JOHN LEBOUTILLIER ON HANNITY & COLMES TONIGHT

John LeBoutillier will be on Fox News Channel's HANNITY & COLMES tonight to discuss the use of Palestinian infants as the newest suicide bombers. HANNITY & COLMES airs live at 9PM East Coast time.

VOUCHERS CAN SAVE AMERICA FROM PC LEFTISM



Yesterday's Supreme Court ruling on the Cleveland school voucher case is one of the most significant political decisions ever made by the Court.

Indeed, the 5-4 decision allowing vouchers – or tuition tax credits – will do more to rescue a deteriorating educational system than any other act to come from Washington, D.C., since the disastrous creation of the Department of Education by President Jimmy Carter 25 years ago. Since that time our public schools have increasingly gone to Hell. Many of our inner city school systems simply serve as surrogate baby-sitting/day care centers with almost nothing being done to prepare these 'students' for life after
12th grade.

In fact, the almost-fatal disease – PC Leftism – has slowly but surely crept into elementary education until we can safely call many of the public school systems "Leftist
Indoctrination Centers."

The school voucher program has always been the one possible cure for this PC Leftist takeover of our public schools. No wonder the virulently left-wing public teachers
unions have fought so strongly to stop the vouchers. One of their key 'arguments' – that, sadly, even G.W. Bush bought into and thus abandoned fighting for vouchers after
promising them in his 2000 campaign – was that "they're unconstitutional."

Yesterdays' Supreme Court ruling took that argument off the table.

Now the issue is simple: a straight political battle between those who care about getting a proper education for all children – thus preparing them for an
ever increasingly competitive world – and those who have hijacked the public school system and made it a preserve of the New Left.

President Bush so disappointed many of his true-believer supporters when he abandoned vouchers and instead crawled into bed with Teddy Kennedy to pass a whopping
new 11 percent increase in the Department of Education's budget. This 'Deal with the Devil' will do nothing to help education; it will only further entrench the liberal bureaucracy
and the leaders of the teachers unions.

Bush, like his dad, wants to be known as "The Education President." The Bushes apparently believe the best way to do that is to
follow the old liberal formula: Spend more federal money and declare yourself a champion of education. The fact that education by all measurable standards is actually
deteriorating is to be ignored.

Please note that the largest group of delegates at the last three Democratic National Conventions was public school teachers. Indeed, the teachers unions are now a key
component of the Democratic Party coalition.

The shame of the last 20 years is the craven manner in which Republicans have backed away from vouchers. Instead of using the bully pulpit to 'educate' the American
people about the advantages of vouchers, too many Republicans have simply given up the fight. Perhaps now they will gather the courage to try to save America's
children from the poison they are being fed daily in many rotten public schools.

Vouchers – or tuition tax credits – are the single best way not only to help all students, but ultimately also to help the public schools. Competition – a dreaded
concept to the left-wing education monopoly – will in the end make all schools better and make all teachers' salaries rise.

Indeed, the fight has only just begun – again. The key question now is whether the Bush White House and the Republican leadership have the guts to fight to save the future of
this country.

EXPLOITING CORPORATE 'STENCH'



A front-page story today in the Washington Post reveals the Democrats' strategy to try to regain control of the House – and to keep control of the Senate – in this fall's crucial midterm elections.

House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt has instructed all Democrat House candidates to "tie the GOP to the corporate mess" emerging daily. Gephardt believes that there is enough proximity between the Bush White House and the House GOP leadership to 'corporate America' to make this the defining issue in November.

Is Gephardt correct?

Well, it is too early to tell. But let us examine a few facts.

1) Contrary to some public opinion, the Democrats have always been closer to Big Business than has the GOP. In fact, the average contribution to the Republican Party is around $27.00; it is higher for the Democrats. Why? Because so many "average people" donate to the GOP, while the Democrats beg, borrow and steal to raise money from corporations, special interest groups and labor unions.

