Never let it be said that Obama has learned from past errors. He is not a man to divert course based on mere experience. No sir. His standoff with Israel earlier this year led to a war of words, strained relations with American Jewish groups, and a fraying of the U.S.-Israel relationship? Oh, well. Let’s try that again!
It does seem like deja vu all over again. This report bears an eerie resemblance to those from March of this year:
The US State Department on Tuesday responded immediately to claims made in a statement by the Prime Minister’s Office that east Jerusalem construction had no bearing on the peace process.
“There clearly is a link in the sense that it is incumbent upon both parties … they are responsible for creating conditions for a successful negotiation,” State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said.
“To suggest that this kind of announcement would not have an impact on the Palestinian side I think is incorrect.”
The back-and-forth of statements between the Obama administration and the Prime Minister’s Office was over Israeli plans to advance 1,345 housing units in Jewish neighborhoods of east Jerusalem.
For his part, Bibi was having none of the same old, same old from Obama:
Netanyahu, in turn, sharply defended Israel’s right to build in Jerusalem, which it claims as its eternal united capital, even as the Palestinians claim the eastern party of the city as the capital of their future state.
“Jerusalem is not a settlement. Jerusalem is the capital of Israel,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that the government had never agreed to place any restrictions on construction in Jerusalem, which has 800,000 residents.
So now we have a test of sorts — for pro-Israel congressmen of both parties, for Jewish groups, and for the administration. The last time around, Democratic congressmen and pro-Israel groups gave Obama a wide berth to go after the Israeli government. But the world has changed since then — and Obama is no longer in a commanding position domestically. So Chuck Schumer, Howard Berman, et al. — what say you? Now’s the time to dispel the image that you place partisan toadying above principled defense of the U.S.-Israel relationship.
I like Applebaum, but she is not a conservative. I think a lot of people are jumping on the Obama bandwagon because they want to support a winner. Others have been persuaded by the mainstream media’s pro-Obama bent. A third group supports Obama because they have forgotten what it is like to live under leftist public policies. They will soon have a rude awakening, similar to the one that Nader voters experienced when Bush was elected president due to their view that there was no substantial difference between Gore and Bush.
Applebaum and other have seen through the nasty, proud of being stupid campaign the republicans have run this year. Even moderate conservatives are appalled at thought of Sarah Palin might become commander in chief, or even that John McCain will play out a senile game of Risk with real live nuclear weapons.
Only the most craven partisans remain with McCain, people like Max Boot for whom party is more important than country.
I haven’t read the Applebaum piece yet, but the excerpts here make one want to shake Ms. Applebaum. She will be supporting Obama, while opposing a man whose experience, intelligence and independence she highlights, because of some yellow journalism types who support John McCain.
Staggering! As Mr. Boot points out, if you want to damm people by the company they keep or who are roughly in their orbit, we can start with the vicious and crazy folks Obama himself has had close relationships. Anyway, can’t Ms. Applebaum recall that every nationa election saddles all of the major candidates with supporters, well-known and workaday folks(like those in a campaign rally crowd), who embarrass the candidates.
Maybe some of these Obama supporters are covering their backside—they figure he’ll win and are afraid to be seen as anti.
The worst endorsement was Powell’s. He said “You break it, you own it…You will own all their hopes, aspirations, and problems.” This implies that the US is responsible for the security of the Iraqi people until they can reorganize their government and military. But Obama took the opposite position—these are not his words but they are on his site and reflect his thinking: “the United States cannot use its military to solve humanitarian problems and that preventing a potential genocide in Iraq isn’t a good enough reason to keep U.S. forces there.”
http://www.barackobama.com/2007/07/20/obama_dont_stay_in_iraq_over_g.php
Since Powell feels that the US owes the Iraqi people security, where is the morality in his endorsing Obama who’s willing to tolerate genocide of the Iraqis? Where is the integrity between what Powell said about protecting Iraqis and his endorsement of a candidate who is unwilling to prevent genocide?
