Iran’s representative to the annual gathering of the International Co-operative Alliance held in Singapore last week fled the conference and hurriedly returned to Tehran after coming in contact with the Israeli delegation.

One of 80 nations attending the conference, the Israelis saw the event as an opportunity to try to create dialogue and possible economic cooperation between the Jewish state and the Islamic Republic.

During the course of the opening event, Israeli representative Rami Mendel approached the Iranian and asked for material regarding cooperation with his country. As the two men sat down to a cup of coffee, Mendel revealed his nationality to the Iranian, who after several seconds of apparent shock and dismay hastily left the hall.

Participants at the conference said the Iranian never returned, even for the closing ceremony. It was later learned that he had returned to Tehran, fearing another encounter with the Israeli delegation. Source

Good grief.

The Israelis didn’t even get a chance to try out their mind-reading techniques.

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The victim card, the female card, and the media bias card have all been played to cover HRC’s poor debate performance, the first two in the immediate aftermath of the debate.

Ms. Clinton has touted her “35 years of experience” as a major qualification to be the Democrat nominee. Like other Democrat candidates, she has decried the “stunning record of secrecy” of the Bush administration; her campaign Web site vows to bring a “return to transparency” to government. But Clinton’s appointment calendar as First Lady, her notes at strategy meetings, what advice she gave her husband and his advisers, what policy memos she wrote, even some key papers from her health-care task force—all of this, and much more documenting her years as First Lady, remain locked away. source

So, what happens when she is asked about this by Tim Russert?

MR. RUSSERT: Senator Clinton, I’d like to follow up because, in terms of your experience as first lady, in order to give the American people an opportunity to make a judgment about your experience, would you allow the National Archives to release the documents about your communications with the president, the advice you gave, because, as you well know, President Clinton has asked the National Archives not to do anything until 2012?

SEN. CLINTON: Well, actually, Tim, the Archives is moving as rapidly as the Archives moves. There’s about 20 million pieces of paper there and they are moving, and they are releasing as they do their process. And I am fully in favor of that.

Now, all of the records, as far as I know, about what we did with health care, those are already available. Others are becoming available. And I think that, you know, the Archives will continue to move as rapidly as the circumstances and processes demand.

MR. RUSSERT: But there was a letter written by President Clinton specifically asking that any communication between you and the president not be made available to the public until 2012. Would you lift that ban?

SEN. CLINTON: Well, that’s not my decision to make. And I don’t believe that any president or first lady has. But certainly we’ll move as quickly as our circumstances and the processes of the National Archives permits.

According to Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff, “Nearly three years after the Clinton Library opened—and more than 21 months after its trove of records became subject to the Freedom of Information Act— barely one half of 1 percent of the 78 million pages of documents and 20 million e-mail messages at the federally funded facility are public.”

Today, the Big Dawg, himself, weighed in, and threw down the media bias card…..

The AP is reporting Bill Clinton said Friday that a letter he wrote to the National Archives was to expedite release of his papers, not slow the process or hide anything as rivals are suggesting in criticism of his wife.

Russert’s question “was breathtakingly misleading,” Bill Clinton said.

“Tim’s question was entirely on the mark.”, Barbara L. Levin, spokeswoman for NBC, said.

Both of them cannot be telling the truth. It is linguistically impossible, UNLESS, in ClintonWorld, it depends upon the meaning of “was.”

Like any good sleight of hand artist, HRC’s protests conveniently change the subject, and distract the audience long enough for the illusion to work. They also completely miss the point. The fact remains that the Clinton campaign is unwilling to provide the evidence, other than her own word, that her years as First Lady provided her with the experience which qualifies her to be President of the United States of America.

With her already high negatives, Mrs. Clinton’s refusal to provide transparency is likely to have the effect of more people agreeing with Mike Huckabee’s assessment, “There is nothing funny about Hillary Clinton being President.”

What say you? This is the Friday Free Speech Zone, aka The World Famous Friday Open Thread.

WFFOT: Because a Star Trek film without William Shatner is like an Open Thread without a music video.

Byron York says, Hillary wants you to see those papers. Really
Sources:
Debate transcript
Video of Russert asking HRC about releasing the records

Newsweek, “Papers, I don’t see any papers”

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NY Sun: Rising in Polls, Huckabee Could Be GOP’s Dark Horse of 2008

“This is a guy who brought the house down at the Values Voter Summit, wins or comes close to winning every debate, shocked everyone by placing second in the Ames, Iowa, straw poll, and is now inching toward the top of the polls in the Iowa caucuses,” Charlie Gerow, a Republican strategist in Harrisburg, told the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.

Byron York in NRO: Huckabee: What’s true and what’s not

With his recent rise in the polls and improved fundraising, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has become the talk of the Republican presidential race. With that new prominence comes new criticism, and Huckabee has taken a lot of it in the past week, mostly for his record on taxes, but also for his handling of a notorious case in which he pardoned a convicted rapist who then went on to commit murder.

Huckabee is getting his defense together. But in August, just before his strong showing in the Ames, Iowa straw poll, he sat down with Byron York for an extended conversation in which he gave his side of the story on the big issues. The article appeared on the cover of the September 10 issue of National Review, available for free to non-subscribers for the first time today.

Newt.Org: Leading the Majority

Last week on Leading the Majority, Rick and Vince hosted former Governor of AR and 2008 Presidential Candidate, Mike Huckabee to discuss his stance on the 5 great challenges facing America.

USA Today: Huckabee could have ’spirit of Reagan’

“At a time when GOP candidates are falling all over themselves to rekindle the spirit of Ronald Reagan in their party,” our Gannett colleague David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register writes in his column today, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee is “coming as close as anyone.”

