Mark E,

What is it with you hypersensitive conservatives who can defend themselves with ad hominem and transparent misrepresentations, distortions, and outright falsehoods? It's as if facts and reason are too inconvenient and obstructionist for you to employ.

You say:

"Someone being to the right of you, a far lefty, doesn't make them the far right, regarding Dan Pipes. What's with you guys on the left and throwing those terms around but trying to pretend you aren't biased?"

It is in fact YOU that has interjected the terms 'far right' into this discourse, as Mr Doyle had written 'right wing scholar'. It was up to you to infer it to mean 'far right'. But then, why would you infer such a thing unless there might actually be some truth to it. Did you even bother to follow the link he provides to reference this label? Anyone that continues to peddle the ridiculous 'Obama is a Muslim' or 'Obama was raised a Muslim' meme can be fairly safely labeled as 'far right' with an agenda or outright delusional as its been debunked time and again. In fact the whole snippet from the National Review, for anyone that has done even a modicum of objective research on the subject, exemplifies the deception of propaganda journalism at its most seditious.

National Review quote:

"Several elementary-school teachers in Indonesia have told reporters that he was enrolled as a Muslim — and thus studied Koran instead of the Catechism — at the Catholic school he attended. One of his various half sisters says it too, and several passages in his autobiography seem to indicated the same thing."

To anyone that has read his AB, it's sickening how much this paragraph strives to distort the truth. Several passages certainly indicate which schools he attended in Indonesia as he writes himself that he spent 2 years at a Muslim school, and 2 years at a Catholic school. There's no instruction of Islam at a Catholic school, and it's absurd to insinuate otherwise. That's why there are separate schools that are deemed 'Muslim' and 'Catholic' and what Pipes is proposing is absurd.

Obama also mentions how he would get in trouble at the Muslim school by making faces during prayer sessions, and the harsh complaints from his instructors in religious studies was something his mother was never too concerned with, only reprimanding him to 'be respectful' of other people's beliefs. Considering his father was a confirmed atheist who believed religion to be a bunch of 'mumbo jumbo' and his mother was a humanist, it leaves little wonder why he might have acted skeptically to religious instruction during his upraising.

It's disconcerting to see anyone that has obviously researched this and read his AB, and knowing his parent's non-religious outlook, work so diligently to distort the facts in order to paint Obama as being a practicing patron of any religion during his upbringing, much less the 4 years he spent in Indonesia. It's intentional character assassination rooted in deceit and the politics of fear, which any objective journalist or researcher would recognize instantly. In fact only labeling him a 'right wing scholar', Mr Doyle was being far, far, FAR too kind. 'Right wing propagandist' would be accurate. Why do academic scholars, that the right brands 'left wing' strive for truth and accuracy while those kindly labeled 'right wing scholars' consistently practice deception and revisionism?

Leonard,
Someone being to the right of you, a far lefty, doesn't make them the far right, regarding Dan Pipes. What's with you guys on the left and throwing those terms around but trying to pretend you aren't biased?

Why are you giving Kristol any credibility at all?

If Bush bombs Iran without congressional approval (which he would never be able to get), then he the cries not only from the left but from the rest of the world would only strengthen to hold Bush accountable for war crimes and his flagrant contempt for international law.

It's clear that we cannot live in a unipolar world, as evidenced by the consequences of tyrants like Bush taking office. Our best hope is for the rise of the other superpowers BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) as well as vigilance of the EU to indict the criminals in the administration to hold them accountable for the war criminals that they are.

It all starts with the necessity of an Obama presidency, as international pressure to hold Bush accountable would be far more likely to justify internal investigations by a new Attorney General that the foreign establishment would defer to than a defiant McCain administration that would no doubt push back with threats against any EU indictments against US officials.

Between now and November as much publicity as possible must be given to the fact that there very likely WILL be an October surprise, either by Bush in attempt to sway the electorate by bombing Iran, or a new video message from Bin Laden in a 2004 redux in order to once again deceive the American people to vote for McCain by endorsing Obama as a 'Son of Islam' and one of his own.

I've already seen a few articles warning of this almost certainly likelihood, such as a recent piece in Time magazine questioning what would happen if terrorists Barack the vote, but much more publicity on this matter is an absolute necessity to educate people on the motives behind such October surprises.

I'm a cynic simply because of what is certain to come, not just with October surprises, but the mass disenfranchisement of blacks and other democratic voters, whose sleazy operations have already begun in earnest business as usual. The reticence of Democratic officials to confront these dirty tactics that cost them in 2004 and 2000 is mind boggling. Until there's a change of parties in executive leadership in the November elections I have negligible confidence in the ability for real reforms in the future.

As far as I'm concerned, the American republic is dead circa 2000, and the nefarious empire that has replaced it spells the beginning of the end of America and its democratic experiment.

US & Israel attack Iran Civilian Nuclear Facilities is suicide cause Iran have aready secretly developed 300 plus tactical nuclear warhead & secretly bought 400 plus tactical nuclear weapons & 100 plus ICBM with strategic nuclear warhead from Russia, China, India, Pakistan and North Korea. Iran have now capacity to totally destroy and burn whole Israel, all US military base in the middle east, Washington DC, New York City, London, Berlin, Rome, Paris, Vatican, Brussel and etc. Iran civilian nuclear facilities is only a bait. Iran ready to catch very very big fish.