2) Big Business curries favor with whoever is in power. For 40 years the Democrats ran the House – and all the while corporate America contributed to Democrats in an effort to "buy" influence. Corporate chieftains – far from being the ideological conservatives they are often portrayed as being – are, in fact, devotees of Politically Correct Leftism.

3) The plain fact of the matter is that – as George Wallace said 34 years ago – "there's not a dime's worth of difference between the two parties" when it comes to their behavior. Indeed, both parties desperately want the maximum contributions from corporate CEOs, their PACs and, up until the end of this year, the gigantic 'soft money' donations that soon will be outlawed by McCain-Feingold.

4) In politics, perception is reality. Using that age-old maxim, the GOP may be vulnerable – not on the facts, but on the perception that the Bush-Cheney Big Business CEO connection means that the Republicans are "in bed with all the crooked corporate CEOs." Certainly there was a strong connection between both George Bushes and Enron's Kenneth Lay. But so far, that has not hurt the president – or the GOP – one bit. Global Crossing, another crooked venture, was heavily tied to the Democrats. That does not seem to have hurt the Democrats either.

5) However, if there continue to be corporate meltdowns – like the one that today is dragging down the Dow (WorldCom) – then all political bets are off. Who can predict what things will look like in four months?

6) A 'w' recession? This possibility has been raised for a year. In a 'w' recession, the economy dips into recession, then climbs halfway out of it and then plummets down into another, full-blown recession. It is possible that the continued corporate scandals and subsequent sluggish market will indeed induce that 'second dip' into recession. If that were to happen, then all bets are off for November – and for 2004, too.

7) Gephardt's new strategy, however, clearly shows how pathetic the Democrats have been in attacking the Bush administration. They just can't get any traction in subtly disagreeing with the conduct of the war. And they are lost at sea on other issues. Thus, the Big Business Tie-In Strategy.


Prediction: By November, this approach will have gone nowhere and will have been discarded. By then, new issues and new events will dominate the congressional elections.

LOSING THE WAR



The latest news in the War on Terror – and CNN’s Lou Dobbs is right to call this the War Against Islamists – is all bad:

1) One of Osama’s chief lieutenants has announced that a new video will soon be broadcast on our Fourth of July showing Osama bin Laden and his right-hand man, the Egyptian doctor Zwahiri who masterminded the Anwar Sadat assassination, alive and well and still running Al Qaeda.

2) They have also said that there will be new attacks “on America” – perhaps on July 4th.

3) Whoever manufactured last fall’s anthrax and mailed it to prominent members of the American media, is still free and able to manufacture even more of it.


4) Noted bin Laden expert Youssef Bodansky reports that Osama has recently hidden inside Iran for six weeks.


So, almost ten months after the September 11 attacks, where are we?

1) We cannot find Osama or Mullah Omar.

2) We cannot find the ‘anthrax mailer.’

3) We cannot even determine the source of the anthrax.

4) Thus, we cannot stop more anthrax from being mailed.

5) And we cannot disrupt Al Qaeda’s operation if Osama is still alive and able to communicate to his supporters through the Internet, radio and TV broadcasts.


G.W. Bush should call CIA Director George Tenet into the Oval Office and make it very clear: “You’ve got two weeks to find bin Laden. Or else you’re fired and I’ll bring in a new DCI (Director, Central Intelligence).”

All the talk of going into Iraq clearly is either distracting the administration from the hunt for Osama – or the administration is trying to distract the American people from their total and abject failure to “get” Osama. Either way, this mass murderer is on the loose and apparently plotting an even bigger event than September 11.

It is simply inexcusable that Osama bin Laden remains alive and free. Yes, yes, we have all heard that “it is a big world” and that ‘friendlies’ are hiding him. But what are we paying $60 billion for the CIA for if they can’t find this man?

Pakistan – where he may be hiding – is clearly playing both sides. While we forgave billions in debt and gave their intelligence agency – the ISI – an extra billion, what have they done to find Osama on the Pakistani-Afghanistan border? Absolutely nothing!

