Each of the Presidential candidates and those who support them are fighting for the soul of America. Each has a radically different world view; each inhabits a radically different culture. They listen to different music, watch different movies, read different media. Each mainly socializes only with others who are like themselves. They do not talk to those with whom they disagree and when they do, it is often with anger and contempt.

I have lived in both worlds. I still do. There are good people on both sides of the great divide. Nevertheless, their values and tastes are different. One world is a glittering and violent urban metropolis where one can lead an anonymous life–or reach for the stars. The other world is a Small Town where everyone knows everybody’s “business,” prays together, helps out in emergencies, joins the civilian fire department, and usually joins the Army.

And here’s a newsflash for you: Some people can live in a large city psychologically even if they live in a small town and vice versa.

The Democratic National Convention had music by the great Stevie Wonder; Jennifer Hudson, like Senator Obama, a sudden and recent star who won an Academy award for her supporting role in Dreamgirls; Melissa Etheridge; Sheryl Crow; the very popular soul singer, John Legend who performed twice, once alone and once with Will.i.am, a member of the funk/hip-hop group, The Black Eyed Peas. Robert Moore, a Rosebud Sioux tribal Council member, sang a traditionally non-traditional version of the national anthem.

The entire convention, especially the last night when Obama spoke, was the equivalent of a rock concert. To many people, especially younger people, this is what moves them, what is real. Only celebrity, “spectacle,” performance, and popular music have authority, are familiar, and command their respect.

The Republican National Convention had very little music. I myself saw and heard only one young Christian rock singer. Maybe there was more music and I missed it. Perhaps the Republicans decided to focus on the speakers and not on the entertainment. The RNC website lists no musical entertainers, probably courtesy of Hurricane Gustav.

However, the presumably anti-feminist Republicans have now chosen a woman as their Vice-Presidential candidate. Democratic feminists are not at all happy about this because despite Palin’s oratorical gifts and enormous charm, she is a feminist–but from “another world,” one in which feminists are married, God-fearing, pro-military, pro-guns, pro-American energy independence–and anti-big government, anti-taxes, anti-jihad and anti-abortion. It is feared that Palin may also be pro-censorship. Her position on women’s economic rights is as yet unclear.

Today, the Democrats have announced they will employ a troop of “female surrogates,” including Senator Clinton of New York, Governor Janet Napolitano of Arizona, and Governor Kathryn Sibelius of Kansas to take Governor Palin on and hopefully steal her thunder away from voters in battleground states.

Sounds like it will be a page from my book Woman’s Inhumanity to Woman.

I wonder why the guys are so uncomfortable taking a woman on publicly? In the political arena, they do so all the time, usually behind closed doors–except if that woman is Senator Clinton. How ironic, that Senator Obama has had to turn to her now.

In my opinion, President Amadinejad might indeed have  formidable opponents in Senator McCain and Governor Palin who understand that we are at war and that it is one we must win. Unlike Senator Obama,  I bet they do not view the terrorists as “perverting the Islamic faith” (Obama said this in his interview with O’Reilly) but rather, as expressing it all too well. On this very point,  (whether there is a “good” and “peaceful” Islam or not),  our Republic will either stand or fall.

To be fair: Whether or not they can always practice what they preach, (Clinton got a pass on his various sexual assaults), to their credit, Democrats condemn racism, sexism, homophobia and poverty; support women’s reproductive rights, including birth control and non-abstinence-based sex education, equal pay for equal work, big government, and independence from foreign oil. They tend to oppose the military in general and the war in Iraq in particular.

This is not exactly the Republican Party platform. The Republicans are talking about soldiering and Islamic fundamentalist terrorism and about the dangers of appeasing such terrorists.

As I said: They are cultures, perhaps worlds, apart. McCain has said that he wants to work with everyone, “Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.” I am not sure that Obama has weighed in on this precise point as yet, but he has said that he would sit down and try to work with America’s enemies.

In 2000, when President Bush won (others say “when Bush stole”) the election, the Democrats became enraged, some say “deranged.” That rage has grown. If McCain wins–I predict that the cultural wars will not only intensify but will turn into the beginnings of the next Civil War in America.

What do you think will happen after one side wins and the other side loses? Will blue or red states want to secede from the union? Will there be more violent and ugly confrontations upon encountering ideas and practices with which one disagrees?

Folks: I am in bed with a fever and battling an infection and cannot do further justice to this theme at this time. I hope my readers can fill in the blanks and point out to me what I haven’t covered.

The decision about whom to vote for in the race for President and Vice-President is a wrenching one for many Americans. It is for me.

I agree with Joe Lieberman that this is neither an ordinary election nor an ordinary historical moment. (Yes, he also said that John McCain is no ordinary candidate.) I also agreed with Fred Thompson who said that, unlike their opposition, McCain and the Republicans believe that we live in the best country in the world, one worth defending with honor (as opposed to viewing America as the worst country in the world and making speeches abroad to please America’s enemies). In addition, I agree with Thompson that character, judgment, courage, humility, a sense of duty, wisdom and honor are traits that a war-time President requires.