Ms. Applebaum and her ilk are stark examples of the distinction between intelligence and wisdom, the former not necessarily leading to the latter.
Journalists like Applebaum are terrified that those like Hannity are increasingly more popular, successful and even respected than they are. No wonder they have a soft spot for Obama whose minions would squash the conservative alternative media with state power. Her flailing epitomizes the death rattle of the MSM monopoly. Her kind are aghast at being steadily reduced in status and will fight tooth and nail to survive. Even if it means endorsing fascism with an O face.
As Thomas Sowell has pointed out, Obama has not merely had an “association” (Rubin’s word) with people like Ayers/Wright/Rezko/etc., nor “relationships” (#3) with them. He has formed political and financial *alliances* with them. He’s on their side.
…and so another cosmopolitan votes her identity rather than her ideals, and in order to justify it serves up incoherent mush. The interviews, posts, and articles from the turncoat conservatives carry faint echoes of Stalinist Era forced confessions, all reciting the same programmatic denunciations of the new approved enemies and invocations of the party line in its latest incarnation.
As we were discussing last night under the Hitchens/Palin post, this campaign is exposing socio-economic fault lines of a sort that had previously been hidden. The post-partisan partisan, post-racial racial candidate to planted a flowering of identity politics among the urban intelligentsia – also exciting a counter-reaction among us flownovers.
Though I introduced the term “cosmo-con,” thinking of the cosmopolitanism of many conservative intellectuals, and hoping to include by reference their fellows who can be found all over the world, Mark Steyn has referred to essentially the same group as “metrocons.” Steyn’s appellation puts the emphasis on their typical habitats, and also resonates with the past-trendy, belittling term “metrosexual”: It calls to mind the sense that characters like Palin (and McCain, too) physically and elementally frighten and overawe people like Frum, Brooks, Will, Noonan – and perhaps Applebaum: The metrocons are like the Zardozians forced to confront the warrior brought from the post-apocalyptic wilds to re-invigorate the failing breeding program. The experience frightens many of them near to death.
Brought before Barack Obama, by contrast, they immediately recognize one of their own. Most were well into their swoons before they bothered even to think about the background and intentions of the dashing Ivy League-approved culture hero. Even if they bothered to look, perhaps after recalling some shabby business of their own that they once successfully concealed from the frat committee, they saw themselves reflected in him – a very pleasing experience, no doubt. In short, he is one of them, and much more authentically so even than he is a representative of an ethnically defined urban under class that will also be supporting and voting for him in overwhelming numbers. …and, oh yeah, they think they know where their artisan bread is dipped.
Speaking broadly, the rest of the conservative movement had Barack Obama made out from the beginning, from the moment he opened his mouth and lilted a few bars of his song, as a phony. The last word is a true Americanism that itself belongs to a pragmatic, risky, ground-level world where if you don’t already know that the rhetorical question “You don’t like the way I talk?” is one short step from a fight, you may soon be taught as much. In our pragmatic world, Barack Obama struck us immediately as a smooth-talking big city slicker trying to sell us a bill of goods, etc., etc. Once formed, this impression was very unlikely to budge.
Furthermore, when we say to someone like Barack Obama, “We don’t like your kind around here,” race isn’t in it. We just mean we wouldn’t buy a used car from him. As for Sarah Palin, it seems to us that Barack’s new friends don’t like the way she talks. (Ditto for McCain, ditto for Hannity, ditto for Rush…) Even worse, they’re so stupid in their super-intellectual super-intelligence, they don’t seem to realize they picked a fight. Either that, or they don’t care. By the time we’re through considering that final possibility, we’ve also stopped caring, at least about which explanation is closer to the truth – because we’ve finally made them out as phonies, too, and what we know is that we don’t like their kind around here.
Let the conservative infighting begin! Fight amongst yourselves, for such fighting is, as the Book of Mormon teaches, “white and delightsome to behold.”
Face it, every thinking conservative, Republican and national security hawk has found more to like in Obama than in McCain.
