Lynne Stewart to Participate in an ETHICS Conference?

Ace notes:

It’s the kind of thing you can’t make up because no one would believe you.

Stewart will be a panelist at Hofstra Law School’s Sixth Biannual Legal Ethics Conference “Lawyering at the Edge: Unpopular Clients, Difficult Cases, Zealous Advocates”

The participant list blandly describes Stewart as someone who, “has defended many unpopular clients over the years”. A more colorful and accurate description might include the fact that she is a felon who was convicted of aiding blind cleric Omar Abdel Rahman pass messages to his followers from his jail cell. Stewart had unsuccessfully defended Rahman against charges that he was part of a plot to blow up several targets in New York City.

Stewart was not “Lawyering at the Edge” or simply representing an unsavory client, she was an active and willing participant in a scheme to assist a convicted terrorist further his murderous plots. The idea that she is someone a respectable law school would want anywhere near its campus is unimaginable. One can only deduce Hofstra Law School is not a respectable institution.

I’ve written about this creature rather extensively in the past.  Some of the posts did not make it to this new site in the conversion.  Here’s one that did.  Here’s another.

Stop the ACLU has more. So does the Lovely Michelle.

You know, there is currently a move afoot centered around Duncan Hunter’s removing all Federal funding from Colombia, for the little stunned they pulled with the Iranian creep the other day. (Discussion) Perhaps it’s time we think seriously about Hofstra , as well. 

NEW YORK (AP) – Democrat Barack Obama says he probably wouldn’t have invited Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at Columbia University but would be willing as president to meet with the Iranian leader as a way to protect U.S. interests. “The hateful lies that he may utter about Israel, the Holocaust—the answer is for us to promote the truth and show the world the values and ideals that we hold dear,” Obama said Monday. “One of the values we believe in is the value of academic freedom. He has a right to speak.”

In his own country, perhaps. But not here. He HAS no rights here.  And, as I’ve been saying all along, letting such an animal speak his hatreds in our higher institutions gives him a platform of legitimacy which is neither deserved nor beneficial to the cause of freedom.

It’s a good thing that Obama being President is not something we’re going to have to suffer with, in the foreseeable future. His lack of judgment in this matter shows clearly his lack of qualifications for the office.

Britt Hume, last night:

GQ magazine agreed to kill a critical piece about fighting within the Hillary Clinton campaign team — in exchange for access to Bill Clinton for another story. FOX’s Carl Cameron has confirmed the publication struck a deal to spike the story — in order to secure Bill Clinton’s cooperation in a cover piece planned for December.

The Politico newspaper says GQ confirmed that the Clinton article had been killed, but would not say why. The Clinton team isn’t talking either.

Politico writes that a spokesman for Bill Clinton delivered the ultimatum to GQ editors. It says they succumbed to the threat — despite plenty of internal protests. The episode is said to be an illustration of the power of the Clinton celebrity factor — and the fact that the Clintons have the rare ability within the political word to actually affect magazine sales.

And so we refer to the words of Dan Rather:

 “Somebody, sometime has got to take a stand and say democracy cannot survive, much less thrive with the level of big corporate and big government interference and intimidation in news,” he said on CNN’s “Larry King Live.”

But then, we look again, to the words of Dan Rather:

  “Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. President. If we could be one-one-hundredth as great as you and Hillary Rodham Clinton have been together in the White House, we’d take it right now and walk away winners.”

And again, to the words of Dan Rather:

“Is it possible, and I’m asking for your candid opinion, that when this gets through, whether it passes or not, that we will have reached a point when a First Lady, any First Lady, can be judged on the quality of her work?”

And again, to the words of Dan Rather:

 “The First Lady’s Health Care Proposal failed, handily defeated by Republican opposition in Congress. But her influence on her husband — and on millions of other Americans who admire her — remains great.”

 And again, to the words of Dan Rather:

 “God bless you. Thank you very much and tell Mrs. Clinton we respect her and we’re pulling for her.”

And of course, there’s the falsified documents used by Rather and CBS to attack President Bush in their attempt to steal the election for the Democrats.

Hmmm. And Rather’s biggest problem is influence in the newsroom of corporate interests?