The Democratic candidates talk a language with which I’m familiar, a language which opposes racism, sexism, homophobia, poverty–and yet I am stirred by the fact that John and Cindy McCain have also “walked the talk” by adopting a special needs orphan girl from Bangladesh. Although I have viewed adoption as a complex and not always as an altruistic affair, in this case, my heart was opened by the McCain family’s magnificent service to others. And, John McCain has certainly “walked the talk” of a soldier by behaving with unbelievable courage and moral strength while enduring a terrible and torture-filled captivity in Vietnam.

Thus, here are some wrenching bottom lines: Do we vote to keep abortion legal and to stop the anti-Choice conservatives from taking over the Supreme Court–or do we vote to make sure that the American military is allowed to stop the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists in their tracks? Can we really achieve both goals by voting for one candidate? If not, then what is the more pressing priority? For ourselves, for our country, for the world at this moment in history?

If American women retain the right to choose whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term–in my view, a prerequisite to female human freedom, what does this mean if the jihadists bomb the country back to the seventh century? If the jihadists triumph, American women will be forced to convert to Islam, to wear veils or burqas (body bags), and risk being stoned to death, hung, or honor murdered if they want to choose their own husbands, attend college, dress like modern American girls do, or convert to another non-Islamic religion.

Leiberman was tactically brilliant in suggesting that Americans, including his fellow Democrats, should care more about their country than their Party; being a Republican or a Democrat is nowhere near as important as being an American. “We need a President our allies will trust and our enemies will fear.”

I can’t wait to hear Governor Palin speak tommorrow night. I understand that she has invited both her pregnant daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend/future husband to join her at the Convention. Classy. Gutsy.

Mind you: Senator Obama’s eloquence is thrilling and the good old laundry list, beginning with abortion, matters a great deal to me. But jihad is here and here to stay and I would need to be persuaded that Obama and Biden really understand that. Also, since anti-Semitism, disguised as anti-Zionism has arisen today on the Left, not the Right, as has the academic feminist betrayal of a universal vision of human rights for everyone, everywhere, including Muslim women and dissidents, I would need to be assured that voting for abortion does not mean that I end up voting against Israel, against the Jews–and against Muslims who are under Islamic seige.

Please share your Bottom Line dilemmas with me.

What I have been hearing from feminists is not what either the liberal-Democratic or conservative-Republican media have so far addressed. I am not at liberty to go into details but here’s the essence of what I have been told:

The Democratic Party leaders, despite their feminist-friendly agenda, did everything they could to destroy Senator Hillary’s candidacy. The fact that she is a standard-bearer for Democratic party values and won eighteen million votes made no difference, not only because she came with “baggage,” but also because she is a woman. This is why the “Hillary-ites” are so enraged and distraught. They have seen such behavior before from progressive-radical men and women who have said all the right feminist things (or promised future feminist activism) but who turned out to be no different than anyone else in terms of misogyny.

On the other hand, Senator John’s choice of a newcomer and an unknown as his Vice-Presidential pick does not suggest that he understands (as Freud once famously asked) what women or what Hillary’s feminist women want. Yes, Governor Sarah seems both charming and attractively “kickass” tough; yes, I am upset by how vicious and sexist the liberal commentators have been about her candidacy–but c’mon: Would Senator John have picked a male candidate with as little experience on the world stage or does he have different and lower standards for women-only?

However, I must give the Republican Presidential candidate credit for picking someone who shares and embodies all the conservative values even though she is a woman. Please contrast this with the aforementioned Democratic behavior which jettisoned a Democratic values standard-bearer, both for President and Vice-President, partly because she is a woman leader.

Yes, many Republicans will vote for Vice-Presidential candidate Sarah just as they would have voted for anyone else, male or female because she is anti-abortion, anti-corruption, outside the Beltway, a hunter, gun-owner and a member of the NRA, in favor of drilling for oil, less government, and who is a “good” (heterosexual and religious) family woman.

Please note: Unlike Michelle Obama who is, no doubt, every bit as attractive and super-competent both at home and at work, Governor Sarah felt perfectly comfortable in presenting herself as both a wife and mother–and as a hard-working professional. True, she is not running for First Lady but paradoxically, it is the Democrats, not the Republicans, who seem to have A Problem with a strong woman, who balances home and career obligations and who is also a leader.

Psycho-analytically, we, the people, reveal a great deal about our relationships to our own mothers in how we view our women leaders. Most of us are still more comfortable in voting for Daddy, not Mommy to govern. We view an all-powerful, benevolent, and distant God as a Daddy-man; retain an infantile and unconscious ambivalence, envy, guilt and rage towards our mothers, all of which mask our fear of a shamed and helpless dependency on and longing for Mommy and which only Catholics have so wisely displaced onto the Virgin Mary.

And then we transfer such ambivalence (subsequently socialized into sexist values) onto other women: Our sisters, the women with and for whom we work–and for whom we vote.

