I wonder how the former senator would like his tactics applied to himself.

Posted by: ebonystone at August 6, 2008 8:35 AM

"Gravel told FOX News that he doesn’t want people to break the law and that he personally wouldn’t do the things he’s recommended..."

Hey, if you can't be the President, become a mullah...

Posted by: Abscedere at August 6, 2008 9:01 AM

He sounds like a jilted lover.

Posted by: Abscedere at August 6, 2008 9:06 AM

This is outrageous speach and it should be considered an extremely serious criminal offense to excit a crowd to harass a public official and to “find out where his kids go to school”. It is beyond free speech rights to excite a crowed to such violence and he should be charged appropriately and IMO put away in prison for a long time (never mind deportation).

Examples must be set that strongly discourage such intimidation tactics which otherwise can easily be taken up by many Muslim in this country.

Posted by: FM at August 6, 2008 9:24 AM

The enemies of the West, their hirelings and their fools.

This guy's a beaut.

Posted by: dgene at August 6, 2008 9:41 AM

In today's vernacular: "What a tool."

Posted by: Kevin at August 6, 2008 10:28 AM

Mike Gravel has been out of the Senate for nearly 30 years. A womanizer in the Senate, he suffered financially when his then-wife managed to have his entire Senate pension assigned to her as part of the divorce settlement. He then tried this, and then tried that, and a series of bankruptcies followed. More can be found on his financial transactions in an article about them, that appeared several years ago at Salon.com.

His politics are now "progressive" with a heavy dose of Chomsky. And a new theme has recently entered into his "discourse" -- Defense of Islam, and bashing of Israel. The latter theme, of course, so often has a way of appearing in the vocabulary, and the thoughts, of those who have been suffering mental or other kinds of disarray, and we all know why. Take a look at Gravel's comments, increasingly hysterical, about Israel and a possible attack on Iran.

For example, when historian Benny Morris wrote in an Op/Ed piece in The Times a few weeks ago, that in his view if Iran did not change course, an Israeli attack -- not an "invasion" and not a full-scale "war" but an attack, necessarily more prolonged and wider, but in essense the same as the attack on the Osirak Reactor and on the Al-Kibar installation in Syria -- Gravel became hysterical. This was, he maintained, Israel "threatening nuclear war."

Well, was it? When historian Benny Morris writes an Op/Ed, or for that matter when you or I write an Op/Ed about American foreign policy, is that equivalent to a government declaration of war? No, I didn't think so either.

And when Israel makes plans, as it surely has, to attack Iran if this "giving peace a chance" stuff with the Islamic Rebublic of Iran, the same "give-peace-a-chance-through-negotiations-and-pleading-and-promises" stuff that has been going on, nonstop, for five years, with everyone and his brother -- the U.S., the European Union, Russia, China, the man on the moon -- getting involved to ask Iran to please, pleasse, please, soyez raissonable, and the Iranians, well-versed in the two most important skills -- deception (not only of the Taqiyya brand) and in dilatory tactics --keep talking or refusing to talk, keep hinting that we might, no on second thought we won't, no we might, no we really won't and don't ask us again -- and meanwhile, steadily, the thousnands of centrifuges are built, and put into use, and everything proceeds fast,and faster, and there is no Miss Clavel to head off this disaster -- save apparently the same lonely collection of Gary-Coopers, going out to save the townsfolk yet again, by which I mean the collection of heroes who, when Israel calls on them, go out, and do their incrdible stuff, and no doubt, like Cooper at the end of "High Noon," they wish, as the cowering rest of the world comes out, that they could throw down their peace-keeping or keeping-the-world-from disaster badges into the dust, outside the saloon, but they can't, and we all know why they can't.

But Gravel, of course, does not understand any of that. He does not understand that Israel could, if it wished, drop nuclear bombs today, tomorrow, the next day, on Iran or any of its neighbors, as a "demonstration project," yet does not do so, has not done so in the thirty years and more that it has had the weapons to do so. No, what Israel, by attacking not Iran but Iran's nuclear project -- these are different things -- would do would be to make "nuclear war" less likely, not only between Israel and Iran, but between the Islamic Republic of Iran, and any other country now within its misssile range,or even those to whom such weaponry might be handed off, for use against this or that satanish Infidel state (just listen to the whisperings -- waswasah -- of Shaytan). And that's a lot of countries.

When the pathology of antisemitism, that so many sad sacks eventually come to, is observable in its current, socially-acceptable form--complete indifference to, and hideous and wilful miscomprehension of all things having to do with, Israel, it disturbs.

In Gravel's case, his incredible speech urging people to make life hell for the Federal prosecutor in the Al-Arian case is merely the latest sign of a mind off-kilter.

