On Tuesday's Joy Behar Show, the host humorously asked Ann Coulter if her show being canceled was a "vast right-wing conspiracy."

Without skipping a beat, the conservative author said, "No, I think it is a vast Casey Anthony conspiracy" (video follows with transcript and absolutely no need for additional commentary):

JOY BEHAR, HOST: I have one more thing to say. Now you were one of my first guests here.

ANN COULTER: Thank you. I love this show.

BEHAR: And I cherish, I cherish those moments that we’ve spent.

COULTER: Me too.

BEHAR: Now, but I want to know, my show’s going off the air.

COULTER: I’m so depressed about this.

BEHAR: Do you think it’s a vast right-wing conspiracy?

COULTER: No, I think it is a vast Casey Anthony conspiracy.

[Laughter]

For how long was that, eight months, your show was the only one I could watch and avoid hearing anything about that white trash bimbo who apparently – well, I guess I can’t say what we all think.

A story generating a lot of discussion today concerns how former Philadelphia Schools Superintendent Arlene Ackerman, who is receiving $905,000 in severance, has applied for unemployment benefits, and has been promised that the school district will not contest her claim.

Not so fast, people. I searched Google and Google News briefly, and found an interesting aspect of the situation which no one in the media apparently wants to consider. It relates to how Ackerman's employment ended. One of many place where that ending is described came from Matt Petrillo at Philadelphia Weekly just three weeks ago. It began thusly: "It’s been 11 weeks since the School Reform Commission unanimously voted to fire public school boss lady Arlene Ackerman." A quick visit to the relevant page at the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry would appear to indicate that Ackerman should not get unemployment benefits, and that it shouldn't matter whether the district contests her claim:

---

Who Can File for Benefits

Any individual who has become unemployed may file an application for UC benefits. Eligibility to receive those benefits will be dependent on whether the worker meets the various requirements specified in the Pennsylvania UC Law.

… To be Eligible to Receive Benefits

A worker may be eligible to receive benefits if the worker
- is unemployed through no fault of the worker;

…

So if you were fired, you can't collect benefits, because it's your fault (nebulous or not) that you don't have a job.

The "Fire Arlene Ackerman" Facebook page identifies three reasons people wanted to fire her:

• A $629 million deficit.
• Higher property taxes.
• Failing schools.

If Ms. Ackerman was brought in to fix those things and failed in any one of them, that would constitute valid grounds for the School Reform Commission to fire her. It should therefore constitute grounds for denying her unemployment benefits claim regardless of whether anyone contests it. The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry does not work in a vacuum, and can't ignore the widely reported fact of and reasons for Ackerman's firing, up to and including Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter's belief that, as a CBS Philly August headline stated (CBS's words), "It was time for Ackerman to go."

Separately, the money-grubbing for $573 a week in taxpayer-provided benefits by someone who has just received a buyout of over $900K is appalling, disgusting, and a whole lot of other adjectives I can't use (apparently, about $400K of the buyout was raised privately, which itself must be an amazing story — Update: According to an Associated Press story tonight, the private donors "backed out after critics blasted the deal's lack of transparency").

Ms. Ackerman should be ashamed of herself for even thinking of it, let alone trying to get clearance from her former employer not to contest it. But I guess if a family with a paid-off $300,000 house, $80,000 in the bank, and nice cars can collect food stamp benefits in my home territory of Warren County, Ohio (yes, that did happen, and probably still happens throughout Ohio in similar circumstances without publicity), what's another $2,300 a month or so for 26 or 99 weeks in unemployment to someone who may very well be a millionaire?

Remember this episode the next time someone dares to tell you that the problem with government finance is that people aren't taxed enough. And yes, as offensive as a lot of golden parachutes in the private sector are, the story is and should be different when it involves public funds.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

Remember the notorious Herman Cain commercial in which his campaign chief of staff concludes his talk by taking a puff on a cigarette? It wasn't long before the crew on the Morning Joe show good naturedly mocked that commercial. Today Joe Scarborough is no longer mocking that commercial. His show is emulating it in what is perhaps the most bizarre promo ever aired for a supposed news and commentary show.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

If you hit the replay button after your first viewing to validate that what you thought you just saw was what you really saw then you won't be alone. As you can see, the promo is that wildly bizarre. Not only will you see a slumbering Joe Scarborough being wakened with a heart jump start but he celebrates that return to life by taking swigs on a whiskey bottle and puffs on a cigarette. Later Joe is crouched down, still puffing on a cigarette, shooting dice on a sidewalk with a bunch of street gamblers.

