Our soft underbelly. I have warned about this for years. (See 1 below.)
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One honest Arab! Let his words reach Allah's ears!(See 2 below.)
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Comments from the Marine son of dear friends serving in Afghanistan about the kids in his area. Not a pretty circumstance. Kids will be kids but these are playing with fire and endangering the lives of those there to protect them. Comments to him from his mom and his own (See 3 below.)
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Win at any cost! Not only a resume that is thin but a man with even less character.(See 4 and 4a below.)
Bret, Charles and I are on same page. (See 4b and 4c below.)
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Off to Pittsburgh. Have a nice weekend.
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Dick
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1)Southern Exposure: Iran, Terror Groups Setting Up Shop in South America
Iran and Middle East-based extremist groups are stepping up their activities in South America, aiming to make friends and score cash, a senior U.S. military official says.
Tehran intends to build military drones in Washington's backyard for the Venezuelan military led by Hugo Chavez, U.S. Southern Command chief Gen. Douglas Fraser told reporters Wednesday during a breakfast meeting in Washington.
Pressed by DOTMIL about the unmanned aerial vehicles' capabilities, Fraser dubbed it "a fairly limited-capacity UAV."
"I would put it in the Scan Eagle class of UAV," Fraser said. "It's not up into the Predator class."
The Southern Command chief was referring to two U.S.-made drone aircraft used by the American military. The Scan Eagle is about 10 feet long and is used for surveillance while the MQ-1B Predator drone can be armed with air-to-ground Hellfire missiles and is about 27 feet long.
Fraser said it's unclear what kinds of missions Venezuelan officials will send the Iranian drones.
His best guess? "I assume it's for internal defense."
In, 2006, Israeli officials said they shot down at least three Iran-backed Hezbollah drones during a war in Lebanon.
In December, Tehran said one of its electronic warfare units downed an American military RQ-170 spy drone, known as the "Beast of Kandahar." It remains unclear whether Iran has fitted that kind of technology on the drones sold to Venezuela.
U.S. officials do know production of the Iranian drones has been delayed due a recent fire at the manufacturing plant, Fraser said.
Teal Group analyst Phillip Finnegan says the drone deal "is one of these intangible signs of the relationship between Iran and Venezuela."
"If they can get a UAV that appears to be a cutting-edge symbol of that relationship," they can frame it as a loss for the United States, Finnegan says. "Although it's likely the end result might not be cutting-edge—generally Iran is not mentioned as being in the forefront of countries developing this capability."
Tehran also has doubled the number of official embassies it maintains across South America from five to 10. Iran also has erected "cultural centers" in some countries, Fraser said. This is part of a broader increase in diplomatic efforts on the continent, he added.
So what is Tehran up to?
"They are working to build diplomatic relations [and] international support to counter the sanctions" imposed by Washington and Europe as a means toward pressuring Iran to scuttle its nuclear arms program, Fraser said.
U.S. officials are also closely monitoring the activities in South America by two of Iran's allies, the Hamas and Hezbollah groups. The State Department has long considered both terrorist organizations.
So far, those groups have been involved in the kinds of "illicit activities," as Fraser put it, that are familiar in South America: the trafficking of drugs, weapons and people. The goal for Hamas and Hezbollah is to use these activities to generate funds to send back to their leaders in the Middle East.
"I've seen no indications of al Qaeda" establishing a foothold on the southern continent, Fraser told DOTMIL.
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2)Arab like me.
There are two kinds of Arabs in this world. Those who hate Jews, and those who don’t. And in my life, I have met more of the former than the latter.
I am not proud to say that. Arabs will not like me for admitting it. But it is true. And it is something I wish the Obama administration understood. It is something Americans should know as the “Arab Spring” enters its second year.
I didn’t know much about any of this as a Lebanese kid growing up in New Jersey. But I found out about it when I wrote my first pro-Israel column for my college paper as a young student journalist.
I defended Israel on some point I’ve long forgotten, but what I’ll never forget is the backlash I received from fellow Arabs. Some were Americans, others were students from Arab countries, many of whom I counted as friends.
First came the letters to the editor, then the personal insults. It was as if I’d broken a secret code I didn’t know existed. Some secret blood oath, which goes something like this: Arabs don’t speak unkindly of Arabs in public, or kindly about Israel.
The backlash stunned me. I pondered the pounding I had taken, and floundered a bit. I even thought for a short time of writing something negative about Israel the next time I had a chance, just to balance things out and reestablish my Arab bona fides.
One friend accused me of being a self-hating Arab. He explained to me that I was exploiting my ancestry to ingratiate myself with white America and the Jews who controlled white America.
I explained to him that I was white. And that I was an American. And that I didn’t believe that Jews controlled America. The Jewish men I knew had a hard enough time controlling their own families! But nothing I said helped relieve the tension, not even my stab at humor.
