Thunderdome

From the Holy City of Bay Village

"Two go in, one comes out" - Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome

Hillary bitch-slapped Hussein last night. That was expected, but not the extent of the bruising. Of course a lot of his contusions were self-inflicted. Barack Obama note to self: Never pee on somebody’s leg before you ask for their vote... unless you’re in San Francisco, and then it’s considered customary to ask first.

It’s not like nobody saw it coming. There are a lot of religious people who own guns, who just can’t bring themselves to vote for a Republican. Obama handed their votes to Clinton immediately prior to the vote. But he is after all, from Chicago where politicians hold non-criminal gunowners in the same high regard that chitlin salesmen are held in Mecca. It was only natural that he display contempt for people for whom he has contempt.

While I have little regard for Hillary’s character, I consider her right up there with Josef Stalin when it comes to opportunism, hypocrisy and a complete willingness to take advantage of her opponents’ blunders to destroy them. Unfortunately for her, this a “winner take all” system, not a “winner kill all”.

Let me present here a prediction I made to friends over a year ago.

Hillary Clinton simply can’t be anybody but Hillary Clinton. Her arrogance and sense of entitlement just don’t allow her to tolerate contradiction or the thwarting of her ambitions. She absolutely must utterly destroy anyone who stands in her way. Barack Obama stands in her way. His mistake. She will bring him down any way she can. He is Sergei Kirov to her Stalin. While she probably won’t dupe some lunatic with a grievance into shooting Obama in the back of the head, that doesn’t mean that she won’t destroy him by any other possible means. He is after all, a Chicago politician. Naturally, he has to have more skeletons in his closet than Jeffrey Dahmer. Many of them have recently done a macabre dance out into the living room in the middle of what he’d hoped would be an elegant celebratory cocktail party. There are undoubtedly more to come. Like the scorpion in the fable, it’s just her nature.

If Hillary manages to bring Obama down, she will do so in the most ham-handed, obvious way possible. It will get Obama out of the way. It will also so alienate the Black vote that more people will have seen Jerry Lewis’s concentration camp clown movie than Black people will turn out for the general election. And make no mistake, Clinton cannot win without the Black vote.

Even should Obama somehow avoid Hillary’s coup de gras, he has wounded and will continue to wound himself fatally with his ill-considered statements and irredeemable associations. The Ghost of Rezkos Past will likely come early this year. I doubt that the religious and gun owning will react better to Obama’s elitism in the general election than they did in the Pennsylvania primary.

And what of John McCain? His campaign needs a thirty second delay on everything he says in order to stop him from offending ANYONE likely to vote for him, no matter how reluctantly. Clinton and Obama are working like serfs to make this election McCain’s to lose. The question is whether he’ll waste their tireless efforts.

Saint Nothing's Day Massacre

From the Holy City of Sandusky

It seems that the fair citizens of Apartheid Chicago are the victims of a cruel and pernicious hoax!

Local media outlets are reporting that in excess of thirty people were shot over the weekend, with at least four assuming room (or outdoor) temperature. Clearly, this is IMPOSSIBLE!

Chicago has some of the strictest gun laws in the nation. There’s simply no way that anyone could be shot there (except by the incompetent, trigger happy, corrupt Chicago PD), much less thirty people! The Tribune and Sun-Times should hang their heads in shame for perpetuating such nonsense.

In related news, Chicago police slaughtered one of our puma friends in a hail of gunfire. The unfortunate cat was shot in the street when it allegedly attacked police. There is no truth at all to the story that the gun found underneath said mountain lion originated in a Chicago Police Department evidence locker. In related news, two black panthers were shot in their beds by Chicago police. No weapons were found at the scene...

Old Whupass in New Cans

From the Holy City of Rocky River

I’ve been away for far too long. Health issues, technical difficulties and simple laziness have contributed to my absence here.

