He is still the same anti-American leftist he was before becoming our president..
By NORMAN PODHORETZ
It’s open season on President Obama. Which is to say that the usual suspects on the right (among whom I include myself) are increasingly being joined in attacking him by erstwhile worshipers on the left. Even before the S&P downgrade, there were reports of Democrats lamenting that Hillary Clinton had lost to him in 2008. Some were comparing him not, as most of them originally had, to Lincoln and Roosevelt but to the hapless Jimmy Carter. There was even talk of finding a candidate to stage a primary run against him. But since the downgrade, more and more liberal pundits have been deserting what they clearly fear is a sinking ship.
Here, for example, from the Washington Post, is Richard Cohen: “He is the very personification of cognitive dissonance—the gap between what we (especially liberals) expected of the first serious African American presidential candidate and the man he in fact is.” More amazingly yet Mr. Cohen goes on to say of Mr. Obama, who not long ago was almost universally hailed as the greatest orator since Pericles, that he lacks even “the rhetorical qualities of the old-time black politicians.” And to compound the amazement, Mr. Cohen tells us that he cannot even “recall a soaring passage from a speech.”
Overseas it is the same refrain. Everywhere in the world, we read in Germany’s Der Spiegel, not only are the hopes ignited by Mr. Obama being dashed, but his “weakness is a problem for the entire global economy.”
In short, the spell that Mr. Obama once cast—a spell so powerful that instead of ridiculing him when he boasted that he would cause “the oceans to stop rising and the planet to heal,” all of liberaldom fell into a delirious swoon—has now been broken by its traumatic realization that he is neither the “god” Newsweek in all seriousness declared him to be nor even a messianic deliverer.
Hence the question on every lip is—as the title of a much quoted article in the New York Times by Drew Westen of Emory University puts it— “What Happened to Obama?” Attacking from the left, Mr. Westin charges that President Obama has been conciliatory when he should have been aggressively pounding away at all the evildoers on the right.
Of course, unlike Mr. Westen, we villainous conservatives do not see Mr. Obama as conciliatory or as “a president who either does not know what he believes or is willing to take whatever position he thinks will lead to his re-election.” On the contrary, we see him as a president who knows all too well what he believes. Furthermore, what Mr. Westen regards as an opportunistic appeal to the center we interpret as a tactic calculated to obfuscate his unshakable strategic objective, which is to turn this country into a European-style social democracy while diminishing the leading role it has played in the world since the end of World War II. The Democrats have persistently denied that these are Mr. Obama’s goals, but they have only been able to do so by ignoring or dismissing what Mr. Obama himself, in a rare moment of candor, promised at the tail end of his run for the presidency: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”
This statement, coming on top of his association with radicals like Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and Rashid Khalidi, definitively revealed to all who were not wilfully blinding themselves that Mr. Obama was a genuine product of the political culture that had its birth among a marginal group of leftists in the early 1960s and that by the end of the decade had spread metastatically to the universities, the mainstream media, the mainline churches, and the entertainment industry. Like their communist ancestors of the 1930s, the leftist radicals of the ’60s were convinced that the United States was so rotten that only a revolution could save it.
But whereas the communists had in their delusional vision of the Soviet Union a model of the kind of society that would replace the one they were bent on destroying, the new leftists only knew what they were against: America, or Amerika as they spelled it to suggest its kinship to Nazi Germany. Thanks, however, to the unmasking of the Soviet Union as a totalitarian nightmare, they did not know what they were for. Yet once they had pulled off the incredible feat of taking over the Democratic Party behind the presidential candidacy of George McGovern in 1972, they dropped the vain hope of a revolution, and in the social-democratic system most fully developed in Sweden they found an alternative to American capitalism that had a realistic possibility of being achieved through gradual political reform.
Despite Mr. McGovern’s defeat by Richard Nixon in a landslide, the leftists remained a powerful force within the Democratic Party, but for the next three decades the electoral exigencies within which they had chosen to operate prevented them from getting their own man nominated. Thus, not one of the six Democratic presidential candidates who followed Mr. McGovern came out of the party’s left wing, and when Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (the only two of the six who won) tried each in his own way to govern in its spirit, their policies were rejected by the American immune system. It was only with the advent of Barack Obama that the leftists at long last succeeded in nominating one of their own.
To be sure, no white candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers would have lasted a single day. But because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of liberaldom to have hung out with protesters against various American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass. And in any case, what did such ancient history matter when he was also articulate and elegant and (as he himself had said) “non-threatening,” all of which gave him a fighting chance to become the first black president and thereby to lay the curse of racism to rest?
And so it came about that a faithful scion of the political culture of the ’60s left is now sitting in the White House and doing everything in his power to effect the fundamental transformation of America to which that culture was dedicated and to which he has pledged his own personal allegiance.
I disagree with those of my fellow conservatives who maintain that Mr. Obama is indifferent to “the best interests of the United States” (Thomas Sowell) and is “purposely” out to harm America (Rush Limbaugh). In my opinion, he imagines that he is helping America to repent of its many sins and to become a different and better country.
But I emphatically agree with Messrs. Limbaugh and Sowell about this president’s attitude toward America as it exists and as the Founding Fathers intended it. That is why my own answer to the question, “What Happened to Obama?” is that nothing happened to him. He is still the same anti-American leftist he was before becoming our president, and it is this rather than inexperience or incompetence or weakness or stupidity that accounts for the richly deserved failure both at home and abroad of the policies stemming from that reprehensible cast of mind.