Meanwhile Willie Geist is downing whiskey shots at an all night club surrounded by models…or are they "working girls?"

All this time Mika Brzezinski is running through the streets of the city dressed in a tight outfit. It  is reminiscent of the famous 1984 Apple Macintosh commercial although I was a bit disappointed that she did not toss a sledge hammer at a big screen of Brian Williams spouting the MSDNC party line.

I'm not an expert lip reader but did Mike Barnicle mouth a word that began with "s" and ended with "t" when he woke up on the park bench? 

So will this off the charts show promo, obviously inspired by the Herman Cain campaign commercial which they previously thought was silly, help the Morning Joe show ratings? Here is a comment about that promo from the Business Insider:

Too bad they didn't throw a shark into the mix for Mika to jump over on her epic morning run.

OUCH!!!

MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Tuesday issued an absolutely disgraceful commentary concerning Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich.

In Hardball's final segment, the host attacked the former House Speaker saying, "Ever since he arrived on the national scene, politics has been nastier, more feral, too often uglier," and concluded, "Gingrich being nominated by a major political party for the American presidency promises a grotesquery to make even the most hard-nosed of us avert our glance in embarrassment and sadness for our republic" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

CHRIS MATTHEWS: Let me finish tonight with this. There is nothing I can say about the state of this country's political health as telling as the fact that Barney Frank is leaving and Newt Gingrich is thriving. Barney has brains, wit, and a conscience, and a pretty good sense of proportion. He can argue his case but still see the other guy’s, especially if it’s a good argument. Gingrich is still mad he was made by Bill Clinton to enter Air Force One from the rear.

Barney calls Newt the thinnest-skinned character assassin he ever met. It’s a serious charge that hits home to those of us who remember how Newt came to power in the House was over the bodies of Democratic leaders he’d charged with corruption over a Democratic Party he accused of treason. It’s how Gingrich gets what he wants.

Now he wants the Republican nomination for president, and he has a chance to get it. Republican conservatives have a basic goal for the coming year: win the White House. That means running Obama outta there. Newt would be the man to do the job. He could be. He would go into debates with the President wielding whatever broken beer bottle his mind can manage to grasp whether on the way into the ring or already there. Where Romney will enter with a Sunday punch, something on the order of, “With all due respect, Mr. President, you had your chance,” then dramatic, well-rehearsed pause, “and you blew it.” In other words, a line Obama will be ready to parry most likely with his own well-rehearsed retort.

But Newt in the ring could be more dangerous, harder to defend against, harder to predict. Newt would unleash whatever charge will force his rival, President Obama, on defense. Character assassin is Barney Frank’s tag for him, but it’s wise to consider it. Newt will say what works to hurt Obama even if the weapon kicks back at him. He’ll take a great deal of scar tissue to land all the more of it on the President.

One thing I know about Newt Gingrich: ever since he arrived on the national scene, politics has been nastier, more feral, too often uglier. There’s something about this figure that darkens the atmosphere, lessens the spirit.

The haters of liberal democracy will cheer his every assault, his every rise in the polls, his every advance toward Tampa where the scene of him, Newt Gingrich, being nominated by a major political party for the American presidency promises a grotesquery to make even the most hard-nosed of us avert our glance in embarrassment and sadness for our republic.

And this is what is considered journalism on MSNBC today.

Regardless of the media's love affair with Barney Frank, he has been one of the most polarizing figures in politics for decades.

To put him on some pedestal as a paragon of statesmanship while casting Gingrich as a demonic figure "that darkens the atmosphere, lessens the spirit" is the height of gall.