Stay tuned for a continuing independent and non-partisan feminist commentary on this race.

Marshall McLuhan was right when he said “The medium is the message.” Obama’s masterfully choreographed extravaganza, a combination rock festival/revival meeting/political anointing was, what can I say, both underwhelming and overwhelming. The fireworks and confetti were a bit much (not to mention the Greek Temple motif), and I ultimately missed the balloons which I used to think were pretty silly.

Hurtling into the future makes me feel a bit nostalgic. Yes, I miss the whistle-stop tours of old and the spontaneity of some of the candidates’ speeches, before everything was so carefully scripted and rehearsed. And when I was so much younger…

Obama’s speech was good, not great, but his oratorical skills are clearly as good as Bill Clinton’s, maybe even better. One can’t help “liking” him as he speaks. His charm is overwhelming. He moves like Denzel Washington, slowly but athletically, enjoying that fact that his every move is being followed by adoring admirers.

I honestly don’t understand how he will find enough money to pay for every single social justice program he mentioned (and he mentioned them all) simply by seriously taxing the rich. Years ago, Gertrude Stein famously said, (and here I am paraphrasing), that if you get rid of the rich and re-distribute their wealth among the masses that you will then end up with even more poor people than you had before.

Obama’s determination to penalize corporate entities for outsourcing jobs that Americans need is a good idea. Let’s hope that they don’t relocate offshore entirely. Going through the federal budget line by line–well, why not? But I’m not sure that Obama will be able to find enough there to preserve social security, guarantee health insurance and quality health care, send every American child to college, pay women equally to men, get America back on its feet economically, educate girls and women so that they do not have unwanted pregnancies that lead to abortion–and on and on.

Ending America’s addiction to Middle Eastern oil within a decade–I’m absolutely with him on this. Funding the search for alternative sources of energy–I’m with him too. Equipping our soldiers adequately when we send them “in harm’s way”–he is right about this. Defeating al-Qaeda, but not in Iraq, (why not? they are there in droves), but rather, only in the “80 countries” where they have terror cells and in Afghanistan–of course. Yes. But does Obama have any idea how much this will cost? And keep on costing? Because the Islamic fundamentalist terrorists are not going to go away anytime soon.

What frightened me about the evening was this: Each of the average American citizens who spoke, including two former Republicans who are now voting for Obama, had clearly been rehearsed in the Saul Alinsky-style of Method Acting. They spoke as if they were at a left political rally on a soapbox or in the street, gesturing largely, speaking loudly, grandstanding, repeating slogans and gestures over and over again. “Yes we Can.” None spoke “naturally,” or from the heart.

This canned performance coupled with one other reported fact troubled me. Several newscasters said that people openly wept when Obama began to speak. And kept on weeping. I myself saw some weeping faces: Young girls, older African-American men, middle aged white women, the Hollywood celebrities. Even Oprah was quoted as saying that “Nothing compares” (to this evening). The tears, plus the largeness of the choreographed event (85,000 people were in Invesco Field) brought to mind other large political rallies where leaders have held their people spellbound, often for hours.

No, I am not going to compare Obama to Hitler, Castro or Khomeini; that would simply not be true or fair. And yet, these are very dangerous times. People need to keep their heads about them, not lose them in a swoon. A Cult of Personality will not save America.

McCain’s paid advertisement congratulating Obama on the fact that his acceptance speech took place 45 years later and on the very same date that the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I’ve Got a Dream” speech was pretty classy. But McCain’s decision to announce his Vice-Presidential running mate the day after Obama’s speech was politically canny because it is pre-empting Obama’s next day air-time.

McCain’s record on women’s reproductive rights and on equal pay for equal work is beyond worrisome. Thus, his choice of a woman who is a self-identified feminist, Governor Sarah Palin, as his Vice Presidential running mate is very smart. I am not yet sure what this will mean other than that a woman will be one heart-beat away from the Presidency and the first in line to run for the Presidency. McCain’s campaign understood that they would have to reach out for the votes of women, progressives, feminists, and to all those feminists who are furious with the Democratic Party’s treatment of Hillary.

Palin is reportedly a feminist for “Life” and not for “Choice.” Yes, I think one can be both and yet and yet…oy vey! Abortion is too key an issue for women’s rights to sacrifice just in order to have a woman living in Number One Observatory Circle. But the fight against jihad and Islamic gender and religious apartheid are too important to sacrifice to ideals about diplomacy.

Well, Palin is reportedly for “gay rights.” (But, I have just been told, only because a decision about gay domestic partnerships benefitted the state of Alaska financially.) And, I have just received information that the disaffected Hillary supporters are starting a “new” Democratic Party; planning to press Obama’s feet to the fire on women’s rights; planning to write in Hillary’s name–or to vote outright for McCain.

