I know President Bush personally. I debated him in five Republican presidential primary debates. He is a good and decent man. And for all those reasons and more, I am heartsick that he praised the so-called "Geneva peace plan" that was negotiated by Israeli leftists who are not part of the duly elected government of Israel. Yesterday, the President said the plan was "productive," but in fact, if adopted by any Israeli government, it would be the equivalent of national suicide.

The pact was developed by Yossi Beilin, a far out Israeli leftist who abandoned the Labor Party because it wasn´t liberal enough for him. How would President Bush feel if Jesse Jackson negotiated a peace treaty with Saddam Hussein without authorization and then our ally Israel praised Jackson´s work as "productive"? He would be rightly outraged. I can only conclude that President Bush has not been fully briefed on what he appears to be endorsing.

Crazy Or Evil?

It is becoming harder and harder for everyone - from government prosecutors to the media - to downplay what motivated Washington, D.C. snipers Lee Boyd Malvo and John Muhammad. The official line is that they terrorized the nation´s capital last year for money - plain old extortion. But now we know the money was not for a place on the Riviera, but was to be used to build a perfect Islamic society.

Now defense attorneys, trying to prove that Malvo was insane when he murdered an FBI analyst, have introduced jail house drawings by the killer. Rather than proving insanity, the drawings are further evidence that Malvo and Muhammad are Islamic jihadists - probably acting on their own - but jihadists nonetheless.

One drawing is of the White House in the crosshairs of a sniper´s scope. Malvo has written on it, "Welcome to the new war. You are not safe anywhere at anytime. September 11th we will ensure will look like a picnic to you." On another drawing of one of his heroes, Osama bin Laden, he writes, "We did not start this flame, we merely picked up the torch. You shall all die! Every last one." In drawing after drawing, Malvo returns to the theme of jihad.

The defense attorneys believe that these rantings prove insanity. But what they really prove is that Malvo and Muhammad answered the repeated calls of bin Laden for "believers" to rise up and kill the infidel - you and me. They are proof not of insanity, but of an evil that will not stop until it has been defeated.

Dean´s Delusions

I am indebted to columnist Charles Krauthammer for discovering this quote by Howard Dean just a few days ago on National Public Radio. You may want to sit down for this one.

Diane Rehm: "Why do you think he [Bush] is suppressing that [Sept. 11] report?" Howard Dean: "I don´t know. There are many theories about it. The most interesting theory that I´ve heard so far -- which is nothing more than a theory, it can´t be proved -- is that he was warned ahead of time by the Saudis. Now who knows what the real situation is?"

In other words, the likely presidential nominee of the Democrat Party for 2004 has just suggested that President Bush knew about the September 11th attacks ahead of time and did nothing! This puts Howard Dean in the wacky camp of the conspiracy theorists on the European Left. Now that is insane! (12/05/03)