Today felt like an incomplete Sunday, without Tim Russert, the giant political anchor of Meet the Press who passed away on Monday. As a story in the New York Times observed, politicians coveted the "victorious trial by fire" that would come if they survived Russert’s tough but fair questions. His tenacity was rare. He will be missed.
My friend Ian Fisher pointed me to this hopeful story about Amal Carmiya, Arab-Muslim who was accepted as a new member of an Israeli Kibbutz.
Gerald Seib wrote a straightforward, clear, and to-the-point column in the Wall Street Journal on the "would you meet with leaders of rogue states" 
question haunting Barack Obama – using Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s approach towards Syria as a very good example of how to do things.
A USA Today editorial provided a very smart suggestion on how US primaries could be conducted in a more democratic, environmentally-effective, organized way that is also more likely to yield the best candidates: regional block primaries.
From apocalyptic threats by the Iranian regime’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to introspective and semi-neurotic analyses from Jewish supporters of Israel, you would think that Israel’s very existence is truly in danger.
It is absolutely the case that Iran’s nuclear efforts coupled with its on-the-record threats to erase Israel of the map of the world need to be taken seriously and that the world – and Israel – must rise to the challenge posed by the Iranian Ayatollahs’ vision of absolute and violent Islamic revolution.
It is also absolutely the case that the window of opportunity for a two-state-agreement gets smaller by the day, and that not seizing it when it’s available will be a tragedy for both the Palestinian and Israeli people because it will enslave them to eternal warfare and limit their potential.
But read Tom Friedman’s article, People Vs. Dinosaurs, to get a feel for why Israel is not just not "disappearing" as Ahmadinejad claims, but why it is going to continue to thrive and grow. Some excerpts:
[I]n the first quarter of 2008, the top four economies after America in attracting venture capital for start-ups were: Europe $1.53 billion, China $719 million, Israel $572 million and India $99 million, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. Israel, with 7 million people, attracted almost as much as China, with 1.3 billion.
Boaz Golany, who heads engineering at the Technion, Israel’s M.I.T., told me: “In the last eight months, we have had delegations from I.B.M., General Motors, Procter & Gamble and Wal-Mart visiting our campus. They are all looking to develop R & D centers in Israel.”
Ahmadinejad professes not to care about such things. He was — to put it in American baseball terms — born on third base and thinks he hit a triple. Because oil prices have gone up to nearly $140 a barrel, he feels relaxed predicting that Israel will disappear, while Iran maintains a welfare state — with more than 10 percent unemployment.
Iran has invented nothing of importance since the Islamic Revolution, which is a shame. Historically, Iranians have been a dynamic and inventive people — one only need look at the richness of Persian civilization to see that. But the Islamic regime there today does not trust its people and will not empower them as individuals.
…Iran’s economic and military clout today is largely dependent on extracting oil from the ground. Israel’s economic and military power today is entirely dependent on extracting intelligence from its people. Israel’s economic power is endlessly renewable. Iran’s is a dwindling resource based on fossil fuels made from dead dinosaurs.
Then peruse some of the newspaper editorials and op-ed pieces in Lebanon, Syria and Iran and you will get an idea of the obscurant and sad repression against the human spirit that bad governance is provoking.
As Ami Isseroff points out, it’s not about stopping Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, but about stopping an apocalyptic fatalist regime from enslaving a people and a region. It’s not just about one tool, but about the tool-makers and their gloomy designs. Diplomats should keep their eyes on the ball.
So I guess the Zaidmans are not the only ones running their van on vegetable oil. Greg Melville reports in the New York Times – Greased Lightning – about how he powers his station wagon with left-over waste oil from french fries. He makes the point – if $1,000 can help him refurbish his engine this way, shouldn’t the big car companies be able to get it together once and for all?
Lebanon’s army stood by as the Hezbollah militia rampaged downtown Beirut and attacked the government’s offices. Its alleged rationale? The army was not going to take sides – as if "neutrality" is the call of the day when an armed militia tries to bully and dominate (if not yet overthrow) the democratically elected government.
Then equally embarrassing and stupefying but with a diametrically opposite logic all of its own, Maj. Gen. Martin Chedondo, a top Zimbabwe Army General, called on his soldiers to be "partisan" and be tools to Dictator Robert Mugabe as opposed to defending civic society:
Soldiers are not apolitical.
Only mercenaries are apolitical. We have signed up and agreed to fight and protect the ruling party‘s principles of defending the revolution. If you have other thoughts, then you should remove that uniform. (emphasis added)
All of this comes as Mugabe’s forces have proceeded to intimidate the non-violent democratic efforts of the opposition party and civil society.
Maybe if you send Zimbabwe’s army to Lebanon, and Lebanon’s to Zimbabwe, you might actually get somewhere.
As poignant as when Senator Clinton spoke about how her own Mother was born before women had a right to vote, today when she endorsed Barack Obama with the same tenacity as she displayed during her campaign, she shared an anecdote that encapsulated the historical significance of her campaign:
To all those women in their 80s and their 90s, born before women could vote, who cast their votes for our campaign…
I’ve told you before about Florence Steen of South Dakota, who was 88 years old and insisted that her daughter bring an absentee ballot to her hospice bedside.
Her daughter and a friend put an American flag behind the bed and helped her fill out the ballot. She passed away soon after and under State law her ballot didn’t count.
But her daughter later told a reporter, "my Dad is an ornery old cowboy and he didn’t like it when he heard Mom’s vote wouldn’t be counted. I don’t think he’d voted in 20 years, but he voted in place of my Mom.
Besides the historical progress referenced above, Clinton also spoke powerfully about human potential, underlining why so many women and men have rallied behind her and Senator Obama’s campaigns:
To the Moms and Dads who came to our events, who lifted their little girls and little boys on their shoulders and whispered in their ears, ‘see, you can be anything you want to be.’
Following on the footsteps of Rudyard Kipling’s IF, and the message, Don’t Give Up, Senator Clinton spoke today with the same tenacity as she displayed during her campaign, yet somehow with more passion, sincerity and inspiration than any time before:
To those who are disappointed that we couldn’t go all the way, especially the young people who put so much into this campaign, it would break my heart if in falling short of my goal, I in any way discouraged any of you from pursuing yours.
Always aim high, work hard, and care deeply about what you believe in.
And when you stumble, keep faith. And when you are knocked down, get right back up and never listen to anyone who says you can’t or shouldn’t go on.
-Senator Hillary Clinton, June 7 2008 Speech Endorsing Barack Obama and giving one of her best speeches ever.