As for the former Speaker supposedly being mad about the 1995 incident with Clinton and Air Force One, Gingrich is on record for saying that House Republican victories in the following five elections perfectly demonstrated who the real winner was in that scrum.

But underlying all the hatred is the truth: Matthews knows Gingrich would wipe the floor with Obama if they ever squared off in a debate.

This is the second evening in a row he's intimated this, and that fact is really at the heart of all this unhinged vitriol.

Gingrich and his supporters better get used to it, for if he stays atop the polls and starts winning some primaries and caucuses, the invective from Obama-loving media members like Matthews will only get more poisonous.

Happy Holidays.

MSNBC's faux conservative Joe Scarborough dismissed the conservative credentials of Republican front-runners Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney while promoting Jon Huntsman – the GOP darling of liberals like Jimmy Carter.

Scarborough's Politico op-ed ripped Gingrich and Romney for flip-flopping on issues like abortion and global warming. He strangely ignored the time where Huntsman, MSNBC's favorite Republican, called his fellow party members "anti-science" for disbelieving global warming – or when he supported civil unions for same sex couples.
 

Among the issues Scarborough singles out are Mitt Romney's flip-flopping on abortion, Newt Gingrich's appearance with Nancy Pelosi in a global warming commercial, the support of both candidates for an individual health insurance mandate, and Gingrich's opposition to the Paul Ryan plan. In contrast, he highlights the conservative positions of Huntsman on those matters.

But it is Scarborough himself who looks the worst of all for bashing other Republicans as RINOs. After all, the former congressman has routinely thrown members of his own party under the bus while working for the most liberal of the three cable news networks.

In the past, Scarborough has also advocated that Bill Clinton be able to run for a third presidential term, called conservative senate candidate Sharron Angle a "jackass," lauded Obama as the "adult" in his dealings with the GOP, and pleaded for the President to stand up to Republicans on last year's tax cut compromise.

But then again, since Scarborough has proven himself to be a Republican-In-Name-Only on numerous occasions, perhaps he has earned the authority to delegate the title to whomever he deems fit.

To read Scarborough's full op-ed in Politico, click here.
 

NPR's Tovia Smith sang the praises of Congressman Barney Frank on Monday's All Things Considered: "Frank has proven both piercing and pithy, zinging one-liners….bold and unabashed." Smith barely included any dissenting voices in her report, playing four sound bites from the staunch liberal and his supporters, versus only two from opponents.

Host Melissa Block noted how Rep. Frank is a "leading liberal voice and one of the first openly gay congressman" in her introduction for the correspondent's report and added that "because his district has just been redrawn, he'd likely face a grueling reelection campaign." Smith continued by stating that "some of the Democratic strongholds he's represented for decades have been replaced by more conservative towns."

After playing two clips from the Massachusetts politician, the NPR journalist touched on Frank's apparent reputation: "Frank is known for not suffering fools gladly, and for being what friends call a pit bull. Indeed, even at his press conference today, he snapped at a reporter for what he called her attempt at a gotcha, and didn't hold back when confronted by a local Republican party activist." She followed this with a sound bite of an unidentified man holding the congressman responsible for the "financial meltdown."

Smith started her adulation immediately after this brief moment of criticism: "In Congress, Frank has proven both piercing and pithy, zinging one-liners- for example, in his fight for stricter regulation and more consumer protections in the banking industry." She then played one more sound bite from the Democrat from a 2010 appearance on MSNBC.

The correspondent reenforced her own praise by playing two clips from Frank's left-leaning allies, while barely touching on his ethics controversy from the 1980s (where Congress ultimately reprimanded the congressman for taking care of his lover's 33 parking tickets, as he was prostituting himself out from the politician's house):

SMITH: Frank has also been a staunch advocate for gay rights ever since he became the first member of Congress to voluntarily come out as gay in 1987.

Frank Sainz is president of the Human Rights Campaign.

FRANK SAINZ: That is, perhaps, his legacy, in that he really did break through a lavender ceiling.