If you haven’t seen the text of the remarks by Columbia president Lee Bollenger as he introduced the little creep from Iran you will be interested to know that Salon has that text posted. 

As I have stated elsewhere, they were the correct questions they ask.   But frankly, the time to ask them was as a prerequisite to Ahmadinejad’s being asked to speak, and then only on condition of satisfactory answers and actions.  As it is, Bollenger and a bunch of over educated fools get to pat themselves on the back for asking the “hard questions” which in the end makes no difference whatsoever.  Other, of course, then giving Ahmadinejad a platform of legitimacy from which to spew his hatred.

In short, the entire exchange was counterproductive to the cause of freedom.  But there it is.

If you need proof of how liberals are bereft of anything cerebral, you need to look no further than here.

The amazing part is, these people actually have a license to drive on the same roads you and I do.  Personally, I’m not convinced that’s a safe situation.  More dangerous than that, they vote.

Gavin M, or whatever your name is… you are DISMISSED.

(Discussion) 

According to Simon Kennedy, the UAW and the GM have settled their strike:

LONDON (MarketWatch) — The United Auto Workers reportedly reached a tentative contract agreement Wednesday with General Motors Corp. that will end a two-day strike and allow production to resume later in the day.

The deal still needs to be ratified by workers, which will begin this week, though UAW President Ron Gettelfinger told an early morning press conference in Detroit that he’s confident the agreement will be ratified, according to news wire reports.

Details are fuzzy, but it looks like a big win for GM.

• Has it occurred to anyone at the UAW, that job security wouldn’t be an issue if their wage and benefit demands were not so ridiculous?
• Has occurred to anyone at Columbia, that what they did by allowing the Iranian nutjob to speak, was to allow for intolerance, in the name of tolerance, to allow for a known liar to speak, in the name of truth seeking? While we’re on that subject, has it occurred to them, but they allowed this animal to speak, while his government is detaining Kian Tajbakhsh, a prominent graduate of that school?
• Has it occurred to anyone watching the hype surrounding Microsoft’s new game release HALO3, of a large and for which is expected to be on the order of 97%, that more people were standing in line waiting to pick up their new fantasy toy than know who is running for president in 08? Do they truly understand what a level of disconnection from reality this represents, among the people?
• Has it occurred to anyone that there is a teachable moment in President Bush providing back channel advice tailor a Clinton about taking too hard a position in Iraq?  Clearly, he’s giving her some valuable advice, along with some inside information on the subject, by which he’s making his decisions.  Supposedly, she’s taking the advice well. Clearly, something he said makes sense to her.  But what happens if she starts putting off again?  Does that mean she is lying?  Also, what does it say for her ability as a decision maker, and as a leader, when she didn’t figure out on her own that he was working on information that she didn’t have?
• Has it occurred to anyone that in the time since I made mention of the Mary Mapes column on the Huffington Post, nobody has come forward to say that the Rather lawsuit against CBS was a good move?  What do you suppose this indicates?
• Has it occurred to anyone that Marcel Marceau actually disliked silence?  I know, I mentioned him the other day, but the thought occurs to me that above silence, he treasured laughter.

The winner of the America’s Worst List award is Forbes.   Rob Port, Gather, does  the honors.

(Shrug)

From the give credit where credit is due department, I should have mentioned that I thought Pelly did a fairly respectable job in interviewing Ahmadinejad. at least, I doubt any of the mainstream media could have done a great deal better.

There’s been a fair amount of chatter, lately, about a comparison between Iran and its leadership, and Germany and its leadership, post 1939.   The question that occurs to me within that context, is whether not a reporter interviewing Hitler would have changed the course of history.  The answer, of course, is “no”.  We find, if we look into history, Hitler as evasive answers, his general attitude, and most specifically his lies, tell us, that no matter what was said, what was done was not about to change.

Ahmadinejad’s situation is similar. His evasive answers, his general attitude, and his lies are of a kind with his constant regurgitation of the leftist Mantra: politically motivated, And treacherous in the extreme.   Like Hitler before him, his path, apparently, has been set in stone.  As a result, there are many people, certainly not any reporter on the planet, who is going to alter the course by asking the “hard questions”.  As such, no fault lies with Pelly for any of it, per se’. please note, that this is about as strong a defense as I have ever mounted for a mainstream media reporter.