In fact, the ISI helped sponsor the Taliban and is believed to be protecting Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders who have crossed over the border.

This is simply inexcusable.

It seems as if the Bush Administration has lost its focus in this war. One day they are against a Cabinet Department of Homeland Security. Then, the next, they are in favor of it.

One day shoe-bomber Richard Reid is “acting alone.” The next day it turns out he is a long-time Al Qaeda devotee.

One day the anthrax is a “natural phenomenon’ in the drinking water in North Carolina. The next day it is a plot by a disgruntled domestic scientist. But the administration never wants to tie the anthrax in to either Osama or Saddam. Why is that?

And we target Baghdad for a full-blown war while Iran harbors Osama?

Is this because our policy Vis a Vis Iraq is really a grudge match between Saddam and the first George Bush? And that Karl Rove believes “taking out” Saddam guarantees W’s re-election?

What a mess this War Against Islamists has become. The Chief Executive has lost his focus, been derailed by Colin Powell’s State Department’s love affair with Yasser Arafat, and totally abandoned his pledge last September to “find Osama – dead or alive.”

President Bush needs to get back to basics and take charge of this rapidly deteriorating situation – before it takes charge of him.

FAT AMERICA


Let’s face it: our country has become shockingly fat – obese, in fact.

If you go back 20 years, you almost never saw a hulking, drooping figure struggling along the sidewalk with extra baggy clothes to ‘hide’ his or her fat. Now, we see such figures on every block!

What has happened?

Quite simply: we eat too much. Period.

Now, why has this happened over the past 20 years?

A combination of the following:

1) Portion sizes in restaurants have ballooned. What used to be a “chicken plate” has morphed into a “chicken platter” – and there is enough food on it to feed a family of four for two days!

2) The easy availability of fast food. It all tastes so good, is easy to buy – and is loaded with fat and sugar.

3) ‘Supersizing’ has become the new “in” thing. And the result is “supersized people”!

4) Public schools have succumbed to serving fast food – MacDonalds in particular – for lunch. Thus our young are ‘hooked’ from an early age.

5) Exercise is rare for most people. And, with the more frenetic pace we all live in, it is even more difficult to find time to work out – and work “off” those lbs.


I have been dieting since 1970. I have tried every known diet as well as every gimmick, solution, pill and fad.

And I know the utter embarrassment of not even being able to look in a mirror or when walking past a glass storefront. You really get to hate what you look like.

OK. That’s where we are. Now, what to do?

As a lay expert on losing weight, I can sum it all up very simply:

1) The only thing that matters is the number of calories you eat per day.

2) What you eat is much less important than the amount of calories you consume per day.

3) So, to lose weight, you must burn more calories than you take in. Period. Simple, eh?

4) Do you realize that if you eat just one chocolate chip cookie (I could eat seven right now!) per day – at 100 calories per cookie – that in one year you will put on 10 pounds?

5) Exercise is valuable only as a way to burn more calories, thus adding to you “caloric deficit.” Plus, it just makes you feel better.

6) Those of us who love to work out also know another dirty little secret: you actually have less appetite when you are on an exercise program. Seems like it should be the other way around but it is not.

7) The other thing I’ve learned – and it’s awful sounding – is that you are going to be a little bit hungry a lot of the time. But when you’re hungry – and you don’t eat anything - you are burning that fat away.



To sum it all up: we as a nation have a Big problem. Sixty percent of the people are so Big they are now categorized as obese.

Putting that weight on is easy as pie (uh oh!)...OK, putting it on is a piece of cake (uh oh again!).

But getting it off is much, much tougher.

No wonder so many people try gimmicks and pills and solutions to drink before bedtime that supposedly allow you to eat “all you want.” None of them are the right way to proceed.

The only way is to count those calories, cut them down bit by bit – and for the rest of your life dedicate yourself to less food going into our mouths.

The hardest part is getting started. Once you get going it is not so bad. And then when you start to see results, everything seems better.