I also explained that many of my Jewish friends did not like my column. Most were liberals from New York or northern New Jersey who assumed I was with them on the politics of the Middle East, that I was in agreement with the governing thesis that drives most Arabs and liberal Jews: that it is Israel that is the problem in the region, not the Palestinians, and not the Arab world itself.
I also explained to him that I was mostly Lebanese, but also part German and part Italian, and that I was raised by parents who didn’t much care for the whole notion of hyphenated America. They taught me to think for myself, and have the courage to challenge authority. Even theirs, if I could make the case.
The fact is, Arabs don’t all look alike or think alike. But we are often pushed into a kind of groupthink, a kind of self-censorship that hinders our development and our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
We are not a universal group. But some of us believe in a simple universal truth: that every Arab deserves to live in freedom, wherever he or she might call home. Some of us want Arab countries to be more like America and Israel, places where the individual can flourish.
Say those words to many Arabs and they are shocked and angered. Soon, words like imperialist are thrown about, and the subject turns to Israel. Always, it seems, it turns to Israel.
Why the anger when I hint that America and Israel might have something to teach the Arab world? I thought about it for the longest time, and only recently stumbled upon the answer.
It is all about Arab self-doubt. It is all tied to a profound lack of cultural self-confidence, and a deep-seated fear that maybe, just maybe, Arabs won’t be very good at the self-governance thing. That Arab nations won’t be capable of building democratic cultures that engender the flourishing of human freedom, and that these nations won’t have the ability to tap the God-given talents of their people the way Americans and Israelis do.
That maybe, just maybe, the Arab world will never measure up to America or Israel.
Better, goes the logic, to cling to anger over the plight of the Palestinians. Better to cling to international policy disputes and to a deep-seated hatred of Israel. Better to play the role of victim, and the role of self-righteous critic, than to do the hard work of lifting up the conditions of your people.
An Arab American friend of mine who works for a large NGO is a case in point. He is Jordanian, he’s well educated, and he speaks five languages. But mention the word Israel, and watch his blood boil immediately. He will go into a lengthy diatribe about the injustices perpetrated against the Palestinians by Israel. When Prime Minister Netanyahu’s name is mentioned, I worry that he will have a seizure on the spot.
Why is this? Why is all of his passion, all of his anger and rage, directed at this one country, this one people?
Why is it not directed at Syria, I ask him? By all accounts, the Syrian government orchestrated the assassination of one of the Arab world’s great men of peace, former Lebanese prime minister Rafic Hariri. And President Assad continues to terrorize his own people.
Why not at Hezbollah, which orchestrated the takeover of Lebanon?
Why not at Hosni Mubarak when he was in power? Or Saddam Hussein?
Why not at the ways in which Islam degrades women in the Middle East, trapping them in a life of servitude?Why not at the ways some Muslims are persecuting Christians throughout the Middle East, as reports pour in about atrocities upon atrocities?
Why not a critique of the Koran itself, which regrettably finds little separation between mosque and state, thus relegating the majority of Arabs to life under theocratic regimes?
Two reasons: fear, and envy.
To the dismay of Arabs around the world, Jewish people turned an ancient piece of real estate in the Middle East into a thriving oasis of intellectual, political, religious, and commercial activity, where people are free to do as they please. One of the oldest places on earth — a place where Abraham walked — Israel is as thoroughly modern as any place on earth, with a functioning government that respects religious and economic freedom.
A young person in Israel can choose to work in some of the best high-tech companies in the world, or can pursue a life dedicated to Talmudic studies. A woman has an equal right to pursue any career she likes, and people of different sexual orientations are not driven underground — or worse.
The fact is, the God-given talents of the people of Israel are allowed to flourish in ways Arabs should want to emulate, and replicate.
This smart, dynamic Jordanian friend instead focuses on border disputes and the acts of the Israeli government. He performs Houdini-like intellectual twists to dodge my questions, which are always gentle, but cut right through to his very clear — and almost programmed — bigotry.
I ask him why he is obsessed with the 1967 border dispute, and not some other border grudge, as it would not take long to find other countries unhappy with the ways in which territories were allocated as spoils of various 19th- and 20th-century wars.
I tell him that using his logic, Mexican terrorists should be blowing themselves up in Houston and El Paso. And they should have his unwavering support to compel America to return Texas to its rightful, original owner.
I now ask Arabs who show such a knee-jerk reaction to Israel a simple question, one that cuts to the heart of all this nonsense: Why do you hate Jews?
They first get angry, but then quickly point out that they have no beef with Jews. It’s Israel they hate.
To which I reply, “If Israel had been handed over to Bolivians or Albanians or Estonians, would you still hate it?”
It is a none-too-subtle question, but it makes the point: Despising Israel the way Israel is despised in much of the Arab world is all about anti-Semitism. And most anti-Semitism anywhere in the world has its origins in envy.
Benjamin Netanyahu once gave a speech in which he pointed at a map of the Middle East. He rattled off many of the countries in the region, and the relative size of those nations to Israel. Jordan is four times the size of Israel, Iraq 20, Egypt 46; Saudi Arabia is nearly 90 times the size of Israel.