I’m not saying only morons are left in the McCain camp. Apparently, there are also some dullards in the group.
“Conservative infighting” began long before 2008 and will continue long after we are all dead and gone. It was an ongoing process in 1980 and 1994, and it was an ongoing process in 1964 and 2006. The same is true of “liberal infighting” and “moderate infighting” and infighting of every other stripe. The reason for all the fighting is — to borrow Sowell’s phrase — the basic conflict of visions that exist between and among different people and groups of people. I have never read the Book of Mormon, but I would wager that Joseph Smith recognized that conflict quite clearly.
This just about nails it. I knew Palin was ‘real’ the moment she stepped onto the national stage. Why? Because I personally know dozens of Sarahs. And I know McCain from growing up on a military base and serving myself. But I don’t know Obama, nothing about his Ivy League education, Chicago politics, mad bombers. How can I relate to someone who has never held a regular job or has never done work by hand?
This is why Obama in not 20 points ahead in the polls.
Maybe the proles in WVA have a deeper wisdom than the beltway elites.
If you were lost in the wilderness without compass or food, who would you rather help you find the way home, Obama and Joe, or Sarah and John?
***In convo with Playbook, a top McCain adviser one-ups the priceless “diva” description, calling Palin “a whack job.”***
That is why people like Applebaum, Fried, Powell, Buckley, Frum, Noonan, Parker, etc., are running for the exits.
QED, indeed. The people pass along and feed on such gossip demean themselves in the very act of striking a superior pose. Was “whack job” a current epithet during Reagan’s presidency? He was certainly called far worse, and to believe anything else about him was virtually a thought crime among the liberal intelligentsia.
How surprising is that? You noted earlier that Fred Hiatt apparently ditched his concerns about Iraq to write (apparently) the pro-Obama endorsement in his paper. And yet look at all the negatives I found in that endorsement:
“Mr. Obama’s economic plan contains its share of unaffordable promises … he has been less definitive than we would like … Mr. Obama has disparaged the McCain proposal in deceptive ways … we question whether his plan is affordable or does enough to contain costs … His team overstates the likelihood that either of those can produce dramatically better results … Mr. Obama’s greatest deviation from current policy is also our biggest worry … We also can only hope that the alarming anti-trade rhetoric we have heard from Mr. Obama during the campaign would give way to the understanding … a cause that Mr. Obama injured when he broke his promise to accept public financing in the general election campaign … Mr. Obama’s resume is undoubtedly thin … We had hoped, throughout this long campaign, to see more evidence that Mr. Obama might stand up to Democratic orthodoxy.”
Pundits of a certain persuasion see that voting for Sen. Obama is a way to demonstrate their enlightenment. The idea of self-proclaimed enlightenment trumps concerns of intellectual incoherence every time.
These strange new respect people are angling for access. Politicians want jobs (good luck), and writers want access. They’ve seen what Obama will do to anyone who dissents and do not want to be shut out for four or eight years. Pretty simple stuff, actually.
I can’t remember exactly why, but I found the Washington Post editorial endorsement of Senator Obama (referenced by soccer dad above) to be persuasive. After I read it, I decided to change my intention from not voting to voting for Senator Obama. But every time I try to reinforce my intentions by reading supposedly similar stuff, such as Anne Applebaum’s column today or Leon Wiesenthal’s awful essay in The New Republic last week, I am left even less enthusiastic about my choice.
And I can’t fault Applebaum for overlooking Rev Wright when McCain himself has done so. History will not judge McCain lightly for his ignorant neglect of the single issue that could have won him this election, namely that his opponent is at best a racialist and at worst a flat-out racist.
I’ve said many times before and I’ll say it again. The RINO’s and so-called conservatives who are bolting the McCain ticket are doing it for one reason and one reason only. To assuage their guilt for the wrongs done by whites in our country’s past.
They can do this without remorse because:
RINO’s are liberals anyway.
Conservatives never liked McCain anyway, so there is no guilt if they bolt the ticket.
