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Showing posts from January 27, 2006

Three brief observations on the Hamas shocker

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Sorry, but I was a little busy "doing Hamas," that is providing newsbites, for a few broadcasting outlets. I even had to interrupt my pilates exercise to give a three-minute interview to radio station CJOB-AM in Winnipeg, Canada... And I'm working on a long analytical piece for the American Conservative on the topic as it relates to the Bush Administration's crusade to "democratize" the Middle East. The three recent mostly free elections in the region gave us a nutty president in Iran, his radical Shiite pals in Iraq, and now Hamas... Since you've been following the news from the Holy Land and reading what all the "usual suspects" -- always wrong! -- have to say about the subject, let me just make three brief and contrarian observations: 1. Why did the media, pollsters, etc. failed to predict the Hamas victory? Two main reasons: First, they relied on unreliable Palestinian pollsters like Dr. Khalil Shikaki director of the Palestinian Center fo