“Big countries,” he said. “But small accomplishments.”
He then went on to describe Israel, which is just slightly bigger than one of America’s smallest states, New Jersey.
“Little country,” he concluded. “But big accomplishments.”
And there you have it, in one perfectly formulated binary.
Today, Arabs are at a crossroads. The “Arab Spring” is an opportunity like none the region has ever seen. The people who live there are no more or less capable than the people of Israel or the United States.
But it is up to them to build functioning democracies, and a culture that breeds and rewards hard work and success. It is up to Arabs themselves to take advantage of their newfound freedom, and unleash the productive capacities of their people.
Countries aren’t built on spite and hate, but on love, trust, shared sacrifice, and hard work. Maybe, just maybe, Arabs in the Middle East will be so busy working, yearning, and striving to make their own lives better that they will have little time left to burnish old grievances.
Maybe, over time, Arabs will build governments worthy of their people, as Israel and America have done.
Maybe, Arabs will come to see Jews not as their enemies, but as their neighbors, and as their trading partners.
And maybe, just maybe, as their friends.
Here is one Arab praying that will happen.— Lee Habeeb is the vice president of content at Salem Radio Network, which syndicates Bill Bennett, Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, and Hugh Hewitt. He lives in Oxford, Miss., with his wife, Valerie, and daughter Reagan.© National Review Online 2012. All Rights Reserved.
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3)"I scolded ------ for posting some hateful stuff on Facebook about his interactions with Afghan kids. He has come under mortar and small arms fire each and every time he's been outside The Wire.
Anyhow, this is his response to a bunch of crap the kids have done to him and his convoy. And "terp" means interpreter.
None of us have any idea of the hell our kids are going through over there. I only hope and pray it doesn't screw ------ up.
He also has come upon NATO troops who have been killed in IED attacks. He saw the results, and said he'd have nightmares forever.
I just hope you all pray for him and his brothers and sisters in arms. This entire country, it seems, have forgotten they're even over there. "
"I have the guitar. and those kids are evil. the Taliban has a very low presence in the town. the kids do it becuase its a game to them. they steal stuff from us then on the way back they throw rocks at us. now there are other towns where the kids pull the air filters off trucks to try and make us stop so we can be ambushed. but the kids in the town that i'm talking about are just pure evil. even our terp says that they need to be taught a lesson or two the hard way. their parents go out and laugh as they do it."
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4)Obama's Political Expediency Is Hurting Our Nation
By Lauri B. Regan
As a candidate, Barack Obama's devious political machinations were one of his many character flaws available for public scrutiny yet continuously ignored. For instance, he spoke at the AIPAC Policy Conference in 2008 at which he promised the over 10,000 Jewish attendees and the Jewish people who were listening in across the world that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided." The next day, in response to Muslim outrage, he completely changed his tune, explaining that the word "undivided" was "poorly chosen." One would expect when it comes to a speech from the man who understands that his words lead to "folks faint[ing] all the time at [his] events," that man would choose those words wisely, but Obama the neophyte was given a pass.
Yet Obama, having been well-trained in oratory and community organizing, was no neophyte. That is why, while still a candidate, he found himself throwing long-term friends and advisors under the bus in order to ensure that his public persona would lead to the highest office in the land despite the fact that his personal story, which he would ensure be kept under wraps, was something quite inapposite. In just two days, we have learned from Breitbart.com that in addition to the videotape of Obama at the Rashid Khalidi dinner party that the L.A. Times refuses to release, there are at least two other videotapes that are either still being hidden or were hidden from the public by Obama's supporters and allies. The director of a play entitled The Love Song of Saul Alinsky, Pam Dickler, is reportedly sitting on a video of that play that was not only attended by Obama, but followed by his participation on stage in a panel discussion with fellow radicals. And thanks to Breitbart, we are now privy to a videotape of Obama speaking at a rally praising friend and professor Derrick Bell, known for his extremist academic advocacy of critical race theory. That video was proudly and admittedly hidden during the 2008 election by Obama campaign associate and Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree.
Unfortunately, the political machinations did not end when Obama became president and took the oath of office to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Placing his hand on the Bible apparently had little meaning to a man who never evolved from candidate to leader. And while he has certainly stepped up his actual campaigning in the past several months (he has attended more fundraisers to date [191] than any president going back to Carter), Obama has never once put the country ahead of his own political aspirations and ideology.
Here at home, Obama ran roughshod over the Constitution and rammed through ObamaCare as if it had been the most urgent piece of legislation to ever come before Congress. But Obama is no moron, and he and his Democrat co-conspirators ensured that its provisions (and massively detrimental implications for the country and economy) would not kick in until after the 2012 election. Thus, as Pelosi announced that "we have to pass the bill in order to find out what is in it," Obama hoped that no one would actually find out about the increased costs, decreased choices, and onerous and right-infringing regulations until after he had won re-election. In that regard, he thankfully failed.
