Comments on: Think About It

By: Gordianus

Gordianus — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 18:22:53 +0000

Rosenthal may well be right. Furthermore I don’t sense a great personal sympathy on the part of Obama for Israel or American Jews for that matter. He wants to reach some accommodation in the Middle East in order to get on to his real priorities. The Lobby, like China in the South China Sea, is now an early challenger to his authority. This will probably engender some blow back from him.

By: BarryD

BarryD — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 16:04:08 +0000

“The counter-argument, I daresay, is that this assumes that Obama is much less than accomodationist by nature. But the past thirty years have left us with no real reason to feel confident that there is any meaningful resistance to the pro-Israel bloc in either party.”

The real counter-argument, IMHO, is that the Israel Lobby casually jack-slapped a guy, which increases its credibility (not by much, but it’s still and increase).

By: jetan

jetan — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:04:20 +0000

The entire episode is so galling that it is difficult to find a silver lining. M.J. Rosenberg, however, thinks that he may have located one:
http://www.israelpolicyforum.org/blog/freeman-opponents-pyrrhic-victory

His argument, in brief, is that the “pro -Israel community” may have shot it’s bolt on opposing a relatively trivial appointment and will now havew to contend with a pissed-off Executive that will now feel free to take a much more severe line with respect to Gaza, etc.

The counter-argument, I daresay, is that this assumes that Obama is much less than accomodationist by nature. But the past thirty years have left us with no real reason to feel confident that there is any meaningful resistance to the pro-Israel bloc in either party.

By: WRW

WRW — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 14:03:36 +0000

While I disdain the much abused word “surreal”, Leon Hadar had a great link to the Weekly Standard blog in which “the editors” asserted that Freeman should be disqualified because the National Intelligence Council needs “independent thinkers”!! Hoot, hoot. This from the crowd who shouted down anyone who questioned (their now fully-discredited) dire warnings about Iraq prior to the invasion. Similar to their (admittedly, less intelligent) colleagues at National Review (including the absurd Frum, he of the “Unpatriotic Conservatives”, who is now on to other targets.)

You are quite right that, if Obama is foolish enough to engage in the sort of military misadventures of Bush and Clinton before him, we will (after everything’s fallen apart) wonder “how could everyone be so wrong”? Perhaps because no one was permitted to be right?