The debate of whether and by how much President Obama’s Jewish support has declined has heated up in the wake of his May ambush of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The latest poll of Jewish opinion supports the notion he is slipping, but leaves open the question of by how much. The poll (h/t to COMMENTARY contributor Tevi Troy at the National Review), conducted by McLaughlin & Associates for the SecureAmericaNow.org group, provides an in-depth view of Jewish opinions on a variety of issues. But due to the open-ended nature of certain questions, the poll cannot serve as definitive proof of a significant shift in Jewish voting patterns.

Pollsters asked 600 likely American Jewish voters, “Would you vote to re-elect Barack Obama as president or would you consider voting for someone else?” Only 43 percent answered they would vote for Obama, while 48 percent said they would consider another candidate. Perhaps after decades of Democrats winning the Jewish vote by landslide proportions, such a response ought to encourage Republicans, since slightly less than half of likely Jewish voters would even “consider” an alternative to the incumbent. But this is a long way from a result that shows Obama actually losing the Jewish vote. It says something about the rabidly partisan nature of Jewish Democrats that 43 percent of all likely voters would not even “consider” the possibility of casting a ballot for someone other than the president. Yet Democrats shouldn’t laugh too hard about these figures or other results from this survey.

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Ron Paul’s announcement today that he won’t run for re-election to the House has kick-started the effort to evaluate his place in history. In the Atlantic, Chris Good starts the discussion by giving Paul credit for changing the Republican Party and pushing it closer to the libertarians and vice versa. But let’s not exaggerate Paul’s influence.

Though he has a dedicated and enthusiastic cadre of followers who have used the Internet to good effect, his crowd should not be confused with the broad-based Tea Party movement that emerged in reaction to the stimulus and Obamacare in 2009. There was, and is, some overlap between the dedicated libertarian ideologues and the Tea Partiers, but the latter is more of a traditional, small government, anti-tax revolt while Paul’s intrepid band of supporters represent not only a very different demographic but different views about a host of other issues. The difference between the two is best measured by the distinction between Paul and Michele Bachmann, the Tea Party heroine.

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So this afternoon, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell made an explicit proposal to raise the debt ceiling three times before the next election in an almost automatic fashion. The proposal separates the entire question of the credit-worthiness of the United States—the threat to which is the disaster the president and Tim Geithner have been warning about—from the partisan struggles over spending cuts and tax hikes. (Jen Rubin lays out how it works here.) In almost fiendishly clever fashion, McConnell is calling the president’s bluff. He is agreeing that the immediate crisis must be resolved, and so is taking steps to resolve it. And he is saying that the parties are just too far apart on questions of core principle to make a bigger deal.

McConnell’s ploy has the Left spluttering—”This proposal from McConnell is DC at its absolute worst. Screw solving problems; let’s see how to blame the other guy for my fecklessness,” writes one liberal think-tanker on Twitter. And it has some of the Right, notably Erick Erickson of Red State, screaming like banshees over McConnell’s “capitulation”—Erickson believing, apparently, that conservatives can somehow compel Obama and the Democrats, who hold the the majority in the Senate, to do their bidding.

The problem with the outrage is this: There is no consensus on deep spending cuts or tax increases. If it were otherwise, there would be a deal tonight.

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Rep. Ron Paul announced today, via Tweet, that he will not be seeking reelection after 22 years in office. Instead, he says he’ll be directing all of his attention toward his presidential campaign:

“I felt it was better that I concentrate on one election,” Paul said. “It’s about that time when I should change tactics.”

His announcement will give enough time for anyone with aspirations for his seat to think about running, he said. Paul didn’t want to wait for filing in the 2012 primary to let people know he wasn’t seeking reelection.

“I didn’t want to hold off until in December,” he said. “I thought it shouldn’t be any later than now.”

The announcement comes as a surprise — even Paul’s congressional staffers only found out this morning, Reason’s Mike Riggs reports. And it’s left some, including Riggs, to wonder whether Paul will run as a third-party candidate if he loses the Republican nomination.

I contacted Paul’s campaign spokesperson Gary Howard, who denied Paul was considering a third-party run. “No. Dr. Paul is running to win the GOP nomination for President,” Howard told me over email. “So that’s an option the congressman has completely taken off the table for 2012?” I asked, but haven’t received a reply.

During Paul’s long-shot Republican presidential campaign in 2008, there were rumors he might run as a third-party candidate. He never did, possibly because of a contractual obligation in the GOP primaries that prevented him from running under a different party if he failed to secure the nomination.