No self respecting “conservative” on God’s green earth would subscribe to the appeasement/defeatist foreign policy and Socialist economic policies of someone like Obama.
Personally, I would not label her as a “conservative”. That is a label she has adopted.
Then, there is this little itch in the back of my mind telling me that many of the real conservatives are doing this because they believe McCain (No conservative) will lose anyway and an Obama administration coupled with a liberal majority in congress will give them the building blocks they need to begin a new conservative movement. The new movement will feed off the depression and discontent soon to grow after Americans begin to feel the effects of what the Socialists are doing to this country. But, I have been wrong in the past.
Come on, for certain people, not supporting the Democrat ticket would entail an existential crisis.
It’s great to read a blog with entries from thoughtful people like Jennifer Rubin and Max Boot. But I’m surprised to find silly, overwrought huffpo/koskid type stuff in the comments.
Now let me try and shine some light on Ms. Applebaum’s endorsement of Obama. She is married to Radek Sikorski, the foreign minister of Poland. Lefty commenters, you probably are unaware of this but Poland is pretty dependent on the United States. (No, lefties, I’m not going to explain why this is the case. You’ll have to learn a little history and, uh, geography.) She is not exactly a disinterested party. Since we all think the chances are high that Obama will be elected, it would seem to be in her interest and that of her husband that she endorse him. We don’t know for sure that that’s why she’s endorsed O, but you sure can’t give her endorsement much weight.
Why isn’t Obama’s comparison of USA in the 50s to Nazism that he made on the 2001 during the Chicago audio a big deal?
More people know what Nazism is than about socialism. Even Hollywood still hates Nazis.
Is this another failed opportunity by the Republicans? I know about Jim Crow etc., but calling your own country Nazi is beyond the pale. I Know that’s it routine on the left. So what.
It’s on Little Green Footballs.
Anne Applebaum is not a conservative; small “c” conservatives big “R” Republicans nationalize banks, insurance companies and mortgage providers.
To be sure, many of the “unexpected” Obama-endorsements are about as surprising as the sun rising in the east (McClellan, Powell, Buckley). But at least with respect to Adelman and Applebaum, I think that we conservatives should be willing to assume that their embrace of Obama is, albeit misguided, sincere and not led by any hope of personal advantage in the future.
The reason laying out Obama’s radical associations fell to Hannity was because real journalists in offices like that of Applebaum’s Washington Post refused to do those stories.They feared being called racist(even if it wasn’t remotely legitimate) more than they wanted to be actual journalists. Note that Applebaum doesn’t attack the truthfulness of Hannity’s reports about the radical thread in Obama’s life that runs thorugh the likes Frank Marshall Davis, Wright, Ayers, Rezko, the Chicago radicals, Ayers and ACORN et al. In essence, Applebaum is basing her vote on style, not substance. What a total joke.
Dear, Ms. Applebaum. Oh, the pain of having the truth come out about Obama–the truth you’d rather not face! Let’s just pretend he’s what he says he is!
Wipe your tears of sadness at the horrible treatment Obama is receiving from Hannity, O’Reilly, Instapundit, Powerline, Contentions, and the Townhallers! Wipe them with this cloth from the dead Tony Snow, who was treated so fairly by Obama’s supporters at MoveOn and Huffington Post. The ones who were so glad he suffered and relapsed, and wish he would suffer more! Such nice people over there. So upright when falsely calling our President a liar and undermining the war and leaking state secrets to the press. Yes! Glorious Progressives! Enjoy your sojourn with the righteous as they destroy our Country and the Constitution. You’ll be so COOL, Dude!
#21 reveals the secret conspiratzia!
“Now let me try and shine some light on Ms. Applebaum’s endorsement of Obama. She is married to Radek Sikorski, the foreign minister of Poland.”
Now conservatives are vomiting absurd excuses for their impeding wipe out: It’s a Polish Conspiration!
Applebaum, Parker, Brooks, Noonan et al are switching sides for one reason and one reason only.
