Watcher's Council Results & An Opening

Each week, the Watcher's Council holds a contest for best post. The Council members submit a post they have written and one post by someone outside the Council for consideration. The Watcher tallies the votes and announces the winners each Friday.

There is an opening on the Council. If you would care to submit your blog for consideration, please visit the Watcher's site. You will find instructions on the right side bar for applying to join the Council.

You can find the results of the weeks voting and the Watcher's cogent commentary on the submissions here. This week's winners were:

Coming in first place was my post discussing various aspects of the situation in Iran, Iran 6/16 – The Fire Still Burning. I address the nature of this revolt; the importance of Iraq; the illegitimacy of both the theocracy and, in particular, Khameini; and an incendiary letter from Khomeini's one time successor, Grand Ayatollah Montazori among other things. I won't excerpt that one, you can follow the link.

Coming in second place was Bookworm Room's Obama’s belief in the power of his own rhetoric, discussing Obama's near inexplicable failure to lend full-throated support to the Iranian rebellion:

Obama is not being asked to do anything, he is just being asked to say something. As we’ve noted before, though, Obama believes his words are the equivalent of acts. God-like, he believes that, if he were to say “let there be . . . something (such as light),” that means that there will be this . . . something (such as light). For this reason, he believes that his taking a Reaganesque posture and speaking out openly against evil, corruption, and antidemocratic impulses is identical to the physical act of placing a bomb under the Mullahs and lighting the fuse. In his own mind, his powers of speech are so tremendous that thought and deed are inseparable. . . .
What this means is that Obama, though his silence is in fact meddling, because he’s taking sides. Without creating a light of freedom to shine the way for Iran’s oppressed masses, he is casting his (and America’s) whole weight on the side with the guns. There is no middle ground here. You’re either for freedom or you’re against it, and if you refuse to raise your voice for freedom, you’ve loaded another bullet in the oppressor’s gun.

Coming in Third place with 1 1/3 point – Soccer Dad - The campaign’s the thing, expressing the fact that Obama's support of Israel is wholly superficial and, in particular, taking Obama to task for adopting the Palestinian position that Israel's claim to its land extends back to the holocaust, not to biblical antiquity:

Well it seems that whatever positions President Obama took during the campaign regarding Israel were mostly for show. Pro-Palestinian groups are very encouraged by the administration's approach so far. . . .

Unfortunately when President Obama spoke in Cairo his main focus of "honest" talk was about settlements. And when he made the case for Israel's legitimacy, he failed to emphasize the historical case, instead making the case that it was the result of the Holocaust. Given his audience that was problematic. But it also reflected the advice he received and, I think, where his sympathies lie.

In the Non-Council category, coming in first place was Michelle Malkin's Obama’s AmeriCrooks and cronies scandal:

President Obama promised he would end “Washington games.” But his abrupt firing of the AmeriCorps inspector general is more of the same. The brewing scandal smells like the Beltway cronyism of the Bush years. And the apparent meddling of First Lady Michelle Obama in the matter smacks of the corruption of the Clinton years. If Obama keeps up with this “change,” we’ll be back to the Watergate era by Christmas.

Coming in tied for second was Christopher Hitchens's Don’t Call It An Election In Iran, making the point that the original election in Iran was itself a sham, irrespective of the sham of vote fraud on a grand scale:

I went to the last major Ahmadinejad rally and got the whiff of what I imagine fascism to have been all about. Lots of splotchy boys who can't get a date are given guns and told they're special. . . .

Iran and its citizens are considered by the Shiite theocracy to be the private property of the anointed mullahs. This totalitarian idea was originally based on a piece of religious quackery promulgated by the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and known as velayat-e faqui. Under the terms of this edict—which originally placed the clerics in charge of the lives and property of orphans, the indigent, and the insane—the entire population is now declared to be a childlike ward of the black-robed state. Thus any voting exercise is, by definition, over before it has begun, because the all-powerful Islamic Guardian Council determines well in advance who may or may not "run." Any newspaper referring to the subsequent proceedings as an election, sometimes complete with rallies, polls, counts, and all the rest of it, is the cause of helpless laughter among the ayatollahs. ("They fell for it? But it's too easy!") Shame on all those media outlets that have been complicit in this dirty lie all last week. And shame also on our pathetic secretary of state, who said that she hoped that "the genuine will and desire" of the people of Iran would be reflected in the outcome. Surely she knows that any such contingency was deliberately forestalled to begin with.

Also tied for second place was The Hashmonean's Coup D’etat: The Revolutionary Guards In Control of Iran Had Nothing to Fear From Obama Biden (Link Update I), a good article also on the nature of Iran as it currently exists - it is evolving from a theocracy into a military dictatorship:

The Theocracy is invested in Ahmadinejad because the Revolutionary Guard are invested in Iran. When I say invested I mean literally and figuratively. Over the last number of years the Revolutionary Guards have instituted a near full takeover of Iran. Wielding incredible power internally they have utilized Iran’s great wealth and their positions as the upper crust of Iranian society or access to it, to seize power across the board. The relationship between the guards & Khameni is symbiotic, as much as the Guards need Khameni, the Supreme Leader needs the guards.

Coming in tied at third place were MidEastAnalysis.com's What Happened in Iran?, The New Republic's - Narrative Dissonance, and and the Wall Street Journal - What If Israel Strikes Iran? Others receiving votes were: The Last Crusade - CNN, FOX NEWS TURN BLIND EYE TO UPRISING IN IRAN; Legal Insurrection / Hot Air Greenroom - What About The Right Not To Wear Head Covering; Liberty Chick - ACORN Part III; and NewsBusters - Schultz: I ‘Absolutely’ Believe Cheney Wants Americans To Die