SMITH: Frank was equally bold and unabashed in his fight back 25 years ago from a personal scandal involving a live-in boyfriend who was working as a prostitute. He not only survived, but grew to become a leader of his party. President Obama today called him a fierce advocate for those who needed a voice, and said the House will not be the same without him.

New York Congressman Steve Israel is head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

REP. STEVE ISRAEL, (D), NEW YORK: Barney Frank has never shied away from anything in his entire life. He is a lion of the House Democratic caucus, and there's no question that his voice will be missed.

Near the end of the segment, Smith briefly touched on how the Massachusetts GOP was celebrating Rep. Frank's retirement: "Republicans today were cheering the news, hoping it'll help them claim another seat long held by Democrats, like Scott Brown did when he won the Senate seat that used to be held by Ted Kennedy." She followed this with a clip from an unidentified Republican.

The full transcript of Tovia Smith's report from Monday's All Things Considered:

MELISSA BLOCK: After 30 years in Congress, Democrat Barney Frank is retiring. A leading liberal voice, and one of the first openly gay congressman, the 71-year-old from Massachusetts says he's leaving, in part, because his district has just been redrawn. He'd likely face a grueling reelection campaign.

As NPR's Tovia Smith reports, Frank also says he feels like he's accomplished a lot, and wants to do other things.

TOVIA SMITH: Frank says he wanted to retire two years ago, but felt an obligation to stay in Congress and fight for financial reform and for cuts in military spending. Now that his district has been redrawn, and some of the Democratic strongholds he's represented for decades have been replaced by more conservative towns, Frank says he'd be bogged down trying to sell himself to hundreds of thousands of new voters, and unable to focus on his work in Washington.

REP. BARNEY FRANK, (D), MASSACHUSETTS: With the new district, I couldn't do that because I would have to spend all the time campaigning. So the new district took away the obligation I felt to run.

SMITH: Frank says he'd having an especially difficult time selling himself to voters, knowing it was only for one more term, anyway. At 71, he says he has other things he wants to do, like writing, teaching, and speaking out on public policy, freed up from political constraints.

FRANK: One of the advantages to me of not running for office is, I don't even have to pretend to try to be nice to people I don't like. (audience laughs) Some of you may not think I've been good at it, but I've been trying.

SMITH: Frank is known for not suffering fools gladly, and for being what friends call a pit bull. Indeed, even at his press conference today, he snapped at a reporter for what he called her attempt at a gotcha, and didn't hold back when confronted by a local Republican party activist.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN 1 (from press conference): Which led to our financial meltdown

FRANK: I was opposed to that-

UNIDENTIFIED MAN 1: You were responsible for that, sir.

FRANK: No. I'm trying to have a rational conversation with you. I was clearly mistaken.

SMITH: In Congress, Frank has proven both piercing and pithy, zinging one-liners- for example, in his fight for stricter regulation and more consumer protections in the banking industry, as he did here on MSNBC in 2010, fighting for the legislation that became the Dodd-Frank Act.

FRANK: In the financial area, the problem was the government wasn't there. The government- the cop went off the beat when they were doing all these abuses, when they were making mortgage loans that shouldn't have been made-

SMITH: Frank has also been a staunch advocate for gay rights ever since he became the first member of Congress to voluntarily come out as gay in 1987.

Frank Sainz is president of the Human Rights Campaign.

FRANK SAINZ: That is, perhaps, his legacy, in that he really did break through a lavender ceiling.

SMITH: Frank was equally bold and unabashed in his fight back 25 years ago from a personal scandal involving a live-in boyfriend who was working as a prostitute. He not only survived, but grew to become a leader of his party. President Obama today called him a fierce advocate for those who needed a voice, and said the House will not be the same without him.

New York Congressman Steve Israel is head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

REP. STEVE ISRAEL, (D), NEW YORK: Barney Frank has never shied away from anything in his entire life. He is a lion of the House Democratic caucus, and there's no question that his voice will be missed.

SMITH: Israel says he expects Democrats to hold Frank's seat. But Republicans today were cheering the news, hoping it'll help them claim another seat long held by Democrats, like Scott Brown did when he won the Senate seat that used to be held by Ted Kennedy.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN 2: It is an early Christmas present. We are ecstatic. His seat is very winnable. That was proven by Scott Brown, and we are going to win it.