Mr. Podhoretz was the editor of Commentary from 1960 to 1995. His most recent book is “Why Are Jews Liberals?” (Doubleday, 2009).
You’re like a couple of drunks holding each other up.
ROTFLMAO (What happened to chutzpa?)
YOU accusing ME of lashon harah, Yamit, is not a little like the National Enquirer accusing the Wall Street Journal of sensationalism.
“Copped out”? — Where?
A hollow offer at best (and a bogus one at worst)
— inasmuch as you implicitly posit YOURSELF as the arbiter of what constitutes ‘proof,’
YOURSELF as the arbiter of what constitutes “hard data”
and YOURSELF as the arbiter of what constitutes “reliable sources.”
(Nice work if you can get it…)
All you are doing, Yamit, is attempting to reverse the burden-of-proof to ME
for defending Reagan
and the presumption-of-veracity to YOURSELF
while attacking him.
It won’t fly and I won’t let it stand.
Bilgewater [to state the case gently — a lot more gently than it deserves].
The same “research” could support a multiplicity of mutually conflicting conclusions; hence I challenged his intellectual rigor.
What’s more, since some of the good professor’s ‘facts’ were NEVER established to BE facts, but purely unsupported allegations] — I questioned also his intellectual INTEGRITY.
Let’s be candid, Yahnkele.
We both know
that you don’t give a rusty screw about who is
or isn’t
a “serious academic.”
The only reason you take such great pains to characterize Francisco Gil-White in those terms is that
his pathology
reifies your own.
More evidence points to Syria (or a Syrian catspaw in Lebanon) than to a strictly Lebanese faction. Maybe even IRGC, which was training Hezb’ollah.
I’ve already addressed the garbage accusations that Gil-White casually casts (above) in parentheses — as if “Contra” “terrorists” “killing innocent civilians” were the substance of an established fact, beyond cavil or question.
There is NO evidence, moreover, that Reagan blamed Sabra/Chatilla on Israel. Asking for an investigation, as he did, does not constitute either the substance OR the suggestion of summary — or otherwise precipitate — blame.
There is PLENTY of evidence, however, that RR did respond to the intel he & his advisors were given during the Lebanon War. And much of that intel turned out to be impossibly twisted, if not downright bogus: this, often because PLO operatives in Lebanon intimidated local stringers (and even network staff reporters) to cast Operation Peace-for-Galilee in the most warped & garish light. And that view — typified by the Palywood-style, phony photo of the little girl w/ her arms blown off, purportedly by US-supplied, Israeli ordnance — became the core of the world’s perception of the Lebanon War, and in particular, its perception of the Phalangist massacres of Sabra/Chatilla in the wake of the Bashir Gemayel assassination.
The video coverage of the Beirut bombing had a visceral effect on RR. TV always made an impression on him, and this was before there was a counterbalance created by the end of the “Fairness” Doctrine (whose demise he presided over) as well as the advent of the alternative media & social networks — and especially before the popularity of the cell phone. Eventually the footage was more than he could take; he called Begin on the phone & said flatly, “Menachem, this has to stop…” Begin called back 20 minutes later, and said he’d given Sharon the order to call a halt.
RR had come to question whether he could trust the PM in the wake of an infelicitous confluence of events:
For one thing, he had thought the $8 Bil AWACS sale to the Sa’udi’s would encourage them to help sustain the early cease fire in Lebanon after the IAF raid on PLO HQ a year before the War. Phil Habib, the special M-E envoy, regarded the Sa’udi role as “indispensable.” Begin was understandably alarmed at the prospect of such a sale, and bluntly said so — but he also gave Reagan to understand that his oppposition would be strictly thru channels; that he wouldn’t go public with it.
Then, however, Begin did — inexplicably — make a huge splash out of it: a speech to the US Congress, numerous TV interviews, etc. Essentially Begin overplayed his hand. You could call it grandstanding, I suppose, on the PM’s part. (Bibi did the same thing a couple months ago, but he never said or suggested he wouldn’t.)
RR was only the 2nd American president Begin had ever had dealings with as PM, and he may have assumed that ALL US presidents — chief executives of a big country, accustomed to throwing their weight around — were going to be cut from the same devious cloth as Jimmy Carter — and that therefore he (Begin) also would have to be wily, to play fast & loose, to keep from being run-roughshod over. (Granted, this bit is sheer speculation on my part, though not, I think, especially far-fetched.)
In any event, Reagan perceived himself betrayed — and now, even challenged: to show that “other nations don’t control US foreign policy.” (He personally lobbied 44 GOP senators in precisely those terms.) So when the vote came up in the Senate, the AWACS bill passed.
Ironicaly, if Begin had let well-enough alone — had simply refrained from the public campaign at that particular juncture and just left the matter in the perfectly competent hands of AIPAC & the rest of the “Israeli Lobby” — the bill would probably have been defeated. (Lou Cannon, RR’s biographer and by all accounts, one of the best US reporters ever, seems to think so.)
What’s more, the President’s trust in Begin wouldn’t have been challenged.
Then, when the Lebanon invasion itself occurred, Sharon (holding the Defense portfolio) effectively snookered Begin — who had publicly characterized it not as an invasion, but rather as a very brief, limited “intervention” (since G.O.I. had no designs on Lebanese territory, whether for conquest or for annexation). Sharon, however, went for a much bigger bite of the bagel — shocking Begin, who nonetheless made little motion to rein-in “The Bulldozer.” That further eroded the PM’s credibility w/ RR.