More recently, Obama called the Republicans' bluff and refused to endorse the Keystone XL Pipeline despite the fact that it would almost instantaneously create 20,000 new jobs and ultimately lead to lower energy costs. Obama calculated that the costs of losing the support of the greenies (and the money that flows from the rich left-wing environmental extremists) would outweigh the negative effects of the GOP spin on the issue. And with the media in his pocket, perhaps he got that one right since the spin in the mainstream portrayed the entire event as a failed ploy by Republicans.
As the civilized world looked to U.S. leadership to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, Obama (pretending to be the strongest implementer of sanctions since sanctions were discovered) fought tooth and nail over the past three years to water down whatever Congress or the Europeans proposed. Thus, in December, under the guise of support for the Kirk-Menendez sanctions bill, Obama threatened a veto unless the bill delayed the implementation of the sanctions for six months. His plan was to delay as long as possible in the hope that any effect on oil prices would not impair his chances of re-election.
Which leads to Obama's decisions on the international stage that have been made solely based on their ability to ensure another four years of golf, vacations, private jets, servants, and most importantly, the implementation of further socialist policies and trashing of the Constitution. While candidate Obama promised to withdraw our troops from Iraq, one would have expected that a President Obama would have realized that in order to ensure long-term stability and viability of the young democracy that was being eyed by Iran, some sort of U.S. military presence was owed not only to the Iraqi people, but also to the members of the military who fought in Iraq and risked their lives, suffered injury, or lost their lives with purpose in their hearts. Obama calculated that following through with the promise that the Bush administration had made to bring freedom to the Iraqi people was not worth the backlash that he would feel from his far-left base, and he threw the Iraqi people under the bus.
Similarly, Obama stood before the world and simultaneously announced a surge in U.S. troops fighting the war in Afghanistan while declaring a drop-dead date on which he would withdraw our military in full, all with an eye to November 2012. What kind of commander-in-chief sends his soldiers into battle while giving the enemy notice to make plans for the date that the latter can retake control? Only a man who cares about himself with nary a care in the world for the lives of his countrymen would do so. Just as he did when he gave away top secret military intelligence after the killing of Osama bin Laden that led to the death of many of the Navy SEALs who completed that operation when their helicopter was shot down.
And while the list is endless, the most recent and disgustingly egregious political maneuver by the POTUS occurred this week when we learned that Obama attempted to bribe the Israeli prime minister with advanced weaponry needed to bolster the chances of Israel's success in a strike on Iran. In his meeting with Netanyahu, Obama offered to supply Israel with military equipment including bunker-busting bombs and refueling planes if Netanyahu would agree to hold off on attacking Iran...until 2013. The president of the United States has taken this country to a new low. He has officially thrown Israel under the bus; for we all know, if Obama wins a second term, during which he will no longer need the money and votes of the American people, he will turn on Israel definitively without reproach. And he will let Iran go nuclear.
Anyone old enough to remember the Bush/Kerry fight will recall the images of Bush supporters waving large flip-flops and joking about Kerry's lack of soul in making decisions. Romney is hearing that now from the left, as his positions over the years have been refined and he has matured. Barack Obama is a different animal altogether. He is flip-flopping not for political expediency or due to maturity. He is consistently single-mindedly leading the country down a very scary path of disrespect on the world stage and vulnerability here at home for political gain. He has given no indication that he cares about anything other than race-baiting, class warfare, and crony capitalism pursuant to which he takes care of his personal allies rather than America's allies, and all of which he has used as tools to ensure four more years of failed leadership. If anyone thinks things are going to change in a second term, I've got a Bridge to Nowhere to sell.
4a)
COLUMN: THE SHAMELESS
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4)Obama's Political Expediency Is Hurting Our Nation
By Lauri B. Regan
As a candidate, Barack Obama's devious political machinations were one of his many character flaws available for public scrutiny yet continuously ignored. For instance, he spoke at the AIPAC Policy Conference in 2008 at which he promised the over 10,000 Jewish attendees and the Jewish people who were listening in across the world that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel and it must remain undivided." The next day, in response to Muslim outrage, he completely changed his tune, explaining that the word "undivided" was "poorly chosen." One would expect when it comes to a speech from the man who understands that his words lead to "folks faint[ing] all the time at [his] events," that man would choose those words wisely, but Obama the neophyte was given a pass.
Yet Obama, having been well-trained in oratory and community organizing, was no neophyte. That is why, while still a candidate, he found himself throwing long-term friends and advisors under the bus in order to ensure that his public persona would lead to the highest office in the land despite the fact that his personal story, which he would ensure be kept under wraps, was something quite inapposite. In just two days, we have learned from Breitbart.com that in addition to the videotape of Obama at the Rashid Khalidi dinner party that the L.A. Times refuses to release, there are at least two other videotapes that are either still being hidden or were hidden from the public by Obama's supporters and allies. The director of a play entitled The Love Song of Saul Alinsky, Pam Dickler, is reportedly sitting on a video of that play that was not only attended by Obama, but followed by his participation on stage in a panel discussion with fellow radicals. And thanks to Breitbart, we are now privy to a videotape of Obama speaking at a rally praising friend and professor Derrick Bell, known for his extremist academic advocacy of critical race theory. That video was proudly and admittedly hidden during the 2008 election by Obama campaign associate and Harvard Law School professor Charles Ogletree.