Gravel, who left the Democrats to run, this same year, as a "Libertarian," now says his political career is ended. But is he not angling, in his every word and deed, for Arab money to come and rescue him, from his own decades of financial and other folly? Isn't that what it must partly be about?

He's a pathetic case. But he's not a sympathetic case.

Posted by: Hugh at August 6, 2008 10:35 AM

Useful Idiots of the World, Grovel! You have nothing to lose but your human dignity!

Posted by: John C at August 6, 2008 10:59 AM

Mikir al-Gravel the Groveler abases himself before his god and his Muslim overlords.

Posted by: John C at August 6, 2008 11:03 AM

“Find out where he lives, find out where his kids go to school, find out where his office is, picket him all the time,” Gravel said, in an audio tape obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism and provided to FOX News.
…
Gravel told FOX News that he doesn’t want people to break the law and that he personally wouldn’t do the things he’s recommended — but that it could be an effective way to change the behavior of U.S. officials.
…
“Call him a racist in signs if you see him. Call him an injustice. Call him whatever you want to call him, but in his face all the time.”

More examples of what David Horowitz terms the "Unholy Alliance". With the help of the Left, the Islamic fifth column becomes more adroit at the politics of victim hood, and Left grows bolder at the politics of intimidation. Mr. Gravel, unable to present convincing arguments, resorts to the tactics of the juvenile, of Islamic intolerance, of victim hood, and violence.

Look around you and read some history, Mr. Gravel. Ask yourself what part you are playing in the unraveling of the civility that allows you to make such irresponsible statements in relative security.

Grow up, Mr. Gravel. Encouraging other bullies to harass children will only place you at the head of the line for a good spanking when the adults show up.

Posted by: RalphInfidel at August 6, 2008 12:22 PM

If he had said to treat some Islamic Imam in that fashion, he would be arrested, and the Imam and CAIR would sue him.

Posted by: duh_swami at August 6, 2008 1:04 PM

Maybe people should “Find out where Gravel lives, find out where his kids go to school, find out where his office is, picket him all the time,”

"Call him whatever you want to call him, but in his face all the time.”

Maybe this is where anti-islamists have been going wrong. We don't intimidate people enough. We especially don't find out where peoples' kids go to school.

What do you think?

What a pity this nice Gravel guy didn't become President! (Rolls eyes emoticon needed here)

Posted by: Stephen Gash SIOE England at August 6, 2008 1:08 PM

This kind of traitors are the people who lead the islamists to gain in power and must be shunted out. Find his house and stone it. Also his kids may be followed for he likes to do it to others.

Posted by: greaticon at August 6, 2008 1:51 PM

Total traitors amomg us, Quislings operating with impunity.

Ruslan Tokhchukov, EnragedSince1999.

Posted by: Enragedsince1999 at August 6, 2008 6:34 PM

"Let us continue the protests. Let us damn America. Let us damn Israel. Let us damn their allies until death. "Mohammad is leader. The Qur'an is our constitution. Jihad is our path..." ~ Sami Al Arian

Posted by: DCWatson at August 6, 2008 7:54 PM

This man is just using the tools of the Democrat party,, call them racist, is the biggie, and using the children of his opponets he should have charges against him, and have the FBI haul his butt in court and into jail.

Posted by: ZenaWarriorPrincess at August 6, 2008 8:55 PM

This a**hole should be thrown in jail period. When you start threatening a person's children, and that is EXACTLY what he did - then that crosses the line and is, in my book, a threat.

It's bad enough to advocate harrasing an individual, but to go after children is sick.

Posted by: Monkeywho at August 6, 2008 11:13 PM

I just saw Mike Gravel on the O'Reilly show. Remember, he was not just a running for president--anyone can run--but he is a two-term Senator from Alaska, from 1969-1981.

He seemed pretty out of control--visibly so. He was ranting that the prosecutor in the Al-Arian case, Gordon Kromberg, uses entrapment. O'Reilly asked him for clarification, but none was forthcoming.

When asked about saying, “Find out where [Kromberg] lives, find out where his kids go to school", O'Reilly asked Gravel if that wasn't going too far, since people's kids should be left out of political disagreements, Gravel claimed that Kromberg's actions had irreparably hurt Al-Arian's kids, so it was fair.

When O'Reilly said that Gravel had to agree that Al-Arian was a "bad guy", Gravel became even angrier. O'Reilly reminded Gravel that Al-Arian had pled guilty to aiding terrorists. Gravel did not say that O'Reilly was mistaken, or that the situation was not so clear-cut, or any of the things you might suppose he would say. Instead, he started shrieking that O'Reilly was "a liar". And there the segment ended.

Posted by: gravenimage at August 7, 2008 12:28 AM