Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (755779)	12/7/2006 10:26:07 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Cheney pregnancy upsets conservatives Veep's daughter has a lesbian partner Johanna Neuman, Los Angeles Times newsobserver.com WASHINGTON - No Republican in Washington is more beloved by social conservatives than Vice President Dick Cheney, who with his wife, Lynne, has backed and breathed every issue dear to them for six tumultuous years. News that Cheney's openly gay daughter, Mary, is pregnant has therefore touched a raw nerve, as advocates for conservative family values struggle to reconcile their loyalty to the Cheneys with their visceral opposition to same-sex relationships -- and particularly to raising a child without a father. "Not only is she doing a disservice to her child, she's voiding all the effort her father put into the Bush administration," said Janice Shaw Crouse, senior fellow at the Beverly LaHaye Institute, the think tank run by Concerned Women for America. The vice president's office confirmed Wednesday that Mary Cheney, 37, an executive at AOL, was expecting her first child with her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe. The vice president and his wife issued a statement saying they are "looking forward with eager anticipation" to the child's arrival. Some groups that oppose same-sex marriage and gay adoptions -- such as the Family Research Council and the Eagle Forum -- declined to comment. But others were critical, albeit with a delicate touch not always seen in the political wars over gay issues. "Children deserve the very best we can offer, and gay adoption -- by definition -- intentionally denies children either a mother or a father," said Carrie Gordon Earll, an analyst for Focus on the Family, the Colorado-based family advocacy ministry. Family Pride, a Washington-based organization that supports gay parenthood, argued that Cheney's pregnancy will focus attention on the injustice of parents without equal rights. She and Poe live in Virginia, which prohibits same-sex marriage or civil unions, and where the legal status of adoption by gays is unclear. "Unless they move to a handful of less restrictive states, Heather will never be able to have a legal relationship with her child," said Jennifer Chrisler, the group's executive director.

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (755779)	12/7/2006 12:29:07 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Respond to of 769670

Carter Book on Israel 'Apartheid' Sparks Bitter Debate Scholar Resigns From Ga. Center By Karen DeYoung Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, December 7, 2006; A04 washingtonpost.com A veteran Middle East scholar affiliated with the Carter Center in Atlanta resigned his position there Monday in an escalating controversy over former president Jimmy Carter's bestselling book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," traces the ups and downs of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process beginning with Carter's 1977-1980 presidency and the historic peace accord he negotiated between Israel and Egypt and continuing to the present. Although it apportions blame to Israel, the Palestinians and outside parties -- including the United States -- for the failure of decades of peace efforts, it is sharply critical of Israeli policy and concludes that "Israel's continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land." Kenneth W. Stein, a professor at Emory University, accused Carter of factual errors, omissions and plagiarism in the book. "Being a former President does not give one a unique privilege to invent information," Stein wrote in a harshly worded e-mail to friends and colleagues explaining his resignation as the center's Middle East fellow. Stein offered no specifics in his e-mail to back up the charges, writing only that "in due course, I shall detail these points and reflect on their origins." A statement issued by the center yesterday in Carter's name said he regretted Stein's resignation "from the titular position as a Fellow" and noted that he had not been "actively involved" there for the past 12 years. Carter thanked Stein for his advice and assistance "during the early years of our Center" and wished him well. While acknowledging that the word "apartheid" refers to the system of legal racial separation once used in South Africa, Carter says in his book that it is an appropriate term for Israeli policies devoted to "the acquisition of land" in Palestinian territories through Jewish settlements and Israel's incorporation of Palestinian land on its side of a separating wall it is erecting. He criticizes suicide bombers and those who "consider the killing of Israelis as victories" but also notes that "some Israelis believe they have the right to confiscate and colonize Palestinian land and try to justify the sustained subjugation and persecution of increasingly hopeless and aggravated Palestinians." Accusing the Bush administration of abandoning the effort to promote a lasting peace, he calls for renewed negotiations on the basis of security guarantees for Israel and Israel's recognition of U.N.-established borders. Formally published three weeks ago, the book quickly became a bestseller. Carter has been prominently interviewed in the media and has been mobbed at book appearances around the country. Speaking Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press," he said he was glad the book had raised controversy. "If it provokes debate and assessment and disputes and arguments and maybe some action in the Middle East to get the peace process, which is now completely absent or dormant, rejuvenated, and brings peace ultimately to Israel, that's what I want," he said. Criticism of the book, primarily from Jewish groups and leaders, began even before it was published, and it became an issue in the midterm elections last month. The New York-based Jewish Daily Forward noted in October that Democrats were trying to distance themselves from its reported contents as Republicans were seeking to widely disseminate Carter's views in an effort to win Jewish votes. Speaking to the Forward about Carter, Republican Jewish Coalition executive director Matthew Brooks said the coalition had "not shied away from shining a light on some of his misguided and outrageous comments about Israel in the past. . . . So far, there's been nothing but silence on the part of the Democratic establishment in terms of holding Carter accountable." Rep. Steve Israel, a Democrat from New York, told the Forward that the "book clearly does not reflect the direction of the party." Since then, the controversy has only grown. In a widely published commentary last weekend, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz wrote that Carter's "use of the loaded word 'apartheid,' suggesting an analogy to the hated policies of South Africa, is especially outrageous." In a statement issued Monday, the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles contended that Carter "abandons all objectivity and unabashedly acts as a virtual spokesman for the Palestinian cause." In a telephone interview yesterday, Stein said that Carter had "taken [material] directly" from a published work written by a third party but that legal action was being contemplated and he was not yet at liberty to make the details public. He said accounts in the book about meetings he had attended with Carter between 1980 and 1990 had left out key facts in order to "make the Israelis look like they're the only ones responsible" for the failure of peace efforts.