Unfortunately, the political machinations did not end when Obama became president and took the oath of office to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Placing his hand on the Bible apparently had little meaning to a man who never evolved from candidate to leader. And while he has certainly stepped up his actual campaigning in the past several months (he has attended more fundraisers to date [191] than any president going back to Carter), Obama has never once put the country ahead of his own political aspirations and ideology.
Here at home, Obama ran roughshod over the Constitution and rammed through ObamaCare as if it had been the most urgent piece of legislation to ever come before Congress. But Obama is no moron, and he and his Democrat co-conspirators ensured that its provisions (and massively detrimental implications for the country and economy) would not kick in until after the 2012 election. Thus, as Pelosi announced that "we have to pass the bill in order to find out what is in it," Obama hoped that no one would actually find out about the increased costs, decreased choices, and onerous and right-infringing regulations until after he had won re-election. In that regard, he thankfully failed.
More recently, Obama called the Republicans' bluff and refused to endorse the Keystone XL Pipeline despite the fact that it would almost instantaneously create 20,000 new jobs and ultimately lead to lower energy costs. Obama calculated that the costs of losing the support of the greenies (and the money that flows from the rich left-wing environmental extremists) would outweigh the negative effects of the GOP spin on the issue. And with the media in his pocket, perhaps he got that one right since the spin in the mainstream portrayed the entire event as a failed ploy by Republicans.
As the civilized world looked to U.S. leadership to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, Obama (pretending to be the strongest implementer of sanctions since sanctions were discovered) fought tooth and nail over the past three years to water down whatever Congress or the Europeans proposed. Thus, in December, under the guise of support for the Kirk-Menendez sanctions bill, Obama threatened a veto unless the bill delayed the implementation of the sanctions for six months. His plan was to delay as long as possible in the hope that any effect on oil prices would not impair his chances of re-election.
Which leads to Obama's decisions on the international stage that have been made solely based on their ability to ensure another four years of golf, vacations, private jets, servants, and most importantly, the implementation of further socialist policies and trashing of the Constitution. While candidate Obama promised to withdraw our troops from Iraq, one would have expected that a President Obama would have realized that in order to ensure long-term stability and viability of the young democracy that was being eyed by Iran, some sort of U.S. military presence was owed not only to the Iraqi people, but also to the members of the military who fought in Iraq and risked their lives, suffered injury, or lost their lives with purpose in their hearts. Obama calculated that following through with the promise that the Bush administration had made to bring freedom to the Iraqi people was not worth the backlash that he would feel from his far-left base, and he threw the Iraqi people under the bus.
Similarly, Obama stood before the world and simultaneously announced a surge in U.S. troops fighting the war in Afghanistan while declaring a drop-dead date on which he would withdraw our military in full, all with an eye to November 2012. What kind of commander-in-chief sends his soldiers into battle while giving the enemy notice to make plans for the date that the latter can retake control? Only a man who cares about himself with nary a care in the world for the lives of his countrymen would do so. Just as he did when he gave away top secret military intelligence after the killing of Osama bin Laden that led to the death of many of the Navy SEALs who completed that operation when their helicopter was shot down.
And while the list is endless, the most recent and disgustingly egregious political maneuver by the POTUS occurred this week when we learned that Obama attempted to bribe the Israeli prime minister with advanced weaponry needed to bolster the chances of Israel's success in a strike on Iran. In his meeting with Netanyahu, Obama offered to supply Israel with military equipment including bunker-busting bombs and refueling planes if Netanyahu would agree to hold off on attacking Iran...until 2013. The president of the United States has taken this country to a new low. He has officially thrown Israel under the bus; for we all know, if Obama wins a second term, during which he will no longer need the money and votes of the American people, he will turn on Israel definitively without reproach. And he will let Iran go nuclear.
Anyone old enough to remember the Bush/Kerry fight will recall the images of Bush supporters waving large flip-flops and joking about Kerry's lack of soul in making decisions. Romney is hearing that now from the left, as his positions over the years have been refined and he has matured. Barack Obama is a different animal altogether. He is flip-flopping not for political expediency or due to maturity. He is consistently single-mindedly leading the country down a very scary path of disrespect on the world stage and vulnerability here at home for political gain. He has given no indication that he cares about anything other than race-baiting, class warfare, and crony capitalism pursuant to which he takes care of his personal allies rather than America's allies, and all of which he has used as tools to ensure four more years of failed leadership. If anyone thinks things are going to change in a second term, I've got a Bridge to Nowhere to sell.