America is fat - period. And we need to go on a diet.

A COVERT WAR?


"It is not a silver bullet, but hopes are high and we could get lucky."


This from an anonymous White House official upon yesterday's carefully leaked report that the president has authorized the CIA to "go after Saddam Hussein" with "lethal
force."

What is disturbing about this report is the fact that it was deliberately given to the Washington Post's Bob Woodward, thus guaranteeing Sunday's front page. In other
words, the CIA – which is supposed to operate in secret – wants the world to know of this presidential directive.

Since 9/11 the CIA has taken on a new role: that of another branch of the armed forces. First in Afghanistan, CIA was all too happy to reveal that agent Johnny 'Mike'
Spann was the first "combat death" in Operation Enduring Freedom.

CIA is supposed to provide intelligence; the Army and Marines are supposed to do the on-the-ground fighting. But suddenly CIA was recruiting former Green Berets and
using them for combat duty, thus creating yet another army.

Then Spann's widow was used as a public prop at her husband's funeral, thus forever putting her life and the lives of Spann's children at risk. Why? All to make George
Tenet and CIA look good in the wake of their abject failure to prevent 9/11.

Meanwhile, President George W. Bush upped the CIA budget and announced that our top priority was to get Osama bin Laden – "dead or alive."

Nine months later? Nada on Osama.

And now Director Tenet is shuttling around the Middle East trying to help Yasser Arafat's PLO regroup its 'security forces.'

Have you also noticed how CIA has carefully leaked documents to make the FBI look sloppy – which they were – in the weeks leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks? But
nary a word about CIA's total failure overseas to infiltrate al Qaeda and prevent these attacks. And nary a word about Tenet getting canned – as he should have been right
after the attacks.

It appears as if the CIA has total freedom inside this Bush administration, as it did in the first Bush administration.

As for the Iraqi operation, why does it seem as if we've heard it all before? "Capture" or "kill" Saddam? Didn't we try that 11 years ago during the Gulf War when we had
500,000 troops stationed there?

And as for an 'internal coup' to topple Saddam, we've been trying that one for 11 years, too. And our own government can't decide which Kurdish separatist group to
support in the north. State blocks money to one group while Defense wants to work with them.

But out of all the stumbling and bumbling comes the main question: Why make this new directive public?

The answer has to be simple: It is all PR aimed at making CIA look vital and strong and "in the loop" – thus making it impossible to fire Tenet.

Meanwhile, though, we have alerted our enemy. He knows everything we're up to – simply by reading the Washington Post!

Is this any way to run a covert war? By hoping "we get lucky"?

The Teddy Roosevelt method was better: Speak softly and carry a big stick.

The Bush way is to bluster and shout and threaten – and then never capture the enemies you promised to capture.

Osama last year; Saddam this year; who will be next year's uncaptured target?

A LYING CULTURE
Notice the steadily declining stock markets and wonder why, when almost all the emerging economic data indicates a rapidly recovering economy?

And notice the sudden spate of terrorist warnings that the federal government is issuing daily, with everything from scuba divers, apartment renters and private pilots all being mentioned? Who are next – ballroom dancing instructors and dental hygienists?

Here is what may be going on – in our economy and in our culture:

1) Investors do not know whom they can trust anymore. Can you blame them? Virtually every day we hear of another crooked CEO being led off in cuffs. Since the Enron debacle of last year, it seems that we are all looking at corporate management differently. Just last week the former head of Tyco was arrested for cheating on sales tax on art he purchased.

2) The accounting problem – a major aspect of Enronitis – seems to have 'infected' the entire business world. Standards of honesty and objectivity have become so blurred that no one trusts the numbers anymore. And if you can't trust the numbers, how can you make an investment decision?

3) The daily revelations that indeed agencies of the U.S. government had clues well before Sept. 11 that, had they been properly analyzed, may have prevented the attacks have caused many to lose faith in those agencies. Thus the new 're-organization' plan announced last week by President Bush. This plan will do nothing to change the quality of the analysis – or to improve the honesty of the leaders of those agencies. It is really just a PR move to make Washington look "on top of the situation."