The congressman’s assertion that he wants to direct his attention to the presidential race is definitely understandable. But in 2008, Paul’s focus on the primaries didn’t seem to get in the way of his congressional reelection. He closed down his campaign in March, 2008 (long after it was clear he had no chance at winning the nomination), and won reelection to Congress easily. Of course, if he was simultaneously running as a third-party presidential candidate, then that would have been much more difficult to do.

The news that the Sister Wives reality show stars are filing a lawsuit challenging the anti-polygamy laws in Utah doesn’t come as a major shock. The show has always seemed like its agenda was to “normalize” polygamous relationships – “see how they have adorable children and chip in on the household responsibilities and have regular jobs, just like a real family?” – so an eventual legal challenge seemed like the logical course it would take.

If you’ve never seen the show, it follows a Utah ad salesman named Kody Brown who lives with his wife and three other women who he calls his “spiritual spouses,” as well as their brood of 16 kids. Unlike the fundamentalist Mormon polygamists you see marrying 15-year-old girls dressed in Pilgrim attire, the Browns strive to come across as the typical modern American family. They dress in regular clothes, the women aren’t blatantly subservient to their “husband,” and they all hold ordinary jobs.

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The current debate about raising the debt ceiling is important, but there’s a heavy element of theatrics involved here that the media loves to contribute to. And like so many debates in Washington, its importance is exaggerated. For example, right now the media commentary would have you believe this is a pivotal moment in the Obama presidency, and that he’s taking steps to transform himself from a big-spending liberal to the Only Adult in Washington who wants to tackle the deficit.

Call him Obama the Budget Slayer.

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President Obama, with a tremendous assist by many within the media, is attempting to portray himself as a born-again budget cutter, a Man of the Center, a person willing to make a reasonable, grand compromise in the public interest. And the supposed proof of this is the negotiations to raise the debt ceiling.

But what Obama is putting forth is, as Yuval Levin points out here, essentially his budget, only this time with a few new rhetorical bows and ribbons attached. The main source of confusion is about Obama’s supposed willingness to cut entitlement spending in return for higher taxes. In fact, as best as we can tell, what Obama is offering in the main is several hundred billion dollars in Medicare and Medicaid cuts of the kind already embodied in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (e.g., regulatory tinkering of payment rates). That is not structural entitlement reform that Republicans have in mind; it is, in fact, an old and bad Democratic idea (for example, as payment rates to doctors are lowered, volume increases and quality goes down). If Obama were serious about entitlement reform, he would embrace, at least directionally, the Medicare and Medicaid reforms in the budget put forward by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan. Read More

The passage by Israel’s Knesset yesterday of a bill that seeks redress against those who call for boycotts of the country or, institutions or regions under Israeli control is being blasted throughout the world as an assault on civil rights. Though the legislation does not, strictly speaking, “ban” advocacy for boycotts, it does have the potential to infringe upon freedom of speech. As such, it is a mistake, and yet another in a long history of unforced errors made by the Jewish state in the battle for international public opinion.

However, there is more to this issue than the mere assertion that Israel’s current parliamentary majority is seeking to infringe upon the civil liberties of its citizens. A proper understanding of the issue requires us to see that those seeking to implement boycotts are not merely expressing criticism of government policies but are, in fact, waging economic warfare on Israel. Moreover, such boycotts are not merely symbolic efforts to chide the Jewish state on a particular issue but part of an insidious international conspiracy to strangle a nation. If the majority of Israelis, and it would appear a majority of the country as well as the Knesset backs this measure, it is because they rightly see advocacy of boycotts as racist attacks on their very existence.

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I disagree with Roger Cohen on just about everything, but occasionally the New York Times columnist’s journalistic chops get the better of his hyper-liberal bias. Today’s piece by Cohen is an example of this, as he refuses to join the media lynch mob crying for Rupert Murdoch’s scalp. Murdoch is being pilloried for the crimes committed in the last decade by the News of the World, his British tabloid. The paper’s hacking of the e-mail accounts of crime victims and politicians alike is indefensible, and those involved in making those decisions deserve to be punished. But the price being exacted for this scandal seems incommensurate with the crimes that were committed. News Corp’s decision to shut down the paper was an attempt to put the story to sleep, but it didn’t succeed. It now appears as if Murdoch may be denied the right to purchase control of a satellite cable network, as a further penalty for what his critics believe is his malign influence on journalism and politics.

But as Cohen rightly points out, Rupert Murdoch was the best thing that ever happened to British newspapers and has been a positive force in the American media as well.  Rupert Murdoch was not the first press baron in Britain with political influence. Such figures have been key players in British history for more than a century. The idea that shaming Murdoch or depriving him of the right to own a network will fix this supposed problem is absurd. Moreover, although Murdoch is by no means a doctrinaire conservative, we all know that were he a liberal, few of the pundits who want his head would think cutting back his holdings should be an international priority.