4a)
COLUMN: THE SHAMELESS
OBAMA CAMPAIGN
AT-RISK PRESIDENT PANDERS TO KEY GROUPS
AP Images
While the media cluck their tongues at social conservatives and obsess over the rather boring and predictable Republican primary, can we pause for a moment to observe just how panicked President Obama seems to be about his reelection?
Obama may be leading his Republican contenders in head-to-head matchups. But the campaign will not truly begin until after the party conventions in September, which gives the GOP nominee time to recover. Obama’s approval rating is stuck below 50 percent, according to the Real Clear Politics polling average. His approval rating has been underwater in Gallup tracking since May of 2011. This is dangerous for an incumbent during the spring of a reelection year. And Obama’s approval rating in swing states is even worse. Last week’s USA Today / Gallup poll had him losing to both Romney and Santorum in the most competitive states.
Nor are the headlines likely to improve. Gas prices keep ticking up. The Iranian nuclear program continues to go forward. The Greek economy continues to go backward.
Since he lacks a significant and popular domestic achievement, the president seems to have concluded that the way to a second term is through the mobilization of key constituencies rather than a broad-based appeal to middle America. He combines these appeals with cheap gimmicks to generate publicity and deflect attention from the Republican primary. Now that his job is in trouble, the man who enthralled millions during the campaign of 2008 has been reduced to just another transactional political panderer. The gloss is off. Even the liberal Washington Post writer Dana Milbank says White House hiring practices make “a joke of the spirit of reform he promised.”
The new Obama strategy was baldly transparent during the president’s recent address to the United Auto Workers conference in Washington. The inspirational rhetoric and pleas for American unity were replaced with fiery and combative words directed at opponents of the auto bailout. A majority of voters may continue to oppose the government intervention in GM and Chrysler, but you would not know that from listening to the president. GM and Chrysler’s recent good fortune has led the Democrats to pronounce the bailout a stunning success. But, if the bailout worked so well, why does the federal government still own around 30 percent of GM? (Clearly Obama understands that the bailouts are a problem: On Thursday, the government began to reduce its stake in AIG—to the ludicrously high share of 70 percent.)
The timing of Obama’s speech to the UAW could not have been accidental. As the president was delivering his broadside against his political adversaries and rallying labor’s shock troops, Republicans held primaries in Michigan and Arizona. Again and again, the president has demonstrated an eagerness to interfere with the GOP’s moments in the spotlight. Think of the time he hastily scheduled a rebuttal to Vice President Cheney’s 2009 speech on detention and interrogation policy. Or recall his Midwest bus tour, timed to coincide with the kickoff of the Republican campaign at the Ames, Iowa, straw poll. Or remember this past Tuesday, when Obama decided that the Republicans’ Super Tuesday elections would be a good time to hold his first press conference in months.
That press conference was also illustrative of the president’s ability to pander with impunity. It was there that Obama backed off from comments he had made to the annual gathering of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) only 48 hours before. In the run-up to his speech at AIPAC, the president and his allies had struck a harsher tone against the Iranian nuclear program. He told the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, “I don’t bluff.” He told the 13,000-strong AIPAC audience, “When the chips are down, I have Israel’s back.” The message to the American Jewish community, and to all friends of Israel, was clear: I am on your side. Don’t go running to the other guys.
The message changed, however, as soon as the AIPAC attendees had returned home. In the press conference, Obama said that his words were “not a military doctrine that we were laying out for any particular military action.” His remarks, he added, were more of a commentary on the history of U.S. cooperation with Israel on security, “Just like we do with Great Britain, just like we do with Japan.” Here, too, the president was altering his words to please another crucial audience: in this case the media, who jotted down the president’s utterances without question, and were more interested in asking White House press secretary Jay Carney, “Is the president interested in this new iPad that’s coming out today?”
The cheapest shot of all has to be the president’s attempt to mobilize women voters by scaring them into thinking that the Republicans want to ban contraception. The media have been complacent—if not openly allied—with Democrats such as Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who repeatedly has accused the GOP of engaging in a Taliban-like “war against women.” Intellectual giant Mika Brzezinski, for example, has described the Obama contraception play as “brilliant.”
Forget, for a moment, that all the so-called Blunt Amendment proposed was to enshrine the conscience protections for health care coverage that already are in place. Forget also that no conservative has actually argued for the banning of contraception. What the president did in seizing upon the Rush Limbaugh controversy was cynically attempt to turn a fight over religious liberty and abortion into a fight over women’s equality. This was a naked grab to reclaim women, who he won 56 percent to 43 percent in 2008 but who then broke for the Republicans, 49 percent to 48 percent, in 2010. Moreover, it is an attempt to drive single women to the polls in the numbers they approached in 2008. And it may turn out to be effective.