Where to begin? I know! How about that wretched hive of scum and villainy, better known as the Chicago Police Department? That Sergeant York of the South Side, Detective Alvin Weems, having never been able to find his ass with both hands, has now lost said hindquarters in a brutal judgement in favor of the survivors of the late Michael Pleasance. I’m not sure how things are divided up, but between him and Apartheid Chicago, the family of the murdered Mr. Pleasance are owed in excess of $15 million. That homicidal feeb Weems murdered a man in the 95th Street El station. Ironically, he might end up living there, depending upon how the court enforces the judgement against him. Given his facility for lying about the killing of Michael Pleasance, he could always claim to OWN the transit station. And why not? There will always be simpletons eager to believe him merely because some fool put a hat with a checkerboard on his head. Maybe the RTA will take pity on Weems and set aside a broom closet for Weems and his family. But if I were them, I’d put a metal detector in front of it. You don’t want to be anywhere around that dolt when he’s packing iron.

And while we’re on the subject of cavemen in blue, there’s our favorite cross between Ike Turner and Jabba the Hut, Officer Anthony Abbate. Having confirmed [but hardly originated] the reputation of the Chicago PD, he has intermittently reminded one and all of the singular qualities that the Chicago Police Department brings to the world of law enforcement, such as morbid obesity, violence against women and a loathesome sense of entitlement. Now it appears that whatever deal was in the works to allow him to plead guilty has struck the twin icebergs of common sense and simple decency, sending it to the bottom with all hands. Unless even one of his liquor soaked synapses begins firing, it looks like he’s going to go to trial for his cowardly beating of barmaid Karolyna Obrycka. I hear that his attorney is trying to get a change of venue to either the Tribal Territories of Pakistan or Zeta Reticuli. If he can’t be tried somewhere that views him as a hero, at least his case could be tried some place where relatively few people know his name... and spit when they hear it.

And while we’re on the subject of Fat Tony and his future career change to “prison wife”, every time he’s in the news, the crew over at SecondCityCop is poised not just to excuse what he did, but indeed to champion it, since after all, any woman who puts her hands on a guy [who’s physically abusing other patrons] DESERVES a beating like that. My favorite sniveling rant is that of the poltroons who claim, “He wouldn’t be in this kind of trouble if he wasn’t a cop.” Well, DUH! Since a LOT of the charges involve misusing his position to intimidate the complainant and witnesses from pursuing the case against him, I’d guess so. But maybe some genius in a checkerboard hat can spin a gripping yarn of lumber stackers at Home Depot using THEIR “positions” to get people falsely arrested. Of course all of these defenses of a 300lb. sniveling coward are stupid, but I suppose if you’re going down that road, you have to work with the who and what you have. Stupid is as stupid does, and there aren’t many people dumber than the Tony Abbate fan club. When Abbate’s convicted and sentenced to 5-10 in Joliet, I think it would be a fitting gesture of reconciliation if Karolyna Obrycka were to publicly hand that bloated ignoramus a purple negligee (from the Richard Speck Signature Collection), sixe XXXL, season one of “Oz”on DVD, and a gallon bucket of KY as his prison “care package”. Hey, I’m all about reconciliation and healing... and that KY’s a small down payment on the kind of healing Abbate will need., especially if he’s kept in general population as he deserves.

The Chicago Way

From the Holy City of Parma Heights

Well, it took a while, but the video of a bunch of drunken off-duty Chicago cops beating up some stockbrokers then waving off responding police was finally released this week.

Thuggish behavior by drunken Chicago cops is about as unexpected as an icy wind in the Loop in January, but it’s nice to see the true nature of the Chicago PD held up for public inspection yet again.

By now, it’s plain to see that the only real difference between cops in Chicago and Teheran is the somewhat more dapper attire of President Tom’s boys.

Anybody who’s payed even the slightest attention now knows that the Chicago PD is one of the most brutal and corrupt in the nation. If anything, they make the New Orleans PD look like the Pope’s Swiss Guard. From home invasions to outright murder in broad daylight, they’ve got all of the bases covered.