SMITH: It will no doubt be a bruising campaign. Frank says today's brand of personal attacks and nasty politics are part of what makes him relieved to be retiring. Tovia Smith, NPR News, Newton, Massachusetts.

In an interview with President Obama's outgoing assistant Reggie Love on NBC's Rock Center Monday night, host Brian Williams fawned over the First Family: "…like a retro almost 1950s American family, that there's a – kind of a wholesomeness about them. They play board games, they play on the floor of the living room with the dog, they're not – the girls aren't allowed a lot of TV and social media." [Audio available here]

Williams opened the interview with Love by touting how the presidential body man, "famously carried the President's Sharpies and Altoids and chap stick and cell phone and children on occasion. And along the way, the two men became very close. The President has referred to Reggie as the little brother he never had." Moments later, Williams wondered: "What is it about the President and his family that you wish all Americans could see?" [View video after the jump]

In response, Love sounded like a Obama campaign ad: "I think the thing that isn't caught by all the American people, which I wish everyone could see, is that not only is he committed to, you know, being a father and being a leader every minute of the day, he never – he doesn't stop thinking about it."

Here is a full transcript of the November 28 interview:

10:48PM ET

BRIAN WILLIAMS: If you've been paying any attention at all to the President these three years, then you've seen the guy right behind him. Often mistaken for a Secret Service agent, he is Reggie Love, the body man. And that means Sherpa, confidant, portable desk, and a better than average basketball player.

BARACK OBAMA: When he's on my team, I say to Reggie, "Don't shoot."

WILLIAMS: Reggie Love played at Duke under Coach K, which may have instilled the discipline he's needed all these years at the President's side. He'll need it again now as he seeks an MBA at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Every president in the modern era has had a body man. The official title, Special Assistant to the President. Unofficially they do everything. When the President wasn't on the move somewhere, Reggie sat right outside the Oval Office and he saw it all and heard it all.

OBAMA: There are times where I'm not so calm. Reggie Love knows. My wife knows.

WILLIAMS: He famously carried the President's Sharpies and Altoids and chap stick and cell phone and children on occasion. And along the way, the two men became very close. The President has referred to Reggie as the little brother he never had. Reggie Love here with us in the studio. What are you possibly going to do to fill your time after what you're used to now, and the pace of life?

REGGIE LOVE: I don't think anything can possibly fill the void that will be left by me leaving the White House. I do think that there's still a lot of things that I haven't been able to do just because I've been so committed to the job and to the campaign. I missed a lot of Thanksgivings, a lot of Christmases. So hopefully I'll get a chance to spend more time with my family. More time with the girlfriend. And hopefully, you know, get to enjoy life a bit.

WILLIAMS: You're a very discreet person anyway. And if you're going to do this job, I've known several of the body men over the years. They sign on, I mean, it's expected you will be discreet. But broadly, what is it about the President and his family that you wish all Americans could see?

LOVE: I think the thing that isn't caught by all the American people, which I wish everyone could see, is that not only is he committed to, you know, being a father and being a leader every minute of the day, he never – he doesn't stop thinking about it.

WILLIAMS: Someone once told me the First Family is like a retro almost 1950s American family, that there's a – kind of a wholesomeness about them. They play board games, they play on the floor of the living room with the dog, they're not – the girls aren't allowed a lot of TV and social media.

LOVE: No TV during the week. I don't know how they do it. But, you know, I think – I wasn't born during the 1950s. My family and my parents were very similar to what President Obama and what Mrs. Obama are for the girls. They're there for the kids but they also work extremely hard. And they somehow manage to sort of put it all together.

WILLIAMS: Let's talk about rope lines. They're a harrowing kind of thing. There are people clamoring for the president, there's media, there's Secret Service, there's guys with guns to your right and left. And yet, there's also, if you look closely, this ballet. People give the president things from babies to books to mementos. And the stuff he can keep he quietly hands back to you. What happens to all that stuff?

