Dana has strange friends

One of the games played in Washington is that of taking every advantage of doing things that get your name mentioned in public. Dana has made an interesting decision in that regard.

Tomorrow, June 12, Dana will be speaking at the unveiling of a new monument in Washington. This one, the Memorial to the Victims of Communism, appears to be motivated by some flash of patriotic fervor. I wonder, though, what political advantages got Dana and Tom Lantos to share the speaking duty.

We all know Lantos. He is the Chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. Normally, Lantos often keeps his mouth shut unless it is about Israel, where some have considered him the Congressional voice of Mossad.

That must play well with Dana and his Taliban friends.

The second unusual thing is that the only organization that thought this event was newsworthy seemed to be World Net Daily. You may not be familiar with World Net Daily, but it's editor is Joseph Farah, once known as the ghost writer of Richard Pombo's only book and the man who filed the 1990's trumped up ethics charges against John Garamendi.

Actually, knowing Farah's past, I might ask what Lantos is doing in the story. I know that answer to that. He has been called the "best friend that Israel ever had."

Why then, did Dana jump in with the enemies of his friends. Well, it is all about China. Dana is a big supporter of Taiwan and this is a chance to embarrass the Communist China. And Communist China is another frequent target of Farah and his World Net Daily. Dana is also a long time supporter of helping to arm Hmong rebels to topple the Communist regime in Laos.

Oh, yes, it is all about politics and any news event is a good thing for a politician. That is especially true when you can be against something rather than having to be for anything. Maybe, if Dana and Tom can get on first name basis, they might convince Ohlmert and Abbas to try the same thing. However, I doubt that the subject will come up. Both Congressmen are to politically sophisticated to allow doing something to get in the way of a photo op.

If there is one thing you can count on tomorrow, it will be Rohrabacher's propensity to open his mouth and insert his foot. There is enough going on at this event that he will be sure to push someone's hot button. Farah said that Bush had been invited to the event. Even he isn't dumb enough to show up on that stage.