Perhaps, dear reader, you know of James Zogby, an Arab-American pollster and anti-Israel zealot. Mr. Zogby, who does his best to cover up his radical views on the Middle East with tempered rhetoric and linguistic legerdemain, writes regularly for The Huffington Post, Arianna Huffington's lodestone of left-wing nuttery.

In a recent "post" entitled "Carter's Mideast Message Plays In Iowa," Mr. Zogby salivates over the idea that Iowans are supposedly becoming more sympathetic to his toxic brand of anti-Zionism and terrorist appeasement. His recent trip to Iowa, Mr. Zogby opines, demonstrates that the residents of this Midwestern state hunger for a "more balanced" approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

And how does Mr. Zogby prove this? By relating the rapturous reception former President Jimmy Carter received at a recent speech in Iowa. Undeterred by an "ongoing effort to discredit [Carter's] recent book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," folks showed up en masse to cheer for the charming ex-president. As such, thinks Mr. Zogby, Iowans hunger for a "more balanced" approach to Middle East policy.

To which the proper response is: What the heck are you talking about, you despicable shill for anti-Zionist lunatics?

President Carter's sordid screed, after all, blames the Jewish state and the Jewish state alone for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It proffers all sorts of anti-Zionist misinformation, and presents a rosy view of Palestinian terrorists. According to Carter's polemic, "Israel's continued control and colonization of Palestinian land have been the primary obstacles to a comprehensive peace agreement in the Holy Land."

Not Palestinian terrorism, mind you, or Palestinian rejection of numerous fair-minded peace offerings on the part of the Israeli government. Not even the sordid spreading of anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism in Palestinian education and popular culture. Nope: It's all Israel's fault.

How in the good Lord's name can James Zogby call such an approach "more balanced" with a straight face? How can his buddies on the Left not call him out for what he is--an odious propagandist for anti-Israel extremists?

Perhaps, dear reader, because they're too busy writing "balanced" replies to his "posts" such as the following:

hamas is much more for peace than israel ever was. that's not an opinion. thought [sic] they spout the line of wanting to destroy israel, they know they [sic] as an organization cannot do that. israel denies trying to destroy the palestinians but they have been for decades by de facto actions by trying to find politically acceptable means. more important than any of that, though, is the simple fact that the people of palestine would rather have hamas than israel because hamas helps their people which legitimizes their power to those people in the region as opposed to israel which was also just an arbitrary body formed from the ruins of the second world war. doesn't help that they themselves used terrorism to form their state and gain independence from great britain [sic] with the help of the u.s.

By: uptonogood on April 21, 2007 at 06:16am

There you have it: Hamas supports peace, whereas Israel hopes to "destroy the palestinians." Finally a bit of balance!

(Note: The crack young staff normally "weblog" over at "The Hatemonger's Quarterly," where they are currently sponsoring the Fourth Annual Horrible College-Student Poetry Competition, to which you are warmly encouraged to send an entry.)