Folks: As Bette Davis famously said: “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

It was an evening of political soap opera. Senator Biden’s wife, Senator Obama’s wife, each wept a little in their seats. Biden and his son hugged each other. In full view, both Democratic candidates kissed the other candidates’ female relatives. And although the speakers at the DNC got one rousing ovation after the other, even though I myself was sometimes moved by the theatrical tactics–the platitudes did not move me so much as sadden me. The speeches were fraught with promises which bore no relationship to reality and which failed to deal with the existential peril to America posed by Islamic jihad.

The only speaker who even remotely touched upon this was Senator Biden who only once mentioned dangerous “fundamentalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan”–as if al Qaeda, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad, etc. do not exist world-wide. President Clinton ignored this very Islamist threat when it might still have been contained. It now exists on every continent and it became so on his watch.

Both President Clinton and Senator Biden were charismatic speakers. Biden mainly presented himself as a family man, whose track record as a brave and caring single father was and is exemplary. Biden also praised his white-haired mother, (who was present), and his father, (who has since gone on to his final reward). Both parents had taught “Joey” Biden to “pick himself up after he was knocked down.” Biden’s gratitude and love for his parents and for his children and grandchildren was sincere and moving.

I am sure that Oprah might have loved these staged performances, but I am not sure what they have to do with transforming the American economy and repairing America’s international reputation.

Just because a six term Senator has, admirably, also functioned as a hands-on father does not mean that he can–or has–passed legislation that will allow all American fathers and mothers to do likewise.

If we wish to put working America back on its feet, we need specific plans, not platitudes and we must do so without robbing Peter to pay Paul and without bequeathing enormous debt to the next generations.

I heard no specific programs. Did you?

Now, President Clinton strongly praised Obama as “ready to lead” right after he spent ten months condemning him as unfit to lead. This Big Dog doesn’t need to learn any new tricks. But are we to believe him? Was he lying before or is he lying now? Or, do we still exempt Bill from telling the whole truth so help you God? Charles Krauthammer, commenting afterwards said: “(Bill) can fake sincerity like no one else ever has.”

I can’t– and thus I’m not a politician. But America, at least the Democrats,  are ready to vote for a new kind of American Idol,  a  new shining Camelot,  in the hope that this will save us economically and restore our failed reputation in Paris, Mecca, and Teheran.

Alas, this cannot be done, not quickly and not on the cheap,  not without winning major military victories and not without enormous sacrifices.

As Hillary addressed the DNC, the unforgiving cameras kept panning back to Michelle Obama who was sitting with Joe Biden. Neither Michelle nor Joe managed to crack more than one smile apiece–well, perhaps two, even as Hillary insisted, over and over again, that the Democratic Party must unite behind Obama–not because he is an astounding leader, or The One, but simply because he is the Democratic candidate. During every ovation, both the future First Lady and her husband’s Vice-Presidential choice remained grim-lipped, expressionless, sometimes even angry-faced. (Joe Biden was caught on camera warmly embracing former President Jimmy Carter. So much for “change.”)

In a sense, just as Hillary stood by her man Bill, she is also, just as strategically, standing by her man Obama. But not exactly. In her speech, Hillary never described herself as a “wife” and she positioned herself more as a descendant of the early suffragists and as a fighter in the movement for women’s rights than as a from-the-gut supporter of Obama. She said that her mother was born before women had the right to vote but that her daughter had exercised that very right to vote for her own mother for the Presidency.

Hillary did not extol Obama as a fully vetted leader with an impressive track record but rather as the one the Democrats have chosen. She emphasized the Democratic party and her loyalty to it more than to its candidate. Nevertheless, it was a polished performance.

Hillary’s speech was professional, disciplined, a lawerly “closing argument,” but I do not believe her heart was in it. She cannot be faulted for anything that she said and yet the speech left everything to be desired. Perhaps that’s why Michelle and Joe looked so grim.

The eighteen million cracks (votes for Hillary) in the Presidential glass ceiling did not shatter that ceiling. I have been battling for women’s rights longer than Hillary has and I am weary and sad not only about the Party’s and the media’s sexism but about a lost national opportunity that may not come our way again for some time.

Aware of the historical moment, I had dressed up to vote for Hillary in New York City. Yes, of course, it is also historic to be able to vote an African-American into office, especially one so eloquent and smooth–so why do I feel that I’ve just re-lived the fight over whether only freed black men–and not white or black women– have the right to vote?

I am feeling historically weary. This is the Longest Revolution. And make no mistake: I have never “loved” Hillary. She lacks all charisma, she comes with “baggage,” and yet, in terms of hard work, discipline, and experience, I came to believe that she would have made an amazing President. And Vice-President.

The moment Hillary’s speech ended, I started receiving emails from feminists who are still planning to vote for McCain.

I don’t know what I will do on Election Day: Sleep late, leave town, write in a candidate who is not even running, (like Hillary, not Ralph Nader), vote for Obama, vote for McCain? Whatever I do, I think I will take Hillary’s advice who said, quoting Harriet Tubman, (who may or may not have said exactly this):

“When you hear the dogs, keep going. If you see the torches in the woods keep going. If they’re shouting after you keep going. Don’t ever stop, keep going. If you want a taste of freedom keep going.”