4) How can we have faith in CIA Director Tenet or FBI Director Mueller when they have both been hiding these reports for eight months? Mueller actually – beginning on 9/14 – denied that the FBI knew anything, which he darn well knew was not true. And Tenet's CIA has been a failure for years. He only cares about keeping his job.

5) The spate of new terror warnings – which are scaring investors and hurting the markets – are a direct response to the 'cover-up' charge. The administration has decided to dump out each and every report – no matter how skimpy the evidence – to combat charges of holding anything back.

6) As much as the 9/11 attacks showed our vulnerability to well-planned suicide hijackings, the other Big Story is that the moral responsibility of our leaders – both in government and in business – has been hijacked by greed and career-preservation. Lying to save one's job and to hide ill-gotten gains is now commonplace.

We started down this seedy road a long time ago. Vince Lombardi's oft-quoted statement – "winning isn't everything, it's the only thing" – has permeated too many ambitious people today. In both politics and business, the bottom line is "winning" – as defined not by doing a good job but by getting richer or getting re-elected
or re-appointed.

The two elections of Bill Clinton only solidified in our culture the acceptance of lying as a way of doing business. So-called educated people marveled at his lies and how he survived them. They were only furthering the notion that if you can get away with something, then you have done a great job!

Hillary's election in New York continued to show that we have become a nation enamored of celebrity – and accepting of lies, cover-ups and unmitigated greed.

Until we reverse this culture of lying we are going to be a society in decline.

We cannot be Ronald Reagan's Shining City on a Hill until we clean out this rotten immorality and replace it with the old stalwarts:

1) pride in a job well-done, regardless of consequences;
2) shame for lying;
3) placing standing up for what is right over short-term consequences;
4) caring less about yourself and more for those you are responsible for;
5) your word is your "bond."

Old-fashioned stuff?

You bet.

KENNEDY HEAD COUNT


With Friday's conviction for the first-degree murder of Martha Moxley, how many women have the Kennedys killed, harmed or maimed?

Let's count:

Back in July of 1969 Sen. Teddy Kennedy drove a car off a bridge, killing 'Boiler Room Girl' Mary Jo Kopechne. By his own admission, he caused her death.

So, that is One Woman Dead.

Then, four years ago, John F. Kennedy Jr. flew his airplane into the Atlantic Ocean off Nantucket, killing his wife and sister-in-law. The Kennedy family has admitted
his negligence by settling a multimillion-dollar 'wrongful death' lawsuit threatened by the Bessette family. According to published reports, the estate of JFK Jr. paid the
Bessette family in excess of $20 million.

So, with the deaths of those two young women, the Hard Count is three women dead.

Friday's conviction of Ethel Kennedy's nephew Michael Skakel for the first-degree, golf-club, skull-crushing murder of 15-year-old Martha Moxley - and the concerted
Kennedy family effort to keep the lid on that crime for 27 years - shows 'America's royal family' for what it really is: more interested in preserving its own fortunes
and power than in the lives of young women.

So, the Moxley murder brings the Kennedy Hard Count to four women dead.

Back in the late 1970s, Joe Kennedy, Ethel and Bobby's oldest son, recklessly drove a Jeep on a beach one day with a female passenger. Kennedy - who would go on to
become a U.S. congressman - flipped the Jeep and crushed the girl's spine, leaving her paralyzed for life from the waist down.

Of course, Kennedy walked away unharmed.

The Kennedy family settled the case before it got to court; after all, young Joe's political viability had to be preserved!

That brings the Hard Count to four women dead, one permanently crippled.

Then we have the case of Joe's younger brother Michael, who was married to the daughter of football legend Frank Gifford. During that marriage, Michael began an
affair with a 15-year-old babysitter. Several years later, this story was made public, causing Michael to drop out of a House race, causing his wife to leave him, and
even forcing older brother Joe to abandon his candidacy for governor of Massachusetts.

