SOME MEAN PEOPLE DENY THE HOLOCAUST, DON'T KILL THEM FOR SAYING IT

Michael Gerson claims in his op-ed in today's The Washington Post that anti-Israel types in the Middle East deny the Holocaust so as to deny legitimacy to Israel itself. However, he himself repudiates this connection:

"This conception of Israel's history is itself a distortion. The Holocaust is important to Israeli identity; it is not identical to Israeli identity. Zionism existed well before the European genocide. The ties between Jews and the land of Israel reach back for millennia. Israel does not exist merely because of Holocaust guilt. It exists because of its own tenacity, sense of purpose and national success."

I agree with Gerson that Israel exists apart from the historical fact of the Holocaust. Six million Jews died in WWI, most at the hands of the Nazis and Soviets. But Israel would exist whether or not the Holocaust took place.

For this reason, I strongly disagree with those who would kill anyone who dares to utter the falsehood that the Holocaust was made up. So Ahmadinejad of Iran denies the Holocaust, let's bomb and kill Iranians. I object to this view, seemingly adopted by some Zionists such as Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, and even by some of my friends and acquaintances.

Attacking and killing a person who denies the Holocaust is like beating up the kid who calls your mother a slut. How about some free speech? I don't care what someone SAYS, let him say it. Don't kill him because of it, no, not even if he denies the Holocaust.

DO AWAY WITH CIA AND ITS DARK METHODS

Michael Gerson writes an op-ed today in The Washington Post:

"But this object of praise -- intelligence-gathering -- is again the object of liberal assault. "To put the matter at its simplest," writes Gabriel Schoenfeld, "American elites have become increasingly discomfited over the last decades by the very existence of a clandestine intelligence service in a democratic society."

"But our democratic society still depends on intelligence officers -- just as surely as it depends on our men and women in uniform.""

The very modus operandi of the CIA is antithetical to a free society. After the actions of the CIA in operating prisons at hidden sites and inflicting all sorts of barbaric and medieval methods of torture, it becomes clear that the U.S. can very well do without a CIA. No wonder many liberal and progressive Americans want nothing to do with an intelligence agency that operates a la Dick Cheney on the dark side.

Michael Gerson, former speechwriter for W, writes in today's The Washington Post about the lack of civility he claims to see in soon-to-be senator Al Franken and in Wanda Sykes, comedian during the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Franken can defend himself, but as to Sykes, Gerson ought to back off, give Wanda Sykes a break.

Sykes took aim at Limbaugh for hoping that Obama fails. So Sykes naturally said, she hopes Limbaugh fails.

When Sykes says, "let's hope his kidneys fail," she points out how ludicrous and mean-spirited Linmbaugh's statement about Obama is. By "failing," Sykes asks, does he mean that he wants the economy tank, or that Social Security retirement income end, or that Obama's negotiations with Iran come to naught?

So Gerson lighten up, Wanda is right on in showing how mean-spirited Limbaugh's wish is. "Let his kidneys fail" is not a death wish, only a satiric jab back at a Republican ignoramus.