One apparent specialty of the Chicago Police Department is violence against women. Unless you’ve been away rehabbing the face on Mars, you’ve probably seen the heartwarming video of 250+ pound Officer Anthony Abbate bravely stomping on 115 pound barmaid Karolina Obyrcka for refusing to fuel his alcoholic binge. However, many of you are probably unaware that this subhuman display of violent misogyny and craven cowardice reflects a core philosophy of the Chicago PD.

Back in the spring of ‘96, National Public Radio’s All Things Considered ran a story on proposed legislation in Illinois which would have barred those convicted of domestic violence from owning or possessing firearms. This legislation was set to fairly sail through the Illinois legislature... until the Chicago lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police learned that cops were NOT exempted. At that point, the Daley hit the fan.

There followed one of the strangest radio interviews I’ve ever heard. Only the NPR interview of the “roving ambassador” for the Taliban exceeded it in sheer, joyous creepiness and childish malice.

The three “highlights” were as follows:

• An FOP spokesman declared that you couldn’t take away a cop’s gun merely because he beat his wife’s brains out. It was after all, his “tool of the trade”. The interviewer did not apparently think to point out that hitmen like Sammy “The Bull” Gravano could make the same claim with equal validity. But then NPR “journalism” does often have an endearing air of credulousness.

• Another FOP spokesman declared that taking the gun from an angry, violent cop would only make him MORE angry and violent. Strangely, the interviewer again neglected to inquire as to why the same consideration didn’t apply to any Crip, Blood, Hell’s Angel or member of the Aryan Brotherhood. Of course unless she’d worked in Arafat’s Palestinian Authority, she’d probably never run into “police” like those in Chicago.

• Finally an FOP spokesman declared that you could trust a wife beating cop with a gun because he’d be “closely supervised”... just apparently not closely enough to prevent him beating his wife into a coma in the first place.

The FOP’s performance was positively Talibanesque in its effortlessly natural misogyny. It lacked only the obligatory cries of “Allahu akhbar!”

But let us not fail to recognize the other “accomplishments” of the Chicago PD. For instance, there is the murder of Michael Pleasance by Officer Alvin Weems. Weems, for no apparent reason, blew Pleasance’s brains out in a rapid transit station, then proceeded to spin a web of fantasy worthy of the Art Bell Show, repeated and amplified by the Superintendent of Police, Phil Cline. Cline, a dead ringer for Captain Kangaroo, overruled a police disciplinary board which had recommended Weems’s firing. Instead, Cline “punished” Pleasance’s murder with a thirty day suspension. Weems has since been promoted to Detective. One would hope that like the white haired Captain, Cline at least bothered to admonish Weems to “play with toys of peace”. I have my doubts.

Similarly, Chicago cops riddled a paraplegic man with bullets, in front of or near one of the homes where I lived as a child. They claimed he pointed a gun at them. Strangely, the gun which they “found” in his car was completely uncontaminated by either the victim’s fingerprints or blood... despite the fact that the man was shot through his alleged “gun” hand.

I could go on, but that would be like the Monty Python courtroom sketch where the individual murder charges against a defendant take fully three minutes to read, after which he says he’s sorry and will never do it again. Of course being a Chicago cop means never having to say you’re sorry... or to obey the law.

With the latest spate of police atrocities, Chicago’s version of Slobodan Milosevic, Mayor Richard M. Daley, has promised “reform”. Cynic that I am, I’m not optimistic. After all, nobody tried to reform the Gestapo. They just put out the “Out of Business” sign and hanged the upper management of that similarly troubled organization. Perhaps they should have gotten thirty day suspensions instead...

Collateral Damage

From the Holy City of Sandusky

Why does Matt Westerhold want battered women and their children to be stalked and murdered?

That’s the inevitable question raised by his recent reckless actions as managing editor of the Sandusky, Ohio Register.

