone they will listen to breaks through soon, before it becomes too late to turn things around.

Like The Daily Beast on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for updates all day long.

Newsweek/Daily Beast special correspondent Michael Tomasky is also editor of Democracy: A Journal of Ideas.

For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.

Libyan Rebels Surround Pro-Gadhafi Cities

The CIA worked closely with Moammar Gadhafi's intelligence services in the rendition of terror suspects to Libya for interrogation, according to documents seen Saturday by the AP. ( Sept. 3)

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News & Politics

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• 16 likes, 5 dislikes

Top Comments

• Firstly we go in there, steal the gold, then the oil, let the people fight amongst themselves and kill each other for a while, we mount troops for their protection, rig elections, instil another puppet dictator, set up a dumbing down education system, have them work for a few dollars a day supplying western? consumerism then build Mcdonalds, Tesco's, Wallmarts etc on every corner and have rigged elections every 4 years.

  WELCOME TO DEMOCRACY !

  WERE PROUD TO HAVE YOU JOIN !

  cazyblood3 6 hours ago 5

• @flexflame No, we can go to Guantanamo Bay, it's closer and the dictatorship uses better propaganda for the brainless masses!:)

  Driftaway1000 4 hours ago 2

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Bloomberg cover up of Goldsmith's domestic violence arrest has John Gambling ripping mayor

By Reuven Blau
Daily News City Hall Bureau

Friday, September 2nd 2011, 12:41 PM

Jefferson Siegel for News

Stephen Goldsmith and Mayor Bloomberg at a press conference announcing his Goldsmith's appointment as deputy mayor. Goldsmith was arrested for domestic violence in July.

• Editorial: Arrested development
• Mayor under fire for Goldsmith coverup

Even Mayor Bloomberg's best buds appear to have the knives out.

Bloomberg's chummy radio sidekick ripped into him amid growing outrage over Hizzoner's cover up of a top deputy's domestic violence arrest and Bloomberg's self-imposed seclusion since the news broke.

"I think he made a mistake by not addressing this head on," radio host John Gambling said on WOR, where he and the Mayor normally host a one-hour show Friday morning.

Bloomberg abruptly cancelled the show Thursday night amid the furor of former Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith's domestic violence July arrest in Washington.

Goldsmith spent two days in jail after his wife called the cops on him. Bloomberg pushed him out days later - but said at the time that Goldsmith was departing to chase private sector bucks.

To avoid being grilled by reporters, the Mayor Thursday also cancelled a Hurricane Irene-related press conference.

Gambling told listeners Friday that he felt the "mayor made a mistake" by not addressing the brewing controversy.

City pols, including Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Controller John Liu and Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, blasted Bloomberg for trying to hide Goldsmith's arrest.

The Mayor's Office continued to insist that his sudden disappearance from the public stage had nothing to do with Goldsmith's arrest - or his failure to inform the public that his deputy mayor had been tossed in the clink.

"No public official in America holds more open media availabilities than the Mayor," said mayoral spokesman Marc LaVorgna.

Goldsmith, 64, the former Mayor of Indianapolis, was taken into custody at his Washington townhouse late Saturday July 30.

Goldsmith's first wife, Melissa Martin, told The News that she was "shocked" by the arrest.

"Steve and I have been divorced for a long time but I kind of know who he is in his core. He always measures everything."

According to the police report, his current wife Margaret, 59, called 911 to say a nasty verbal argument - in which she told her husband "I should have put a bullet through you years ago" - escalated to shoving.

She told cops he smashed her phone and grabbed her when she threatened to call police, refusing to let go until she dug her nails into his arm.

She declined to press charges when the cops arrived, but Washington law mandates an arrest in domestic abuse calls. Later she got prosecutors to drop the case.

rblau@nydailynews.com

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Former New York Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith cla...":

Margaret isn't the first women he's roughed up. Dig deeper (in Indy)and some interesting facts will appear. He's a Nazi with a great press in the family (his wife is a Pullium, the former owners of the Indianapolis Star newpaper empire).

