Do you appreciate your ancestors?

Hidden away in the closet.

Barack Obama poses at Columbia University in New York City during a visit by his white grandparents Stanley and Madelyn Dunham. (Photo courtesy of Maya Soetoro-Ng / March 23, 2007)

Question from the campaign trail:

"Mr. Obama, do you appreciate the gift of intelligence as well as your caramel colored complexion which was given to you by your mother, through the genes of her white ancestors?"

Schakowsky blasts Ann Coulter's divisive, intolerant remarks about Jews.

This is a precisely what is wrong with religion.

WASHINGTON--Ann Coulter sank to a new low on Thursday in her comments about Jews and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) let her have it.

"We just want Jews to be perfected, as they say," Coulter said on Donny Deutsch’s CNBC show “The Big Idea.”

She really said it--plus more. (click below for a partial transcript.)

"Coulter’s remarks are an insult to anyone who respects religious freedom and diversity," Schakowsky said in a statement.

"Ann Coulter said that it would be better if we were all Christian. Later in the program, she went on to say that “Christians consider themselves: perfected Jews.” Ms. Coulter’s remarks demonstrate her lack of understanding and respect for other religions."

from Schakowsky....

SCHAKOWSKY CONDEMNS ANN COULTER’S REMARKS

Washington, D.C.—U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), a Chief Deputy Whip, released the following statement in response to Ann Coulter’s anti-Semitic remarks on Donny Deutsch’s CNBC show “The Big Idea.”

“Last night, columnist Ann Coulter stooped to yet another low when she made anti-Semitic remarks on Donny Deutsch's CNBC show "The Big Idea.” Coulter’s remarks are an insult to anyone who respects religious freedom and diversity.

Ann Coulter said that it would be better if we were all Christian. Later in the program, she went on to say that “Christians consider themselves: perfected Jews.” Ms. Coulter’s remarks demonstrate her lack of understanding and respect for other religions (see transcript below).

While this may be just another stunt by Ann Coulter to promote her new book, I believe her anti-Semitic remarks are hurtful and damaging. This is not the first time that Coulter has made insensitive and ignorant remarks concerning other religions. It is pathetic that the only way Coulter can sell books is to create controversy by make outrageous and offensive remarks about non-Christians.

While Coulter may say that she did not mean to offend Mr. Deutsch or people of Jewish faith, her remarks fuel the same type of hatred and anti-Semitism that Jews have been battling for thousands of years. Along with Donny Deutsch, I am deeply offended.”

EXCERPTS FROM TRANSCRIPT:

COULTER: Well, OK, take the Republican National Convention. People were happy. They're Christian. They're tolerant. They defend America, they —
DEUTSCH: Christian — so we should be Christian? It would be better if we were all Christian?
COULTER: Yes.
DEUTSCH: We should all be Christian?
COULTER: Yes. Would you like to come to church with me, Donny?

COULTER: No, we think — we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say.
DEUTSCH: Wow, you didn't really say that, did you?
COULTER: Yes. That is what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament, but ours is more like Federal Express. You have to obey laws. We know we're all sinners

DEUTSCH: Welcome back to "The Big Idea." During the break, Ann said she wanted to explain her last comment. So I'm going to give her a chance. So you don't think that was offensive?
COULTER: No. I'm sorry. It is not intended to be. I don't think you should take it that way, but that is what Christians consider themselves: perfected Jews.

The Lord attends the dying with great mercy.

Photo permission of the Army Times
Photo by Mark Faram

Father Steve McGraw, right, kneels in prayer as he prepares to administer the sacrament of the Annointing of the Sick to an injured man.

Pentagon crash eyewitness comforted victims

Paul Haring

Father Steve McGraw, right, kneels in prayer as he prepares to administer the sacrament of the Annointing of the Sick to an injured man.
Father Stephen McGraw was driving to a graveside service at Arlington National Cemetery the morning of Sept. 11, when he mistakenly took the Pentagon exit onto Washington Boulevard, putting him in a position to witness American Airlines Flight 77 crash into the Pentagon.

"The traffic was very slow moving, and at one point just about at a standstill," said McGraw, a Catholic priest at St. Anthony Parish in Falls Church.

"I was in the left hand lane with my windows closed. I did not hear anything at all until the plane was just right above our cars." McGraw estimates that the plane passed about 20 feet over his car, as he waited in the left hand lane of the road, on the side closest to the Pentagon.

"The plane clipped the top of a light pole just before it got to us, injuring a taxi driver, whose taxi was just a few feet away from my car.

"I saw it crash into the building," he said. "My only memories really were that it looked like a plane coming in for a landing. I mean in the sense that it was controlled and sort of straight. That was my impression," he said.

"I hadn't heard about the World Trade Center at that point, and so I was thinking this was an accident. I figured it was just an accident.

"There was an explosion and a loud noise and I felt the impact. I remember seeing a fireball come out of two windows (of the Pentagon). I saw an explosion of fire billowing through those two windows.

