[img]9|left||remove link|no_popup[/img]On the same morning that the overhyped Al Gore, America’s favorite inflatable buffoon, is celebrating his devalued Nobel “Peace” Prize by going polar bear hunting, the most fascinating debate in Congress is whether America should officially label the 1915 Turkish genocide of 1.5 million Armenians as genocide.
As surely as Culver City’s most recent police chiefs have skidded out of town with reddened faces and fat bank accounts, the slaughter happened.
The glitch is that too many politicians are loathe to acknowledge the genocide openly. Diplomatic repercussions, they say.
Lack of courage, dear reader, must not be confused with their appalling absence of moral will.
That is the only issue.
Many Members of Congress lack the moral backbone to publicly affirm the ugly fact for fear of offending Turkey, a delicate, easily offended, crucial — and guilty — ally.
Let’s Play Hide, Not Seek
Throughout Washington, Members of Congress tiptoed down darkened corridors this week, slithered under couches and ducked their overstuffed selves behind overstuffed chairs to avoid answering the question publicly.
On the Westside, it is maddening that one of our favorite Democrats, Congresswoman Jane Harman — who usually has more hair and more smarts than colleague Henry Waxman — turned into a Gore-like boobette this week.
Cook(e)ing Janie’s Goose?
When I was driving in the South Bay the other afternoon, I swear I saw her dressed up as Ted (I Quit Duckin’ People Years Ago) Cooke in order to avoid being recognized by her constituents.
Often a principled, sensible Congresswoman, Ms. Harman’s cowardly knees dissolved in a pool of marmalade this week.
Since she is too old to be spanked, I am at a loss over how to punish her, but she should be.
Earlier this year, in a fortuitous intersecting with wisdom, Ms. Harman agreed to co-sponsor a resolution declaring the Turks’ mass murder of a historically voiceless people as “genocide.” Shortly afterward, she was besieged by horrified colleagues and mature, foot-stomping Turkish delegates demanding that she back out and take her miserable resolution with her.
Pro-Turk Jane Turns Into Chicken
Frantically, that is what Ms. Harman has been trying to do. Happily, she drew a roar of fire when she filed for divorce from the intellectual courage that she has been known to display.
Last week, she practically sank to her jellybelly knees, begging the Northern California Congressman (and Holocaust survivor) Tom Lantos, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, to forestall a vote on the genocide resolution, fearing she would be exposed for the charlatan she is.
Pleasingly, the old girl lost her bet yesterday afternoon. The committee voted 27 to 21 to call genocide genocide.
When Turks Act Like Turkeys
Aptly named Turkey, embarrassed and angry, responded by calling its ambassador in Washington home — not far ahead of its namesake, the Thanksgiving holiday.
Killing 1.5 million politically weak Armenians — just because you can — will cause a properly humiliated government to react that way.
You understand, of course, that realpolitik runs the world, all 200 governments that are recognized as legitimate. This means that sometimes you must throw your arms around the shoulders of disgusting people, that sometimes you must swallow hard and say nice things about thugs and that sometimes you have to choose the lesser evil between Fatah and Hamas.
Don’t Fault All Politicians
There are plenty of honest politicians in Washington but few are truly morally self-governed.
American Presidents with a moral compass, such as Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Reagan, come along once a century.
Hopefully, Ms. Harman will be excoriated by her constituents, fromVenice through the South Bay, for her disgraceful, disingenuous defense of her well-publicized act of cowardice. The bottle blonde is going to give ditzy blondes an even worse reputation with her mean-spirited, kowtowing, morally corrupt essay in the Los Angeles Times this morning. The headline said it all: “The genocide vote: Now is not the time.”
The old girl is advocating situational morality, maintaining that genocide is actually only genocide when it is politically expedient to say so. With considerable luck, this act of cowardice will drive her from office next year. Probably not, though.
Will Students Get the Message?
I fear that in too many classrooms across the land, Mr. Gore’s fairly laughable junk science is being taught with a straight face by ideologically driven hardline seductees of The World Must End Now movement.
’Tis a pity distracted schoolboys and girls will not be encouraged to study the instructive anti-morality play that is being carried out by certain politicians in Washington.
Don’t Look Away Teachers
Finally, this note for teachers tempted to ignore important subtleties:
Be sure to recognize that there are sensible Democrats and sensible Republicans who agree it would be appropriate to label as genocide Turkey’s entirely unprovoked massacre of a people it still barely tolerates.
