"Guy walks into a book store ..."

I think everyone here is familiar with my absolute disdain of former president James Earl Carter. It is my contention that he fundamentally dislikes & rejects the idea of America as a "special" point in history. He also happens to be an anti-Semite. Well get this story from the NY Times, dateline 9/15/09:

While Oprah’s seal of approval on a book cover is sought after in America, Osama Bin Laden’s is, to put it mildly, not. On Monday, the authors of three books apparently recommended to American readers by the leader of Al Qaeda in his latest communique might be wondering how one goes about returning an unsolicited endorsement to a shadowy militant who has been in hiding for eight years.

As our colleague Mark McDonald reported on Sunday, Mr. Bin Laden apparently released a new audiotape, entitled “An Address to the American People.” According to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadist Web sites, on the tape, a voice claiming to be that of the Qaeda leader described three books that he says support his analysis of global politics and the systematic maltreatment of Muslims at the hands of America and her allies…

1. “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy,” by Stephen M. Walt, a professor of international affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and John J. Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago. Published in 2007, the book argues that uncritical American support for Israel, shaped by powerful lobbying organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, does grave harm to both American and Israeli interests. The voice on the tape gives the title of the book as “The Israeli Lobby in the United States,” according to the SITE translation. ...

2. “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” in which former President Jimmy Carter gives his views about how best to end the Arab-Israeli conflict, and criticizes Israeli treatment of Palestinians in the territories. While the voice on the tape does not mention this book by name, it calls on Americans to “read what your former president, Carter, wrote regarding Israeli racism against our people in Palestine,” in a characterization of the book that goes beyond Mr. Carter’s own language. …

3. The third book referred to on the tape is called “The Apology of a Hired Killer,” according to the SITE translation. The book is said to have been written by “a former CIA agent who lived in two cultures, whose conscience was awakened in his third decade and decided to say the truth despite threats.” The voice on the tape says that this author is “the best to clarify to you the causes of the eleventh,” apparently meaning the attacks of September 11, 2001.

While there seems to be no book of that title and description, at least one analyst has suggested that Mr. bin Laden may have been reading “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man,” by John Perkins.

Carter's book, $22.

A marker to highlight it on your Jihadi must buy list, $0.88 cents.

That endorsement ... priceless.


On a side note ... does anyone else find it disturbing that the Times referred to Bin Laden - the greatest mass murderer of American civilians in our history, as well as the world's most infamous terrorist - as nothing more than a, "shadowy militant who has been in hiding for eight years." So then what was Stalin? A questionable figure in the struggle for workers' rights? Hitler? An overly committed nationalist? The leftist intelligentsia crowd is infinitely talented at proving they are anything but.