Martin Kramer notes that Barack Obama places suspicious emphasis on the influence of benign nobodies, while buttoning up about his many conversations with Rashid Khalidi:
For example, Obama, in an interview and in his spring AIPAC speech, recalled conversations with a Jewish-American camp counselor he encountered-when he was all of eleven years old. “During the course of this two-week camp he shared with me the idea of returning to a homeland and what that meant for people who had suffered from the Holocaust, and he talked about the idea of preserving a culture when a people had been uprooted with the view of eventually returning home. There was something so powerful and compelling for me, maybe because I was a kid who never entirely felt like he was rooted.” (In the same interview, Obama said Israel “speaks to my history of being uprooted, it speaks to the African-American story of exodus.”)
Of course, the story of someone like Khalidi could have just as readily spoken to Obama’s history of uprootedness, exodus, preserving a culture, and longing to return home. (So too would the story of the late Edward Said, who was photographed seated at a dinner with Obama in 1998, and who entitled his memoir Out of Place. Obama has never said anything about the impact, if any, of that conversation.) And indeed, it stretches credulity to believe that a two-week childhood encounter at a summer camp was more significant to Obama that his decade-long association, as a mature adult, with his senior university colleague, Khalidi.
It’s true. In Obama lore, camp counselors shape your politics, while terrorists are just guys in the neighborhood, and terrorist mouthpieces are babysitters. As Kramer points out, the Obamas’ babysitter said the following about the start of the Iraq War:
This war will be fought because these neoconservatives desire to make the Middle East safe not for democracy, but for Israeli hegemony. They are convinced that the Middle East is irremediably hostile to both the United States and Israel; and they firmly hold the racist view that Middle Easterners understand only force. For these American Likudniks and their Israeli counterparts, sad to say, the tragedy of September 11 was a godsend: It enabled them to draft the United States to help fight Israel’s enemies.
Which, Kramer notes, sounds a lot like Obama’s own October 2002 antiwar speech:
“What I am opposed to is the cynical attempt by Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz and other arm-chair, weekend warriors in this Administration to shove their own ideological agendas down our throats, irrespective of the costs in lives lost and in hardships borne.” No mention of Cheney or Rumsfeld-and no need to mention them, to a constituency that knew who was really behind the push for war, and why. (Later, the same argument would figure prominently in The Israel Lobby, co-authored by another Chicago professor, John Mearsheimer.)
Funny–none of the sage words of Obama’s camp counselor seemed to make it into that speech.
Big Government, Big Spending Democrat? No! Big Government, Big Spending Liberal!
Approval rating we won all Bush’s fault needs time all Bush’s fault racist homophobic dual loyalty!
All Bush’s fault.
We won.
Racists.
Matthews’ emotions are so volatile I wonder if there’s a fainting couch on the set. That tingle will be back, you betcha.
Economic summit 15 minutes of fame is over. Obama’s cultist groupie are out in force.
Have you got your play money yet?
The stimulus will certainly succeed! That is, succeed in getting over 60% of the country on food stamps and insuring that the socialists rule for a thousand years! I can easily forsee cutting the deficit in half. Four years of 25% inflation will do the trick. Or perhaps he will simply hand the treasury a 50 trillion dollar bill and tell them to keep the change. Robert Mugabe has erased Zimbabwe’s debt and made every citizen of Zimbabwe a trillionaire!
Obama has all of Mugabe’s wisdom.
The stimulus bill was a political document not an economic one.
It’s not just the unprecedented, massive spending that’s scaring the bejesus out of the markets. The main thing is the uncertainty about how government intervention is going to distort things. What kind of a fool would invest in healthcare stocks right now? Or automobile stocks? Energy stocks?
Then there’s the vertigo-inducing announcement of fiscal restraint that is simultaneous with the biggest spending orgy in the history of man. Do they really not get it? Do they really think they’re so, so smart that they can control this tsunami?
My god, he’s like Bill Ayers’ friends cooking up bombs in Cathy Wilkerson’s New York townhouse to murder servicemen and their dates at Ft. Dix. He has no idea what he’s playing with.
Keith: actually I was thinking about getting on food stamps today, since I recently became unemployed for the first time in my adult life (after 30 years in the work force). I’m also expecting the government to subsidize my COBRA benefits and keep my unemployment coming indefinitely.
That Protestant work ethic stuff? That’s so 20th Century. It’s the basis of the “same failed policies of George Bush,” a relic of the small-minded, judgmental, racist past this country must still atone for.
I did like the part where they spent all the money as fast as they could, and no one could read any of the proposals until they were law, and finally a couple tril was out the door. THEN they had an economic summit to decide what to do.
Once again, Jennifer Rubin just makes stuff up.