One can argue that Begin should have gone for the whole nine yards, right from the get-go (for what it’s worth, I would have) — but, having made clear, early-on, that a brief intervention (limited, south of the Litani) was all that was intended, the PM inevitably allowed yet another instance of trust to become an issue when the intervention effectively metamorphosed into a major assault, without apparently any prior conferring between the leaders.
Who gives a rusty screw what you-all thought of him at the time? Is this the same Yamit who says that only the “facts” matter? Is this discussion about your feelings or the objective facts? — make up your mind, nebechl.
I remind you: It was Reagan — not Johnson, not Nixon, not Ford, not Carter — who first asserted (both as candidate, and later, as President) that the settlements were legal. No subsequent president has ever wavered from that declaration.
Oh, they play games with the more subjective designation of “legitimacy” — but legality they won’t touch with a ten-foot pole.
That’s RR’s legacy as to Israel.
If you, Yamit (or your intellectual idol, the inconstant & checkered, Francisco Gil-White), had any appreciation for such things as nuance & texture, I daresay, you might have a better handle on understanding the demands & circumstances of statesmanship — and you’d likely be a trifle less inclined to be making snap judgments about the major players at every turn in the road.
And, yes, I DID notice that your initial comment in this exchange [Aug 14, 5:04 pm], in response to Bland’s earlier one [11:13 am], was actually in re whether BHO was “the worst ever US president for Israel.” It’s the kind of question I’ve usually found less-than-constructive, and frankly it didn’t interest me this time either. However, you pulled out that flawed & squirrelly, Gil-White chestnut to make your case, and there’s no way I’d knowingly let you get by with it again — irrespective of your purpose in citing it.
Pull it out yet again, Old Boy, and I’ll piss all over it again. Guaranteed, or your money back.
Get real.
This is the thinnest speculation, and utterly unsupported. I’ve YET to see any evidence that the US set out to revive the PLO in Tunis after the 1987-91 intifada.
What’s more, the idea that any civilized government brought the PLO to power in Y/S/A for the purpose of enabling it to “easily kill innocent Israeli civilians” is beyond despicable, and beneath contempt. If that’s what Gil-White means to say, he has crossed the line.
And that goes for anybody who stands with him.
Present company, take note.
It’s always been understood that it was the Rabin govt’s decision [’93] to bring back Arafat & cohorts — after effectively ordering the homosexual pederast to first get himself married (to a woman), which he did — presumably in preparation for our hero to become Ra’is of the projected, post-Oslo, Pali state, where he’d need a veneer of respectability. (Then too, after an unfortunate, 1989 case of lead poisoning, Ceaucescu was no longer around, to supply the little swine with a steady stream of fat-butt, scarcely pubertal boys for fun & games on those late night visits to Bucharest that Arafat was so fond of.)
You’re still not paying attention, because you’re still playing “one-up” and other silly ego games.
No, YOU didn’t write it either, Eagle.
Thus you are 100% fullovit.
You’re getting twisted up in your own net. (And it serves you ruddy-well right.)
What I didn’t write, Sir,
was the following gem — which you erroneously attributed to me [Aug 16, 7:41 pm]:
It was first made Aug 16, 4:04 pm, and the poster was quite obviously not YoursTruly.
READ the damned post.
You’re going to have to make up your mind, AE, whether you genuinely want to share ideas & perspectives (which I, for one, will welcome) or you just want to engage in adolescent pissing contests.
If you want to be taken seriously as to the former, you’ll have to leave the latter behind.
Your choice.
Of course not. After all Reagan gave Israel $3 billion a year in grants and strengthened the relationship between the security forces of the Israeli-US alliance, all of which would be anathema to someone who is a bird of a feather with Hamas.
Not true. Obama was a community agitator who represented the criminal enterprise ACORN. He sued Citibank to force them to make bad loans under the Community Reinvestment Act. As a state senator in Illinois he voted 4 times against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. As a US Senator he was part of covering up the corruption at Fannie Mae that was part of the building heap of garbage that later collapsed as the financial crisis.
During the 2008 campaign Obama continued to accept his Senator’s salary in spite of doing no work for his state. Unlike Obama Sarah Palin always resigns when she shifts to another level in her career and refuses to accept a salary for work not done.
During the 2008 campaign Obama lied about all his radical relationships which even liberals would have shunned him for had they known how deep these relationships were.
Then after becoming president Obama, with Pelosi and Reid, rammed through expensive legislation designed to buy them votes at the expense of the rest of the country, passing legislation that no one had the time to read by using their majorities.
He took a crisis caused by the DemocRATS and turned it into a catastrophe which will take years to fix.
I kn ow you didn’t write it because I did. Thuis I am 100% right and you are 100% wrong.
Go read Reckless Endangerment before you embarrass yourself any more defending the feckless DemocRATS and the most unqualified, uninformed, inexperienced and incompetant president in US history – a Jimmy Carter on steroids. People like you only voted for him because he is black to assuage your latent guilt complex. Now we are all paying a heavy price.
Read also his attempt at re-writing history as detailed in the following link. This guy cannot tell the truth to save his life:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/08/16/obama-bush-jerusalem/
Of course I did. No objective reading of the cited posts could draw any other conclusion than that I DID rebut much of it.
I did — quite carefully.