The Nation: Thompson Tanks in Iowa.

Mike Huckabee, not Fred Thompson, is the Republican to watch in Iowa. A new poll released by the University of Iowa shows Huckabee jumping from 1.8 percent in August to 12.8 percent in October, putting him just behind Rudy Giuliani (13.2%) and ahead of Thompson (11.4 %).

Human Events polls conservatives

Human Events’ presidential preference poll of American conservatives found that former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson leads the competition for conservative support with 23% of the participants selecting him over the other candidates. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee tied for second with 19%, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney came in third at 13% and Arizona Sen. John McCain — in what is probably a direct result of his stance on amnesty for illegal aliens — came in dead last at 2.1%

Got other headlines or articles of interest? Bring ‘em on!

Also: the campaign reports that it is within $80,000 of reaching the very ambitious fundraising goal for October. Please consider helping if you can…. $20.08 for 2008!

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“Please donate for the benefit of our friends and neighbors in Southern California”

Leopard, the latest update of the Apple Mac operating system OS X, goes on sale on Friday.

The release ends months of waiting for Mac fans, after Apple pushed back the launch to finish development on its much-hyped iPhone.

Early reviews for Leopard have been positive with veteran technology writer Walt Mossberg calling it “evolutionary, not revolutionary”.

Apple is hoping to build on recent strong sales of its Mac computers.

In the last three months, Apple sold 2.2 million Macs, up 400,000 on its previous best quarter.

The company is touting Leopard as a Vista-beater, pointing to new features not found in the new operating system (OS) from Microsoft that drives many PCs.

Aren’t you excited? I thought so.

So, as fires continue to burn in California, and authorities find a live grenade at the Mexican embassy in New York, and Feds warn of shoe bombers again, and the Daily Pos kids are advocating conversion to moon god worship, and so on, and so on……..
We come to another Friday, time for The World Famous Friday Open Thread: A Free Speech Zone.

WFFOT: Better thread than dead……..

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David Brooks on the op-ed page of the NYT has some interesting obersvations…..(h/t n2l) SUPPORT MIKE

The first thing you notice about Mike Huckabee is that he has a Mayberry name and a Jim Nabors face. But it’s quickly clear that Huckabee is as good a campaigner as anybody running for president this year. And before too long it becomes easy to come up with reasons why he might have a realistic shot at winning the Republican nomination:

First, Republican voters here and in Iowa are restless. That means that there will be sharp movements during the last 30 days toward whoever seems fresh and hot.

Second, each of the top-tier candidates makes certain parts of the party uncomfortable. Huckabee is the one candidate acceptable to all factions.

Third, Huckabee is the most normal person running for president (a trait that might come in handy in a race against Hillary Clinton). He is funny and engaging — almost impossible not to like. He has no history of flip-flopping in order to be electable. He doesn’t seem to be visibly calculating every gesture. Far from being narcissistic, he is, if anything, too neighborly to seem presidential.

Fourth, he is part of the new generation of evangelical leaders. Huckabee was a Baptist minister. But unlike the first generation of politically engaged Christian conservatives, Huckabee is not at war with mainstream America. As a teenager, he loved Jimi Hendrix, and he’s now the bass player in a rock band that has opened for Willie Nelson and Grand Funk Railroad.

Fifth, though you wouldn’t know it from the past few years, the white working class is the backbone of the G.O.P. Huckabee is most in tune with these voters.

He was the first male in his family’s history to graduate from high school. He paid his way through college by working 40 hours a week and getting a degree in two and half years. He tells audiences that the only soap his family could afford was the rough Lava soap, and that he was in college before he realized showering didn’t have to hurt. “There are people paying $150 for an exfoliation,” he jokes. “I could just hand them a bar of Lava soap.”

His policies reflect that background. At the recent Republican economic debate, he was the candidate who most vociferously argued that the current economy is not working for the middle class. As the others spoke, he thought to himself: “You guys don’t get out much. You should meet somebody who’s not handing you a $2,300 check.”

He condemns “immoral” C.E.O. salaries, and on global trade he sounds like a Democrat: “There’s no free trade without fair trade.” (Polls suggest most Republican voters are, sadly, with him on this).

Sixth, he’s a former governor. He talks about issues in a down-to-earth way that other candidates can’t match. For example, he’s got a riff on childhood obesity that rivets the attention of his audiences. He asks them to compare their own third-grade class photos with the photos of third graders today. Then he goes down the list of the diseases that afflict preteens who get Type 2 diabetes.

“The greatest challenge in health care is not universal coverage,” he argues while introducing his health care plan. “It’s universal health. A healthy country would be less expensive to cover.”

Seventh, he’s a collaborative conservative. Republicans have tended to nominate heroic candidates in the Reagan mold. Huckabee is more of an interactive leader. His Legislature in Arkansas was 90 percent Democratic, but he got enough done to be named among the nation’s top five governors by Time.

He endorses programs that are ideologically incorrect for conservatives, like his passion for arts education. He can’t understand how the argument over the size of the S-chip funding increase became an all-or-nothing holy war. He also criticizes the Bush administration for its arrogance. “There was a time when people looked up to the U.S. Now they resent us, not because we’re a superpower but because we act like one.”

Huckabee has some significant flaws as a candidate. His foreign policy thinking is thin. Some of his policy ideas seem to come off the top of his head (he vows, absurdly, to make the U.S. energy independent within eight years).

But Huckabee is something that the party needs. He is a solid conservative who is both temperamentally and substantively different from the conservatives who have led the country over the past few years.

He’s rising in the polls, especially in Iowa. His popularity with the press corps suggests he could catch a free media wave that would put him in the top tier. He deserves to be there.

Oh yeah….#8, Mike plays a mean bass. Heh
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