But it’s a happy day in Trollville! Know why?
The latest New York Times/CBS poll is out. And America really couldn’t hate clownservatives and their opinions more. Really. It’s pretty devastating. And America loves her some Obama. Yessiree.
Some fun facts:
58% believe Iran can be contained. 19% think it is not currently a threat. Only 13% believe Iran requires action now.
78% of Americans say it is very (46%) or somewhat important (32%) that the US withdraws most combat troops from Iraq within 16 months.
68% believe the auto companies should get no more assistance from the government (LeftyTroll: My gift to you, wingers)
By 56% to 39%, people believe Obama should give priority to sticking to his policies rather than working in a bipartisan way with Republicans. At the same time, 79% said Republicans in Congress should give priority to working with Obama and Democrats, vs. 17% who said Republicans should give priority to their own policies. (Wow, what an indictment of GOP policies. America so wants to turn left)
63% of Americans believe Republicans opposed the stimulus for political reasons. Only 29% thought Republicans in Congress actually thought it would be bad for the economy. (you’re so friggin transparent)
76% of Americans are very or somewhat confident in Obama’s ability to make the right decisions about the economy.
77% believe Obama is bringing real change to Washington
65% say Obama has the same priorities for the country as they do. 28% say no.
77% are optimistic about the next four years with Obama as president (Got that Jennifer Rubin?)
Besides the economy, Americans want Obama to focus most on healthcare (40%) and education (27%).
35% of Americans, the largest group, believe the current recession will last more than two years.
By 63% to 22%, American approve of the way Obama is handling his job as president
57% approve of the way Obama is handling foreign policy (17% disapprove). The same percentage approve of the way Obama is handling economic policy (32% disapprove). 54% approve of the way Obama is handling Iraq (24% disapprove)
74% believe Obama is trying to work with Republicans in Congress to get things done, while only 31% believe Republicans are trying to work with Obama.
There you have it, clownservatives. This public service message brought to you by the reality based community.
Lefty….
I guess that just shows that you really can fool all the people some of the time.
Whenever you find you are on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. – Mark Twain
If you think reality is polls of poorly educated voters, you are right on track with the Democrats. The Germans were the most highly educated population in European history yet they supported Hitler. The American educational system has been hollowed out by teachers’ unions to the point that high school seniors don’t know what the Civil War was about, don’t know who were our allies in World war II and think that corporations’ average profit margin is 50%.
The bad news is that they will have to live with their decisions.
While I had high hope for it a month ago. the Obama Administration is not exactly the Straight Talk Express. They say one thing one day, and do the opposite thing the next day. They don’t want to “nationalize” failing banks, just own the controlling block of stock — that very much is nationalization, but without the “n” word. They pass the largest pork-stuffed bill in galactic history, then yammer about cutting the budget deficit (i.e., raising taxes in an economic depression). They want to re-write mortgages for the liar loan crowd, screwing honest people who have been paying their mortgage every month. This Administration in one short month has become nothing less than a giant moral hazard. Unless the Republicans nominate a far-right Bozo in 2010 (always a real possibility — pace Mrs. Palin), we are looking at a disastrous one-term Obama Presidency. No President in such a very short time has so lost the mandate of heaven.
When someone just site polls you know US educational system fails.
He’s still running a campaign.
Well we don’t want to project to far already to 2012. But the type of politics Sarah Palin represents, down to earth, common sense conservatism is exactly what the country needs. There is a real detachment from the connected, elites and the regular folks. I think she has the ability to bring a perspective and leadership that is absolutely absent in Washington right now. But then again that’s just my opinion.
14
When someone spells cite “site,” then you know the education system has failed.
It’s a single poll, one data point. But it’s a nice piece of evidence supporting the contention that Republicans, for all their blather, are losing in the marketplace of ideas. Day after day this site paints you a picture of a troubled presidency. In reality, the picture Americans have of Obama is very different. And you’d be wise not to believe your own spin.
To the lefty trolls who get their jollies trying to rile up the earnest and openminded readers and posters here, I say this:
It’s the market, stupid!
People are yanking their money out of stocks in droves, because there is simply no confidence right now in our political leadership in this crisis. Stockholders do not belong to just one party, so you can’t blame this on partisan politics. Obama has the bully pulpit, yet so far has failed to reassure enough people that things are going to get better, so that they hold onto their stock investments.
Ah, yes. The all-purpose justifications of youth.
“But Mom, EVERYBODY thinks that.”
“But Dad, EVERYBODY does that.”
“But Mom, EVERYBODY says that.”
However, Dad and Mom were right. If everybody decided to jump in a swimming pool full of water and grab an electric power line, would that be a reason to do it yourself?