LOVE: Well, it is a lot of stuff, and you're right, sometimes they're babies and sometimes they're kids that, you know, they're handing off that aren't babies that shouldn't be handed off. And you know, sometimes they're notes or they're gifts. And typically, you know, I make a log, a note of everything. And if it's a letter from a constituent, we make sure that, you know, he gets a chance to look at it or read it. And then make sure that they get a response written. Or if it's a gift, you know, it gets filed and registered and screened and processed. And then it ends up in its appropriate place. And it is like a dance a little bit, you know. You see all the agents, and you know, everyone sort of stepping with the appropriate foot, not trying to step on each other.

WILLIAMS: Did everyone just assume – am I correct in assuming everybody thought you were a Secret Service agent, who didn't know you?

LOVE: For the first – I mean, I think even now people still think that I'm Secret Service. I like to believe it's because of my stature, right?

WILLIAMS: Yes, and your demeanor, the way you carry yourself.

LOVE: But it never bothered me. I think it's good for people to think that, you know, that the President or when he was – or while he was campaigning, that he had someone sort of watching out for him.

WILLIAMS: Finally, finish this sentence for me. The amazing thing about seeing presidents up close is?

LOVE: I would say the most amazing thing is, to see their candor, to see that they're real people. They have emotions, they have feelings. They go through similar things that you go through, that your parents went through. But I think it's also amazing that they're able to handle a lot of that stuff under the pressures of, you know, intense media scrutiny. And it's a fine balance.

WILLIAMS: Well, you've gotten that balance right, according to all reports. Reggie Love, it's great to see you again.

LOVE: Thank you, I appreciate you having me here today.

WILLIAMS: Good luck as a young man entering the second half of your life.

LOVE: Oh, man, Hopefully I get more than half, I'm only 29, so.

WILLIAMS: Yeah, you'll be all right, something tells me you'll be all right.

The Washington Post should either fire Aaron Blake or "acknowledge that it doesn't have a semblance of objectivity left to it," NewsBusters publisher Brent Bozell told Fox News Channel's Neil Cavuto on his Your World program this afternoon.

The Media Research Center (MRC) founder was reacting to this November 28 tweet by the Post political blogger (video of segment follows page break):

Hey Tweeps: Looking for outlandish/incorrect predictions and quotes from Newt Gingrich's past. Any ideas for me?

"This is what we've been saying for a year," Bozell noted, "The Obama team can't run on its message" and so it turns to character assassination, often with the media's complicit, and in this instance, active, participation, the MRC president added.

This morning, the Census Bureau told us that 25,000 new homes were sold in October, which, after seasonal adjustment, works out to an annual rate of 307,000. This was up from a seasonally adjusted and downwardly revised (from 313,000) 303,000 in September. According to the first sentence of Derek Kravitz's related report at the Associated Press, this constitutes a "hopeful sign," even though October's number could easily be revised downward, as September's was.

Kravitz went further downhill in his fifth paragraph, descending into flat-out, undeniable falsehood (bold is mine):

Last year's 323,000 new homes sold were the fewest since the government began keeping records in 1963. This year isn't faring much better.

No Derek, this year is worse, as the following graph demonstrates:

Last time I checked, when encountering a situation where an industry is selling fewer items than it was a year ago, it meant that you would characterize it as "faring worse." Through October, new-home sales are down 7.5% from a year ago. To make up that difference in the final two months of 2011, November and December sales will have to beat last year by about 49% (64K in sales needed vs. 43K in sales during November and December 2010). Maybe Derek Kravitz has some inside information the rest of us don't know, but it would appear that the odds of that kind of year-over-year increase happening are in the neighborhood of the odds of the Peyton Manning-deprived Indianapolis Colts making the NFL playoffs.

I would ask for a correction, but I know better. The AP, otherwise known as the Administration's Press, seems to have become so disinterested in the truth that matters such as these are seemingly laughed off. Even if the wire service corrects, it will probably be "mission accomplished" as far as they're concerned, because Kravitz's opening sentence, which will be read on the air by gullible broadcasters around the nation, fabricates a "hopeful sign" which doesn't exist.