The following letter was sent by Public Advocate Bill de Blasio to Mayor Michael Bloomberg regarding his handling of Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith’s

THE PUBLIC ADVOCATE FOR THE CITY OF NEW YORK

Bill de Blasio – PUBLIC ADVOCATE

September 2, 2011

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg

City Hall

New York, NY 10007

Dear Mayor Michael Bloomberg:

Your decision to mislead the public and key figures of your own administration—including NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly—about the circumstances leading to Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith’s resignation is unacceptable. Given the revelations over the past forty-eight hours, the people of New York City deserve your apology and a thorough accounting.

Your claim that Deputy Mayor Goldsmith was “leaving to pursue private-sector opportunities in infrastructure finance” was a misrepresentation of the facts. While I recognize that both Mr. Goldsmith, and particularly his wife, are entitled to some level of privacy, I cannot accept the leader of the City of New York lying to its citizens.

Under current law, when City officials are arrested in New York City, their arrest is reported to the Department of Investigation (DOI). Stephen Goldsmith’s arrest in Washington, DC, reveals an obvious hole in this policy. I am introducing legislation requiring that the arrests of City officials in jurisdictions outside New York City be immediately reported to the NYPD and the DOI, so that incidents can be properly reviewed and investigated. I urge you to support this measure.

Public servants are rightly held to high standards—and we must live up to them. The people of New York City deserve your honesty and your leadership on this issue.

Sincerely,

Bill de Blasio

The Public Advocate for the City of New York

Stephen Goldsmith arrest prompts Mayor Bloomberg to cancel radio show

By Jonathan Lemire and Reuven Blau
DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU

Originally Published:Thursday, September 1st 2011, 10:38 AM
Updated: Thursday, September 1st 2011, 7:12 PM

Mariela Lombard for News

Stephen Goldsmith offered his resignation to Bloomberg on Aug. 4, just days after the arrest.

An under siege Mayor Bloomberg abruptly cancelled his Friday morning radio show to avoid being grilled about the coverup of the arrest of a top deputy, the Daily News has learned.

Bloomberg entered into full bunker mode Thursday amid the revelation former Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith resigned last month days after being arrested in Washington for fighting with his wife.

CLICK HERE FOR GOLDSMITH'S ARREST REPORT

Bloomberg had previously passed off Goldsmith's departure as an opportunity to pursue private sector money - and not a push out the door after getting slapped with cuffs.

To avoid reporters questions about his action, Hizzoner canceled a scheduled press Thursday conference today touting the Office of Emergency Management's response to Hurricane Irene.

The mayor's office insisted Bloomberg's departure from the public stage had anything to do with Goldsmith's arrest - or failure to inform the public earlier.

"Please name a public official in America who does more Q and A's than the mayor," said mayoral spokesman Marc LaVorgna, who noted that the radio show has been canceled in the past.

Goldsmith - one of Mayor Bloomberg's top aides who most believed quit after botching the city's response to the December blizzard - was taken into custody at his Washington townhouse the night of July 30 after his wife Margaret called the cops.

Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer said he was "deeply troubled" after he heard that Goldsmith spent two nights in the clink awaiting arraignment following the arrest.

"The Mayor and his staff should give a full accounting of what they knew and when they knew it," he fumed.

YFP Note ( Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Former New York Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith cla...":

Margaret isn't the first women he's roughed up. Dig deeper (in Indy)and some interesting facts will appear. He's a Nazi with a great press in the family (his wife is a Pullium, the former owners of the Indianapolis Star newpaper empire).

President Obama punts to earlier time against NFL game after caving to GOP of televised jobs speech

By Alison Gendar AND Thomas M. Defrank
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

Thursday, September 1st 2011, 7:42 PM

Alex Wong/Getty

President Barack Obama will speak at 7 p.m. next Thursday rather than go up against the NFL season opener.

WASHINGTON - President Obama backpedaled Thursday from going up against the NFL next week - after Republicans sacked his initial plans for a congressional address.

Obama will now deliver his televised jobs speech at 7 p.m. Thursday - a half-hour before NBC is set to launch its coverage of the NFL's opening game.

"I can assure you he will be completed before kickoff," Obama press secretary Jay Carney said.