And based on them, I repeat the previous observation (from the “High Stakes Poker” posts):
He has has an axe to grind. And not only as to Reagan and Jews. As I posted at that time [Jun 14, 3:50 am]:
What’s more, as I also told you at the time, I see no evidence to support either your outrageously vicious claim therein that
“Reagan was a Jew hating bastard”
OR your irrational assertion — herein, above — that
RR “is the first and worst of all American Presidents re: Israel.”
‘Innuendoes, personal aspersions’? Get a life, boychik.
Sorry, I don’t find him uniformly serious; re-read my cited posts.
He’s badly flawed, and if you honestly can’t see that, Yamit, then what can I say? — I’m not surprised.
You’re half right, AE.
Also, alas, half wrong.
The half that’s right is that the writer (of the remark you quoted) is indeed (judging by the content of the remark) “more ignorant than a box of rocks.”
The half that’s wrong is that it WASN’T YoursTruly who wrote it.
Pay a little closer attention, Eagle — instead of constantly looking for an opening to play “one-up” — and you won’t find yourself so easily going off half-cocked.
What’s wrong with America happened before Obama took office. I only wish I had been in Iraq when our billions of dollars were given away with no records of who got it. What a shopping trip that would have made. Man!
@ dweller:
You rebutted nothing. Lots of words light on content and no refutation.
I was only contradicting the comment that made Obama the worst president for Israel! He may turn out to be but he ain’t there yet. I could have named Bush and Clinton as being worse for Israel than Obama to date as well. In American politics i consider myself a political atheist and favor neither party ideologically but vote based on whom I consider to be best for Israel and or the Jews. I don’t consider the wellbeing of America per se as crucial to the well-being of Israel or the Jews. It might but then it might not. That perception could change daily depending on the circumstances. During most of RR two terms I was here and I know what we thought of him. Not much. I never said that everything about RR was bad for Israel, there were some good, there had to be otherwise why would Israel align and cling to America in the first place but on balance he was the most negative vis a vis israel and I only listed some of the events from his first 2-3 years in office. Read the whole thing. Read the foot notes and annotations white supplied.
Of course you coped out because I gave you solid research. You may disagree with his and my conclusions but you will have to do better than to just vent repetitious personal opinion much from what you call personal recollections. Facts are facts and if you want to refute those facts provide your own with proper attributions. Then we can compare notes and conclusions.
so when he mixes it in with garbage, he taints himself and spoils the moral authority of his ‘testimony.’
What happened to Lashon Harah? Who are you to cast scurrilous aspersions against a serious academic just because you disagree with his conclusions. You provided no counterargument proof he is wrong just biased personal opinion. Can’t prove a negative? Bullshit, any conclusion he made was based on his research and properly footnoted for you to check and refute if you could and supply counter sources if they exist and if you can find them? To cast such innuendos and personal aspersions against a serious academic puts you on the same level of what you accuse me of being.. Prove me and white wrong with hard data from reliable sources and you will get from me a Mea Culpa!! 😉
Dweller, You are more ignorant than a box of rocks. All you do is spout DemocRAT talking points.
Obama is spending every waking moment trying to destroy the US economy. Obama’s biggest supporters are Wall Street fat cats and BIG labor unions. The middle-class are getting hosed by the high unemployment rate. The magic formula is to get Obama the hell out of there and get the government off the backs of the American people and economy.
Here are the facts AGAIN.
a) It was the DemocRATS who caused the financial crisis. This has been documented in detail in the new book, Reckless Endangerment, written by a NY Times journalist, Gretchen Morgenson. Please read it before continuing to embarrass yourself in public like this.
b) The federal deficits averaged 3.5% of GDP during the 8 years of Bush. It has been over 10% since Obama came along.
c) The unemployment rate averaged 5% during the 8 years of Bush. It has been between 9 and 10% since Obama came along.
d) The national debt was $8 trillion in January 2007 when the DemocRATS took control of the Legislature, after 230 years since the first George W. In the 4 years since, the DemocRATS increased it by $6 trillion. After the Republicans took the House in January 2011, they are desperately trying to stop the madness.
If we don’t kick Obama out of there he will soon make us like Italy, France, Greece, Portugal and Ireland.
Read Reckless Endangerment. You will see how the DemocRATS were the architects of the craziness.
Dweller. You took seven lines, including spaces, instead of one, more effective line as shown above.
Yamit tries to undermine every Republican US president. It’s all part of his campaign to drive a wedge between Israel and its only ally. The guy supports Barack Obama, the most anti-American and anti-Semitic president in US history. What else do you need to know?
The fact is that Ronald Reagan supported Israel and Jews explicitly as an ally and fellow-democracy, but seemed to dislike Menachim Begin and often disagreed with Israel and publicly opposed some of its actions. The disagreements is what Yamit uses to make his scurrilous case while ignoring the overall support that Reagan provided for Israel.
Here is a more balanced view of Reagan vis a vis Israel: http://www.mitchellbard.com/articles/reagan.html
The selected excerpts are the ones that Yamit would like to sweep under the rug. We also see in this analysis that Israel is quite capable of defying an American president, which exposes the lie that American presidents dictate Israeli policy. This is a mature and unshakeable alliance. The occasional differences of opinion can be explained by geopolitical reasons that involve the US as the world’s only superpower with global interests and responsibilities, whereas Israel is only concerned about its own narrow regional interests.
Selected excerpts:
At some gut level, Reagan understood and appreciated Israel, though he never visited the Jewish state. Part of this emotional attachment no doubt stemmed from his religious beliefs, and part from his Manichaean world view that placed Israel clearly on the side of good against the Evil Empire.
