Possibly good news -- the chances of Israel unilaterally attacking Iran may have just lessened:
According to the media reports, Netanyahu forged an agreement with opposition leader Shaul Mofaz of Kadima shortly before parliament was set to vote to disperse.
Parliament Speaker Reuven Rivlin, a veteran of Israeli politics, said he had never seen such a last-minute political upheaval. “This is good for Israel because it brings stability, he said on Army Radio as he left parliament before sunrise.
The appointment of Mofaz, a former military chief and defense minister, is significant in Israel’s standoff with Iran, as he has been a vocal critic of Israel striking Iran’s nuclear sites on its own.
In the meantime, that pesky Al-Qaeda has evidently been foiled again:
The CIA and overseas intelligence partners disrupted an al-Qaeda plot to blow up civilian aircraft using an advanced explosive device designed by the terrorist network’s affiliate in Yemen, U.S. officials said Monday. ...
U.S. officials said the FBI is examining the device — modeled on the “underwear bomb” used in an attempt to bring down a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day 2009 — to determine whether airport security systems would have detected it.
U.S. officials said the CIA and other agencies tracked the plot for about a month before moving to seize the device in recent days in the Middle East outside Yemen, where the bomb was built.
Does Obama have another foreign policy or anti-terrorism success to achieve before the November election?
As an Hebraic-American, it always gives me joy when someone points out how Jewish our President can be. Per Jeffrey Goldberg, an ardent Israel supporter who interviewed Obama on related issues last week:
When I handed him the Haggadah, President Obama, who famously stages his own seders at the White House (which is a very nice philo-Semitic thing to do, IMHO), spent a moment leafing through it and making approving noises. Then he said (as I told the Times): "Does this mean we can't use the Maxwell House Haggadah anymore?"
George W. Bush was, in his own way, a philo-Semite, but he never would have made such an M.O.T. kind of joke (see the end of this post if you're not sure what M.O.T. means). Once again, Barack Obama was riffing off the cosmic joke that he is somehow anti-Semitic, when in fact, as many people understand, he is the most Jewish president we've ever had (except for Rutherford B. Hayes). No president, not even Bill Clinton, has traveled so widely in Jewish circles, been taught by so many Jewish law professors, and had so many Jewish mentors, colleagues, and friends, and advisers as Barack Obama (though it is true that every so often he appoints a gentile to serve as White House chief of staff). And so no president, I'm guessing, would know that the Maxwell House Haggadah -- the flimsy, wine-stained, rote, anti-intellectual Haggadah you get when you buy a can of coffee at Shoprite) -- is the target, alternatively, of great derision and veneration among American Jews (at least, I'm told there are people who venerate it).
Let's hope he can bring some permanent shalom to the Middle East.
As an American Jew who visited Israel in my youth and has fond memories of when it wasn't run by the rightwing Likud Party and its coalition of further-righters, I'm appalled and saddened by the loss of life as well as the worldwide diplomatic disaster that has resulted from the bungled flotilla raid. While is appears clear that the flotilla delivering aid to Gaza in defiance of the Israeli blockade was meant as a political trap and the bloody Israeli response was surely more than they'd ever dreamed possible to advance their cause, per George Friedman:
The bid to shape global perceptions by portraying the Palestinians as victims of Israel was the first prong of a longtime two-part campaign. The second part of this campaign involved armed resistance against the Israelis. The way this resistance was carried out, from airplane hijackings to stone-throwing children to suicide bombers, interfered with the first part of the campaign, however. The Israelis could point to suicide bombings or the use of children against soldiers as symbols of Palestinian inhumanity. This in turn was used to justify conditions in Gaza. While the Palestinians had made significant inroads in placing Israel on the defensive in global public opinion, they thus consistently gave the Israelis the opportunity to turn the tables. And this is where the flotilla comes in.
The Turkish flotilla aimed to replicate the Exodus story or, more precisely, to define the global image of Israel in the same way the Zionists defined the image that they wanted to project. As with the Zionist portrayal of the situation in 1947, the Gaza situation is far more complicated than as portrayed by the Palestinians. The moral question is also far more ambiguous. But as in 1947, when the Zionist portrayal was not intended to be a scholarly analysis of the situation but a political weapon designed to define perceptions, the Turkish flotilla was not designed to carry out a moral inquest.