Imagine — just imagine — thinking for yourself, and not worrying about what someone else says a majority is thinking. Just imagine.
Sorry LeftyTroll – - – “troll” beat you to it.
What your polling data reflect is the President is being given the benefit of the doubt for the time being. Period. If “the plan” (deserves scare quotes because there is no plan) doesn’t work, your beloved polling data will follow.
With that said – - – there is another “poll” you’re ignoring, one that’s taken every business day …. the markets.
The President’s done very poorly in that poll. And unlike your polls, people get hurt when the markets are driven down.
If the Republicans are losing in the marketplace of ideas, they must be losing to some other ideas. So, what, exactly, are the Democrats ideas? And what is the principled defense of them, as ideas? Will leftytroll cite a poll proving that the Democrats have better ideas (or–let’s start small–any ideas) because 67% OF AMERICANS SAY DEMOCRATS HAVE BETTER IDEAS?
Lefty troll,
“Troll” at comment #2 already made your comment for you, but he did it in only three sentences and included much more information than you did.
But, why discuss Obama’s already disastrous policies when you can attack “clownservatives” instead?
“Obama has the bully pulpit, yet so far has failed to reassure enough people that things are going to get better, so that they hold onto their stock investments.”-Janemarie
Well, since the stock market has been my profession, I’ll let you in on a secret. The market goes down when earnings prospects are declining, as is happening now with our sliding world economy. This has precious little to do with anything Obama says or does. Why would Obama seek to reassure people when every economist and investment bank on earth says that things will get worse before they get better? There is a saw in my business: “Never catch a falling knife.” It is meant for investors, but would apply just as well to politicians. Obama should talk more often about the fact that we will eventually get through this, and I think he will. But it would be the height of irresponsibility to falsely reassure investors when they still may face significant downside. Psychology can affect the market, but it is primarily driven by fundamentals. If it weren’t, it would be a crapshoot, not a place for rational investors. It is the erosion in worldwide fundamentals, not the actions of Barack Obama, that are driving the markets. Anybody who tells you differently either has no idea, education or experience on how the markets work, or they are simply trying to score partisan points by misdirecting the ignorant.
LeftyTroll correctly reads the results of polls taken 6 weeks into a presidency but fails to appreciate their insignificance. The only polls that will be important are the ones taken immediately prior to the mid-term elections. We will then see what the verdict is and, contrary to LeftyTroll’s shallow understanding of politics, if the market is still in the 7000s and the unemployment rate is at 9-10%, the people will surely blame Obama whether or not “[i]t is the erosion in worldwide fundamentals, not the actions of Barack Obama, that are driving the markets.”
My family has been in this country for over 300 years. We haven’t gotten involved much in politics, just fight the wars. But this illegal immigrant is not my president, and should be immediately deported. He is related to the Bush family thru his mother, and is part of the same elite that is ruling America now. The only change you will see is the change he leaves you with to retire. And maybe a tin can for begging for more. America will get exactly what she deserves. But some of us will not be a party to your communism.
Obama has put the coffin in the burial plot and is now shoveling the dirt over it.
There is NO confidence in this clown.
Lefty Troll’s manic poll citations in the face of Obama’s collapsing stock market is amusing. You and your precious Obambi are running out of wiggle room fast. You and he may lie like rugs, but you can’t hide the ugly facts.
Gallup reported Bush had a 62% approve/21% disapprove (net +41) for February 19-21, 2001.
Obama has a 63% approve/24% disapprove (net +39) for February 19-21, 2009.
NYT polls have long been entertaining extensions of the NYT editorial pages – with all the credibility of Maureen Dowd and Paul Krugman, combined. The poll that has proven most accurate over time, the Rasmussen poll of likely voters, had the big O sinking like a stone. And the polls that certainly matter most, cash money in the market and consumer sentiment, have already declared this fellow to be the least successful president in American history.
So you’re an expert in the market, Old Troll? Can we safely assume that your money is where your heart is, in the funds that carry the name of your hero, Joe Biden, in the hands of that greatest of modern Democrats, the renowned Mr. Stanford?
Has anyone else noticed that every serious crook in America is either a Democrat politician or a major contributor to that party?
How can Jennifer bemoan our huge deficit and in the very next sentence mourn the passing of the Bush tax cuts?
Hey!!! ANYBODY HOME?? The tax cuts and unrestrained spending of the Bush years turned a budget surplus into a $1 trillion deficit. “Deficits don’t matter.” –Dick Cheney.
In a downturn unfortunately deficit spending is the last resort. And we are there. But I imagine we’d be in better shape if the boom years had been shepherded by a more prudent budgetary hand.
Keep grasping…
I think most folks on this site agree with you, Franglo, that Bush overspent. He has been roundly criticized for it, on this and most other conservative sites.