"I remember hearing a gasp or scream from one of the other cars near me. Almost a collective gasp it seemed. I just knew right away what I needed to do."

"He literally had the stole in one hand and a prayer book in the other and in one fluid motion crossed the guardrail," said Mark Faram, a reporter from the Navy Times who witnessed McGraw in the first moments after the crash.

Within 45 seconds, McGraw was on the lawn of the Pentagon to provide spiritual comfort to the injured.

"My first memories -- there was of course a lot of confusion and disorientation by a lot of people, I'm sure myself included -- were that in those first moments there were already injured being brought to the far edge of the highway," he said.

McGraw said he saw people coming out of the building who had escaped serious injury and believes that some of these people assisted the gravely wounded in the initial moments before the paramedics arrived by carrying or helping them to the far side of the grass. McGraw said medical personnel were on the scene shortly after he arrived.

"I was trying to be there close to the wounded, trying to keep a prayerful spirit and speak words of consolation. I did approach the wounded one-by-one and the words that came to my mind were: 'Jesus is with you.' That was a refrain that I repeated."

One injured man asked him, 'What is your name?' McGraw replied "I'm a Catholic priest," at which point the man told him he was Catholic.

"I moved closer on my knees, and I remember I said to him: 'Jesus is with you.'" The priest anointed the burned man on the chest as he administered the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.

McGraw said that he ministered to about six injured people in the first half-hour after the attack. One woman whom he had comforted asked him to "tell my mother and father that I love them."

The priest said that shortly after he arrived, several military chaplains came on the scene. McGraw was teamed up with a Lutheran chaplain, as the chaplains moved from one triage area to another at the request of medical personnel. McGraw said that he believes the chaplains were able to arrive so quickly because they were attending a chaplain's conference nearby.

McGraw and the other chaplains left their ministry upon receiving a warning of a second hijacked plane approaching. They took shelter under a nearby bridge.

While under the bridge, McGraw said more than one person asked him: "Are you alright?"

"I know this much, I didn't look good," said the priest. "I looked distressed... I had seen the serious burn victims."

One military chaplain recommended that I take some rest, but I told him I couldn't leave because I had "such a strong sense that this was where I was supposed to be."

"My main focus was really on the spiritual dimension of what was going on. I remember thinking to myself and praying 'Mary, help me to stay with you at the foot of the cross.'"

McGraw said he saw a connection between the suffering of Jesus Christ and the suffering of the victims.

"That's one reason I felt that Jesus was with the victims. I had a strong sense that far from being remote from this horrible tragedy, although it followed upon a terrible evil, which was totally against God's will, in the suffering that came from that evil, Jesus was intimately close to them," he said.

"And I sensed that, and more than one injured person responded in faith, that yes, indeed, he was with them, even in those terrible moments of suffering and pain."

McGraw prayed for the dead after it became apparent that no new injuries were being pulled out of the building.

"At some point we got the word that it was no longer being seen as a salvage operation but a recovery operation. So we knew it was only a matter of recovering the bodies at that point."

The priest was on the scene waiting and praying until 5:30 p.m. when he "finally got the word that due to the dangers in the building they weren't going to remove any bodies until at least 9 p.m."

McGraw said he believes that it was no accident that God wanted him to be on the scene at the Pentagon, and that it was better that he didn't know about the World Trade Center incidents when he arrived.

During his Sunday homily the weekend following Sept. 11th, McGraw told his story to his parishioners.

"A big part of our ministry in the wake of this tragedy was to minister to people regarding the terrible suffering. I wanted them to know that the Lord attends the dying with great mercy."

The Big Lie - 'Iran Is A Threat'

By Scott Ritter
10-10-7

Iran has never manifested itself as a serious threat to the national security of the United States, or by extension as a security threat to global security. At the height of Iran's "exportation of the Islamic Revolution" phase, in the mid-1980's, the Islamic Republic demonstrated a less-than-impressive ability to project its power beyond the immediate borders of Iran, and even then this projection was limited to war-torn Lebanon.

Iranian military capability reached its modern peak in the late 1970's, during the reign of Reza Shah Pahlevi. The combined effects of institutional distrust on the part of the theocrats who currently govern the Islamic Republic of Iran concerning the conventional military institutions, leading as it did to the decay of the military through inadequate funding and the creation of a competing paramilitary organization, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command (IRGC), and the disastrous impact of an eight-year conflict with Iraq, meant that Iran has never been able to build up conventional military power capable of significant regional power projection, let alone global power projection.

Where Iran has demonstrated the ability for global reach is in the spread of Shi'a Islamic fundamentalism, but even in this case the results have been mixed. Other than the expansive relations between Iran (via certain elements of the IRGC) and the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, Iranian success stories when it comes to exporting the Islamic revolution are virtually non-existent. Indeed, the efforts on the part of the IRGC to export Islamic revolution abroad, especially into Europe and other western nations, have produced the opposite effect desired. Based upon observations made by former and current IRGC officers, it appears that those operatives chosen to spread the revolution in fact more often than not returned to Iran noting that peaceful coexistence with the West was not only possible but preferable to the exportation of Islamic fundamentalism. Many of these IRGC officers began to push for moderation of the part of the ruling theocrats in Iran, both in terms of interfacing with the west and domestic policies.