Instead, the flotilla was designed to achieve two ends. The first is to divide Israel and Western governments by shifting public opinion against Israel. The second is to create a political crisis inside Israel between those who feel that Israel’s increasing isolation over the Gaza issue is dangerous versus those who think any weakening of resolve is dangerous.
What I'd like to point out is that there is significant opposition to the current Gaza blockage within Israel, and protest against the violence of the past day. There's this letter signed by a group of progressive rabbis calling for an end to the siege of Gaza. There was a leftwing protest in Tel Aviv today, that -- unfortunately, again -- led to a teargas canister causing the loss of an eye from an American Jew protesting the Israeli actions. There's the progressive U.S. Jewish PAC, J Street, calling on President Obama and the U.S. to provide stronger leadership to end the overall conflict now. And there's this opinion piece in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, linking the failure of the flotilla operation to that of "Operation Cast Lead," the three-week 2006 attack on Gaza which, no matter how well intentioned in response to Hamas bombs being lobbed in Israel, left over 1000 Palestinians (and 13 Israelis) dead, many of the Gaza casualties being civilians, with many homes destroyed by Israeli forces. Per Gideon Levy in Haaretz:
Again Israel will pay a heavy diplomatic price, once which had not been considered ahead of time. Again, the Israeli propaganda machine has managed to convince only brainwashed Israelis, and once more no one asked the question: What was it for? Why were our soldiers thrown into this trap of pipes and ball bearings? What did we get out of it?
If Cast Lead was a turning point in the attitude of the world toward us, this operation is the second horror film of the apparently ongoing series. Israel proved yesterday that it learned nothing from the first movie.
Yesterday's fiasco could and should have been prevented. This flotilla should have been allowed to pass and the blockade should be brought to an end.
This should have happened a long time ago. In four years Hamas has not weakened and Gilad Shalit was not released. There was not even a sign of a gain.
And what have we instead? A country that is quickly becoming completely isolated. This is a place that turns away intellectuals, shoots peace activists, cuts off Gaza and now finds itself in an international blockade. Once more yesterday it seemed, and not for the first time, that Israel is increasingly breaking away from the mother ship, and losing touch with the world - which does not accept its actions and does not understand its motives.
If the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over again without any improvement in result, isn't it time for Israel to try another tack? I remain both hopeful and skeptical that there will be peace; hopeful due to my belief that most people just want to work hard and make a better life for themselves and their families, skeptical because of the lack of a contiguous Palestinian state boundary, lack of faith in the current Israeli government and rightward drift due to newer more fundamentalist Israelis, and trepidation that the brainwashing of Palestinian children, indeed Arab children throughout the Middle East, that Jews and Zionism are intrinsically evil -- teachings that will not go away quickly, no matter what benevolence Israel bestows.
That said, this is the kind of symbolic/real-life event that, like the ongoing ocean-killing in the Gulf of Mexico, that has the potential to turn public opinion in a positive way and lead to real statesmanship. Nothing one can bet on but, in the right hands, a teachable moment.
As a Jewish American who supports the State of Israel, I've always been against Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu and his Likud Party, especially now that it is in coalition with the Far Far Right Shas Party. It is repeatedly annoying that the U.S. appears powerless to stop Israeli settlement expansion into lands seized during wars, no matter our rhetoric and attempts to portray America as an honest broker between Israelis and Palestinians.
But maybe something is about to change.
Bibi stepped in it when his government humiliated Vice President on a peacemaking trip last week to Israel, just as some sort of "proximity negotiations" were established. Netanyahu claims he didn't know that the Shas minister(s) had approved even more new settlements in East Jerusalem, which Palestinians hope will be their future capital, but whether he did or not, he actually pissed off Biden, one of Israel's staunchest supporters for decades.
Biden responded by showing up ninety minutes late for a state dinner and twice upbraiding the Israeli government in public, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took it a step further by chewing out Bibi in a 45 minute phone call. Nice.
The upshot seems to be that this type of behavior on the part of Israel actually endangers American troops -- American lives -- overseas. This isn't just a haphazard opinion, but that of esteemed Gen. David Petraeus, per his briefing to Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Michael Mullen on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No joke.
