Obama and the eclipse of reason

John West

These Hadassah women are not homeomorphic with the continuum of American Jews, among whom there are many Republicans. The trouble is the menu from which voters must chose this time around is particularly unappetizing. McCain and Obama are like two drunks holding each other up as they stagger home from the pub; each is made plausible only by the utter implausibility of the other. In any case, there's at least an even chance Olmert and his gang will themselves dismantle Israel before the Obamanable Snowman gets his paws on it.

Mladen Andrijasevic

It is important to analyze how any supporter of Obama could have come up with the New Yorker cartoon. To the creators of the cartoon any connection of the satirized points in the cartoon with reality was so remote and preposterous that they never thought it may backfire. Had they had a firm grasp of the facts about Obama and his background they would have never done it. Like a needle in a magnetic field or a ball in a gravitational one the New Yorker swung to the nearest point of equilibrium

ndm

Melanie Phillips writes:

-- But it is nevertheless astonishing that American Jews are so blinded by hatred of the Republicans that they are prepared to ignore the fact that Obama speaks out of two sides of his mouth over Israel; ignore the fact that every single one of his foreign policy advisers is hostile to Israel; ignore the fact that he would appease the genocidal fanatics of Tehran; and not only ignore the fact that for twenty years his spiritual adviser was a man who supports the Islamist antisemite Louis Farrakhan but regard it as definitely ‘off-limits’ even to mention it.

Melanie Phillips must have been sleeping with Rip Van Winkle if she still does not understand why Americans, Jews or Gentiles, have problems with the Republican Party. American Jews, for perfectly valid reasons, have historically favored the Democratic Party. Given the manifest failures of both Conservatism and the Republican Party over the last few years it should not be a surprise therefore that many American Jews continue to support the Democratic Party and a candidate universally recognized as exceptionally able by everyone except a few loonies.

There are enormous differences in policy and political strategy between Obama and McCain - and certainly more than enough differences to ensure that the impact on the United States of these policies and strategies should be the primary, if not the only, concern of any voter. Consequently, the idea that American Jews should put Melanie Phillips' "loyalty" to Israel ahead of their own loyalty to the United States should be viewed with horror by any patriotic American - and, in particular, by any patriotic American Jew.

john doe

This new site may interest some readers here. There is some resistance in the Jewish community against Obama's decit.

http://www.jewsagainstobama.com/

Miranda Rose Smith

That New Yorker cover is mild as milk, compared to the anti-Israel cartoons that appear every day in newspapers all over the U.S. and Europe. I won't even mention the Arab world.

"A Time To Speak"

I can testify from long past close association with the average American Hadassah Ladies that serious thinking on any subject is well above their well-coifed heads.

There are some exceptions, of course, but not enough of them to make up an audience for a political occasion.

Now if it were a fashion show or a mahjong game . . . .

stanley Jerusalem

John West
July 15th, 2008 4:52am

"These Hadassah women are not homeomorphic with the continuum of American Jews".

Translation for those of us who have IQ's below 180 please

aussie

"Given the manifest failures of both Conservatism and the Republican Party over the last few years..."

Umm, given by who?

From where I sit Downunder (on the edge of Asia and 'the Wild') the Republicans are mostly sensible and realistic, while Dems - with the exception of the brave Joe Lieberman - are deluded egotists and very dangerous for that.

Given?

Ben-Tsiyon (ha rishon)

Would ndm make the like (and more appropriate) comments on "loyalty" in the case of Arab/Muslim citizens in the US or here! I wonder.

Harvey

There! There!

Is there some slight danger that naughty Obama may not do everything he is told to do exactly when he's told to do it?

Diddums!!!

Can't have that...

Ronnie Smith

Could I just ask, what is 'Islamist'? Do we also have 'Christianist', 'Jewishist''Scientologistist' 'Buddhistist', 'Hinduist'...?

Ben-Tsiyon (ha rishon)

Harvey, you need to work a lot harder at not being a twit !

skydog

''Barack Obama believes Jerusalem should remain the capital of Israel...''

Then Mr.Obama needs a geography lesson. Badly.

Ben-Tsiyon (ha rishon)

And skydog needs a history lesson, although since his is almost certainly a case of treasured ignorance, I doubt that he would really benefit from it !

Miranda Rose Smith

Dear Skydog: You didn't notice when Obama thought the U.S.A. had 57 states?

Byron in Wahroonga

***a candidate universally recognized as exceptionally able by everyone except a few loonies***

NDM, Gallup have the two presidential candidates tied, at 45% each:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/108376/Gallup-Daily-Obama-McCain-Tied-45.aspx

We can 'universally recognize' that your conclusions are dead wrong.