Reagan’s greatest substantive contribution to the U.S.-Israel relationship was the formalization of strategic cooperation, which created a web of ties between the Pentagon and IDF and a progressive strengthening of Israel’s military capability.
Reagan worked to free of Soviet Jews, and also approved the CIA-sponsored rescue of 500 Ethiopian Jews in 1985’s Operation Joshua. He also was responsible for helping to reform Israel’s economy. In 1985, following a severe economic crisis in Israel, which sent inflation rates soaring as high as 445%, the U.S. approved a $1.5 billion emergency assistance package and helped formulate Israel’s successful economic stabilization plan.
Under Reagan, Israel began to receive $3 billion annually in foreign aid and, from 1985 on, the aid was all in the form of grants. Israel was allowed to use some of this aid in Israel and for a time was permitted to devote U.S. funds to the development of its own fighter plane. In 1985, the U.S. also signed its first Free Trade Agreement – with Israel. In fact, a series of memoranda of understanding were signed during the Reagan administration between U.S. agencies and their Israeli counterparts that promoted cooperation in a range of fields such as education, space research and health.
On September 1, 1982, Reagan announced that he opposed the creation of a Palestinian state, but believed the Palestinians should have self-government in association with Jordan. He said Jerusalem should remain undivided, but its final status negotiated. He called for a settlement freeze and suggested that Israel could not be expected to return to the 1967 borders. Sounds pretty good today, but Begin rejected the plan and when he heard about it said: “It is the saddest day of my life.”
Reagan was very tough on Israel, and some of his policies caused both short and long-term damage, but his policies also led to significant improvements in Israel’s economic and military strength, and raised the U.S.-Israel friendship to a higher level.
The ledger doesn’t really capture the sense of the time and the man, however, which takes me back to where I started. Reagan projected the feeling that he truly appreciated Israel’s role in the world and that the occasional tensions did not affect his fundamental commitment to Israel’s security, so when he said Israel and America “will always remain at each other’s side,” we believed him.
End of excerpts.
AE, you have the nerve to talk about the hole Obama and the Democrats will leave? What the hell is the matter with you? Obama’s every waking hour is spent trying to fill the hole Bush left. The money Obama spent, as we watched, was money for the middle class and poor, while still taking care of Wall Street and Big Business. Yeah, many efforts have not worked as well as hoped. BUT this issue is worldwide. If Obama could solve it, it would be also solved worldwide. So far the magic formula is eluding us all, but I think the formula could be for all the loudmouths to shut up and work in unison to make positive changes. I think you are the biggest loudmouth on this site. You are trying so hard to make sense of a pile of horse manure, but we with noses know the truth.
Today’s newspaper talks about Germany’s reaction to the fragile economies in Europe, now including Italy and maybe France, not just Greece and Ireland. They are bankrolling most of the loan guarantees and wonder if they will have any money left to save themselves. What a crazy world this is. The big bad enemy of the 20th century is now being asked to be the savior of the countries they once decimated. Or maybe it’s divine retribution. I remember when Greece first got in trouble, one Greek accused the Germans of being responsible for their situation, because Germany looted all their wealth in WW II.
Same old Yamit.
Same old bile.
Same old tommyrot.
Same old hate.
I already refuted much of this in an earlier thread to the article “High Stakes Poker”
in the following posts:
Jun 10, 2011, 11:23 pm
Jun 11, 2:48 am
Jun 12, 1:51 am
Jun 14, 3:49 am & 3:50 am
Jun 15, 3: 46 pm,
etc.
The gist of it was:
A. that, at least where Reagan’ reputation is concerned, you apparently do not scruple, Yamit, to bearing false witness against your neighbor (a particularly disturbing trait to surface in an inheritor of the Dibrot); and
B. that Francisco Gil-White is — at best — an unreliable source when it comes to the Reagan Administration, as he clearly has leftwing axes to grind. Moreover, as to Prof Gil-white specifically, the following excerpt [from the Jun 14, 3:50 pm post] is particularly relevant:
“And I could say quite a bit more about Prof. Gil-White’s methodology in regard also to OTHER matters not at all related to Reagan (but that would be off-point as to this discussion). It’s most unfortunate, because some of his stuff is quite good — so when he mixes it in with garbage, he taints himself and spoils the moral authority of his ‘testimony.’ As I’ve said before, I was already aware of Gil-White’s work. But I don’t follow it ‘religiously’ as some apparently do. My strong suspicion, however, would be that this fellow has run into static elsewhere (perhaps within academia, though I don’t know) over the outrageousness of some of his conclusions. I can’t believe that I’m by any means the ‘first’ person to call him on it.”
Without wishing to be tiresome in repeating myself, I commend the reader to the above-cited posts by way of rebuttal to Yamit’s “indictment.”
Deborah
You have described John Huntsman very accurately, which is also why he is unlikely to come anywhere close to being nominated because he is too “moderate”, worked for Obama, and is liberal on social issues. However, John Huntsman would make a great Secretary of State or Secretary of Commerce.
If the USA is to dig itself out of the hole that Obama and the Democrats will leave, they will need an uncompromising and combative conservative as president as well as pluralities in the House and Senate.
All the Republican candidates are friends of Israel, except the crackpot ultra-libertarian and isolationist, Ron Paul.