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Rep. Michele Bachmann called the police after she was assaulted by protesters, had her campaign materials stolen, and her house vandalized, according to police reports obtained by the Miami Herald. Most people would see her reaction as “common sense.” But the Herald apparently sees it as a sign Bachmann is a paranoid/crybaby/controversy-magnet. Seriously:

With a penchant for tough talk and polarizing positions, Republican presidential contender Michele Bachmann is a magnet for controversy — and there’s a trail of police reports to prove it.

She and her staff over the years have requested police protection or investigations when her house was egged; when protesters threw glitter on her or held up critical signs; when her campaign yard signs were stolen; when a man wrote an email perceived as a threat; and when she screamed that two women were holding her hostage “against my will” in a city hall restroom.

The series of police reports from the Stillwater Police Department and the Washington County Sheriff’s Office in Minnesota show a side of a candidate rarely seen on the campaign trail, where Bachmann has described herself as having a “titanium spine.”

Get it? So not only is Bachmann a sissy, she’s also a phony for pretending to act tough on the campaign trail.

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As the debt ceiling talks continue, some in the mainstream media are acting as if President Obama’s attempt to pose as the only grown up in Washington is working. For example, Matt Bai writes in the New York Times political blog, the president is getting the upper hand over the Republican leadership in large part because as unpopular as Obama is, the Congress is even less liked. There’s some truth to that assertion but to assume, as Bai does, this means Obama will be able to emulate Bill Clinton’s victory over a previous generation of House Republicans is far fetched.

While no one, especially the GOP leadership, should underestimate the power of the presidency and the ability of any resident of the White House to upstage and wrong foot members of Congress, the differences between that memorable butt-kicking of Newt Gingrich by Clinton and today’s situation far outweigh any similarities.

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Much is being written about the clash between Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. The two most important things about this spat have so far eluded even the most learned of analyses.

First, if this is a clash, it is more akin to Trotsky against Stalin than, say, Lech Walesa against General Jaruzelsky. The outcome will be a choice between bad and worse. And second, the outcome is a foregone conclusion – the Islamic Republic of Iran without a Supreme Leader (or with a Supreme Leader who has to bow to the president) is no longer the Islamic Republic of Iran – it’s a bit like the Soviet Union giving up Communism. When these two principles are taken into account, interpreting the clash becomes much easier – since the outcome is a foregone conclusion, and its implications are vastly less consequential than people would like them to be.

As Omri noted yesterday, Washington is backing Beirut against Jerusalem in their dispute over the Israel-Lebanon maritime border. But by doing so, it isn’t merely cozying up to Hezbollah. It’s actively rewarding aggression – and encouraging war.

Israel and Lebanon never had an agreed upon maritime border. But Lebanon did reach an as-yet unratified agreement with Cyprus in 2007, and Jerusalem and Nicosia later negotiated their own maritime border based on this Lebanon-Cyprus agreement. Last year, however, after Israel announced lucrative gas finds in the Mediterranean Sea, Lebanon gave the UN a new map asserting a border well south of the line demarcated in its agreement with Cyprus. By moving the border south, Lebanon also intruded into territory that Israel claims as its Exclusive Economic Zone.

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The logic of Barack Obama’s position regarding the debt ceiling is peculiar, to put it mildly. He and his people say it would be catastrophic not to raise the debt ceiling. Then he also says he wants to use the opportunity provided by the debt-ceiling showdown to make major changes in the country’s approach to the federal deficit. Obviously, if you want to avoid an imminent car crash, the thing to do is swerve; you don’t also attempt to re-engineer the engine while you’re driving it. I explore this theme in greater detail in today’s New York Post. You might call this the modest approach to the debt-ceiling issue, and while Obama has rejected a short-term deal, it’s preposterous to believe that faced with an imminent disaster, he wouldn’t sign one. The question is: Why the Grand Bargain? Why the Big Design?

It is increasingly clear that the upcoming election is going to be a national referendum on the future direction of the government and its relation to the economy, just as the 1980 and 1992 elections were; it’s what happens when incumbents are governing at times of economic uncertainty. (And while those elections saw the incumbent turned out, I’m not at all saying the same will happen to Barack Obama.) The parties have wildly divergent ideas about that, and the gap cannot be bridged without some more firm guidance from the electorate. This is not a time for wildly ambitious policy. You can see why Obama would want a deal that would give him the right to claim the mantle of fiscal prudence after his record over the past three years, but the reason Republicans cannot make that deal with him is that they were told without question by their voters last year not to do it.

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