Daniel in Brookline

Los Angeles is proving to indeed be a "city of angels’". A host of Hollywood stars, including Paula Abdul, Sylvester Stallone and Jon Voight, will be participating Tuesday in a charity and solidarity concert for the rocket-battered town of Sderot in Beverly Hills.

Dozens of Hollywood stars attended Tuesday the "Live for Sderot" concert, which was held in Los Angeles and dedicated to the children of the Qassam-battered town. City Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa also participated in the glamorous event, organized by the Israeli consulate as an opening ceremony for Israel's 60th anniversary celebrations, and US presidential hopefuls Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain all sent their warm wishes to Sderot via videotaped messages.

The show was hosted by Israeli actress Noa Tishby, and included performances by Ninet Tayeb, violinist Miri Ben-Ari, Israeli-born American singer Elliot Yamin, Mike Burstein, Aki Avni and Oscar-winning actor John Voight.

In Obama's message, which was broadcast during the event, the Democratic candidate said that as a father of two girls, he "could only imagine the terror that these rockets cause." Senator Clinton voiced her sympathy for the people of Sderot, saying she was overwhelmed by the town's residents' courage and sacrifice.

Republican candidate McCain stated that the world must not remain passive in view of the Qassam fire on the Israeli town. "It’s an outrage that this violence is claiming innocent victims but is not condemned by world nations. Everybody is entitled to live in peace," he stressed.

Obama doesn’t necessarily favor Iranian interests over Israel’s per se; he favors military inaction against Iran and Syria over military action. But when that bias leads to a double standard under which Israeli intelligence that counsels in favor of military action is discounted on principle, while intelligence that counsels against military action towards a power that threatens to destroy Israel gets a pass, Israel and its supporters are justified in doubting Obama’s claim that he is “a stalwart ally of Israel.”

Aides said Clinton was home Friday afternoon, getting ready to deliver a partisan speech in Virginia to the Democratic National Committee, when she was told three workers in her Rochester, N.H., headquarters had been taken hostage by a man claiming to have a bomb.

Police later arrested 47-year-old Leeland Eisenberg of Somersworth, N.H., and charged him with kidnapping and reckless conduct. They said he walked into the office, demanding to speak to Clinton and complaining about inadequate access to mental care.

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (AP) - When the hostages had been released and their alleged captor arrested, a regal-looking Hillary Rodham Clinton strolled out of her Washington home, the picture of calm in the face of crisis.

The image, broadcast just as the network news began, conveyed the message a thousand town hall meetings and campaign commercials strive for—namely, that the Democratic presidential contender can face disorder in a most orderly manner.

"I am very grateful that this difficult day has ended so well," she declared as she stood alone at the microphone.

Little more than three hours later, just in time for the 11 p.m. local news, Clinton reaffirmed that perspective. In New Hampshire, she embraced her staffers and their families, and lauded the law enforcement officials who brought a siege at her local campaign headquarters to a peaceful conclusion.

It was a vintage example of a candidate taking a negative and turning it into a positive. And coming just six weeks before the presidential voting begins, the timing could hardly have been more beneficial to someone hoping to stave off a loss in the Iowa caucuses and secure a win in the New Hampshire primary.

The aides said Clinton immediately canceled her trip and began working the phones. She later told reporters she had New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch, a fellow Democrat, on the phone in eight minutes.

Over the ensuing five hours, as a state trooper negotiated with the suspect and hostages were released one-by-one, Clinton continued to call up and down the law enforcement food chain, from local to county to state to federal officials.

"I knew I was bugging a lot of these people, it felt like on a minute- by-minute basis, trying to make sure that I knew everything that was going on so I was in a position to tell the families, to tell my campaign and to be available to do anything that they asked of me," the New York senator said.

There are times when we all get in high dudgeon. We ought to be reasonable about this... I think there are probably very few people in this room -- or in America -- who would say that torture should never, ever be used, particularly if thousands of lives are at stake.

Take the hypothetical: if we knew that there was a nuclear bomb, hidden in an American city, and we believed that some kind of torture -- fairly severe, maybe -- would give us a chance of finding that bomb before it went off -- my guess is, most Americans and most Senators -- maybe all -- would say, "do what you have to do".

So it's easy to sit back in the armchair and say that torture can never be used. But when you're in the foxhole, it's a very different deal. And I respect, I think we all respect, the fact that the President's in the foxhole every day, so he can hardly be blamed for asking you, or his White House counsel, or the Department of Defense, to figure out when it comes to torture, what the law allows and when the law allows it, and what there is permission to do.

[. . .]

We certainly don't want torture to be used willy-nilly, we don't... [at the] whim of a lieutenant to say, 'Hey, there's security at stake here'... we should use it, but we also don't want the situation like I mentioned in Chicago to preclude it.

But it's gotta be done carefully. And if it's public -- and if there's debate -- you can be sure it'll be careful. That's what the founding fathers in their wisdom said.

Now I'm an old tired Democrat, sick of this infernal war that may go on for the rest of my life and in which more of our brethren will die miserably, both American and Iraqi. I'm sick of politics today, the cleverness and soullessness of it. I am still angry at Al Gore for wearing those stupid sweaters in 2000 and pretending he didn't know Bill Clinton, and I am angry at everyone who voted for Ralph Nader. I hope the next time they turn the key in the ignition their air bags blow up.

In his October 28 column, Garrison Keillor refers to Republicans as the “I’ve Got Mine” party. Logically, that would make Democrats the “Give Me Yours” party, but name calling won’t get us anywhere.

Liberal Democrats like Keillor believe needy people need money, and that government must give it to them. The idea is that we all contribute to the pot through taxes, and then government expertly doles out the cash to those who need it most.

Traditional Republicans, however, believe that government tends to be wasteful and inefficient with money...or anything else. We think along the lines of P.J. O’Rourke, who wrote: "Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys."

I have yet to meet a liberal fan of higher taxes who ever wrote a donation check to the IRS. Why is that? If you really believe you’re helping the needy by paying more taxes, what’s stopping you?

Keillor writes that Republicans wrecked a consensus we once had in America about taxing people according to their ability to pay. But such a “consensus” could have existed only in the minds of liberals, who make up less than half the population. That’s not a consensus. And he left out the second half of Marx’s maxim, which is “to each according to his need,” presumably because that would have set off alarm bells.

Keillor also believes that well-off Americans have no interest in providing a safety net for the less-fortunate. He must not have seen the Nov. 28, 2006 report on ABC News (“Who Gives More -- The Rich or The Poor?”), which found that, of the top 25 states where people give an above-average percent of their income, 24 voted Republican in the last presidential election. Here's the most telling quote from that story: "You find that people who believe it's the government's job to make incomes more equal, are far less likely to give their money away."

Or Keillor must not have read Who Really Cares by Arthur Brooks, which demonstrates that conservatives give about 30 percent more to charity than liberals. And incidentally, conservative-headed families make slightly less money. If Garrison would like a copy of the book, just let me know. I’m happy to mail him one free. That’s what we conservatives do. We don’t wait for government to help others. We do it ourselves.