The goal is force a rupture in the governing coalition that will make it necessary for Netanyahu to take into his government Livni's centrist Kadima Party (he has already tried to do this, but too much on his terms) and form a broad, 68-seat majority in Knesset that does not have to rely on gangsters, messianists and medievalists for votes.
Here here. There is opportunity in this fight. Yes, various Palestinian factions including Hamas have been bad actors in the past. Yes, the Palestinians are often their own worst enemies. But how long can the status quo go on? Can the Far Right in Israel really colonize their way out of this historical problem?
Of course, the flip side is true: can a contiguous Palestinian state be created and eventually live side-by-side in peace with Israel?
Who leads U.S. foreign policy? According to the Constitution, it's the Executive Branch. But if you're John McCain and Joe Lieberman, maybe you think you're in charge of it:
Government sources said the threat of the US using economic leverage - such as withholding loan guarantees - to place pressure on Israel was not raised in the one-hour conversation. US Middle East envoy George Mitchell, when asked last Wednesday in a television interview what "sticks" the US had in its arsenal against Israel, raised the notion of withholding loan guarantees, although he quickly said this was not the direction the US wanted to go in.
Lieberman, after saying that an administration official had already disavowed Mitchell's statement, said that in his opinion "any attempt to pressure Israel, to force Israel to the negotiating table by denying Israel support, will not pass the Congress of the United States. In fact, the Congress will stop any attempt to do that. I don't think we will come to that point."
McCain was equally unequivocal, saying that this type of pressure would not be helpful "and I don't agree with it."
McCain added that he was sure that the administration would make it clear in the future that this was not its policy.
I support Israel the way the progressives in Israel support their own country, in that there has to be some kind of change in entrenched approach, otherwise it will not go well for Israel in the long run. Yes, there has to be strong defense against the forces that would like to wipe it off the map, and yes, there has to be some give on the Palestinian side, but if there is only the fist (think the atrocities coming to light from the most recent Gaza invasion), there will never be peace.
Is there anyone out there on the Likud side or to the right of it that has a real concept for a future that isn't just continued threat of aggression and extinction?
If so, I'd love to hear it. Status quo for the next millennium is a pipe dream.
Is this the first fruit of Obama's Cairo speech recasting the role of the U.S. in the Middle East as well as the responsibilities of all conflicting parties?:
BEIRUT (Reuters) - A surprise victory in Lebanon by an anti-Syrian coalition against the Iranian-backed Hezbollah and its allies should be confirmed on Monday with the release of official results of the country's parliamentary election...
...The outcome was a blow to Syria and Iran, which support Hezbollah, and welcome news for the United States, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, which backs the "March 14" bloc, named after the date of a huge rally against Syria's military presence in 2005.
Hope vs. fear, bay-bee. And is this having an effect in Iran, on the upcoming Presidential election, as well?:
Reporting from Tehran -- Powerful reformists and conservatives within Iran's elite have joined forces to wage an unprecedented behind-the-scenes campaign to unseat President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, worried that he is driving the country to the brink of collapse with populist economic policies and a confrontational stance toward the West.
The prominent figures have put their considerable efforts behind the candidacy of reformist Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who they believe has the best chance of defeating the hard-line Ahmadinejad in the presidential election Friday and charting a new course for the country.
They have used the levers of government to foil attempts by Ahmadinejad to secure funds for populist giveaways and to permit freewheeling campaigning that has benefited Mousavi. State-controlled television agreed to an unheard-of series of live debates, and the powerful Council of Guardians, which thwarted the reformist wave of the late 1990s, rejected a ballot box maneuver by the president that some saw as a prelude to attempted fraud.
Some called it a realignment of Iranian domestic politics from its longtime rift between reformists and conservatives to one that pits pragmatists on both sides against radicals such as Ahmadinejad.
"Some of the supporters of Mousavi like his ideas; others don't want Ahmadinejad," said Javad Etaat, a professor of political science and a campaigner for Mousavi. "They've decided that preserving the nation is more important than preserving the government."