This inability to change , in the end, is why a group of leftists at Columbia university patting themselves on the back for asking Ahmadinejad the “hard questions” isn’t worth much; you’re not going to change as path by doing that, regardless of your intent.

I recognize that these are dire predictions.  But there it is.

COALITION FORCES CAPTURE 12 SUSPECTED TERRORISTS IN BAGHDAD

Posted: 19 Sep 2007 05:07 AM CDT

COALITION FORCES CAPTURE 12 SUSPECTED TERRORISTS IN BAGHDAD

Ok, I’ve already opined that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not serious and sober adult worthy of attention.   However the democrats are serious and do merit heeding.    So when  Ahmadinejad sounds like Dick Durbin, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi,  that is worth noting.   From Rush Limbaugh on Monday:

RUSH: Now, look, to me this is funny, but in all candor, he is regurgitating Democrat Party talking points — not “liberal” talking points. He is reciting what he has heard said on the floor of the United States Senate by people like Dick Durbin, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and people like Harry Reid — and over in the House, Nancy Pelosi. If I were an elected official of this country and somebody like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a state sponsor of terror, starts mimicking and reciting my talking points — privately, I get mad. Privately, I get embarrassed

When a nutcase and state sponsor of terrorism parrots democrat party talking points, that party should have a reaction.   Have you noticed any?  Neither have I.   What say you Senator Durbin?

James Joyner, this morning, points to a new Rasmussen poll. It documents specifically what I warned would happen when upon seeing the Petreaus ad from MoveOn, I said:

I think that the left has finally crossed that invisible line.

It would appear that most Americans agree with that assessment.

Twenty-three percent (23%) of Americans approve of an ad run in the New York Times “that referred to General Petraeus as General Betray Us.” A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 58% disapproved. Those figures include 12% who Strongly Approve and 42% who Strongly Disapprove.

Self-identified liberals were evenly divided—45% approve and 39% disapprove. However, only 19% of moderate voters approve while 62% disapprove.

Forty-seven percent (47%) of all adults say that “stunts like the MoveOn.org ad” hurt the cause they believe in. Only 12% believe they help the cause while 17% say there is no impact. Twenty-four percent (24%) are not sure. Again, political liberals are divided with 27% saying they help and 32% taking the opposite view. Fifty percent (50%) of moderates and 57% of conservatives say that these sorts of events hurt the cause the group is trying to promote.

James responds:

Of course, the popularity of an ad doesn’t necessarily mean much. After all, the rationale for running an advocacy ad is to get attention — which MoveOn got in spades — and to raise awareness for a position that is presumably not already the prevailing view. The more interesting (but harder to answer) question is how much the discussion generated by the ad moved public opinion and in what direction.

Not really, James.  The numbers given would seem to suggest that the threshold I spoke of a couple of weeks ago, has already been crossed.  That crossing was driven largely by this ad.

I just hadn’t figured it wouldn’t happen quite so quickly.

The mail I received last evening, following my comments on Ahmadinejad, and the comments of Ezra Klein, are of a piece. Supposedly, I’m a coward for not wanting him to speak. McQ seemingly has thought about this, however, and has an answer.

To the Ezra Kleins of the world, no one is afraid of what Ahmadinejad might say.

Not a bit. In fact I wasn’t at all surprised by what he said at Columbia.

That’s not why I objected to his speaking.

I objected to his speaking because he’s a thug and a terrorist. I objected to his speaking because he has American blood on his hands. I objected to his speaking because while he was standing at the podium at Columbia, Iranian EFPs and rockets were aimed at American soldiers in Iraq.

You don’t fete men who are responsible for killing your countrymen. You don’t socialize with them. You don’t legitimize them. You don’t invite them for tea and crumpets and photo ops or give them a platform for their propaganda or treat them like they’re worthy of any attention from a free country.

This contemptible cretin is here only because his country is a UN member and we’ve agreed to let even the worst among that bunch gather here and pollute that chamber of horrors with their poison.