Hillary: I will just “keep on going” towards that taste of freedom. Hope that you, too, take your own advice.

In her speech before the DNC, Michelle Obama came across as a low-key and consummately likeable family woman: a warm, (but oh-so-cool) sister, daughter, wife, and mother. Her role was to normalize her exotic or at least unusual husband. How American can he be with an absent Kenyan Muslim father, an absent Indonesian Muslim stepfather, a name like Barack Hussein Obama, a childhood which consisted of growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia, and of being brought up by his white grandparents?

Michelle Obama also had to dispel the fears about her college thesis as a black separatist–and she certainly tried to do so. Thus, instead of noting that America has been “criminal” in its treatment of African-Americans, (and suggesting that the most admirable African-Americans are “separationists,” not “integrationists”), she uncritically stated that she loves America and credits it with her humble and church-going family’s breathtaking rise.

Barack Obama was presented as a loving, hands-on father. The Obamas are no different than the Cleavers or the Huxtables. Obama himself appeared on video from Kansas City and related as a family man to his wife and young daughters. This relaxed, informal “cuteness” seemed to work for the delegates who cheered, wiped away tears, “woo-hooed,” looked dreamy, and applauded Mrs. Obama over and over again.

But now for some reality. We are at war and under seige. With our every purchase of oil, we are funding the war against ourselves. Jihadists, both terrorists and legal and civil rights advocates, mean to establish Islamist beachheads in all our Judao-Christian countries and, step by step, to take them over and force us all to live under Sharia law. Mrs. Obama is a smart woman. I would have liked to hear her say something about this. Showing us and telling us that she cherishes her private family life, however wonderful that may be, does not rise to the level of a Churchillian speech in which her maternal concerns are for us all, not only for her own children.

Yes, I know, that kind of speech may be reserved for her husband who is the presumptive candidate. But for a lawyer with an Ivy League education, I expected much more–no, I actually expected a lot more. She did not say a word about what America must do to protect herself from those who intend to destroy us.

Contrary to all her many empty, “feel good” remarks, I know that not every American can pull him or herself up by their bootstraps. “Hope” is not enough. Today, even hard work at two to three jobs is not enough. Try as we all might, we currently do not and cannot all have health coverage or quality health care; decent jobs; our own good-enough homes; quality child care; the best educations for our children. It is good to have ideals but we have to level with our countrymen and women. The dream cannot be realized by wishful thinking and grand, heart-soaring words. It can only be realized by Affirmative Action.

We would all be taxed at a 60% rate in order to improve matters just a little for others while wrecking the working middle class. Even taxing us will not be enough to ensure that all Americans can realize the American dream. It may not be possible. We need someone with the guts to say so.

Presenting one’s credentials as a family-style team player is not enough. So, either she dissembled–and is really someone else, not primarily or only the loving wife and mother. If so, I would have liked to meet that other woman in action. Or, if this is indeed who she is–mainly a wife and mother–then God help us all because we now need an Eleanor Roosevelt, a Barbara Jordan, a Shirley Chisholm–dare I say it, a Hillary Clinton, a Condoleeza Rice, a Jeanne Kirkpatrick, a Sandra Day O’Connor, someone who is wise and strong (as well as loving, gracious and compassionate,) and who will act for the public as well as for her own private good.

Remember how displeased feminists were when Hillary baked some cookies? Let’s see if my esteemed feminist colleagues say anything negative about Michelle’s self-presentation as a wife and mother, and not as a tough-minded Ivy League graduate.

NEWSFLASH! In two seconds flat, a reader posted a comment. He said that I probably “don’t hold Laura Bush to the same standards.” He is right. I have been a life-long Democrat. Their language has been my language in terms of women’s rights. I do not expect Democrats–especially the first African-American political family to behave like Republicans in terms of gender role expectations. Do you?

And yes, like Senator Joe Lieberman who stood with Republicans on certain issues, I crossed the aisle and voted Republican for the first time. The punishment for doing so continues to this day. This next election may be the most important one of our lifetimes. Who are you all voting for?

IN RESPONSE TO SOME READERS

I in no way oppose any woman’s choice to present herself as–and to be–a good mother and a devoted family person. I am one of those feminists who have fought hard (often against the prevailing feminist opinion) for a woman’s right to choose motherhood. I am not attacking Michelle Obama’s choice to be a mother and a wife. On the contrary.

But Michelle Obama is now a public person and  the Democrats have been promising “change.” I do not see how Michelle Obama’s speech presented her in a light that is different from (a “change”) from how Jackie Kennedy, Patricia Nixon, Betty Ford, Rosalyn Carter, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, and Laura Bush presented themselves. For what it’s worth: I happen to like how each of these wives conducted themselves with grace and style. But that is beside the point.

Only Hillary Clinton, like her or not, embodied a “change” in terms of her role as wife, mother, and her husband’s political co-partner. Eighteen million Americans thought so too and voted for her.