And why not? After all, here's the first U.S. President to have personally witnessed the effects of colonialism (read his first book, both the section where he learns about his father's downward spiral in Kenyan government work as well as his stepfather's similar trajectory after initial optimism in Indonesia). Per Andrew Sullivan on the Cairo Effect:
The Middle East is addicted to its past; Obama spoke of the need to move into the future. The Middle East is fixated on conflict and identity; Obama emphasised quotidian common interests. The Middle East loves quibbles; Obama landed slap-bang in the middle of most of them and refused to budge. And driving all of it was a critical question of tone — a measured, careful and stern message of respect and realism.
The obvious critique that this was just a set of words seems to me to miss the point. An intervention begins with words because it requires the actions of others. You don’t get an addict to go into recovery by cuffing him and throwing him into an ambulance. You talk to him and his family and speak calmly about what everyone in the room knows to be true but no one will face. So, for me, the core sentence of the speech was obvious: “It is time for us to act on what everyone knows to be true.”
Maybe everyone has been waiting for change but there's yet to be a leader who can articulate it -- until now. In Israel, post-Cairo, change no longer appears optional:
United States President Barack Obama has left Israel with no alternative but to ultimately agree to the establishment of a Palestinian state, officials in Jerusalem told Israel Radio on Saturday.
Israel will be forced to acknowledge the necessity of a future Palestinian state because there are no signs that the Obama administration will yield on this issue, a source told Israel Radio.
Government sources in Jerusalem also told Israel Radio that the quicker Israel adopts the road map for peace as the preferred diplomatic initiative, the more likely it will ward off American pressure to concede to a Palestinian state within the framework of an alternative plan that is less agreeable to Israel.
Israeli Aluf Benn, writing in the newspaper Haaretz, similarly believes rightwing Prime Minister Netanyahu will have to move quickly to get ahead of the Obama steamroller:
Benjamin Netanyahu is on the wrong side of Obama's speech, with his refusal to endorse a Palestinian state and his insistence on "natural growth" in the settlements. He might have been able to soften the blow a bit had he formed a coalition with Tzipi Livni on the basis of the two-state solution. Or if, during his White House visit, he had announced that he was embracing the road map. But that's of no importance now. Before long, Netanyahu will have to deliver a speech in response to Obama, and to declare a historic change in his ideology and policy. Until then, he'll go on hoping for a miracle that will wipe the "Cairo speech" off the agenda and make it disappear into the swirling sands of Middle East diplomacy.
Okay, let's not be Pollyanna about it. Perhaps it won't work and all good will ultimately will collapse. Just one act of violence could end it all. But if history has proven anything about progress, it is that progress requires individual vision at just the right moment, convincing leadership, and accumulative tenacity in order to succeed.
There are naysayers here and abroad. In just the comments on Sullivan's opinion piece you'll find those both internationally and from the U.S. who don't believe change in the region is possible, don't believe Obama, think it's only words and they don't matter, think the Palestinians are too commited to the destruction of Israel, think Israel is to genocidal against the Palestinians, on and on and on.
But there are also plenty of comments in support of Obama, his speech and his approach. My personal favorite:
The educated young love you Obama. We do not care what the bitter previous generation think, they will be gone soon and we will be there to continue your efforts. You are the leader we dreamt of. You inspired me to continue my career and become a barrister.
Obama's speech was not a collection of empty rhetoric. Before the entire world, he put his signature to a bunch of checks that have deadlines for being cashed. In his talks with his aides in recent weeks, a consensus has emerged that November 2010 - the date of the next congressional elections - should be the target date for realizing the two-state solution. By then, we will know how much of an impression Obama's speech made on Iran's president. Who knows: Perhaps Iranian voters will be convinced that they have before them a U.S. president who is genuinely interested in reconciliation with Islam, and will use their upcoming election to replace their current president with a more conciliatory one. By then, we will also know whom Benjamin Netanyahu is more afraid of - the U.S. president or the chairman of the Yesha Council of settlements, Benny Begin or Tzipi Livni.
I know that not all of my fellow Jews are going to agree, but I'm impressed so far with the Obama Administration line on halting Israeli settlements in the West Bank. I've been against them ever since 1970's Prime Minister Menachem Begin started them up.
I understand that my Jewish homeland is small and needs all the land it can get to help grow its population by immigration, but I also feel that those settlers are the most intractable Israelis, the ones most likely to stand in the way of a peace settlement and, yes, I blame that movement for producing the assassin who killed courageous Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, snuffing out hopes for peace in 1995. And that this assassin is considered a hero by so many of these settlers is...unsettling.