The pre-primetime speech means that Americans on the West Coast will have barely finished their afternoon coffee when the President presents his plan to jumpstart the sagging economy.

Obama had already caved to House Speaker John Boehner's demands to bump the Capitol speech from Wednesday to Thursday - thus freeing up the news cycle for a long-scheduled GOP presidential debate.

"Boehner looks petty and Obama looks weak," a senior Democratic strategist complained. "We're right back to where we were before the summer vacation."

Both sides denied any partisan mischief, a claim few in a polarized national capital give any credence.

"These guys can't stand to treat him like he's the President," a Democratic official said, referring to the Republicans.

The unprecedented GOP rebuff - a Senate official told reporters Wednesday there is no record of a President being similarly turned down by Congress - was a poor omen for passing the package to boost the economy that Obama will lay out.

Carney scolded the media's "obsession" with the back-and-forth.

The American people, he said, "do not give a lick about what day next week the President speaks before Congress."

In fact, he added, "they recoil in disgust" over "the petty political gamesmanship that goes on" in Washington.

It didn't matter to Obama, he added, which night he speaks to the nation from the House chamber, where most of his economic initiatives have gone to die.

It's critical for Obama that his proposals be seen as credible solutions to create jobs and resuscitate the economy.

Public dissatisfaction with his economic stewardship has plummeted, along with his approval ratings.

For the first time this year, Texas Gov. Rick Perry leads Obama in a national 2012 election matchup. Other Republican candidates trail Obama by single digits.

A new Rasmussen national telephone survey shows Perry with 44% of the vote to Obama's 41%. Just over a week ago, the President held a three-point advantage over Perry.

A Quinnipiac Poll, meanwhile, found that 76% of the country thinks the economy has sunk back into recession and is getting worse instead of improving.

Ex-Sen. Pedro Espada's Defense: My Accountants Said That Petting Zoo Was Totally Fine

BY Celeste Katz

Ex-state Sen. Pedro Espada Jr. has finally revealed his defense on charges he treated a taxpayer-funded clinic as a personal piggy bank: The accountants let him do it.

Our John Marzulli reports:

Espada claims expenses charged to a janitorial company the feds say he controlled - including pony rides and a petting zoo for a family member's birthday party, home repairs and a down payment on a Bentley - were all approved by accountants.

Espada and his son, Pedro G. Espada, are scheduled to go on trial Oct. 17 in Brooklyn Federal Court on charges of embezzlement and tax evasion.

The indictment alleges that from 2004 through 2009, Espada and his son used the for-profit janitorial firm, Community Expansion Development Corp., to divert cash from Soundview Health Network to fund their lavish lifestyles.

Defense lawyer Susan Necheles has subpoenaed records from bean counters at McGladrey & Pullen to show that Espada's expenditures "were reviewed by and approved by the accountants and were customary business expenses, not thefts," according to court papers.

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Former New York Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith claims he resigned over domestic violence arrest

BY Jonathan Lemire

DAILY NEWS CITY HALL BUREAU

Thursday, September 1st 2011, 10:38 AM

Mariela Lombard for News

Stephen Goldsmith offered his resignation to Bloomberg on Aug. 4, just days after the arrest.

Former Deputy Mayor Stephen Goldsmith, who unexpectedly stepped down last month, revealed he resigned days after he was arrested for roughing up his wife - a charge she now disputes.

Goldsmith - one of Mayor Bloomberg's top aides who most believed quit after botching the city's response to the December blizzard - was taken into custody at his Washington, D.C., home the night of July 30 after his wife Margaret called the cops.

But Margaret Goldsmith now denies that her husband abused her and insists the arrest was a misunderstanding.

"There was no crime committed by Stephen or myself; there was no violence nor any physical harm," said Margaret Goldsmith in a statement released Thursday. "There were no injuries. There has never been any kind of domestic assault or violence in our marriage."

According to a police report, the couple quarreled loudly in their Georgetown home, and Stephen Goldsmith shoved his wife after she threatened to call 911.

