Other Voices
What can I write about our ruler - uh - I mean president-elect that hasn't already been written? Am I worried about a catastrophic next four (and possibly more) years? You bet. I've been getting chain emails from deluded liberal Jewish relatives and friends trying to soften our fears because Obama has chosen a high profile Jew, Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff. Debbie Schlussel has an interesting profile (and another piece here) on Mr. Emanuel. The fact that somebody is Jewish is no guarantee that they are pro-Israel or even pro-Jewish. Rahm Emanuel may turn out to be Obama's "show-Jew" a term I first heard from Woody Allen years ago.Carolyn Glick, as always, gives us more to worry about in an Obama presidency, especially if like me, you think the terrorists of Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran should be fought rather than appeased.
Due in large part to media credulousness, Obama's new image as a centrist was widely accepted by the public. And it is likely that Obama owes a significant portion of his support in the American Jewish community to the campaign's success in distancing Obama from men like Brzezinski and Malley.I sent this column to a cousin who emailed me a Rahm Emanuel column. I haven't heard back from her.
But now that the campaign is over, it appears that as his critics warned, Obama's moves toward the center on issues relating to the Middle East were little more than campaign tactics to obscure his true policy preferences. Two days after his election, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius gave a sense of the direction in which Obama will likely take US foreign policy. And, apparently directed by Obama's campaign staff, Ignatius based much of his column on his belief that Obama's foreign policy views have been shaped by his "informal" advisor, Brzezinski.
Based on what Brzezinski and Obama's "official" campaign told him, Ignatius wrote that the two major issues where Obama's foreign policy is likely to diverge from Bush's right off the bat are Israel and Iran. Obama, he claimed will want to push hard to force Israel to come to an agreement with the Palestinians as soon as he comes into office. As for Iran, Obama plans to move immediately to improve US relations with the nuclear weapons building ayatollahs.
As for Malley, an aide of his told Frontpage Magazine this week that acting on Obama's instructions, Malley traveled to Cairo and Damascus after Obama's electoral victory to tell Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Assad that "the Obama administration would take into greater account Egyptian and Syrian interests."
David Warren has some non-Israel related worries about Obama and his legion of unquestioning followers.
As I have quoted in the past, let me quote again, the profound words of the late Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz, replying to the central lie in Marxism, which remains the central post-modern or post-Christian lie: "A true opium of the people is a belief in nothingness after death -- the huge solace of thinking that for our betrayals, greed, cowardice, murders, we are not going to be judged."And then there are the political cartoonists. They're going to get the final word . . . and picture.
A great danger in democratic politics comes with just this denial. We are tempted to think that just by voting for a demagogue, a charlatan -- for any politician who tells us cynically only what we want to hear -- we can change the facts of nature.
We think that we can "make the rich pay," or otherwise transfer our personal responsibilities to the Nanny State. By some mysterious "social contract," we transfer to politicians the responsibility for what we have ourselves decided. And in due course, we may punish them, for what we got wrong.
I have to keep reminding myself though; no matter what happens, we must never give up, because there is always-
Labels: Carolyn Glick, Chuck Asay, Debbie Schlussel, Jews, Michael Ramirez, Obama, Rahm Emanuel
posted by Harry @ 9:23 PM
CHALLAH AKBAR
9 Comments:
stay active make sure you representatives know your name and position.
at the dawn of the fourth year...look to the right...wait...I've seen too much Lord of the Rings lately :-)
HEY!!!
Where's MY free stuff?!!
I am not sure that ANY demographic is really looking just at the best interests of our country. It's sad.
Now we must be more diligent. I think many of the obamaites are going to be disillusioned when they realize that he can not possibly fulfill all his promises.
http://holycoast.blogspot.com/2008/11/obama-wants-to-shrink-israel-to-pre.html
Harry! Read it and tell me what ya think!!
????
Thanks!
mightmom,
My representives are, I'm sure, as good and tired of me as I am of them. They're all Democrats.
jungle mom,
That's what I was thinking too. But I have a feeling that some of them are in so deep that they will find someone else to blame for the inevitable failure of Obama's promises.
mrs. c
It won't work. Abbas is pushing for 1949 borders.
http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2008/11/abbas-warns-israel-to-withdraw-to-1949.html
Whatever the U.S. and Israel have ever offered, the P.A. answer has always been "more." The Muslim world does not want peace with Israel, they want (and have stated) that they will only settle for the destruction of Israel. That's true now and it will always be true. Our dopey leaders have blinded themselves to this reality. So, this plan won't work either, which is good, because it's merely the piecemeal destruction of Israel.
:[ I am concerned for Israel, especially since I get this sneaky ol' feeling that the Muslim world wants to destroy all the Jews as well.
OK that was unkind and not very PC but I sure get that feeling. I'm off to read your link now. Thanks, Harry!
mrs. c,
It's not always easy because the "pc police" have been given so much coercive power, but leave your pc at the door. It does more harm than good.
I trust you had a great Thanksgiving.
I had a delicious Thanksgiving. I hope yours was equally as good.
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