The Democratic National Convention is about to begin. Never has the world needed a great leader more than it does today. We live in an era characterized by genocide and torture–genocides which we may passively watch on television while we are safe at home. No one can really say that “I didn’t know.” But no one, including the major powers, seem able to say: “I can and will end it.”

Like so many others, I have, for many reasons, been haunted by what is happening in Darfur. Like other good people, I have done nothing to stop it. True, I sounded the alarm about this genocide and gender-cleansing early on–and took hell for doing so from my progressive colleagues. I have continued to write and speak about it but my words have made no difference. It continues despite all my fine words.

I first published this article in Frontpage Magazine on August 9, 2007 before I began blogging for Pajamas Media. I could write this article today.

In the summer of 2004, I wrote an article calling attention to the tragic plight of black African Muslim women in the Sudan. But my article led to no feminist, African-American, or Islamic-American campaign on their behalf. I described what was being done to the girls and women as “gender-cleansing.” My work did not prompt liberal Jewish groups to take immediate action to aid Darfur’s refugees. (Since then, some liberal Jewish groups have joined Christian groups and have tried to help as best they can.) Many left feminists remained more furious about my publishing in a conservative venue than they were about what was happening to people in Darfur.

So one hopes that a powerful new film about Sudan, The Devil Came on Horseback, will succeed where I did not.

The film documents former American Marine Captain Brian Steidle’s dogged crusade to document this ongoing atrocity. In 2004 and 2005, Steidle volunteered for six months to serve as part of the African Union military-monitoring body in the Sudan. He had unparalleled access to smoldering sites, charred corpses, and weeping women. As the genocide raged, the African Union did nothing other than “monitor.”

And that’s where Steidle came in. He hoped that if enough good people saw his photos, they would understand that the Muslim Khartoum government had sanctioned and financed the Janjaweed (men on horseback) to systematically loot, then burn whole villages as well as refugee centers; to castrate, mutilate, hack innocent civilians to death; to chain them together and burn them alive; to shoot small children in the back; and to gang-rape the women and female children. Then, he thought, Americans would persuade our Congressmen and Senators to order military intervention.

So Steidle went to work. He turned his haunting photos over to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who printed them and continued to turn out remarkable columns on the subject. Steidle also testified before Congress, appeared in the media, testified in the International Court of Criminal Justice in the Hague, and agreed to have a documentary film team follow him as he spoke on campus, at political rallies, even to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice.

As yet, his efforts have not led to military intervention to stop the genocide. The United Nation has done nothing. It has maintained its almost perfect record of non-interventionism achieved most recently in Rwanda and in Bosnia (which required American military intervention). The African Union finally sent monitors or peacekeepers who also failed to intervene. Steidle now understands that he was “naïve” in thinking that he could compel more dramatic measures to arrest the violence.

So why has the “international community” been so ineffective on Darfur? Here’s why. The perpetrators are ethnic Arab Muslims and the majority of their victims are black African Muslims. As one displaced African comments in The Devil Came on Horseback, what hurts him the most as a Muslim is that it is Muslims who are committing the violence — and it is mainly Americans who are sending food, medicine, and humanitarian workers. No Muslim or Arab country is doing so. This man, betrayed, weeps off camera. He thanks Americans and hopes and prays they will come and liberate his people from the genocide.

The lack of meaningful action can also be explained by the fact that the “international community” and the West’s chattering classes only care about Muslim deaths when Israelis or Americans can be blamed–but not otherwise. Interestingly, many Darfuris have escaped to Israel, which they have been allowed to enter. On the other hand, the United Arab Emirates has in the past expelled Darfuri refugees. And only last week, Egypt shot to death four such refugees as they crossed the Sinai on their way to Israel. Yet many Western intellectuals seem incapable of reconsidering their belief that all Muslims are innocent victims while America and Israel are their victimizers.

Political correctness also plays a part. The West absolutely refuses to believe that Arab Muslims are lethally racist and have a long history of persecuting Christians, Jews, non-Muslim infidels, and blacks. The West’s “politically correct” denial that Arabs and Muslims have always practiced slavery–and still do–is yet another reason for the ineffectiveness. The situation in Darfur challenges their most sacred assumptions.

Millions of movie-goers lined up this past weekend for the latest escape films. But the Greenwich Village theater in which I watched The Devil Came on Horseback drew a mere 25 people for the weekday evening performance. Captain Steidle is heroically resolved to continue to bear witness until we the people do something. I fear he will have a long wait. So does he.

Nonetheless, I commend him and the filmmakers for their clarity and moral courage in making this powerful documentary.

A Note: I retain the copyright to this article and you may also find it archived at my website www.phyllis-chesler.com

Denmark’s Free Speech Library has offered to publish Sherry Jones’ The Jewel of Medina–the very book that Random House just canceled.The Free Speech Library is an independent company under its own management but with close ties to Denmark’s Free Press Society.