When police arrived at 11:30 p.m., they arrested Stephen Goldsmith, the former mayor of Indianapolis, on a charge of "simple assault domestic violence."

That charge was dropped two days later when Margaret Goldsmith told prosecutors she did not want to cooperate further - and she disputed the police report that the couple's fight turned violent.

"Upon reading the report, I immediately took steps to set the record straight and swore under oath that there was no physical harm and no crime was committed," said Margaret Goldsmith, who claimed she tried to stop cops from making the arrest at the time.

"Because - according to the officers - D.C. law required an arrest, one was made over my strong objections and numerous appeals to the officers," she said in the statement.

Goldsmith offered his resignation to Bloomberg on Aug. 4, just days after the arrest.

"Although Margaret under oath has affirmed the absence of violence and my actual innocence," said Stephen Goldsmith in a statement released Thursday, "I offered my resignation in order not to be a distraction to the mayor and his important agenda for the city."

Washington police confirmed the arrest but would not comment on the Goldsmiths' claim that the events of the night were misrepresented.

Goldsmith, who was hired with much hype to be the city's Deputy Mayor of Operations, only spent 15 months on the job.

He became a controversial figure when he infamously tweeted "GOOD SNOW WORK" when the paralyzing blizzard descended on the city just after Christmas - even though he was in Washington.

When he quit last month, media speculation held that he was pushed out for his handling of the blizzard - a charge the Bloomberg administration did not dispute.

Bloomberg said at the time the city was "extraordinarily lucky" for Goldsmith's service. The mayor's office declined to comment Thursday on the arrest.

Goldsmith, who taught at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, is also slated to teach a class at Columbia University this fall. Calls to the university were not immediately returned.

He was recruited by Bloomberg to help re-invent and streamline city government, but he struggled with fixing debacles like CityTime and he frequently clashed with agencies and unions alike.

Scottish boycott of Israel

Finally, an incredible letter written by a non - Jewish Scottish professor to his students who voted to boycott Israel.

This is a MUST READ article that needs to be disseminated in every university. If you have children or grandchildren in university please make sure they publish this important letter in the students' rag or post it on the university bulletin board.

A Scottish professor responds to campus boycott. The Edinburgh Student's Association made a motion to boycott all things Israeli since they claim Israel is under an apartheid regime. Dr. Denis Maceoin (a non-Jew) is an expert in Middle Eastern affairs. Here is his letter to those students. AN EDUCATED NON-JEWISH TAKE ON ISRAEL.

Dr. Denis MacEoin, a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly, addresses The Committee of the Edinburgh University Student Association.

Received by e-mail from the author, Dr. Denis MacEoin, a senior editor of the Middle East Quarterly,

TO: The Committee Edinburgh University Student Association.

May I be permitted to say a few words to members of the EUSA? I am an Edinburgh graduate (MA 1975) who studied Persian, Arabic and Islamic History in Buccleuch Place under William Montgomery Watt and Laurence Elwell Sutton, two of Britain's great Middle East experts in their day.

I later went on to do a PhD at Cambridge and to teach Arabic and Islamic Studies at Newcastle University. Naturally, I am the author of several books and hundreds of articles in this field. I say all that to show that I am well informed in Middle Eastern affairs and that, for that reason, I am shocked and disheartened by the EUSA motion and vote.

I am shocked for a simple reason: there is not and has never been a system of apartheid in Israel. That is not my opinion, that is fact that can be tested against reality by any Edinburgh student, should he or she choose to visit Israel to see for themselves. Let me spell this out, since I have the impression that those members of EUSA who voted for this motion are absolutely clueless in matters concerning Israel, and that they are, in all likelihood, the victims of extremely biased propaganda coming from the anti-Israel lobby.

Being anti-Israel is not in itself objectionable. But I'm not talking about ordinary criticism of Israel. I'm speaking of a hatred that permits itself no boundaries in the lies and myths it pours out. Thus, Israel is repeatedly referred to as a "Nazi" state. In what sense is this true, even as a metaphor? Where are the Israeli concentration camps? The einzatsgruppen? The SS? The Nuremberg Laws? The Final Solution? None of these things nor anything remotely resembling them exists in Israel, precisely because the Jews, more than anyone on earth, understand what Nazism stood for.