It's not going to be easy. Netanyahu thinks he can manipulate the process and the U.S. to keep peace from happening, and possibly attack Iran in the process. This is dangerous stuff, dangerous to Israel itself, per Roger Cohen in The New York Times:
Netanyahu talks a lot about the “existential threat” from Iran. The United States faces a prosaic daily threat: Many more young American men and women will die in Iraq and Afghanistan over the next several years if no Iranian breakthrough is achieved.
Obama must remind Israel of that. He should also tell Bibi that the real existential threat to Israel is not Amalek but hubris: An attack on Iran that would put the Jewish state at war with Persians as well as Arabs, undermine its core U.S. alliance, and set Tehran on a full-throttle course to a nuclear bomb with the support of some 1.2 billion Muslims.
As everyone knows, the problem is complex, and there are a huge number of factors for Obama, Israel, whatever passes for the Palestinian leadership and the Arab powers in the region to consider. But if Israel can make a three decade-long peace with its once fiercest enemy, Egypt, can't more pieces of the problem be solved?
From The New York Times, Netanyahu isn't getting the big win he expected:
Israel’s centrist Kadima Party led by Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and the more conservative Likud Party led by Benjamin Netanyahu were locked in a tight battle for leadership early Wednesday that left unclear the shape of the next Israeli government.
The close race all but guaranteed that the political jockeying to assemble a governing coalition would be intense and lengthy. And it left open the question of whether Ms. Livni, a supporter of a peace accord with the Palestinians, or the more hawkish Mr. Netanyahu would form the next government. Commentators predicted political chaos in the coming weeks. With 99 percent of the votes counted, Kadima was marginally ahead in the parliamentary elections, The Associated Press reported. But it was unclear if Kadima’s lead would survive the final count, especially with the votes of soldiers still to be counted, or if the party could muster enough political partners for a stable coalition.
I'm not a Netanyahu fan, although some believe a hard-line party is more likely to bring about peace than even a centrist party like Kadima. To the Palestinians I'm not sure it matters -- all major Israeli parties were behind the pounding of Gaza.
Clearly anticipating the start of the Obama Era on Tuesday and maybe hoping that by cooling off now they keep him as a friend, Israel has declared a unilateral ceasefire while keeping their troops stationed in Gaza. While I commend the ceasefire and understand that it made more sense for them to do it themselves rather than as the result of negotiation with Hamas, I don't hold much hope of it lasting. Hamas or some Palestinian whose family has been killed by Israeli bombing or gunfire will strike, Israel with strike back...we've all seen this dance before.
I don't have the intestinal fortitude to get into a huge discussion of Israel re-occupation of Gaza, as I have my own conflicted feelings about it. On one hand, Hamas is an Iranian-backed terrorist/political organization dedicated to the destruction of Israel, and they clearly brought this response upon themselves by firing rockets at Israeli home in violation of the previous ceasefire or perhaps to take advantage of its end. Israel, on the other hand, attacks Hamas where they have embedded themselves with regular citizens already living in degraded conditions due to the control of the border by Israel, bringing holy hell down upon many innocent people along with the more guilty.
It is in this context that Waltz with Bashir arrives with so timely a release, a view from the Israeli side that is fraught with guilt, pain, and a clear plea for the end of violence against civilians. It is the story of a former Israeli soldier (service is, of course, mandatory for all Israeli citizens with some sometimes galling exceptions) who is trying to recover his memory of events two decades earlier, when he was stationed by the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps during the incident when Ariel Sharon allowed the Lebanese Christian Phalangists, blood-crazed from the murder of their leader, Bashir, into the camps to massacre Muslim civilians -- men, women, children.
While such a soul-searching by a nation still under siege is remarkable, what makes the film even more remarkable and even unmissable is it's form. Made over the course of four years, Waltz with Bashir is an entirely new genre of film, the animated documentary:
Filmmaker Ari Folman is telling his own story, filming and rotoscoping his fellow veterans, creating a graphic novel on film that's somewhere between the very moving comic book reportage of Joe Sacco and the experimental Waking Life. Folman's vision is at times magical or humorous, but most of all it is relateable. By using the ostensibly distancing format he ends up drawing us closer, and sets us up for the tragic punchline of real footage, the kind that the most repressed memories are made of.