Precisely, Bruce, and well put.  You simply don’t have a legitimacy to a person like that, by allowing him to speak at one of your more venerated institutions.  It simply doesn’t work.  President Bollenger was correct, if a little late with his comments, yesterday day.  The best time to share those comments was publicly, and without letting the animal anywhere near Columbia.

Oh, and Ezra? don’t give me any of your nonsense about “free speech” when we’re talking about a campus that forbids ROTC on campus.  This is not about freedom of expression of ideas, it’s about which ideas get expressed .  As I said the other evening:

The right to Free speech, as Tom Jefferson and the boys thought of it, was with regards to citizens being able to speak their mind without legal action by the government, preventing it, or punishing such speech. Free speech had nothing to do with someone from a foreign government supporting genocide, without repercussions from the citizenry…. the latter of which is in reality what Colombia is pushing, here. The purpose for free speech was to allow us to defend ourselves… to fight against tyrants so as to prevent human atrocities, the like of which Ahmadinejad both represents, and urgently requires to achieve his goals… not to sit and politely applaud. that the muckties of Columbia, and their defenders, do not know the difference, suggests that the educational values of Columbia university and others with it went off the rails years ago. Not only have a broken faith with American values, but they have broken faith with humanity.

President Bollinger’s comments only partially mitigated the offense of his school.

The offense I’m talking about, which is allowing such an animal to speak, is that the propaganda in his own country is what this speech is all about. If he manages to swing a couple of people away from pro U.S. sentiment within the United States, all to the better. Of course, there are people like Klein, who will gladly oblige him.  And, Scott Erb, and the Kossacks, of course.  But the real issue, the real reason he’s here, is the reaction to him within the Middle East.  And what kind of opportunity for opposing views to suppose is going to be available there?

NYC-(Fox) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday questioned why Iran can’t have a nuclear program when the United States has one, repeated his inference that historical accounts of the Holocaust are myths, and denied that there are homosexuals in Iran.In animated remarks before students and faculty at a controversial speaking engagment at Columbia university, the Iranian leader also denied that Iran sponsors terror, and instead pointed the finger at the U.S. government as a supporter of terrorism.
…
Columbia President Lee Bollinger opened the program with a blistering introduction in which he lambasted Ahmadinejad for calling for the annihilation of Israel, denying the Holocaust and supporting the execution of children, and told the leader of Iran that he resembled “a petty and cruel dictator.”Bollinger levied repeated criticisms against Ahmadinejad, calling on him to answer a series of challenges about his leadership, blasting his views about the “myth” of the Holocaust as being “absurd,” and saying that he doubted he “will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions.””You are either brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated,” Bollinger told Ahmadinejad about the leader’s Holocaust denial. “Will you cease this outrage?”

After sitting through Bollinger’s rebuke, Ahmadinejad rose to applause, and after a religious invocation, opened his remarks by objecting to the scolding, saying it was insulting to be spoken about that way.

Yeah, well, hard pork chops. What you’re saying is, you can’t deal with the truth.

He asked why the United States was allowed to develop nuclear weapons capabilities, but his country was not.

“How come you have that right and we don’t have it?” he challenged.

The answer, of course, is something else that we have that he doesn’t; Sanity. Then again, we do lack the desire to commit genocide in the name of religious fervor.

Limbaugh observes correctly, something I noted earlier today at Q&O:

Well, look again at the 60 minutes bit.
Reread, if you have the stomach for it, the text of that interview.
Tell me that he’s not pulling his answers directly from the DNC talking points. Good lord, he could be the keynote speaker at the convention.

Well, of course he pulled the same act at Columbia, today. Limbaugh is good enough to put the 60 minutes transcript :

AHMADINEJAD (via translator): I think Mr. Bush, if he wants his party to win the next elections, there are cheaper ways…and ways to go about this. I can very well give him a few ideas so that the people vote for him. He should respect the American people. They should not bug the telephone conversations of their citizens. They should not kill their sons and daughters of the American nation. They should not squander the taxpayers’ money and give them to weapons companies. If — and also help the people, the victims of Katrina. People will vote for them, if they do these things.

