Spitzer's Pimp an Israeli Citizen

In case my delicious metaphor needed a little sprinkles on top, Haaretz reported that the pimp who hooked up New York Governor Eliot Spitzer is an Israeli citizen (and U.S. as well).

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Spitzer: We Ignored the Signs

Today, it emerged that New York Governor Eliot Spitzer (right) was caught in a federal wiretap arranging to meet a high-priced prostitute at a hotel in Washington.

Media are attracted to such scandal naturally. Anyone surpised by this -- if they exist -- should not be. He showed many early signs of an affinity for selling one's body. In his case, he was the prostitute, leasing his mouth to Israel. For example, last Novemeber, he issued a statement commemorating the 60th anniversary of the UN partition plan that essentially has caused 60 years of conflict:

Sixty years ago today the United Nations General Assembly approved UN Resolution 181, the first step in transforming what was then British-controlled Palestine into a Jewish homeland – Israel.

Today, New York is home to the largest Jewish population in the United States, and all New Yorkers benefit from our diversity and our relationships with Israel –culturally, spiritually and economically. This anniversary marks the start of a milestone year for the state of Israel, and I am proud to serve as the Governor of New York while we celebrate six decades since Israel’s founding.

I look forward to celebrating the coming year with our active Jewish community.

Man, he'll do anything for campaign contributions. No, I know he probably sincerely believes this, but still, you cannot deny the tone of pandering running through this. Politicians pander for a living so I cannot be too surprised. It is legal prostitution.

Politicians also never say what they mean. By "all New Yorkers," he meant Jewish New Yorkers who love Israel.

None of the Arabs in New York I know benefited (on the contrary!). The Palestinian refugees in Bayside sure as hell got the worst of it.

As for the last line, by "our active Jewish community," he meant "my high-priced hooker."

That's all in the past now. Spitzer's eating Shitzer.

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Here Comes The President...To Columbia University Tomorrow

The big day is upon us.

This event has gotten the kind of public fanfare, media coverage, sidewalk chatter, waiting line gossip, and impassioned outrage one would expect of a celebrity wedding.

I am of course talking about Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov and Bingu wa Mutharika's highly anticipated speeches at Columbia University tomorrow.

Actually, even though the Presidents of Turkmenistan and The Republic of Malawi will be gracing the lecture halls of one of the nation's most presitigious institutions of higher learning, media blitz is likely to be focused on another President with a name Americans will have trouble pronouncing: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of the Islamic State of Iran.

Despite the news vans, cadre of national and international reporters, protesters expected to hit the streets and cobble-stoned walking paths of Morningside Heights tomorrow, you can expect one person not to step foot on 114th and Broadway, the Mayor of City of New York. "New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg," according to a Reuters story carried by Haartz, " said Friday that the city's Columbia University was free to invite Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak, but "personally, I wouldn't go to listen to him - I don't care about what he says."

But public expressions of anti-Ahmadinejad-ness (the funniest dash-created word in the English language to say. Go ahead-try it!) are not confined to the realm of politics.

The headline on the front cover of the New York daily newspaper publication The Daily News lividly threatened Mr. Ahmadinejad, "If you even think of setting one foot in Ground Zero, you can...Go To Hell," and going as far to assert that "All of Manhattan south of Canal St. must be forbidden to him by the NYPD."


I love the reckless conflation that seeks to confound any of the necessary distinctions between Al Qaeda hijackers and the state of Iran. Are they really going to try to relate the two?

Then again, the majority of Americans still seemed to believe the specious connection between the B'ath-run secular state of Iraq and Afghanistan-based, American-trained, Saudi Muslims.

Surprisingly, Columbia stands resolute against public pressure and harassment to cancel the event. In a twist of irony, the Ivy League, embroiled in a Khaleeji summer hot debate over Barnard faculty member Nadia Abu El-Hajj's tenure bid, one under rigorous contestion for the scholar's writing of a book critical of Israel's archeological to exist, defended it's decision to allow the President of Iran to speak citing the school's commitment to promoting "free speech."

SIPA's (Columbia University's graduate School of International and Public Affairs) Dean, , the ones responsible for sponsoring the sold-out event.

The mission of the University is to educate citizens, train professionals, and foster research of the highest quality. This mission can only be served by providing students and faculty with untrammeled access to a diversity of views and opinions in an environment where every statement can be challenged
and debated freely.

The following is a statement posted on Columbia's webiste explaining the reason for endorsing the SIPA-sponsored event:

Statement Regarding Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Talk at Columbia University’s World Leaders Forum

On Monday, September 24th, 2007 Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will speak and participate in a question and answer session with university faculty and students at Columbia University’s World Leaders Forum. His appearance is sponsored by Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, which is initiating a year-long series of lectures and events on thirty years of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The SIPA lecture series will include academic experts as well as former officials and critics of the Islamic Republic.

This opportunity for faculty and students to engage the President of Iran came about after Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee at the Iranian Mission to the United Nations initiated contact with Columbia through a member of the faculty, Richard Bulliet, who is a specialist on Iran. The event will be open only to university students, faculty and staff with Columbia University identification and invited guests.

President Bollinger emphasized that such World Leaders Forum events must allow ample time for students and faculty to pose questions that challenge the views expressed by the speakers. John H. Coatsworth, Dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, confirmed that the Iranian president had agreed to this format. Dean Coatsworth will moderate the question and answer period following Ahmadinejad’s speech.