Here's to the candor and artistry of Folman and those like him who would seek to beat swords into ploughshares. As we stand poised on the edge of what so many around the world hope and pray is a new era, may their voices be those that are triumphant.
Israel has sent ground troops into Gaza. Two good pieces trying to explain what the hell is really going on in The New York Times and The Washington Post.
So Egypt has brokered a tentative truce between Israel and Hamas regarding Gaza. Who knows if it will hold but it is, as always, long overdue. The skinny:
• The truce takes effect at 6 a.m. Thursday (11 p.m. EDT Wednesday).
• All Gaza-Israel violence stops. After three days, Israel eases its blockade on Gaza, allowing more vital supplies in.
• A week later, Israel further eases restrictions at cargo crossings.
• In the final stage, talks are conducted about opening the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt and a prisoner exchange to free Cpl. GiladSchalit, held by Hamas-affiliated groups for two years.
Freeing the 21-year old Schalit is a very big deal, captured at 19 and held since then. Jimmy Carter, among others, helped mediate. This has been an open wound for the Israeli people for two years, the first Israeli soldier captured by Palestinian militants since 1994.
Meanwhile, the worst negotiator in America accuses a British journalist of slandering America when he brings up Guantanamo, AbuGhraib and illegal rendition in an interview.
Today was a huge day politically for the U.S. and, after the Edwards endorsement and the West Virginia primary the day before that...I just think we have a lot more coming.
But today was something special.
It started with Sen. John McCain laying out his vision, i.e. a sci-fi style prediction of what the end of his first term will look like, chock full of promises but without any explication of how he will accomplish any of it. Welcome to 2013:
This is clearly meant to be a big re-branding moment for McCain, and he deserves credit for those places where he underlines his philosophical/operational differences with Bush, but as Joe Klein says (his writing actually much improved ever since getting lambasted by the blogs and actually responding to the criticism), it's all a bit, uh, hilarious:
No doubt, John McCain's attempt to lay out the goals of his prospective presidency was a worthy and honorable effort--but there was something deeply hilarious about it as well. Take his paragraph about Iraq:
By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced. Civil war has been prevented; militias disbanded; the Iraqi Security Force is professional and competent; al Qaeda in Iraq has been defeated; and the Government of Iraq is capable of imposing its authority in every province of Iraq and defending the integrity of its borders. The United States maintains a military presence there, but a much smaller one, and it does not play a direct combat role.
And the tooth fairy will spread giggle-juice throughout the land, and the Mets will win the World Series and I will lose 20 pounds while continuing to consume vast quantities of Chinese and Italian food.
Poor Johnny. The ultimate result of his announcement on the evening headlines: stomped once again (shades of 2000) by that asshole who beat his ass back then. Bush goes to the Knesset and uses the somewhat solemn occasion of Israel's 60th Anniversary to attack Sen. Barack Obama with classic smeartalk:
President Bush used a speech to the Israeli Parliament on Thursday to liken those who would negotiate with “terrorists and radicals” to appeasers of the Nazis — a remark widely interpreted as a rebuke to Senator Barack Obama, who has advocated greater engagement with countries like Iran and Syria...
...The episode placed Mr. Bush squarely in one of the most divisive debates of the campaign to succeed him, as Republicans try to portray Mr. Obama as weak in the fight against terrorism. It also underscored what the White House has said will be an aggressive effort by Mr. Bush to use his presidential platform to influence the presidential election.
“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” Mr. Bush said, in a speech otherwise devoted to spotlighting Israel’s friendship with the United States.
Firestorm. Obama hit back, Pelosi, Kerry, Dean, Emanuel, even Sen. Hillary Clinton.
“This is bullshit. This is malarkey. This is outrageous. Outrageous for the president of the United States to go to a foreign country, sit in the Knesset … and make this kind of ridiculous statement.”
Biden has hit the same loosened up stage as Nelson Rockefeller in his later years when they couldn't hurt him anymore, like when Rocky flipped the finger back at a student who birded him during a campus speech. The fact that CNN et al had a censored word running through their crawls -- "bulls**t" -- in the context of criticizing Bush is just too sweet. It's not like we all haven't been saying it these past 8 years!