But by what conceivable perversion of logic and common sense do you conclude from that that the cure to our current economic problems is the most massive tax increase since the Second World War?
Even most liberal economists have the good sense to put that idea where the sun don’t shine.
Reasonable Govt deficits are normal -a govt should not run as a profit making machine but the US deficit is staggering.
Lefty …In some centre left countries geithner is seen as an ***(pick your unflattering word).
They are not criticizing Obama yet -but laying into Mr G & by extension Obama.
It takes more intelligence to run a centre left govt than a centre right/right -because the govt controls the dynamics more . Can be done but not by the likes of Geithner.
#29, materialist: ” The poll that has proven most accurate over time, the Rasmussen poll of likely voters, had the big O sinking like a stone.”
Well, a stone in a somewhat viscous liquid – but the trend is unmistakable.
The “presidential approval index” has maxed at 30 on Jan 22;
on Feb 1 it was 21; the latest one, on 2/23, is 11.
What has sank really fast is the approval of the Congress: last month
35% thought they were doing a good or excellent job – now, only 12%.
Also, the pre-election generic party preference gap favoring
Dems for Congress has almost closed. White voters actually favor
the GOP, 45 to 36%.
Good point, contra: a stone in a viscous liquid. Our boy may not pass 50% on the way down until April or so.
You are also right to focus on the party preference. We may not have to wait for 2010 for this one to help. The many dems in swing districts have to be watching this one, and shuddering a bit. Dare we hope that it will be increasingly difficult to marshall the sheep behind the dubious policies Obama-Reid-Pelosi hope to push through?
Trolls are right. Obama is a real change. Even I did not expect him to ruin our country that quickly. I wonder if it is by design or because of stupidity. I am still trying to find Obama’s Columbia GPA and his LSAT scores. Looks like they are the a bigger secret than Kerry’s scores and what we are doing in Pakistan.
Some reasons I didn’t like Bush:
1. Unrestrained deficit spending.
2. Reacted to market turmoil by rushing in with half-baked plans, which changed constantly and cost hundreds of billions of dollars.
3. For much of his Presidency had an idiot press secretary who couldn’t answer, or even understand, a straight question.
Some reasons I don’t like Obama:
All of the above, tripled.
“It’s the market, stupid!”
Right – because the stock market ALWAYS has the health of the nation and the people in its heart! BTW, it’s UP today – so what does THAT mean?
#37, what a very Dem thing to say. It’s what’s in your “heart” that’s important. The silly stock market just represents what investors — the guys who put up the money that runs the economy — think is going to happen. Unlike poll respondents, most of whom couldn’t name the Vice-President much less understand the impact of a $1.5 trillion deficit on inflation, these investors have a real stake in the economy and they actually pay attention to what is going on. But if their hearts don’t bleed in all the right places, who the hell cares what they think? Right?
I have noticed the left wingers are really having to reach for their material now! And the beauty is that if they are reaching – and they are – all those polls showing the O having the shine come off a bit and the congress (Which is the dems now folks) falling like a rock means that the independents are moving. Polls not run by the NYT’s are showing most people hate all the government handouts – to Autos, to Banks, to deadbeat homeowners – and don’t expect them to work. They are divided on whether it will do harm, but don’t think they will work.
People like Obama, and they want to give him the benefit of the doubt – but right now he will lose congress in 2010 unless something changes. Of course those elections are way off, an eternity in politics, but there is the chance things could get worse for him and cost him 2012, the first president of any political party following 8 years of opposition rule to lose theier re-election campaign. He was always about history more than any real competence. Lets have him be historical twice.
“The President’s done very poorly in that poll. And unlike your polls, people get hurt when the markets are driven down.”
those are merely YOUR interpretations of what the market downslide indicates. Could it be that they pine for a bigger stimulus and MORE bank bailouts? who knows…you sure don’t…
Interestingly, when it comes to nationalization, some of the media err on the side of the banks, playing down possibilities that the government will take unnecessarily of financial institutions A.K.A. see this video: http://www.newsy.com/videos/debate_over_u_s_banks
I mean nationalization is horrible and economic collapse is worse, but can’t we just have a better information so that we become truly literate about all of this “nationalization” discourse?
WarPub – maybe the Obama-ites learned something today. They stayed on message and didn’t go bouncing everywhere – got Bernake to make it sound as if they are going to fix the banks (not nationalize them) and kept everyone else from saying something stupid. In the face of bad 4Q housing info and some other negative data, the market rose. Amazing what you can do when you provide some clarity, and of course after you have talked the market down over 1000 points in a few weeks, some bargain hunters were lurking as well.
Can they hold this line? Nah. But one can hope!