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.

In an item at the Associated Press datelined early Monday morning not labeled as "analysis" or otherwise characterized as the reporter's point of view, the wire service's Amy Teibel went on the attack against current developments in Israeli politics and society in extraordinarily harsh terms, to the point where her report could easily have been mistaken for a leftist's political stump speech.

Teibel's screed began with the headline ("A battle is raging for the soul of Israeli society"), and went downhill from there (what are in my view deliberately loaded words are in bold):

---

On billboards, on buses and in the halls of parliament, a battle is raging over the nature of Israel, raising ever more urgent questions over its future as a democracy.

Radicalized religious activists and conservative lawmakers see themselves as bulwarks against assaults on faith and country by rivals within multifaceted Israel and by the outside world.

Although the nationalist right includes many nonreligious Israelis and the religious camp is not exclusively nationalist, the overlap is strong, they are considered natural political allies, and they share a simmering historic grievance: a sense that Israel's cosmopolitan elites – the courts, the media, even the army – should be brought into line with a more conservative populace.

Arrayed against them are secular Israelis, many of them liberal and European-descended – the group that established the country, long dominated its affairs, and has seen its majority dwindle.

They are horrified at the assault on what they consider a critical yet brittle achievement: Surrounded by dictatorships and theocracies, Israel is a place of pugnacious reporters and freewheeling human rights groups, a land where gay pride marches are commonplace and where it goes without saying that the Supreme Court can be led by a woman and include a prominent Arab.

Conservative Israelis are trying to force change as never before.

Towards the end of her 1,350-word writeup, Teibel gives readers the impression that the country is descending into a virtual Jewish version of sharia law, at least pertaining to the treatment of women:

In strictly religious neighborhoods, some women have taken to cloaking themselves head to toe, like fundamentalist women in the Islamic world, to comply with rabbis' increasingly impassioned exhortations to dress modestly. The Jerusalem municipality has stepped in on another matter, saying it will not allow several ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods to carry out a plan to have segregated polling stations for community council elections.

… Last month, the Supreme Court stopped one Jerusalem neighborhood from designating heavily traveled areas off-limits to women during a holiday crush. The court also stepped in late last year to halt gender segregation on more than 80 bus lines.

While segregation has diminished sharply since that ruling, it was largely men in front and women in the back one recent morning on a line that runs through ultra-Orthodox Jewish enclaves in Jerusalem. The driver said that when women dare sit up front, male passengers sometimes still try to browbeat them into moving to the back.

My reaction to this was mixed, as on the one hand I know that there are Jewish enclaves in New York City visited often by Democratic politicians which practice a certain degree of gender segregation that as far as I can tell is voluntary, to which pols trolling for votes virtually never object, and which has even included actual political speeches. On the other hand, if everything Teibel describes in her final six paragraphs (some of which was not excerpted) is accurate, there may be cause for concern about where things are really heading in Israel.

So I consulted with someone in a position to render an informed comment, namely Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs, whom I thank for her prompt response. That response, in her inimitable and admirably frank style, read in part as follows:

There is no compulsion in Jewish law. It's voluntary. Sharia is all compulsion. They are trying to equate the two. They are trying to paint all religions (or religious law) as oppressive and brutal as the sharia. There are no honor killings, clitorectomies, dehumanization, etc., of women (in Jewish law). Women are not chattel under Jewish law.

Great points as usual, Pamela.

Teibel did not get a comment from anyone concerning the gender segregation issue, which means that yours truly has done more she did in this regard.

Perhaps more disturbing than Teibel's intensely slanted tirade is the URL of her report at the AP's main site, which reads as follows:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/ML_ISRAEL_THE_REMAKING_OF_ISRAEL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

The article's web address indicates that the wire service may be planning to do more reports on "the remaking of Israel." Gosh, this wouldn't have anything to do with the devolution of the so-called Arab Spring and the clear increase in anti-Israel hostility in the affected states and the related need to create "justifications" for attempts to marginalize the Jewish state, would it? (/sarc)

Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.