There is no Democratic constituent group whom Obama hasn’t tried to buy off. The stimulus and auto policies were giveaways to labor. The alternative fuels loan program and his sacking of the Keystone XL pipeline were bait for the greens. Althoughdeportations have risen steadily under this presidency and Latin American immigration to the United States has plunged, Obama promises Hispanic voters he will fight for theDREAM Act and eventual amnesty. Millennial voters get pledges of student debt relief. In fact, the only key Democratic voting bloc Obama hasn’t singled out for giveaways and special treatment seem to be African Americans, who continue to shower Obama with more than 90 percent approval even as their economic fortunes suffer and black teenage unemployment is at 47 percent.
The irony is that Obama’s overall job approval has fared best when he reverts to the message of his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention: America is one country, united, and public policy should promote national cohesion, prosperity, and progress. When he has hit on these themes—during his Grant Park speech on Election Night 2008, during his inaugural, during his speech at the memorial for the victims of the Tucson rampage killer, during his announcement that Navy SEALs had destroyed Osama bin Laden—Americans have been reminded of what they like about him and have voiced their assent.
A sickly economy and unpopular policies, however, seem to have nudged the president into embracing a new strategy of slicing up the electorate, lavishing spoils on favored groups, and hoping to squeak by in November. This is the politics of division, not unity. His new attitude is revealing. It’s desperate. And it’s shameless.
| 4b) The 'Jewish' President Don't believe Obama when he says he has Israel's back. By BRET STEPHENS Should Israelis and pro-Israel Americans take President Obama at his word when he says—as he did at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee policy conference in Washington, D.C., on Sunday—"I have Israel's back"? No. Here is a president who fought tooth-and-nail against the very sanctions on Iran for which he now seeks to reap political credit. He inherited from the Bush administration the security assistance to Israel he now advertises as proof of his "unprecedented" commitment to the Jewish state. His defense secretary has repeatedly cast doubt on the efficacy of a U.S. military option against Iran even as the president insists it remains "on the table." His top national security advisers keep warning Israel not to attack Iran even as he claims not to "presume to tell [Israeli leaders] what is best for them." Oh, and his secretary of state answers a question from a Tunisian student about U.S. politicians courting the "Zionist lobbies" by saying that "a lot of things are said in political campaigns that should not bear a lot of attention." It seems it didn't occur to her to challenge the premise of the question. Still, if you're looking for evidence of Mr. Obama's disingenuousness when it comes to Israel, it's worth referring to what his supporters say about him. Consider Peter Beinart, the one-time Iraq War advocate who has reinvented himself as a liberal scourge of present-day Israel and mainstream Zionism. Mr. Beinart has a book coming out next month called "The Crisis of Zionism." Chapter five, on "The Jewish President," fully justifies the cover price. Mr. Beinart's case is that Mr. Obama came to his views about Israel not so much from people like his friend Rashid Khalidi or his pastor Jeremiah Wright. Instead, says Mr. Beinart, Mr. Obama got his education about Israel from a coterie of far-left Chicago Jews who "bred in Obama a specific, and subversive, vision of American Jewish identity and of the Jewish state." At the center of this coterie, Mr. Beinart explains, was a Chicago rabbi named Arnold Jacob Wolf. In 1969, Wolf staged a synagogue protest in favor of Black Panther Bobby Seale. In the early 1970s, he founded an organization that met with Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization—this being some 20 years before Arafat officially renounced terrorism. In the early 1990s, Wolf denounced the construction of the Holocaust Museum in Washington. And, in 1996, the rabbi "was one of [Mr. Obama's] earliest and most prominent supporters" when he ran for the Illinois state Senate. Wolf later described Mr. Obama's views on Israel as "on the line of Peace Now"—an organization with a long history of blaming Israel for the Arab-Israeli conflict. Mr. Obama had other Jewish mentors, too, according to Mr. Beinart. One was Bettylu Saltzman, whose father, developer Philip Klutznick, had joined Wolf in "his break with the Israeli government in the 1970s." Ms. Saltzman, writes Mr. Beinart, "still seethes with hostility toward the mainstream Jewish groups" and later became active in left-wing Jewish political groups like J Street. Among other things, it was she who "organized the rally against the Iraq War where Obama proclaimed his opposition to an American invasion." Ms. Saltzman also introduced Mr. Obama to David Axelrod, himself a longtime donor to a group called the New Israel Fund. For a flavor of the NIF's world view, a WikiLeaks cable from 2010 noted that an NIF associate director told U.S. embassy officials in Tel Aviv that "the disappearance of a Jewish state would not be the tragedy that Israelis fear since it would become more democratic." Other things that we learn about Mr. Obama's intellectual pedigree from Mr. Beinart: As a student at Columbia, he honed his interests in colonialism by studying with the late pro-Palestinian agit-Prof. Edward Said. In 2004, Mr. Obama "criticized the barrier built to separate Israel and its major settlements from the rest of the West Bank"—the "barrier" meaning the security fence that all-but eliminated the wave of suicide bombings that took 1,000 lives in Israel. We also learn that, according to one of Mr. Beinart's sources, longtime diplomat Dennis Ross was brought aboard the Obama