RUSH: (Laughing.) He’s giving Republicans campaign advice by basically reciting the Democrat Party platform! This guy could keynote the 2008 Democrat National Convention after he finishes at Columbia. Did Pelosi meet him at the airport? Was she part of the official greeting party? Well, I’m surprised. Was Kucinich out there? They want to go there. He’s reciting the Democrat Party platform? Katrina? (Laughing.)

And again:

AHMADINEJAD (via translator): Well, thank you for that. You are like a CIA investigator and —

PELLEY: I’m just a reporter!

AHMADINEJAD (via translator): (giggling)

PELLEY: I am a simple, average American reporter.

AHMADINEJAD (via translator): This is not Guantanamo Bay. This is not a Baghdad prison. This is not a secret prison in Europe. This is not Abu Ghraib. This is Iran! I am the president of this country!

RUSH: Now, look, to me this is funny, but in all candor, he is regurgitating Democrat Party talking points — not “liberal” talking points. He is reciting what he has heard said on the floor of the United States Senate by people like Dick Durbin, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, and people like Harry Reid — and over in the House, Nancy Pelosi. If I were an elected official of this country and somebody like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a state sponsor of terror, starts mimicking and reciting my talking points — privately, I get mad. Privately, I get embarrassed. I don’t know that the Democrats have that ability to be embarrassed by this. I sit here and I marvel at the similarity. Of course, Bin Laden does it, too. In fact, who is it actually speaking at Columbia at 1:30, is it Ahmadinejad or is it Bin Laden? You know, what difference would it make, folks, when Bin Laden comes out with a tape, when Ahmadinejad grants an interview to 60 Minutes. Forget the Democrats. What about the American people who saw this, who pay attention? Did they not recognize that one of our sworn enemies is reciting Democrat Party talking points in an effort to try to sway the American people? He’s basically, Ahmadinejad is, saying to these people in the audience, “Hey, I’m no different than your average Democrat, and we’re very encouraged by the election results in ’06.”

Yes, well, the point to be made here, is that there is no difference between them.   Which is precisely why the Kos Kids are gushing so. They found their political soulmate in Ahmadenijad… likely, someone who is closer to their own politics than any of the people actually RUNNING for POTUS.

Addendum:  (David L)   My thoughts, Ahmadinejad is a joke.   My proof.    Well at lesst he was good for a few  lauighs.

So Senator Clinton favors beginning the withdrawal of U.S. troops, but refuses to commit to a full drawdown before January, 2013. She is therefore leaving the door open to keeping U.S. troops in Iraq for approximately 10 years–depending on the strategic realities, the threat posed by Iran, the interests of our Iraqi partners, etc.

How exactly is this position different from that of President Bush?

Michael Goldfarb. Weekly Standard.

Addendum: (Bit)

Well, precisely.  What Hillary Clinton is there for arguing for is precisely the argument that President Bush has had all along, and General Petraeus with him, lately.

Let’s go to the transcript:

 “You know, I’m not going to get into hypotheticals and make pledges, because I don’t know what I’m going to inherit, George. I don’t know and neither do any of us know what will be the situation in the region. How much more aggressive will Iran have become? What will be happening in the Middle East? How much more of an influence will the chaos in Iraq have in terms of what’s going on in the greater region? Will we have pushed Al Qaeda in Iraq out of their stronghold with our new partnership with some of the tribal sheikhs or will they have regrouped and retrenched? I don’t know and I think it’s not appropriate to be speculating.”

We stay until the jobs done.  That’s been the dirty little secret here, all along; Hillary Clinton is not going to pull the troops out of Iraq, until such time as the job is completed.  That’s because , if for no other reason, she doesn’t want be settled with defeat in Iraq.  Politically untenable, to say the least.

But she still has the rabid left to deal with, so she comes up with gems like this, on a different show, on the same morning :

“I don’t believe we should continue to vote for funding that has an open-ended commitment, that has no pressure on the Iraqi government to make the tough political decisions they have to make, or which really gives any urgency to the Bush administration’s diplomatic efforts.”

So, which is it?  I suppose it depends on the demographic that she’s talking to any given moment.  Clearly, however, if you trust this woman, you’re clearly not paying attention to what she’s saying. … from either side of her mouth.