Republicans saw the folly of nominating “moderates” who are unreliable conservatives, when they made the mistake of nominating John McCain. Only after he nominated the implacable conservative and “achievement-feminist” Sarah Palin did McCain take the lead in 2008 until the financial crisis came along and the 4th Estate that functions like a liberal 5th Column in the US blamed McCain even though he was the one who tried to stop the madness. Now we know from the new book Reckless Endangerment that it was DemocRATS, including Obama, who once sued Citibank as a community agitator to force them to make bad loans under the Community Reinvestment Act, who were the architects, defenders and protectors of the house of cards that collapsed as the financial crisis.
Huntsman is far too “level-headed”, a.k.a. “likely to compromise” to win the Republican nomination to run against his old boss. The Republicans need a very combative and uncompromising candidate who will have to be prepared to deal with a very uncompromising far-left-wing ideologue like Obama who has nothing but vicious personal attacks left in his arsenal because he has been such a spectacular failure on every other front. What the Republicans really need is someone willing to counterattack at every turn, but none of the most combative Republicans are running like Sarah Palin or Chris Christie or Allen West.
The best Republican candidate will be either Romney or Perry – both highly successful governors and businessmen – but far more combative than Huntsman and far more capable of the “opponent-bashing” that will be essential in 2012. Whoever wins will likely pick Marco Rubio as the VP candidate, a spectacular young Latino and implacable conservative who can explain conservative principles better than almost anyone else. He is the son of Cuban immigrants and can also peel off the key Hispanic vote. An alternative would be Allen West, the equally spectacular African-American war hero who does not take any crap from anyone as DemocRAT Party Chairman, Debbie Blabbermouth-Schulz found out recently.
Catarin,
I know a brainwashed old DemocRAT hack like yourself would want to embellish the truth like any good statist has to to preserves a modicum of self respect at the economic destruction they always cause, but I must refer you to the new book called Reckless Endangerment. This was written not by anyone from the Tea Party but by a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist from the mouthpiece of the left, the NY Times. Her name is Gretchen Morgenson, and she has carefully documented and named names of all the Democrats who created, protected and defended the mess that collapsed as the financial crisis in 2007-8. Bush and McCain tried to stop the madness but did not have the votes to do so.
Secondly, here are the relevant numbers. During the 8 years of Bush the federal deficits averaged 3.5% inspite of the Clinton recession that he inherited, the shocks of 9/11 and two epic liberations of 50 million citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan previously oppressed by Muslim tyrants. The unemployment rate averaged 5%. Compare this with the Obama regime. The federal deficits have been over 10% of GDP and were largely wasted in buying the votes of BIG auto unions and the statist fraternity on Wall Street at the expense of everyone else, which is why the unemployment rate has been between 9 and 10%, the unemployment rate for blacks is over 16% and for black teenagers is 40%, which is why you are seeing them running wild in some inner cities. This is all courtesy of the most unqualified, uninformed, inexperienced and incompetant president in US history.
I’m sorry, Catarin, but the secret is out and you DemocRATS have been exposed for the destructive charlatans you are – in the same mold as Karl Marx who has been dumped on the thrash heap of history where he belongs.
I think it is a telling sign of desperation when a DemocRAT has to cite Al Jazeera to try and deflect attention from a book by someone from their own liberal mouthpiece, the NY Times.
The Tea Party did exactly as the Constitution required them to do – they stopped a renegade regime in its tracks, which had forced unpopular legislation down the country’s throats without even reading the bills or a single vote from the sane side of the aisle and was planning even more damage to the US economy had they not been stopped. By January they will have won both houses and Obama will be a cypher in history for the epic economic damage he has wrought that may take a generation to fix.
It’s the last Republican president who ran the country aground. No Democrat made this mess.
Look up who the author of the article was on Al Jazeera. Maybe you know him.
I predict the Tea partiers who just entered congress will be leaving at the end of their terms. The spectacle in the House proved they can’t govern. People will still be remarking on their crazy behavior years from now.
Deborah
You have described John Huntsman very accurately, which is also why he is unlikely to come anywhere close to being nominated because he is too “moderate”, worked for Obama, and is liberal on social issues. However, John Huntsman would make a great Secretary of State or Secretary of Commerce.
If the USA is to dig itself out of the hole that Obama and the Democrats will leave, they will need an uncompromising and combative conservative as president as well as pluralities in the House and Senate.
All the Republican candidates are friends of Israel, except the crackpot ultra-libertarian and isolationist, Ron Paul.
Republicans saw the folly of nominating “moderates” who are unreliable conservatives, when they made the mistake of nominating John McCain. Only after he nominated the implacable conservative and “achievement-feminist” Sarah Palin did McCain take the lead in 2008 until the financial crisis came along and the 4th Estate that functions like a liberal 5th Column in the US blamed McCain even though he was the one who tried to stop the madness. Now we know from the new book Reckless Endangerment that it was DemocRATS, including Obama, who once sued Citibank as a community agitator to force them to make bad loans under the Community Reinvestment Act, who were the architects, defenders and protectors of the house of cards that collapsed as the financial crisis.
Huntsman is far too “level-headed”, a.k.a. “likely to compromise” to win the Republican nomination to run against his old boss. The Republicans need a very combative and uncompromising candidate who will have to be prepared to deal with a very uncompromising far-left-wing ideologue like Obama who has nothing but vicious personal attacks left in his arsenal because he has been such a spectacular failure on every other front. What the Republicans really need is someone willing to counterattack at every turn, but none of the most combative Republicans are running like Sarah Palin or Chris Christie or Allen West.