Both Salman Rushdie and Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who penned the drawing of a prophet with a bomb in his turban, criticized Random House for their decision.

Westergaard expressed his dismay that “one of the large publishers is now bowing to intimidation. That is not a good omen for free speech. If the major publishers lose their nerve then I’m afraid that others will follow suit. The big publishers ought to set a good example. The fanatics have won.”

Although every major publisher (including Random House) supports Rachel Ehrenfeld in her battle to protect free speech in America,  they are not funding that battle. They have only submitted amicus briefs.

Perhaps the most radical American writers (those who tell the truth about Islamic gender and religious apartheid and about Islamic imperialism, jihad, and slave ownership, and who believe that Israel, America, and the West are countries worth fighting for), will have to turn to Denmark to be published. Indeed, the Library is about to publish a Danish translation of Bruce Bawer’s book entitled While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within.

I might just ask them to consider publishing my own The Islamification of America. I hope I’m wrong but I doubt that Random House will want it. Make my day, prove me wrong!

May I make a modest proposal? I suggest that both Obama and McCain invite Kurt Westergaard and a representative of the Danish Library to speak at their respective Conventions? So far, neither candidate has shown any understanding of how rapidly Free Speech has been eroded in America due to fear of Muslim protest–and alas, due to our own doctrine of political correctness.

Let me go further: Why not replace Jimmy Carter and Ted Kennedy–yes, and Dick Cheney–with the brave Danish cartoonist and the brave Danish publisher?

Yes, Kennedy is ill and may be dying; yes, he is JFK’s last living brother. But, for the record: Robert Kennedy, our former Attorney General, was assassinated by Palestinian activist, Sirhan Sirhan, who claimed that he did so for political reasons, because he was angry that America sold military equipment to Israel. Sirhan was deemed insane and has been psychiatrically hospitalized ever since. Since every Arab and Palestinian leader say the same thing (and worse): Shall we psychiatrically hospitalize them all –and for life?

Let Obama and McCain invite some true contemporary heroes. In addition to Westergaard and the Danish Press, I propose Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Taslima Nasrin, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, and Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury.

I would like to thank my esteemed colleague, Carol Gould for bringing the Denmark Free Speech Library to my attention.

Senator Obama has released his line-up of convention speakers. His choice of speakers is neither wise nor moral nor are there that many new faces among them. Yes, I know: Senator Obama has to invite the previous living Democratic Presidents, it would be a break with tradition for him not to do so. But isn’t “change” Senator Obama’s mantra? And if not now, when?

For example, Obama has invited Jimmy Carter, the former one-time President of the United States to speak on the opening night of the Democratic National Convention.

Jimmy Carter? Yes, the President who, in 1979-1980, did not find a way to rescue the 52 Americans held hostage for 444 days by Khomeini’s goons; the current President Amadinejad was probably one of the young goons.

Jimmy Carter? Yes, the President who, post 9/11, still continued to blame America for the Arab hatred of America and who viewed America’s call for democracy in the Middle East as a justifiably “discredited” one. In a 2006 interview in the German Spiegel, Carter justified the hatred of America as caused by America’s invasion of Iraq and support for Israel.

Spiegel: You also mentioned the hatred for the United States throughout the Arab world which has ensued as a result of the invasion of Iraq. Given this circumstance, does it come as any surprise that Washington’s call for democracy in the Middle East has been discredited?

Carter: No, as a matter of fact, the concerns I exposed have gotten even worse now with the United States supporting and encouraging Israel in its unjustified attack on Lebanon.

Spiegel: But wasn’t Israel the first to get attacked?

Carter: I don’t think that Israel has any legal or moral justification for their massive bombing of the entire nation of Lebanon. What happened is that Israel is holding almost 10,000 prisoners, so when the militants in Lebanon or in Gaza take one or two soldiers, Israel looks upon this as a justification for an attack on the civilian population of Lebanon and Gaza. I do not think that’s justified, no.”

Oh, where do I begin?

From 1967 on, Palestinian terrorists hijacked planes, bombed synagogues, took hostages, and killed Jewish and Israeli civilians; they did so long before a so-called “settler” movement began living in disputed territories.

Long before America invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, and long before 9/11, the following Arab Muslim/Islamist/terrorist attacks against America (and against western civilians) took place:

On April 18, 1983, a suicide car bomber blew up the U.S. embassy in Beirut, killing sixty-three, including seventeen Americans.

On October 23, 1983, terrorist operatives blew up the U.S. Marine barracks and French military headquarters in Beirut, killing 241 marines and 58 French paratroopers. Jeffrey Goldberg, staff reporter for the New Yorker, attributes this attack to Hezbollah (a.k.a. the Islamic Jihad Organization, a.k.a. the Organization of the Oppressed on Earth). Prior to 9/11, it was the most deadly terrorist attack on Americans.