In an act of incredible recklessness, arrogance and malice, Mr. Westerhold recently caused to be published in the register, the names, ages and locations of numerous Ohio residents legally authorized by the state to carry concealed firearms.

While Mr. Westerhold’s alleged reason was to combat “secrecy” in state records, in fact, it was motivated by an entirely different set of goals.

What public interest was served by Westerhold’s actions?

Certainly not one of ensuring the validity of the process of issuing licenses for concealed carry of firearms. The idea that someone [clearly very bored] reading the Register’s website would have greater knowledge of a legally sufficient reason to deny someone a CCW license than state, local and federal law enforcement is clearly not a credible one.

Certainly neither is there a “public records” justification. What imaginable public interest is served by publishing the names, ages and locations of private citizens with CCW licenses? Certainly no public interest that wouldn’t be served even better by posting the names of AIDS patients, sex offenders and check forgers. Publishing lists of such people would clearly protect the public against those who have either done harm, or who could do harm, in some cases, without their victims even knowing it. Yet Westerhold chose instead.to publish the names, ages and locations of those proven NOT to have committed crimes.

Given that Westerhold’s [and his defenders’] reasons have been shown to be lies, why DID he publish personal information on private citizens proved NOT to be criminals?

Intimidation, pure and simple. Matt Westerhold wants to do everything possible to ensure that people do NOT avail themselves of the means to defend themselves from violent attack. What’s his motivation?

Malice? Westerhold is known to be anti-gun, and anti-gunners are frequently consumed with malice for those who refuse to be the victims of violent crime. Cowards hate those who display courage. The irresponsible hate the responsible. It’s entirely possible that Westerhold is one of those nihilists who fly into an insane rage at the idea of people NOT being the victims of crime. They frequently view robbery as a “tax”. When asked what rape and murder are, one hears only the sound of crickets.

Stupidity? Well, there’s certainly evidence a plenty of THAT. Poor Matt seemed genuinely surprised when those whom he violated started posting to the internet [including the Register’s own website] HIS personal information, and more disturbingly, information regarding the employment by the Register of sex offenders in positions where they could easily come into contact with minors. Our genius seems to think that this is going away eventually, without a very high price for him and the Register to pay. Perhaps he should talk to Christian Trejbal in Virginia, who pulled a similar churlish stunt.

Misogyny? Certainly that’s often in evidence whenever [especially male] anti-gunners coalesce. A British anti-gun fanatic once told me that women shouldn’t be allowed to own or carry firearms for their personal protection because he was “afraid that he’d be mistaken for a rapist and shot”. My response to him? “How is it that you conduct yourself around women that you have a credible fear that you’ll be ‘mistaken’ for a rapist? Here’s some advice: Put down that butcher knife, pull up your pants, and go home.”

What are the potential consequences of Matt Westerhold’s malicious and reckless actions?

First and foremost, he has given those interested in stealing firearms a shopping list of people who have a 99% chance of having AT LEAST one gun. As was amply demonstrated by the retaliatory publishing of Westerhold’s personal information by his victims, once someone’s name, location and age are published, it’s trivially simple to find their address, financial information and more.

Secondly, and even more disturbing, there is a non-zero chance that some of Westerhold’s victims are victims of physically abusive spouses, stalkers, rapists and the like. What Westerhold has done is to give such predators a valuable leg up in locating and targeting their intended victims. Using the information which the Sandusky Register published, a man intent upon murdering his estranged wife and their children has been handed invaluable clues as to their locations. Even worse, he’s been warned up front to strike from ambush, rather than to confront his victim(s) head-on. To those at the Register who negligently continue to employ Matt Westerhold, consider the case of Soldier of Fortune Magazine. They ran an ad for a “mercenary” who later went on to commit a contract murder via that ad. SOF payed heavily for that ad. If a man were to slaughter his estranged family using information thoughtfully provided by Matt Westerhold and the Sandusky Register, could the Register survive the inevitable lawsuit?