Michael died not much later when he recklessly skied into a tree in Colorado while trying to catch a football with one hand and videotaping the scene with his other hand.

But he clearly committed statutory rape, bringing the Hard Count to four women dead, one paralyzed and one raped.

Of course, this Hard Count does not include Patricia Bowman, the Palm Beach woman who accused William Kennedy Smith of raping her on the lawn of the Kennedy
Compound in 1991. He was acquitted of all charges.

And this Hard Count does not include the never satisfactorily explained death of movie icon Marilyn Monroe. The beautiful actress had had illicit affairs simultaneously with
both President Kennedy and Attorney General Robert Kennedy. Many have speculated that they may have had something to do with her death.

Despite such an abysmal criminal record, women's groups continue to support all Kennedys running for office. No one seems to care about all the pain and humiliation the Kennedys' behavior has caused their wives, families and children. And Teddy Kennedy, courted by President Bush for help in
passing the education bill, has already dumped on Bush's government reorganization plan by saying, "It sounds like we're rearranging the deck chairs on the
Titanic."

A similar double cross was evident last year when President Bush named the Justice Department building after Robert Kennedy. At the ceremony, one of RFK's daughters
- standing in front of the very president who was generously honoring her father - used the occasion to blast the Bush policies!

Nice, eh?

No, the Kennedys are indeed 'above the law.' No one else - not even Bill and Hillary Clinton - could ever get away with so many crimes and betrayals.

GLOBAL WARMING = U.N. SUCK-UP


The brouhaha this week over the Bush Administration’s report to the UN agreeing that there is indeed ‘global warming’ is yet another attempt to enlist international support to overthrow Saddam Hussein.

Two weeks ago when President Bush toured Europe trying to coax an anti-Iraq ‘coalition’ from the leaders of Russia, France, Italy and Germany, he was met with a chorus of dissent. Their objection? “Why do you Americans do everything on your own? You will not agree to the International Criminal Court, you are always late paying your UN dues and you won’t sign the Kyoto Treaty.”

Determined to have a ‘regime change’ in Baghdad, Team Bush returned home and began crafting a strategy to woo our erstwhile European allies. The plan was simple: say we agree that there is Global Warming without offering any solutions – and certainly not agreeing with the Kyoto Treaty.

The monkey wrench came when Matt Drudge and Rush Limbaugh revealed the administration’s shift and quickly rallied overwhelming conservative disappointment over yet another ‘Bush Betrayal’ of a conservative position.

Monday night, faced with a strong ‘revolt on the right,’ White House political guru Karl Rove sketched out the fall-back position: trot the President out to blame the ‘bureaucracy’ – always a convenient conservative target – and to claim that W is still against Kyoto.

How cynical of Rove and the Bush Team.

Exactly whose ‘bureaucracy’ is it, anyway? The EPA is in GOP hands and a Bush fave, Christie Whitman, is running it.

Do they really think we are going to believe that Whitman is going to send such an explosive report to the United Nations without White House approval?

Clearly Rove miscalculated the firestorm that Drudge and Rush ignited Sunday night and Monday. But W and Rove again seem to have temporarily snookered most conservatives by this very lame ‘bureaucracy’ ploy.

Underneath it all is the desire to get the world focused on removing Saddam. Since early spring, other events have pre-empted talk of a new war against Iraq. The never-ending Israeli-Palestinian debacle has clearly distracted both the White House and the Mid-East leaders we would need to conduct such an action.

The worrisome thing is the cavalier way this White House takes conservatives for granted. Just like the first President Bush, this crowd thinks it has the Right in its hip pocket and that there is no logical conservative to challenge them in the 2004 primaries. In other words, there is no Pat Buchanan or Ross Perot to cut into the Bush Base.

Well, guess what?

2004 is a long, long way away. Who knows what will happen by then? Who knows what new political stars may emerge – including conservatives – who might indeed do to this Bush what happened to the first President Bush in 1992?