McCain, who seems like the most available guy on any campaign bus, bless him, heard about it from a reporter and agreed with Bush. Even though he's voiced having to deal with Hamas in the past. Even worse, he got it wrong on Ronald Reagan: Ronnie did negotiate with Iran.
It just minimized his whole vision thing and gave Obama the perfect opening to carry through the Fall -- now he can surely attack McCain by aligning him squarely with the current President and run against George (least popular ever) to beat John.
Ultimately, Matthew Yglesias get it right about McCain's saying that talking to our enemies somehow automatically confers a prestige onto them that actually makes a difference:
This is such a common talking point on the right that you'd think that somewhere out there you could find some kind of causal explanation of how this works. Obama takes office. The Iranians, having heard his campaign rhetoric, send a message through the Swiss or something about the possibility of arranging a summit. Our guys talk to their guys, the meeting happens, and this gives Khatami enhanced prestige in the eyes of whom? And what does this enhanced prestige allow him to do? What, in other words, are we afraid of?
So many kneejerk neoconik idiots out there who don't know the difference between talks and appeasement, even Chris Matthews is taking them down:
But if that's not enough, this is also a day where the House Republicans fell to pieces over an Iraq War funding bill, and House Judiciary Committee Democrats are preparing to have Karl Rove arrested.
But even neither of those score the biggest story of the day.
The California Supreme Court, striking down two state laws that had limited marriages to unions between a man and a woman, ruled on Thursday that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.
The 4-to-3 decision, drawing on a ruling 60 years ago that struck down a state ban on interracial marriage, would make California the second state, after Massachusetts, to allow same-sex marriages.
Right on right on. In 30 days, unless there's some sort of judicial stay, same sex couples will be able to get married like everyone else. There will be fireworks by those opposed, but the fact is that a majority of young people not only don't care, they're want to go to their gay friends' weddings.
It will likely increase tourism which is great because California has been hit with major budget shortfalls. Back when San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom legalized gay marriage, the jewelers, florists, clothing shops or wedding planners in San Francisco had a banner year.
There will likely be a bit proposition battle this fall over a proposed CA constitutional amendment once again instituting a ban, and the fight could be tight. I'm hoping my state does the right thing. Because now that gay Americans can come out of the closet and be embraced by their parents, it really means something to be able to get hitched in the eyes of society and the law. From an email sent to Andrew Sullivan:
My Beloved, Samantha, just asked me to update my Facebook page to confirm that I'm engaged to her. My mother just called for the third time this morning and choked out through her tears, "I promise this is the last time I'll call this morning, but I understand that the proper protocol is that the mother of the bride pays for the wedding." I've left a message for our minister to see if he is available in 30 days to officiate our wedding.
Read the whole email and see a photo of the engaged and their two daughters here.
And please, dear Lord, let this year be the first official year of the 21st Century.
McCain says that Hamas endorses Obama and somehow that's how he's going to beat him. Obama says McCain is losing his bearings (nice, aeronautical). McCain's guy protests that Obama is being ageist. Obama said he never said that, and anyone can lose their bearings (I mean, look at Bush and he's not yet a total geezer).
So Obama gets to slip the knife in early like he should, rise above, take a victory lap in the House of Representatives where he's treated like a rock star. Later in the day he speaks stalwartly at a celebration of the 60th Anniversary of Israeli Independence.
Hillary is out of money so she's turning up the racial tap, claiming only she can win whites, looking at some visionless Mark Penn micro-poll, no doubt. Stay classy, Rodham. She is probably just running now as an enterprise, try and earn back the $12,000,000 or so she's loaned her campaign, before the election happens and some laws kick in. She's raised $1,000,000 since Tuesday, which used to seem like a lot. Al Sharpton tells his New York Senator via NY1 interview, “The worst thing in the world is when an entertainer doesn’t know when the show is over.”
Obama matches Hillary in actual elective office-holding superdelegate endorsements. He's hitting up Edwards delegates. It turns out the margin of victory for Clinton in Indiana ended up at around a mere 1%. Obama lays down his plan to declare victory on May 20th, right after Oregon goes for him.