The concept of an inherent incompatibility between Iran, even when governed by a theocratic ruling class, and the United States is fundamentally flawed, especially from the perspective of Iran. The Iran of today seeks to integrate itself responsibly with the nations of the world, clumsily so in some instances, but in any case a far cry from the crude attempts to export Islamic revolution in the early 1980's. The United States claims that Iran is a real and present danger to the security of the US and the entire world, and cites Iranian efforts to acquire nuclear technology, Iran's continued support of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran's "status" as a state supporter of terror, and Iranian interference into the internal affairs of Iraq and Afghanistan as the prime examples of how this threat manifests itself.

On every point, the case made against Iran collapses upon closer scrutiny. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), mandated to investigate Iran's nuclear programs, has concluded that there is no evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program. Furthermore, the IAEA has concluded that it is capable of monitoring the Iranian nuclear program to ensure that it does not deviate from the permitted nuclear energy program Iran states to be the exclusive objective of its endeavors. Iran's support of the Hezbollah Party in Lebanon - Iranian protestors shown here supporting Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah during an anti-Israel rally - while a source of concern for the State of Israel, does not constitute a threat to American national security primarily because the support provided is primarily defensive in nature, designed to assist Hezbollah in deterring and repelling an Israeli assault of sovereign Lebanese territory. Similarly, the bulk of the data used by the United States to substantiate the claims that Iran is a state sponsor of terror is derived from the aforementioned support provided to Hezbollah. Other arguments presented are either grossly out of date (going back to the early 1980's when Iran was in fact exporting Islamic fundamentalism) or unsubstantiated by fact.

The US claims concerning Iranian interference in both Iraq and Afghanistan ignore the reality that both nations border Iran, both nations were invaded and occupied by the United States, not Iran, and that Iran has a history of conflict with both nations that dictates a keen interest concerning the internal domestic affairs of both nations. The United States continues to exaggerate the nature of Iranian involvement in Iraq, arresting "intelligence operatives" who later turned out to be economic and diplomatic officials invited to Iraq by the Iraqi government itself. Most if not all the claims made by the United States concerning Iranian military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been backed up with anything stronger than rhetoric, and more often than not are subsequently contradicted by other military and governmental officials, citing a lack of specific evidence.

Iran as a nation represents absolutely no threat to the national security of the United States, or of its major allies in the region, including Israel. The media hype concerning alleged statements made by Iran's President Ahmadinejad has created and sustained the myth that Iran seeks the destruction of the State of Israel. Two points of fact directly contradict this myth. First and foremost, Ahmadinejad never articulated an Iranian policy objective to destroy Israel, rather noting that Israel's policies would lead to its "vanishing from the pages of time." Second, and perhaps most important, Ahmadinejad does not make foreign policy decisions on the part of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is the sole purview of the "Supreme Leader," the Ayatollah Khomeini. In 2003 Khomeini initiated a diplomatic outreach to the United States inclusive of an offer to recognize Israel's right to exist. This initiative was rejected by the United States, but nevertheless represents the clearest indication of what the true policy objective of Iran is vis-à-vis Israel.

The fact of the matter is that the "Iranian Threat" is derived solely from the rhetoric of those who appear to seek confrontation between the United States and Iran, and largely divorced from fact-based reality. A recent request on the part of Iran to allow President Ahmadinejad to lay a wreath at "ground zero" in Manhattan was rejected by New York City officials. The resulting public outcry condemned the Iranian initiative as an affront to all Americans, citing Iran's alleged policies of supporting terrorism. This knee-jerk reaction ignores the reality that Iran was violently opposed to al-Qaeda's presence in Afghanistan throughout the 1990's leading up to 2001, and that Iran was one of the first Muslim nations to condemn the terror attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001.

A careful fact-based assessment of Iran clearly demonstrates that it poses no threat to the legitimate national security interests of the United States. However, if the United States chooses to implement its own unilateral national security objectives concerning regime change in Iran, there will most likely be a reaction from Iran which produces an exceedingly detrimental impact on the national security interests of the United States, including military, political and economic. But the notion of claiming a nation like Iran to constitute a security threat simply because it retains the intent and capability to defend its sovereign territory in the face of unprovoked military aggression is absurd. In the end, however, such absurdity is trumping fact-based reality when it comes to shaping the opinion of the American public on the issue of the Iranian "threat."

Scott Ritter was a Marine Corps intelligence officer from 1984 to 1991 and a United Nations weapons inspector in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. He is the author of numerous books, including "Iraq Confidential" (Nation Books, 2005) , "Target Iran" (Nation Books, 2006) and his latest, "Waging Peace: The Art of War for the Antiwar Movement" (Nation Books, April 2007).