President Bollinger will introduce the event by challenging President Ahmadinejad on a number of his controversial statements and his government’s policies, including his denial of the Holocaust and his call for the destruction of the State of Israel. The US government has accused Ahmadinejad’s government of supporting terrorism and developing nuclear weapons capacity. Human rights groups have charged Iran with suppressing dissent and women’s rights. Columbia students and faculty will themselves
have an opportunity to question Iran’s leader on these and other issues.

Dean Coatsworth stated that “Opportunities to hear, challenge, and learn from controversial speakers of different views are central to the education and training of students for citizenship in a shrinking and still dangerous world. This is especially true for SIPA students, many of whose careers will require them to confront human rights and security issues throughout the globe.”

Look for photos of protestors, and if I'm lucky, of the blushing President to hit KABOBfest before US Weekly or Star Magazine get a chance to send the digitals to their printers!

[Tarboush Tip: Nadeem]

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The Only Good Lebanese is a Dead Lebanese, Says Former U.S. Diplomat to Lebanon

Racism against Arabs and Muslims is alive and well in the U.S. More often than not, such racism goes unnoticed primarily because antagonism towards Arabs and Muslims has become so commonplace and acceptable in American discourse. Too often we see pundits with certified histories of unquestionable and open racism against Arabs and Muslims (such as Coulter, Pipes, etc) invited time and again to cable news shows. Such racism, it seems, is only addressed when manifested in a way that is prohibited by law. Rarely do we see a level of moral outrage by members of society comparable to that when other minority groups are victimized (take, for example, Imus, who has a long track record of anti-Arab racism that precedes his last racist outburst).

That said, yesterday, Patrick Syring of Arlington, Virginia was indicted after sending racist messages to the Arab American Institute (AAI) last year during Israel’s bombardment of Lebanese civilians. The AAI is an Arab-American non-profit organization headed by James Zogby and known for its moderate views. In the numerous telephone and email messages, Syring is reported to have said:

“The only good Lebanese is a dead Lebanese. The only good Arab is a dead Arab.”

“Arabs should burn in the fires of hell for eternity and beyond" and praised Israeli forces for "bombing Lebanon back to the Stone Age where it belongs.”

"You and your Arab American Institute . . . should burn in the fires of hell for eternity."

Some observations... First, I’m not so sure that Syring has committed a crime. Though I have not seen the indictment, the published quotes do not seem to rise to the level of threatening. Second, Syring is very proud of his racism; apparently, he identified himself in the phone message he left to the AAI, and sent all of the emails from his personal account. Third, for the record, this is not a rare and unique occurence. This happens all the time with Arab- and Muslim-American groups, activists, and professionals. Receiving hate mail has just become a part of being Arab in America. Fourth, though I believe he has a First Amendment right to be racist, why did it take the State Department over a year to get rid of him? (Technically, he was not fired, but retired last month). That’s right, believe it or not, Syring worked in diplomacy. More surprising, Syring held a high position at the U.S. Embassy in Lebanon, of all places. I wonder if Syring would have also lasted a year at the State Department had his racism been directed towards another group.

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Who Said Mass Media Was Completely Pointless?

Apparently, there is at least one guy who still makes sense. Unfortunately, he comes from the same network that still carries primetime slots for Jo Scarborough, Tucker Carlson, and until recently, Don Imus.

As you all know, while hosting Russian President, Vladimir Putin, in a fence mending affair at the family summer residence in Maine, Bush attempted to inch closer to Putin’s position. What a better way to relate to the man accused of cracking down on democracy than by showing Bush’s own sheer contempt of the rule of law, and reaffirm the far-reaching corruption in his own administration that had been veiled by throwing around charges of other regimes’ corruption and autocracy?

That, of course, was translated into the commutation of Scooter Libby’s prison sentence, stating that his sentence was too harsh. In other news, Bush decided to commute the sentences and issue pardons to inner city kids thrown in jail for 5 years after being picked on the sidewalk with 2 grams of weed.

This commentary by Keith Olbermann is perhaps the best commentary to make mainstream TV on what should be a scandal filling the waves, but Bush and Cheney have done a marvelous job thickening America's skin, so the next one will not make much of a splash, no matter how big it is.

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How Do You Bribe A Billionaire?

Saudi prince and former ambassador to the United States, Bandar Bin Sultan, is at the center of a bribery scandal of epic proportions.

The man who has billions of the country’s money at his disposal is thought to have received $2 Billion in bribes to facilitate and arms deal between a British firm and his country.

The former Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, allegedly received up to $2 billion in confidential payments from a British defense firm, BAE Systems, over a period of nearly 20 years, according to two British media reports.

Through a statement by his lawyer, given to the British Press Association, Prince Bandar "categorically denied" receiving any "backhanders" - secret payments - and called the the reports "serious allegations."

According to the Guardian newspaper and the BBC, the payments were channeled to at least one Saudi embassy account at a now-defunct Riggs Bank in Washington.

The prince is a close friend of George W. Bush. I am very tempted to call this affair another Bush administration scandal, except I really don’t what take away from its Saudiness and royalness.

I wonder if the Saudi religious and ethics police, the Mutawaa, will implement the appropriate sharia law provision that they never hesitate to apply to the “commons” and foreign nationals in their country? If I’m not mistaken, the punishment for this offence/sin is the severing of the hand from the wrist…I personally would be satisfied if they just clean-shave this motha fucka.

Actually, what adds insult to injury is why with all this money the dude could not spend $400 on a hair cut with John Edwards' barber.

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