The best Republican candidate will be either Romney or Perry – both highly successful governors and businessmen – but far more combative than Huntsman and far more capable of the “opponent-bashing” that will be essential in 2012. Whoever wins will likely pick Marco Rubio as the VP candidate, a spectacular young Latino and implacable conservative who can explain conservative principles better than almost anyone else. He is the son of Cuban immigrants and can also peel off the key Hispanic vote. An alternative would be Allen West, the equally spectacular African-American war hero who does not take any crap from anyone as DemocRAT Party Chairman, Debbie Blabbermouth-Schulz found out recently.
Only if the USA decides to commit group suicide. The popularity of the Tea Party is actually very strong as we saw from the Tea Party candidates staying strong during the budget debate notwithstanding the push-polls which deliberately include a much smaller number of conservatives than liberals in the polling sample.
As a person who hangs her head on gerrymandering, you seem to be unaware that the Republican sweep in 2010 included many previously battleground states, and there is Republican gerrymandering going on all over the place. The only reason the Republicans did not win the Senate in 2010 was that there were many vulnerable Democrats who were not up for re-election – and will be in 2012.
There are two perverse long term benefits from Obama’s presidency, destructive as it has been in the short run: a) he has proven AGAIN how dangerous Democrats can be for the US, Israel and the world, and b) he has made skin color a non-issue for the presidency opening the door for Bobby Jindal, Nicki Haley and Allen West down the road.
Podhoretz really nails the history of the left and the Democratic Party, and Obama being their first win. Confirmed by Pelosi as Minority leader after the Dems lost their majority because so many centrist and conservative Dems lost in 2010. and the rest are now retiring, leaving the liberal rump protected by gerrymandering.
I remember when McCain briefly floated “Carter’s 2nd Term” in 2008.
Anyway, I know that Republican Jews are troubled by Governor Perry based on what Ron K wrote in JTA, but I have been watching and listening to Rick Perry in different venues past few days, including a backyard picnic in New Hampshire on Saturday.
This is now a contest between Romney and Perry, and I bet Perry wins all the way.
2012 is going to be a huge anti-incumbent wave. But, the House freshmen Tea-partiers will also lose. Only the left-liberals in the House are safe because they are gerrymandered safe.
Touche! If Norman could figure this out why were Alan Dershowitz, Mort Zuckerman, Ed Koch and 78% of American Jews unable to? Even now, 54% of American Jews still support this clueless nebbish who provides us with more proof of his ignorance and incompetance every time he opens his mouth.
The last time I checked, W was president of the USA, not Israel. Secondly, the two state solution was part of Israel’s founding concept and has always been part of Israeli government policy, not some fantasy created by any US president.
Including 54% of American Jews who still support this most unqualified, uninformed, inexperienced and incompetant president in US history. If you want to watch hemming and hawing ask any liberal American Jew if he or she would hire Obama to run their business.
Since when has being aligned with the Christian Right been a de-merit in American politics? Every Republican president has been aligned with the Christian Right, who are part of the conservative base and are bigger supporters of Israel than most American Jews. Here is the latest poll on Obama’s approval:
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-obama-approval-20110814,0,2481281.story
Ron Paul is a crackpot on foreign policy and will not come close to being the Republican nominee.
Except for Yamit’s chronic idiocy on American politics, this is the most idiotic comment I have seen in a long time, given all the proof we have seen over the last several years of how badly the Democrats have run the American government. If you want the documented proof of how the Democrats created, protected and defended the growing heap of financial garbage that eventually collapsed as the financial crisis in 2007-8, please read the new book called Reckless Endangerment by Pulitzer Prize winning Ny Times journalist Gretchen Morgenson.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/burning-down-the-house/2011/06/30/AGeRSGuH_story.html
The only environmental terrorists in the US are the Democrats and Al Gore. It is the Tea party that helped the Republicans win the House in 2010 and stopped in its tracks the Obama-Democrat plan to deatroy America’s economy and bring it down to the level of Europe “just to be fair”. They know that the US government works best when it gets the hell out of the way of the small and medium sized businesses that create over 80% of US jobs.
A nameless “American” in Al Jazeera. LOL! Isn’t this more proof of how effective the Tea Party has become?
Catarin Said:
Whah! Whah! Whah! Dems ain’t popular anymore! Boo hoo!
Catarin Said:
Can you imagine! They haven’t recommended a single czar for a government position. The sheer audacity of them.
Catarin Said:
Pick up the phone and call 1-800-DIAL-YOURSELF.
It’s hard to lead a country when a group such as the Tea Partiers take front stage. These people as a whole know nothing about running a government. They are backed by the Koch brothers who are environmental terrorists. They sell things to people like kitchen countertops that contain cancer causing agents like formaldyhide and fight the efforts of the EPA to force them to correct it, asking only that they follow the rules that are applied to all when it comes to toxic chemicals. Wouldn’t you think with all their money and success they would want to do this on their own?
In this week’s Al Jazeera newsletter there was an article by an American–I don’t remember his name–saying there is no reasoning with the Tea Partiers because you can’t reason with crazy people. I think it would take less than a year for them to ruin the country. Most economists are saying that we really never did get out of recession and there is still great peril ahead. I hope the best minds of Western Civilization are on top of this. And Lord help us if the crazies take over. There isn’t any other place to move to.