In closing Matt, why do you want innocent women and children to be murdered? Why? Are they acceptable collateral damage in your war against legal gun ownership? Or is it simple schadenfreude?

Victory is Mine!

From the Holy City of Oregon

Far more nations have been saved by the idiocy of their enemies than by their own abilities.

Take for instance the Allies in World War II. While their blunders repeatedly promised their destruction, those of Hitler, invariably of far greater magnitude, always saved the day. From invading the Soviet Union to unnecessarily declaring war on the United States, Hitler could always be counted upon to pull the Allies’, especially Britain’s, fat from the fire.

Similarly, today’s Islamo-Fascist enemy seems bent on saving the UK’s bacon. This time however rather than a master bungler on high, the credit is owed to countless, nameless fanatics. While they can rattle off endless Islamic trivia that would make the geekiest Star Wars fanboy green with envy, it seems that making bombs that actually go off continues to elude them. The series of unsuccessful post July 7th bombings in Britain, coupled with last weekend’s pyrotechnic pratfalls indicates that at least for them, bomb making is somewhat of a Darwinian process. Those who can do... and die. Those who can’t, set themselves on fire.

Not content with their Homer Simpson-like failed car bombings, they crowned those maladroit attempts at mayhem with an attack on the Glasgow airport so deliciously buffoonish that it was worthy of Fox’s Family Guy. Unfortunately for these Wahabist Peter Griffins, they lacked the technical assistance of a debonair talking dog and a super-intelligent, evil toddler. Having failed to either anticipate the presence of concrete bollards in front of the terminal, or to devise a way to make their Jeep Cherokee actually explode, one of them was reduced to pouring gasoline on himself and setting it alight... Boy, you sure showed us, huh?. One wonders if having torched himself, he proclaimed "Damn you all! "(Or perhaps, "I’ve got you now, broccoli!")

Alas, our "hero" failed even to burn himself completely to death. He lies instead, horribly burned in a British hospital. If he manages to survive, I wish for him a long, sickeningly painful recovery after which he will hopefully be hideously disfigured. One suspects that his 72 virgins will need 72 barf bags to attend him.

Darwin Gets Medieval

From the Holier than Usual City of Cleveland

Recently, one of our “wayward youth”, one Arthur Buford of Cleveland, made one of those life changing decisions which so often make the papers and the evening news. Truth be told it was actually a life ending choice.

You see, young master Buford decided that he and a friend would rob a man at gunpoint on his own front lawn. A victim of our public schools, Arthur was tragically unable to read the in depth (and sometimes fevered) coverage attending the passage of Ohio House Bills 12 and 347, authorizing licensed Ohioans to carry concealed firearms for the defense of themselves and others.

Had Mr. Buford been reading the papers instead of watching Pokemon and twirling his Jennings .25 like Robocop, he would have learned that Ohio had taken a giant step in its quest for equality. I’m a big fan of equality, and legalized concealed carry has finally brought such equality to robbers and robbery victims here in Ohio. Heretofore, most of the danger inherent in armed robbery had accrued to the victim, who might be shot for resisting [ineffectively], for not having enough money, or simply because. Now, armed robbers from Cincinnati to Youngstown have an equal or better chance of getting shot in their own robbery attempts.

But sleeping late, as muggers are wont to do, poor Arthur never got the word from the morning news shows. Doubtless he was too busy [robbing people] in the evenings to get the word from Katie Couric.

Instead, Buford was cut down in the [sub-]prime of his life, such as it was. His companion is facing felony murder charges for his death, having been involved in a homicide during the commission of a felony. Were this Apartheid Chicago, he could even face the death penalty.