campaign as part of what Mr. Beinart calls "Obama's inoculation strategy" to mollify Jewish voters apprehensive about the sincerity of his commitments to Israel. Not surprisingly, Mr. Ross was a marginal figure in the administration before leaving last year. In Mr. Beinart's telling, all this is evidence that Mr. Obama is in tune with the authentic views of the American Jewish community when it comes to Israel, but that he's out of step with Jewish organizational leadership. Maybe. Still, one wonders why organizations more in tune with those "real" views rarely seem to find much of a base.But the important question here isn't about American-Jewish attitudes toward Israel. It's about the president's honesty. Is he being truthful when he represents himself as a mainstream friend of Israel—or is he just holding his tongue and biding his time? On the evidence of Mr. Beinart's sympathetic book, Mr. Obama's speech at Aipac was one long exercise in political cynicism. 4c)Obama Vs. Israel: Priority No. 1? Stop Israel By CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER It's Lucy and the football, Iran-style. After ostensibly tough talk about preventing Iran from going nuclear, the Obama administration acquiesced to yet another round of talks with the mullahs. This, 14 months after the last group-of-six negotiations collapsed in Istanbul because of blatant Iranian stalling and unseriousness. Nonetheless, the new negotiations will be both without precondition and preceded by yet more talks to decide such trivialities as venue. These negotiations don't just gain time for a nuclear program about whose military intent the IAEA is issuing alarming warnings. They make it extremely difficult for Israel to do anything about it (while it still can), lest Israel be universally condemned for having aborted a diplomatic solution. If the administration were serious about achievement rather than appearance, it would have warned that this was the last chance for Iran to come clean and would have demanded a short timeline. After all, President Obama insisted on deadlines for the Iraq withdrawal, the Afghan surge and Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Why leave these crucial talks open-ended when the nuclear clock is ticking? This re-engagement comes immediately after Obama's campaign-year posturing about Iran's nukes. Sunday in front of AIPAC, he warned that "Iran's leaders should have no doubt about the resolve of the United States." This just two days after he'd said (to the Atlantic) of possible U.S. military action, "I don't bluff." Yet on Tuesday he returns to the very engagement policy that he admits had previously failed. Real Target Won't sanctions make a difference this time, however? Sanctions are indeed hurting Iran economically. But when Obama's own director of national intelligence was asked by the Senate intelligence committee whether sanctions had any effect on the course of Iran's nuclear program, the answer was simple: No. None whatsoever. Obama garnered much AIPAC applause by saying that his is not a containment policy but a prevention policy. But what has he prevented? Keeping a coalition of six together is not success. Holding talks is not success. Imposing sanctions is not success. Success is halting and reversing the program. Yet Iran is tripling its uranium output, moving enrichment facilities deep under a mountain near Qom and impeding IAEA inspections of weaponization facilities. So what is Obama's real objective? "We're trying to make the decision to attack as hard as possible for Israel," an administration official told the Washington Post in the most revealing White House admission since "leading from behind." Revealing and shocking. The world's greatest exporter of terror (according to the State Department), the systematic killer of Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, the self-declared enemy that invented "Death to America Day" is approaching nuclear capability — and the focus of U.S. policy is to prevent a democratic ally threatened with annihilation from pre-empting the threat? Indeed it is. The new open-ended negotiations with Iran fit well with this strategy of tying Israel down. As does Obama's "I have Israel's back" reassurance, designed to persuade Israel and its supporters to pull back and outsource to Obama what for Israel are life-and-death decisions. All About Re-election Yet 48 hours later, Obama tells a news conference that this phrase is just a historical reference to supporting such allies as Britain and Japan — contradicting the intended impression he'd given AIPAC that he was offering special protection to an ally under threat of physical annihilation. To AIPAC he declares that "no Israeli government can tolerate a nuclear weapon in the hands of a regime that denies the Holocaust, threatens to wipe Israel off the map, and sponsors terrorist groups committed to Israel's destruction" and affirms "Israel's sovereign right to make its own decisions ... to meet its security needs." And then he pursues policies — open-ended negotiations, deceptive promises of tough U.S. backing for Israel, boasts about the efficacy of sanctions, grave warnings about "war talk" — meant, as his own official admitted, to stop Israel from exercising precisely that sovereign right to self-protection. Yet beyond these obvious contradictions and walk-backs lies a transcendent logic: As with the Keystone pipeline delay, as with the debt-ceiling extension, as with the Afghan withdrawal schedule, Obama wants to get past Nov. 6 without any untoward action that might threaten his re-election. For Israel, however, the stakes are somewhat higher: the very existence of a vibrant nation and its 6 million Jews. The asymmetry is stark. A fair-minded observer might judge that Israel's desire to not go gently into the darkness carries higher moral urgency than the political future of one man, even if he is president of the U.S. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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