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June 17, 2011
Sarah the Smarty
Sarah Palin's critics routinely mock her intellect, so when the state of Alaska released 24,000 emails she wrote while serving as governor, "AOL Weird News," an offbeat component of AOL.com, had a representative sample analyzed to see how well she wrote. They expected the results to confirm their anti-Palin bias, but they were in for a surprise.
Far from being an illiterate bumpkin, the standard Flesch-Kincaid readability test showed that Ms. Palin's emails were written at an 8.5 grade level. This was "an excellent score for a chief executive," AOLWN reported. To put some perspective on this number, Martin Luther King's August 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech -- much more heavily edited than Ms. Palin's emails -- ranked at 8.8 on the same scale, while Lincoln's Gettysburg Address came in at 9.1.
A study by Smart Politics on the readability ratings of recent State of the Union addresses also showed Ms. Palin in good company. President George H.W. Bush's average SOTU score was 8.6. Bill Clinton came in at 9.5. Ronald Reagan, who like Ms. Palin was heavily criticized by liberals and regarded as a doddering old fool, logged an impressive 10.3 rating. And George W. Bush, who earned even more left-wing contempt than Mr. Reagan, if that's possible, edged the Great Communicator with a10.4 ranking.
Then there is President Obama, heralded as the smartest president and the most gifted orator in living memory, but whose 2008 "Yes we can!" victory speech came in at a comparatively anemic Flesch-Kincaid rating of 7.4. Some numbers just speak for themselves.
Tehran's War on Mullets
As Iran attempts to become a nuclear power with global reach, at home the Ayatollahs are mounting a fashion offensive. In an effort to blunt the "invasion" of western culture, Iran has implemented a "moral security plan" that bans men from wearing necklaces, short pants, and "glamorous hairstyles" such as ponytails and the mullet. 70,000 "morality police" have been deployed in Tehran and other cities to enforce the edict.
It's hard to understand why the Islamic Republic considers gold chains and mullets to be key emblems of western culture, but when you add the pre-existing ban on disco dancing it is clear that Iran has declared total war on the 1970s. They just never got over the Carter administration.
Iran's Orbital Threat
On a more serious note, Wednesday Iran launched the Rassad-1 surveillance satellite into Earth orbit, using a Safir (Ambassador) B1 rocket. The satellite will circle the globe 15 times a day for two months, and is the second such launch since 2009. Unfortunately it is a short step from being able to launch an orbiting satellite to having ICBM capability.
Friendship 7, the rocket that carried John Glenn into earth orbit in February 1962, was a variant of the Atlas missile, the first operational American ICBM. As Tehran pushes ahead on its missile program it is also developing the technology to construct nuclear warheads. The latest report from the International Atomic Energy Agency notes that among the activities with "military dimensions" Tehran is pursuing are "activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile" and "studies involving the removal of the conventional high explosive payload from the warhead of the Shahab 3 missile and replacing it with a spherical nuclear payload."
The Shahab 3 is a medium range missile that could not directly threaten the United States. But if Iran can put a satellite over the American homeland, it will not be long before it can do the same with a military payload. Seems like Tehran didn't get the White House "global zero" nuclear disarmament memo.
Honesty Among Terrorists
Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas recently treated the world to a rare display of candor. After a frosty international response to the idea of a "unity government" between the Hamas and Fatah factions in the Palestinian Authority, the terror group's leaders decided that maybe they should drop politics and focus on their core business model. Last week Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal said that attempts to recast the group as a legitimate political party have "weakened the resistance enterprise." Hamas lawmaker Yehya Mussa said that "being in government caused huge damage to the movement, and therefore it has changed its policy."
Hamas is explicitly rejecting the traditional notion that terror groups can evolve from being violent extremists to being nonviolent politicos. Terrorist groups have traditionally tried to burnish the image of their "political wings," the quasi-legitimate fronts that allow them to interact with the international community while their "militant" factions ply their deadly trade. But Hamas – listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S., Canada, the E.U., Japan and of course Israel – is admitting that trying to maintain the fiction that it is a political party is just not worth the effort. They want to abandon the pretense of politics and get back to what they do best, killing innocent people. They may be violent, reprehensible thugs but at least they are honest.
Follow James Robbins on Twitter @james_robbins.
James S. Robbins is senior editorial writer for foreign affairs at the Washington Times. His latest book is "This Time We Win: Revisiting the Tet Offensive," published by Encounter Books. He can be contacted at [email protected]. The Robbins Report is provided weekly at no charge to major media, members of Congress, and Washington Times subscribers nationwide. For additional free copies, contact Marana Moore at [email protected].
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