In the wake of Arthur’s catastrophic perforation, a small upwelling of sympathy for him and anger toward his cantankerously undocile intended victim manifested itself in an impromptu shrine on one hand and vandalism of the victim’s home on the other. In contrast, the overwhelming reaction of NE Ohio’s inhabitants has been praise for the victim’s marksmanship, coupled with non-praise for Buford’s smarts. In one of those little, everyday acts which set NE Ohio apart from Soweto on the Lake (Apartheid Chicago), not only was the victim NOT persecuted by the authorities for his timerity in not dying at Arthur’s hands, but Cleveland Police officers AND the NAACP volunteered to guard his home from the further depredations of Buford’s fellow thugs... who continue to deny that the armed robber (on probation for armed robbery at the time of his demise while committing an armed robbery) and they are “thugs”.

As a public service to non-thugs like Arthur Buford and his fans, here are some words of advice:

● In Ohio, armed robbery is now OFFICIALLY dangerous for the victim AND the robber. To paraphrase a famous rapper and serviceable character actor, “You and your homeys could be lying in chalk... FOOL.” There’s a new sheriff in town, and his name isn’t Reggie Hammond. If you want to know his (or her) name, just read any Ohio phonebook from cover to cover.

● Sympathy for armed robbers in Ohio these days is about as common as lucid thoughts attributable to Paris Hilton.

● If honest labor isn’t your thing, try selling drugs... or your body. I guarantee you’ll live longer in prison, with AIDS, or BOTH than you will with a 200 grain hollowpoint in your chest. Don’t believe me? Ask Arthur Buford. You know how to hold a seance, don’t you?

The Stab in the Back!

From the Holy City of Strongsville:

I’d be lying if I said I was surprised, but it’s still sad [and more than a little creepy] to see the Democrats fighting valiantly to avoid learning any meaningful lesson from their electoral evisceration on November 2nd.

Their howls of insensate rage about “stolen” elections, conspiratorial religious minorities, etc. harken back to another group of losers.

Like Moveon.org, a certain segment of German World War I war veterans thought that the path to victory had been wide open to them. When the icy fingers of reality intruded upon this delusion, they searched frantically for any alternative to the truth. And like the Michael Moores of today, they found it in the “stab in the back”. Rather than concede that Germany’s war effort had been characterized by logistical mismanagement and political tone deafness, they searched for scapegoats. Just as the far left of the Democratic Party has fixed its sights on the “religious right” as the source of its humiliation, those German war veterans singled out a poorly understood religious minority as their insidious, all pervasive and alien bete noir. Attributing to this minority vast powers of manipulation, they blamed all of their disappointments and degradations upon it, vowing revenge.

Similarly, like the German veterans, the Democratic ultra-left is casting about for “traitors” who “stole” the election from them. The politicians who having seen the handwriting on the wall, ended the war before Allied troops marched through Berlin, were labeled the “November criminals”. The AirAmerica wing of the Democratic Party has its own roster of “November criminals”, from Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, to the “rightwing media”.

Will the mainstream of the Democratic Party allow itself to be bewitched by this insanely malicious self-induced delusion? Who knows? Based on the chorus of “more leeches!” coming from the Moveon.org types, it doesn’t look good.

Michael Moore doesn’t particularly resemble any well-known Austrian war heroes, but he is the spitting image of a certain WWI flying ace, gourmand, and clotheshorse. That shouldn’t however stop him from entitling his “Farenheit 911” sequel, “My Struggle”….

Any Way the Wind Blows

From the Holy City of Westlake:

More than ten years ago, I suggested to a politically literate co-worker that the solution to the Palestinian problem was a unitary state with Yasser Arafat as leader. My friend, somewhat to the left of me, asked “why Arafat?” I replied that he was probably the only one who could impose the degree of order necessary for a viable peace settlement with Israel. When he replied that this was anti-democratic I noted that democracy as the term is commonly understood didn’t seem like a priority for the Palestinians [or the Arabs in general] compared with having their own state. Besides, I said, a democratically elected government which got the Palestinians annhilated in the process of trying to destroy Israel didn’t really seem to contribute to the furtherance of what the Palestinians claimed to want in the first place.