The disingenuous ‘bureaucracy’ excuse won’t wash. It indicates a deep disdain for conservatives and a cynical ‘breaking’ of campaign pledges in the style of ‘read my lips.’

Prediction: the Bush White House will come to greatly regret this abandonment – however short it may have been – of its environmental pledges. The Right in this country can and will easily abandon the Bushes if something better comes along.

HARVARD JIHAD


This Thursday, at the Harvard Commencement, a senior will deliver a graduation speech that he had titled ‘American Jihad.’ In the wake of the September 11 attacks and the ongoing suicide bombing of Israel – all part of an Arab Jihad against the United States and Israel – the selection of such a speech has only reinforced the notion that Harvard, indeed, still hates America.

After much controversy, the student, Zayed M. Yasin, has changed the title of his speech but kept ‘American Jihad’ as the sub-title. And he refuses to change one word in the speech – and Harvard refuses to remove him from the roster of speakers.

Indeed, the entire attitude of the Harvard Administration smacks of “in-your-face” anti-Americanism.

A little background: Mr. Yasin was president of the Harvard Islamic Society. In that capacity he raised funds for the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF). After 9/11, the U.S. State Department alleged that HLF had ties to Hamas and had funneled millions of dollars to that terrorist organization. President Bush then froze all assets of the HLF.

Yasin defends the Holy Land Foundation. He says of HLF, “I felt that it was very wrong for this very important kind of humanitarian assistance to be shut down. That’s still the way I feel.”
Furthermore, Mr. Yasin refuses to denounce terrorism in his speech. He claims the use of the word ‘jihad’ is meant to show how each individual faces a moral struggle in fighting for social justice.

At the same time, many Harvard faculty members have adopted the latest ‘fad’ in leftist ideology: shunning Israel and falling in love with Yasser Arafat. Just three weeks ago Harvard circulated a petition urging that the $19 billion Harvard Endowment divest itself from any investments in Israel or in companies that do business with Israel. So far that call has been rejected.

But, guess what? Professor Richard Thomas, the head of the committee that chose Yasin as a commencement speaker, is one of those tenured professors urging the divestiture. And Mr. Yasin, too, has called on Harvard to cut all financial ties to Israel.

Hilary Levey, a senior who organized a petition drive to have Mr. Yasin removed as a speaker, doubts that Yasin’s “vision of jihad” is entirely peaceful. “I just think the speaker’s past statements and past actions are relevant,” she said. “In light of public actions and statements he’s made that are part of the public record, it’s not entirely clear this is the jihad he himself always practices.

“I think the use of the word ‘jihad’ in its context now has a lot of other meanings besides the religious meaning. When you say ‘jihad’ now you think of planes flying into a building.”

Ms. Levey says she has talked to many fellow students as well as alumni and parents in the wake of September 11. “It could be very painful to hear about that when you have people who have died in the name of jihad.”

Another senior, David Adelman, agrees that such a controversial subject should not have been the focus of this year’s Commencement. “There’s a lot of very motivating ideas out there they could have chosen. Using such a contentious issue is unnecessary at this time.”

Michael Shinagel, another member of the speaker selection committee, scoffed at concerns about Yasin’s Hamas support and his refusal to denounce terrorism. “I don’t like to get into innuendo or character assassination. Anytime you have a controversial subject, people, depending on which side of an issue they are on, will try to demonize the other half. That’s just not the Harvard style.”

Oh, really?

The ‘Harvard style’?

Was it the ‘Harvard style’ to insult President Ronald Reagan – because he was a conservative - by refusing to give him an honorary degree when he was invited to speak at the 1985 Harvard Commencement?

And is it the ‘Harvard style’ to deny Harvard ROTC members the right to have their graduation photos taken in their military uniform?

Or is the ‘Harvard style’ a slanted, biased, Politically Correct Leftism that now embraces the concept of Jihad?

Indeed, Harvard still hates America.