Image 01 Image 03

Author: David Gerstman

Profile photo

David Gerstman

David Gerstman blogged as Soccer Dad from 2003 to 2010. Formerly a computer programmer, he is now a blogger for The Israel Project's The Tower blog.

Do you remember the Saturday Night Live skit The Adventures of Miles Cowperthwaite? Captain Ned: [ interrupting ] That's enough, Miles.. [ Miles sits ] Now, men, I run a mans' ship. I will run it in a manful and masculine way! I will tolerate no...

1) Missing another opportunity to miss an opportunity Yesterday, Prof Jacobson posted about an exclusive story at The Tower by Avi Issacharoff about the peace deal that Ehud Olmert offered Mahmoud Abbas in 2008 but that Abbas never accepted. Today Isacharoff follows up with more detail in...

According to Roger L. Simon, Benghazi is the most damaging scandal plaguing the Obama administration. The White House and the State Department were on the brink of serious humiliation before an election. They had screwed up royally. What were they going to say? They had to...

Recently, there has been an interesting string of editorials in the Washington Post. (I'll limit this to the discussion of unsigned editorials, not op-eds.) .@ejdionne has it exactly backward. This is not a crisis of democracy, it's a crisis of authority. washingtonpost.com/opinions/ej-di…— James Taranto (@jamestaranto) May 20,...

Erdogan ♥s Ocalan? Last week Soner Cagaptay and James Jeffers asked Can Obama Save Turkey From a Syrian Quagmire? in the New York Times: The Syrian war has also awakened Turkey’s once dormant Marxist militant groups. These groups vehemently oppose any government policies they see as serving...

Richard Engel's Speech Richard Engel spoke earlier this week at the Newseum's memorial for journalists killed in the line of duty during 2012. Spoke at newseum today on journalists killed in 2012, and controversy on who to include. c-spanvideo.org/program/312711…— Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) May 13, 2013 The Newseum's...

1) Syria considerations Last week former executive editor of the New York Times, Bill Keller wrote Syria is not Iraq. The gist of his argument is that he trusts President Obama but shouldn't have trusted President Bush. It's a silly argument. However, as Dexter Filkins reports,...

This morning Prof Jacobson observed IRS reaped hatred of Tea Party sown by Democrats and the media. A Tweeter responded: @leginsurrection Douthat makes the same point, in a NYer's version of the argument nytimes.com/2013/05/12/opi…— Tampa (@S1CT) May 12, 2013 Indeed. Douthat laid out the case of The Taxman...

There was a useful fiction about Barack Obama. His cabinet would consist of a "team of rivals." After this week's hearings, I doubt we'll hear the term again regarding this administration. So now we know who took the terrorist attack references out. Next shoe: who put the...

1) When is news not really news? The Newseum - a museum devoted to the news business - recently held an event to honor journalists killed in the line of duty. Included in that honor members of Hamas who were killed by Israel this past November. Newseum...

After public editor, Margaret Sullivan's unconvincing arguments about the New York Times coverage of Benghazi, I was expecting the New York Times and other members of the MSM to be out today with editorials spinning yesterday's testimony in favor of the administration. .@sulliview insistence on equating...

1) Guess the source A) In its efforts to stop amateur rockets from nagging the residents of some of its southern cities, Israel appears to have given new life to the fledging Islamic movement in Palestine. For two years, the Islamic Resistance Movement (known by its Arabic...

Hearings are scheduled today before Darrell Issa's committee. I thought that Roger L. Simon was going a bit overboard late last week. New RLS blog #TCOT Benghazi Impeachment Suddenly Not So Far-Fetched bit.ly/15d5RXW— Roger Simon (@rogerlsimon) May 4, 2013 Even Simon acknowledged that his writing on the topic...

1) The Israeli "message" Why is it that threats against Israel are regularly downplayed by the media? 'Everywhere an #Iranian embassy exists, they plan terror on #Jews, #Israelis' ow.ly/kJZlH— Israel Hayom English (@IsraelHayomEng) May 6, 2013 Typical of this phenomenon is the headline Airstrikes Tied to Israel May...

Syria Explodes Professor Jacobson has previously reported on two Israeli strikes: one against Hezbollah and one against Syria. What's going on? Classic thing about the strike on Damascus is how it will be spun by Assad. He'll argue it's "PROOF" he's facing a takfiri-Zionist alliance.— Phillip Smyth (@PhillipSmyth)...

In a telling editorial last year, the Washington Post railed against Mr Romney's Secret Bundlers: Who are these men and women to whom the campaign is so deeply indebted? Mr. Romney has yet to answer — indeed, he has yet to be directly asked — why...

1) The innocence of the Obama administration Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on September 14, 2012: https://twitter.com/StateDept/status/246718237939748865 This has been a difficult week for the State Department and for our country. We’ve seen the heavy assault on our post in Benghazi that took the lives of those brave...