@ Sid:
Instead of lamenting the slippery slope we are on currently, let’s focus on the good to come- not enough mention has been made of a superb candidate, whom I hope will garner more and more interest and votes as the 2012 race progresses- Jon Huntsman, Jr. He is a friend of Israel, understands our real security needs, and supports undivided stewardship over Jerusalem, with move of the US embassy to the Israeli capital of Jerusalem.
MORE importantly to voting Americans, he has a very successful business, financial, and leadership record. He lead Utah very responsibly fiscally as governor. He is level-headed and does not resort to opponent-bashing (because his own record speaks for itself!) He has lived in China as US ambassador, and speaks the language (literally and figuratively)-fluent Mandarin Chinese and Taiwanese!- that would give the sometimes insular USA the advantage of dealing on the level with the Far East markets. I encourage the Israpundit readers to look into this exciting moderate Republican candidate! DTB in T-A
Sid Said:
And what of Ron Paul?
@ Andrew:
Don’t ever buy the BS about the war on terror. America cares little for her fallen or the National pride that requires retribution for the murders of fallen Americans by her enemies. If broccoli was the major export of Iraq and Libya America would not be at war with them. If Afghanistan was not needed for a direct pipeline of oil and gas from the Caucuses planed before 9/11
America would never have gone into Afghanistan. Libya is all about oil and gas and Gaddafi was giving it to the Chinese. The Europeans and Americans are trying to Balkanize Libya to steal Gaddafi’s oil. They already stole billions from Gaddafi and Libyan accts. in Banks around the world, and are supporting Al-Qaeda to topple Gaddafi.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Afghanistan_Pipeline
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Caspian_Gas_Pipeline
Hezbollah Kills Americans
These numbers do not include the many hundreds more non-Americans killed during these attacks, nor the toll taken on the thousands injured.
17 Americans killed April 18, 1983 Bombing of U.S. Embassy in Beirut
241 Americans killed Oct. 23, 1983 Bombing of Marine barracks in Beirut
1 American killed March 16, 1984 CIA Station Chief William Buckley Beirut
2 Americans killed Sept. 20, 1984 Bombing of U.S. Embassy annex northeast of Beirut
2 Americans killed Dec. 3, 1984 Hijacking of Kuwait Airways Flight 221
1 American killed June 14, 1985 Hijacking of TWA Flight 847, Beirut
1 American killed February 17, 1988 Col Rich Higgins kidnapped.
5 Americans killed November 13, 1995 Bombing Saudi National Guard Building, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
19 Americans killed June 25, 1996 Khobar Towers US Air Force Housing
Hezbollah is directly and indirectly linked to the deaths of 289 Americans.
Chief mastermind behind many of these attacks is IMAD FAYEZ MUGNIYAH, Israel it is believed offed him a few years ago.
yamit82 Said:
Its one of the great mysteries of life. We have all seen the clips of pals laughing and dancing in celebration after 9/11. They should be pariahs but they are mollycoddled.
Obama doesn’t have a clue. Right now, though, I believe the only credible Republican is Romney. Perry will never be able to win a good share og independent voters as he’s too aligned with the Christian Right. Plus, after Bush – no one from Texas is going anywhere. Bachman would get shellacked by Obama, she has a spotty record and looks nuts. I think we all have to get behind Romney now. Is he perfect? No. But, he stands the best chance of retiring the dangerous incompetent currently sitting in The White House.
Nobody in the USA right now gives much a damn about what happens in the Middle East. That may be either good or bad for Israel, depending on the way you see these things. But the objective truth is that the concerns of most of my American countrymen are getting a job or holding the one they have; the national debt that is bankrupting the US economy, with about 50 cents of every dollar spent on public programs originating in increasingly expensive loans; radically conflicting social agendae of the predominant left and right cultures; and the growing evidence of racial war brewing in many of the country’s large cities.
Like most other Jewish nationalists, I want President Blacksnake sent back home to Chicago on January 20, 2013. But not too many people in this country will be voting for or against him because of his Middle East policy. On the American scale of things, that’s all just a side issue.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
BlandOatmeal says:
Looks like your idol Reagan is the first and worst of all American Presidents re: Israel!!!
http://www.hirhome.com/israel/hirally2.htm#1981
the “Camp David process” would be his policy.
It’s a love affair!
Read the Whole indictment of Reagan and his court Jews
That’s debateable. I believe W was the first US President to enunciate a “Two State Solution” as official US policy; and probably the first also to publicly declare, ironically after Muslim terrorists had just slaughtered 3000 innocent people, that “Islam is Peace”. It’s hard to top that, but Obama has. As for Clinton, he tried to dictate a “take it or leave it” proposal to the Israelis and Pals at the end of 2000. Ehud Barak pre-empted him, by offering Arafat 97% of Yesha. By God’s grace and mercy, He hardened Arafat’s heart so he rejected the offer.
Hello Bland. Wasn’t Clinton more anti Israel than Dubya?
And the comparison is not flattering: One article says that a Jimmy-Carter-like Obama is the “best case scenario”, because Carter had some tendency to learn from his mistakes.
Romney, Gugliani, Perry and Bachman are now all polled as either leading or close to leading in a hypothetical vote against the sitting duck (Is that the correct term for a soon-to-be lame duck?). I think the only President we could have who would perform worse than Barry-O is Ehud Barak, or perhaps Mahmood Abbas. That’s probably a misinformed opinion, though; a few years ago, I thought it impossible for there to be a more anti-Israel President than George W. Bush. I was wrong. Jeremiah Wright — he would be worse than his protege. I’ll count my blessings — and vote for anything Republican.