Left I on the News

If I heard the phrase once I heard it a dozen times in the last few days, about how protesters at the University of Notre Dame were defending the "sanctity of life." News Corpse (via the increasing indispensable FAIR Blog) notes how there was nary a peep at Notre Dame when George Bush, who signed 152 death warrants (in contravention to Catholic teaching every bit as much as abortion), gave the commencement address at Notre Dame.

But we don't need to go back to George Bush. Where were the protests against Obama's "murder by drone" of hundreds of Pakistanis, his escalation of the death and destruction in Afghanistan, his continuation of the occupation and killing in Iraq, or his continuing financial, military, and political support for the slaughter and starvation of the Palestinian people? Apparently some lives (the "unborn" ones) are more sacrosanct than others, because not a peep was heard yesterday about any of those deaths.

On that last point (Palestinian lives), by the way, today President Obama held a press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. In the news today, Israel begin construction on the first "new settlement" (as opposed to new settlements which could be given the fig leaf of "expansion of existing settlements") in the occupied West Bank in 26 years. So what did Obama have to say about that?

"And I shared with the prime minister the fact that under the road map, under Annapolis, there is a clear understanding that we have to make progress on settlements; that settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward. That's a difficult issue. I recognize that. But it's an important one, and it has to be addressed."

I guess "it has to be addressed" is one of those implicit future tenses. Because his silence about the actual settlement expansion going on as he was speaking speaks volumes.