Time [and several hundred “peace” plans] came and went, and with it my fantasy of a stable Palestinian state while Yasser Arafat lived. Not to put too fine of a point on it, my suggestion was the equivalent of hiring Jeffrey Dahmer to teach better health through vegetarianism and celibacy.

Rather than a stabilizing factor, Arafat was a destabilizing factor of unimaginable proportions. I knew he was a terrorist. I knew his commitment to democracy was dubious at best. What I didn’t know was that he had no intention of actually GOVERNING whatever passed for a Palestinian state.

To rule a nation requires leadership. Even BAD leadership is better than none at all. Compared to Arafat, Saddam Hussein was a philosopher king of Solomonic wisdom. My problem was that it never occurred to me that Arafat wasn’t the President of the Palestinian Authority. Arafat was instead the President of Arafatistan. What was Arafatistan? Quite simply it was the region of space encompassing Yasser Arafat and the resources (human and material) required to maintain him in the style to which he wanted to become accustomed.

Certainly Saddam was venal and disdainful of the suffering his greed inflicted upon the Iraqi people. For all that, he still LED, even if brutally and ineptly.

Yasser Arafat by contrast no more led the Palestinian people than a surfer leads the wave. Since his SOLE priority was personal aggrandizement without personal responsibility, he developed an almost supernatural ability to be all things to all people, without actually being anyone or anything of substance.

A Saddam Hussein or a Hafez al Assad would have settled quickly the question of who ruled Palestine, the PLO or Hamas and the rest of the Clive Barkeresque patchwork of Islamist monsters which competed for power. Did I say “competed”? That’s a misnomer, actually. The truth is that as long as they didn’t try to steal the office machines out of PLO headquarters or shoot too many of his multiplicity of beret wearing thugs, Arafat was perfectly willing to let Hamas and Islamic Jihad do as they pleased. It was all about the Benjamins… or whoever is actually on what passes for PA currency. The Sheikh Yassins were in turn happy to let Arafat pretend to rule Palestine so long as he didn’t actually stop them from pursuing their own war with Israel.

This all of course doomed any possibility for actual peace from the start. Negotiating with Arafat was like negotiating with a randomly picked drunk in a wild bar fight during Mardis Gras. Those of us who thought Arafat would actually rule the PA deluded ourselves into thinking that the guy stealing liquor from behind the bar during the riot had [or indeed wanted] control over events. He’d happily tell us whatever we wanted to hear, so long as we didn’t turn off the beer [or in this case, money] spigot.

So, when the time actually came for Arafat to create a Palestinian state, he instead opted for a new “Intifada”, cutting both Ehud Barak and Bill Clinton off at the knees. And why not? If he’d actually accepted the peace deal [even with the intention of finessing the rest of his demands in the future], Arafat would have had to accept RESPONSIBILITY. He would have had to have actually enforced his authority as President of the PA. Clearly he found it preferable to sit serenely above the fray, as the fanatics blew up buses and discos, tut-tutting about Israeli “intransigence” and reading his bank statements.

To his credit, George Bush quickly sized up the situation and passed on ensnaring himself in this ongoing political version of the Enron scam. As soon as the cowboy observed to one and all that the king was "bare-assed nekkid”, the whole thing came crashing down. Having destroyed Barak’s political career, Arafat quickly got to know Ariel Sharon up close and personal. Rather than let Arafat feign isolation from events, he held him responsible for what went on in the PA, as its sovereign authority and punished him and his security apparatus at every turn. Between Sharon and Bush, the self-induced delusion of Arafat’s “leadership” was destroyed. Yasser Arafat was reduced to the status of a keffiyah wearing Ratso Rizzo, sitting on a pile of money he couldn’t do anything with.

Now that Arafat has snuffed it, I can’t predict the chances of peace and an independent Palestinian state. Certainly they can’t be any less.