By picking the winner they can appear to be relevant but it is their inconsistencies that will make them increasingly irrelevant.
With two wars, terrorism, issues with Russia and China and the financial crisis hitting our country it is unbelievable that people will make decisions based on how someone ran their campaign.
(Forget the fact that Obama and Biden do not live in glass houses on this issue).
So if I understand Applebaum correctly she will vote for Obama and take the inherent risks of an untested novice because she doesn’t like what Sean Hannity says on his show. Clearly common sense isn’t necessary to write a column.
No wonder she doesn’t like Palin.
Chris
I forgot her husband’s name, but I was aware of his position. But isn’t Eastern Europe one of the places where George Bush is popular?
Wouldn’t it just have been better for her to remain silent?
#9/#27 – yeah, that was you my comment was directed to. Glad you made my point in your response. As an aspiring “labor lawyer” you might want to look up the definition of “conspiracy”.
Try improving your reading comprehension. Most labor lawyers I know are pretty sharp people. Like they say, there’s always the rule that proves the exception!
“On the Right”, why would you lend more credibility to Adelman and Applebaum than to others who have sold out? Read their endorsement statements. Both are nonsensical attempts to justify themselves.
The Inside the Beltway crowd simply tested the breeze and have jumped on the bandwagon. (If they can offer nonsensical reasoning, I can mix metaphors when describing them)
If McCain pulls this out–and the polls are telling us that it is possible–I will enjoy seeing those people standing around with egg on their faces. McCain may proclaim himself bi-partisan, but we know he never, ever forgets a slight.
Whoop, sorry, I meant “exception that proves the rule”.
Have you seen ANY conservative, even self-proclaimed conservative to support OBama for what Obama’s policies are? There are two arguments among so-called conservatives supporting Obama:
1. I do not like people who support McCain.
Logical conclusion is that these “conservatives” love Ayers, Wright, Pfleiger, Khalidy, leave alone Daily Kos amd MoveOn.org
2. Obama is inspirational, looks better, has deeper voice…
3. Obama’s policies are very bad, but he cannot be so stupid as to follow though with his stated policies.
Taking into account that he followed these same policies all his life and will have congress as radical as he is, the third argument is as intelligent as the second one.
Incidentally, the argument that Obama surely won’t really follow through with his stated policies was also made about Hitler in 1932-33.
Soccer Dad:
She’s looking to the future. If she thought it was a foregone conclusion O was going to win, it seems like it would be a good thing for Poland for the wife of the foreign minister to endorse him, don’t you think?
She can’t help it that she’s got this conflict. But I think you have to take it into account whenever you read her columns, i.e., does she have one eye on how what she’s writing will affect her husband?
#31 — Adelman and Applebaum just strike me as more principled, morally-serious individuals than the others I named. I have no personal knowledge on which to base that impression, rather their writings and other public statements through the years. Perhaps I give them too much credit.
#34 — Historically accurate, but grossly out of context.
Hitler was a man of the Left from the beginning of his career to the bitter, “bunkered” end, and casually invoking his name in every contemporary dispute should be the Left’s game, not ours.
Chris, Jennifer Rubin is the Ugly Labor Lawyer. Get it?
I’m just part of the left wing conspiration of Swiftboat Veterans for Truth!
OTR — there is nothing casual or gratuitous about pointing this out. Obama is not Hitler, nor can I be accused of saying he is. If you took it that way, shame on you.
But Obama has himself been a man of the Left from the very beginning. The argument made by German moderates that Hitler couldn’t possibly really mean all that campaign rhetoric was invalid — and so is the argument made by some conservative pundits today that Obama can’t possibly really intend to implement his hard-left policies.
Conservatives must find ways to keep their money out of the hands of redistributionists (Buy gold and put it in Swiss bank accounts, invest in properties overseas, live and work outside the US). I don’t say that as sour grapes; rather, I think someone has to keep the flame of liberty alive in the face of naked socialism and betrayal from “conservative” commentators, pols, bankers, etc… When things ultimately collapse, it will take Americans who have preserved their liberty to rebuild the country.