It is claimed that there has been an Israeli Holocaust in Gaza (or elsewhere). Where? When? No honest historian would treat that claim with anything but the contempt it deserves. But calling Jews Nazis and saying they have committed a Holocaust is as basic a way to subvert historical fact as anything I can think of.

Likewise apartheid. For apartheid to exist, there would have to be a situation that closely resembled how things were in South Africa under the apartheid regime. Unfortunately for those who believe this, a weekend in any part of Israel would be enough to show how ridiculous the claim is.

That a body of university students actually fell for this and voted on it is a sad comment on the state of modern education. The most obvious focus for apartheid would be the country's 20% Arab population. Under Israeli law, Arab Israelis have exactly the same rights as Jews or anyone else; Muslims have the same rights as Jews or Christians; Baha'is, severely persecuted in Iran, flourish in Israel, where they have their world center; Ahmadi Muslims, severely persecuted in Pakistan and elsewhere, are kept safe by Israel; the holy places of all religions are protected under a specific Israeli law. Arabs form 20% of the university population (an exact echo of their percentage in the general population).

In Iran, the Bahai's (the largest religious minority) are forbidden to study in any university or to run their own universities: why aren't your members boycotting Iran? Arabs in Israel can go anywhere they want, unlike blacks in apartheid South Africa. They use public transport, they eat in restaurants, they go to swimming pools, they use libraries, they go to cinemas alongside Jews - something no blacks were able to do in South Africa.

Israeli hospitals not only treat Jews and Arabs, they also treat Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank. On the same wards, in the same operating theatres.

In Israel, women have the same rights as men: there is no gender apartheid. Gay men and women face no restrictions, and Palestinian gays often escape into Israel, knowing they may be killed at home.

It seems bizarre to me that LGBT groups call for a boycott of Israel and say nothing about countries like Iran, where gay men are hanged or stoned to death. That illustrates a mindset that beggars belief.

Intelligent students thinking it's better to be silent about regimes that kill gay people, but good to condemn the only country in the Middle East that rescues and protects gay people. Is that supposed to be a sick joke?

University is supposed to be about learning to use your brain, to think rationally, to examine evidence, to reach conclusions based on solid evidence, to compare sources, to weigh up one view against one or more others. If the best Edinburgh can now produce are students who have no idea how to do any of these things, then the future is bleak.

I do not object to well-documented criticism of Israel. I do object when supposedly intelligent people single the Jewish state out above states that are horrific in their treatment of their populations. We are going through the biggest upheaval in the Middle East since the 7th and 8th centuries, and it's clear that Arabs and Iranians are rebelling against terrifying regimes that fight back by killing their own citizens.

Israeli citizens, Jews and Arabs alike, do not rebel (though they are free to protest). Yet Edinburgh students mount no demonstrations and call for no boycotts against Libya, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Iran. They prefer to make false accusations against one of the world's freest countries, the only country in the Middle East that has taken in Darfur refugees, the only country in the Middle East that gives refuge to gay men and women, the only country in the Middle East that protects the Bahai's.... Need I go on?

The imbalance is perceptible, and it sheds no credit on anyone who voted for this boycott. I ask you to show some common sense. Get information from the Israeli embassy. Ask for some speakers. Listen to more than one side. Do not make your minds up until you have given a fair hearing to both parties. You have a duty to your students, and that is to protect them from one-sided argument.

They are not at university to be propagandized. And they are certainly not there to be tricked into anti-Semitism by punishing one country among all the countries of the world, which happens to be the only Jewish state. If there had been a single Jewish state in the 1930's (which, sadly, there was not), don't you think Adolf Hitler would have decided to boycott it?

Your generation has a duty to ensure that the perennial racism of anti-Semitism never sets down roots among you. Today, however, there are clear signs that it has done so and is putting down more. You have a chance to avert a very great evil, simply by using reason and a sense of fair play. Please tell me that this makes sense. I have given you some of the evidence. It's up to you to find out more.

Yours sincerely,
Denis MacEoin