On June 14, 1985, Hezbollah seized a TWA jet and commandeered its flight to Beirut, demanding the release of seven hundred Arabs held in Israeli jails. One U.S. Navy diver was killed and thirty-nine Americans were held hostage until July 1. Goldberg reported that the United States held one of Arafat’s former bodyguards, Imad Mugniyah, responsible for most of Hezbollah’s anti-American attacks, including this one.

On April 5, 1986, a bomb, putatively Libyan, exploded in a Berlin nightclub killing 2 U.S. servicemen and wounding 230 other people. “Libya is blamed, “according to the Associated Press (AP).

On December 21, 1988, Libyan terrorists blew up Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, killing 270 people, including some on the ground.

On February 26, 1993 a car bomb planted by radical Islamists exploded in the parking garage beneath the World Trade Center towers, killing six and wounding more than a thousand. The four convicted perpetrators were all linked to the blind Egyptian radical Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman, himself indicted as the leader of a larger alleged conspiracy to destroy the United Nations headquarters and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels.

On June 25, 1996, a truck packed with explosives exploded outside the Khobar Towers in Dharam, Saudi Arabia, killing nineteen U.S. servicemen and wounding hundreds. According to Goldberg, the U.S. also suspects former Arafat bodyguard Mugniyah of involvement in this case. However, according to the Washington Post, American investigations in 1998 pointed exclusively to Iranian agents.

On November 17, 1997, Jemaah Islamiyah operatives shot and killed more than sixty tourists visiting the temple of Queen Hatshepsut at Luxor, Egypt. There were Japanese, Swiss, German, and British among the dead.

ON August 7, 1998, Al Qaeda detonated two car bombs and destroyed the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam simultaneously, killing 224 and wounding thousands. The AP reported that bin Laden was suspected.

On October 12, 2000, Al Qaeda attackers bombed the U.S.S. Cole as it refueled in the Yemeni port of Aden, killing seventeen sailors. Again “bin Laden [was] suspected.”

On September 11, 2001 Arab Muslims, mainly from Saudi Arabia, and acting for Al-Qaeda, flew two planes into the World Trade Center and a third plane into the Pentagon. Passengers forced a fourth plane to crash in a Pennsylvania field.

These attacks all took place before America invaded A!fghanistan or Iraq.

The list of atrocities committed against peaceful Israeli civilians is a far longer list which I shall reserve for another article. Suffice to say, Carter has consistently glorified Palestinian terrorism and demonized Israel’s attempts to defend herself.

Let’s set all this aside. Let’s assume that none of the above ever happened. But Senator Obama, who attended Pastor Jeremiah Wright’s church for twenty years, the very church that Oprah attended but left after three years, has chosen a classical Jew-hater as an opening night speaker. (Will he throw him under the bus too? Or say that he did not know…?) Yes, I am still talking about Jimmy Carter.

Carter is not merely an anti-Zionist kind of anti-Semite. His is a good ol’ boy style of Jew-hatred. It is rooted in his version of Christianity. It is racism, raw and unadulterated.

In the late 1990s and into the twenty-first century, President Jimmy, the author of Palestine, Peace Not Apartheid taught a series of Bible classes titled Sunday Mornings in Plains. A tape of his classes was issued in CD form by Simon and Schuster. A student at Columbia, Michael Miller, listened to these CDs and partially transcribed them with commentary galore. I read some of the transcripts with my heart in my throat. I could not bear to read them all.

I have written about this Here. Trust me: Carter hates Jews big time and his Jew-hatred is based on a perverse reading of the Bible. This breaks my heart since I am a strong supporter of Jewish-Christian alliances. However, I doubt that Carter speaks for anyone else other than himself and the Saudi Lobby which has rewarded him so handsomely.

Carter repeatedly whips up hatred towards modern-day Israeli Jews by telling lies, half-truths, and ancient, out-of-context truths. For example, he insists that (all) Jews view (all) Christians as “dogs” and despise and persecute (all) Christians because they are “unclean, uncircumcised.”

Anyone familiar with Middle Eastern realities will understand that it is Muslims who view Christians as unclean infidels and it is Muslims who persecute, forcibly convert, exile, lynch, and be-head Christians. Palestinian Islamists have desecrated churches and murdered Christians. The very Israeli Jewish government whom Carter is railing against in his Bible classes has protected the holy sites of all religions. And, it is ethnic Arab Muslims who have been murdering black African Christians and Muslims in Darfur.

President Jimmy also presents the allegedly great power of Jews who lived under Roman occupation in Jesus’ time as the emblem for the contemporary cabal of power wielded by contemporary Jewish and Israeli Zionists. In his teachings, the stench of Messiah-murder clings to every possible Jewish deed.

And this man was once the President of the United States?

Maybe the crime of the Jew is that of having been there first, of being both the Mother and Father of religious monotheism. Maybe our descendants, whether they are rebellious followers or detractors, need to get out from under our looming parental shadow. But a true Christian is not supposed to hate. In fact, he is supposed to forgive even those who torment him. To demonize and scapegoat an essentially innocent people is so un-Christian that we might not only ask whether Jimmy Carter is a Jew-hater but whether he is really a good Christian.