Obama is, I believe, pulling the trigger ju-jitsu style and making a move he's planned for a long time: running the table. He needs to go for the jugular now, albeit in the same non-personal way he's conducted his campaign. Superdelegates will no longer be afraid of her, starting now.
And what could possibly add to this burgeoning period of fun?
Nothing other than yet another Republican sex scandal, this time straight but with adultery and, best of all, the hidden out-of-wedlock child.
Adding to the juice: the twist's a former Air Force lieutenant colonel.
The rock & roll Primary has taken over the front page of every newspaper and the top of all cable news shows this past week, while the Cheney/Bush Administration has either stumbled into or attempted to fabricate a "provocation" from Iran in the very waters we are jamming with battleships right next to their country.
At the same time, El Presidente Bush is over in Israel, engaged in the kind of "shoot the moon" Mideast peace strategy his team actually belittled his predecessor, President Bill Clinton, for attempting in his last year of office. Credit where credit is due, El Presidente is actually somewhat bold in what he's saying he wants to see happen, I believe the first U.S. President to use the term "occupation" for Israel's control of the West Bank.
On the other hand, I don't believe for a second that Cheney etal don't want to bomb the hell out of Iran and leave the next President dug in with whatever they've wrought.
So with that in mind, is there maybe the possibility that Bush is in Israel not only for his peace plan, but to coordinate at the highest levels for an attack on Iran to follow...maybe under cover of the February 5th "Super Tuesday" Primary hoopla?
It'll shame me to say it if I have to, but you'll have read it here first.
I'll laud any U.S. Presidential efforts towards peace between Israeli and Palestinian factions in the Middle East, even Mister Bush's. And it's certainly better than nothing that he's got the Israeli Prime Minister and the head of the once vilified PLO agreeing to negotiate. However, like most sentient followers of Bushie behavior, I'll believe it when I see it that he's going to "devote himself to ending the six-decade conflict in the 14 months he has left in office."
Sure, he could use a Hail Mary Pass on his legacy. But he's going to have to do more than, as Keith Olbermannexplained tonight, show up for a couple of hours for a photo op, mispronounce the names of the two men leading their peoples in negotiations, and not be able to say what his actual involvement is in "devoting himself" thus far.
President Bill Clinton, as some may remember, actually led the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during the twilight of his term. This time it's really Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's show, and one imagines she's hoping to make this her place in the history books, rather than failing to prevent the 9/11 attacks as National Security Advisor even though the memo was staring her in the face, lying to Congress, and enabling the Presidents Cheney and Bush to misdirect our war against al-Qaeda by invading Iraq and allowing the destruction of that country from the inside.
There is, of course, the question of a negotiation without including Hamas, which actually won the last democratic election in the Palestinian territories. 49 countries involved but no seat for them -- undoubtedly the Administration is hoping to marginalize them enough that they don't win any more elections over there.
All that being said, I can only hope that some sort of effective peace comes out of this. With various parts of the globe regionalizing economic power, it will hopefully be in the best interest of the regional Mideast countries to come together, somehow, someday.
So the U.S. starts building a wall in Baghdad and Iraq's Prime Minister, Nuri al-Maliki, tells us to stop.
It got me thinking about the other walls springing up, like the Israeli West Bank wall, about which I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, it's a scar across the country. On the other hand, less homicide/suicide bombings. At least Banksy had some fun with it.
And it certainly makes me think of our new wall, the U.S./Mexico border wall grande. I don't personally feel affected by the tide of illegal immigration, but I understand that there are American citizens living close to the border who do, so I don't know if it's a good or bad idea. I do know that the first $1.2 billion is only the down payment on what is currently expected to cost as much as $7 billion, and you know how those Bush cronies tend to lowball.
I'm wondering if this is a trend America favors as the extreme expression of property protection. After all, gated communities are on the rise, as yet another consumer commodity previous available only to the wealthy, now being marketed successfully to the American middle class.
Maybe it's all about population growth and having to fence ourselves in and everyone else out, like some sort of Soylent Green riot in the making. But no matter the reasons, it's an eerie trend, and one can imagine it leading to a death spiral of cross-cultural community.
Funny that this is the same day I read about my favorite 60-year old, indescribably young and breaking down walls just like he did in 1969.
