Jesus Christ: Worst Leader Ever Character assassination is so easy. Take Jesus, for example. The self-proclaimed "King of the Jews" is a fraud (What's next? Is he going to claim he invented the internet)? First of all, the man has no credentials. What divinity school did he attend, anyway? My wife's uncle is a carpenter, and a very nice guy, but I'm not entrusting him with my immortal soul. Jesus is also a traitor. By encouraging us to be forgiving rather than judgemental, he's undermined the old testament. Jesus' admonition to "turn the other cheek" is nothing short of appeasement. And the Beatitudes? Pure Socialist drivel. The miracles? Please...Even if they did happen, feeding fish to 5,000 people fosters unhealthy, immoral dependency. If Jesus were really the messiah, he would have taught them how to fish. As far as the success of his administration, one only needs to consider the fate of his disciples--Practically all of them were crucified. Sure, Christianity became one of the world's great religions, but that didn't happen on Jesus' watch. Credit for that should be given to Paul, Emperor Constantine, Billy Graham, the Pope, etc... When taken out of context, anyone can be demonized and belittled. Those who do so, however, should be careful in their choice of victims. Today, Powerlineblog is defending their description of Jimmy Carter as a traitor. You'll find very few liberals, myself included, willing to defend Ward Churchill, but Jimmy frickin'Carter? By claiming this Powerline is positioning themselves to the right of Ann Coulter. Their rationale (with my commentary)is as follows: Carter panted after the Nobe Peace Prize for years (conjecture), seeing it as a means of gaining official redemption for his humiliation at the hands of the voters in 1980 (conjecture). He lobbied quietly behind the scenes for years to get the prize, and finally met with success in 2002 when the left-wing Nobel Prize committee saw an opportunity to use Carter as a way of attacking President Bush and embarrassing the United States (unsupported claim, smearing of the Nobel committee). The head of the Nobel Prize committee openly admitted that this was their motivation in selecting Carter (prove it). Any other ex-president would have refused to be a part of such an obvious anti-American intrigue, but not Jimmy (conjecture). Here we should observe that Carter conceives himself much more as a citizen of the world than as a citizen of the United States (conjecture), and I think it is highly revealing that Carter is most popular overseas in those nations that hate America the most, such as Syria, where they lined the streets cheering for Carter when he visited. (irrelevant) The Powerline team, which labels anyone who disagrees with the Bush Administration as traitors has a distinct advantage because they didn't start writing until the Bush presidency. Without a doubt, during the Clinton presidency, they would have been guilty of treason in accordance with their own definition: i.e., not supporting the president's policies. As for their dubious claim of liberals giving aid and comfort to the enemy, they fail to realize that the opposite is actually the case. Porter Goss--yes, the Bush Administration's choice for the head of the CIA nailed the point home today: The Iraq insurgency continues to baffle the American military and intelligence communities, and the U.S. occupation has become a potent source of recruiting for Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, top national security officials told the U.S. Congress yesterday. "Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to recruit new anti-U.S. jihadists," Central Intelligence Agency director Porter Goss told the Senate select committee on intelligence. Read it: That's what's known as a hyperlink, John. You can use them to refer people to actual news, and not just biased conservative commentary. I wouldn't go so far as to claim "Hindrocket" (does that name smack of flatulence, or Jeff Gannonesque tendencies?) is a traitor. However, the fact that he considers the half of Americans who don't trust Bush's leadership on foreign policy to be traitors is nothing short of imbicilic demagogery. Pathetic.