Obviously many so-called conservatives (I’m not convinced Applebaum ever sold herself as one anyway) are willing to endorse the most Left-wing senator in our history why? Because of their resentment for working stiffs who take their Bibles seriously and like to hunt. These conservatives prefer Obama to Palin. They would prefer Marx to Palin. What a slap in the face.
The “Republicans” who increased spending and engaged in all manner of Democrat-like behaviors the last 8 years should be run out of the party for good, and they can take their commentators with them. The rest of us just have to look out for each other and figure out ways to protect our property rights. Without property, nothing else is secure.
#38 — I did not think that you were accusing Obama of being similar to Hitler.
But we all know how some people’s minds get foggy (or worse) whenever that era and that particular name are brought into the discussion. Even when a comparison is objectively justified by the historical record — as your “they-thought-he-couldn’t-really-mean-what-he-had-said” comparison was at 2:34 — it still seems to me most political points can be made more effectively in some other way.
Cordially, OTR
OTR #40 — I almost decided to let this one go, as extended rallies over minor points seem like a waste of time to me.
But this one merits a response. There is not, in fact, a better way to make the point that there’s historical precedent for underestimating the sincerity of radical leftists than to bring up the German election of 1932-33. In no other modern election have the factors been as pertinent to the US election in 2008. Even the US election of 1932 is less analogous, because for all his faults, FDR was less radical, and did not engage in vote fraud and suppression of opposition speech in the egregious manner of the Nazis (along with some others) in Germany, or the Obama campaign or ACORN in 2008.
I am making a serious point here, not gratuitously saying “Nazis” or “Hitler.” It is absolutely wrong to put the activities of the Nazis off-limits for informative comparison — nor should there be a minimum-size-post requirement; i.e., your post can only be deemed serious if it is long. Most of mine are anyway, so perhaps we can introduce some sort of virtual averaging standard that confers an implied gravitas on shorter posts. I’ll let you know when I’m joking or merely being irreverent.
Hitler’s Nazi party represents one of the most informative patterns of human activity in all man’s history, and we must never forget its character, or its points of commonality with other group phenomena. I will not agree to any standard of discussion that disallows references to it, on the basis that they must be inherently superficial or gratuitously offensive. There was nothing unique about Nazism that would make its pattern impossible to repeat — in fact, most of its traits were shared with predatory Marxism, and many of them with the Progressives who people the Wilson and FDR administrations in the US. Nazi analogies are fair game if, as you concede here, they are valid. I will not be afraid to make them.
Just wanted to acknowledge the final post from Dyer. Interesting comment; I will have to think that over.
Yes – you could call it “Dyer’s Converse”: No political discussion on the internet can really get anywhere until it has incisively invoked Adolf Hitler and the Nazis for purposes of comparison.
!
Though it’s also worth keeping in mind that there must be 50 ways to lose your republic.
It’s all about maintaining their status and prestige among the East Coast intellectuals. They are not conservatives but intellectualists.
It’s all about maintaining their status and prestige among the East Coast intellectuals. They are not conservatives but intellectualists.
Max Boot you piece of trash. Get the F out of our party. You and Bill Kristol are not conservatives….you’re an infection that needs to be flushed out of the party.
Q: How many Neocons does it take to change a lightbulb?
A: None…they make the troops do it!
Maxie,
Yes, Anne did not mention Bibi What A Yahoo or any of your bosses at Likud. Silly her.
But don’t pout in such blatant fashion. Not only is it unprofessional, it’s revolting.
After McCain wins, all of these run-of-the-mill Obama people will look like real dopes. And I am so looking forward to it.
Excellent points, Max Boot and Stuart Rose. Well said.
My fellow on Orkut shared this link with me and I’m not dissapointed that I came to your blog.
Not that I’m impressed a lot, but this is more than I expected for when I found a link on Digg telling that the info is quite decent. Thanks.