Mike

Watch and listen to Barack Obama on CNN's 'Larry King Live' to-morrow morning (European Time). Make up your own minds!

John West

Hi Stanley in Jerusalem (10:40am):

I was being cute. A homeomorphism is, essentially, a one-to-one correspondence (see any maths site for details). I meant that the Hadassah ladies aren't equivalent to the entirety of American Jewry.

Verity

Miranda Rose Smith - It got better. In another speech, he said he had visited "all 48 states and Alaska and Hawaii".

Never mind Israel; this was his own country he was talking about.

And Hawaii is his own state, where he was born.

To say "This man is dangerous" does not begin to describe this candidacy.

stanley Jerusalem

Many Thanks, John West for your clarification.
Did you know John West is a famous make of tinned pilchards in the UK?

John West

It's well to remember that the U.S. president is chosen by the states, not the so-called 'popular vote.' Usually the two conform, but not always. Thus, if Obama wins huge majorities in the Pacific Coast states, as he surely will--and particularly in California, now home to about one in eight Americans--but loses narrowly in battleground states in the heartland, like Pennsylvania and Ohio, we may see a repeat of what happened eight years ago, when the loser got a substantially larger aggregate vote than the winner. For this and other reasons, polls that purport to measure the undifferentiated bulk vote aren't worth much.

advocatus

Re Ronnie Smith: "Could I just ask, what is 'Islamist'? Do we also have . . . 'Scientologistist' 'Buddhistist'...?"

No Ronnie, we certainly don't have "Scientologistist" and "Buddhistist," just as we don't have "Islamistist." Rather, we have "Buddhist," "Scientologist"
and "Islamist."
The latter term, incidentally, was coined in a politically correct flurry of verbal ingenuity in order to separate "good" moderate Muslims (ostensibly the vast majority, though hard to say by what statistics) from the few bad apples.

g

NDM? Yeah, Mackenzie, the bitter Jew-hatin' Brit strikes again. Onward!

ndm

Ben-Tsiyon (ha rishon) writes:

-- Would ndm make the like (and more appropriate) comments on "loyalty" in the case of Arab/Muslim citizens in the US or here! I wonder.

The policy differences between the candidates is so large that no American can, with a clear conscience, base a voting decision on which candidate would be better for a foreign nation. Anyone doing so would be disloyal - be they Jewish, Arab or English.

Ann

"These Hadassah women are not homeomorphic with the continuum of American Jews"

From my personal knowledge, that is quite correct, and MP is wrong.

And don't worry about Stan. He really meant to write 18, but he has difficulty with place value.

Ann

"Anyone doing so would be disloyal"

You really, really have nil understanding of America. Do stop digging - the hole is deep enough.

Ann

Just so, Aussie. Leftoids do like to slip in those weasel words and demagogic slogans, but they mean nought. There is nothing 'given' about that tendendious statement.

Baney

Melanie, I listen to about 3hr of American Radio a night on my internet radio and I have been following Sean Hannity for 4 months through his "Stop The Radical" campaign and so I know just about every one of Obama's flip-flops. Vox pop interviews demonstrate that the poublic still doesn't know Obama except he has the image of a President because he's great at the teleprompter. Even if Obama gets the vote he still has to deal with the senate and congress who are at least 80% in favour of Israel. He would have to deal with the powerful religious lobby which is almost naturally Zionist. I don't think Obama can cut Israel and I don't think the USA can get Israel to do what it doesn't want to do. I can think of no sanction against Israel that has any possibility of working. An economic sanction will simply be bypassed. A military sanction is unthinkable and not winnable by the USA. Israel is too powerful. The Republicans haven't started their anti-Obama campaign yet. I also hear that polls are turning away from Obama. I worry and then I don't worry!

ndm

Ann writes (of me:

-- You really, really have nil understanding of America. Do stop digging - the hole is deep enough.

Really! Really?

And there I thought I was learning something when I went on my 2000-mile tour of National Parks a couple of weeks ago.

Joe Camel

I have a question that I'd very much like to see answered, please, by any U.S. voters who may be reading this blog. And I mean an objective answer, regardless of your own voting intentions. It is this:

Is the New Yorker cover, in your opinion, more likely to work in Obama's favour or against him?

Thank you.
Joe Camel

BJ

Obama's ill-judged statement about Jerusalem was appalling. As the International Court of Justice confirmed in its advisory opinion on the Separation Wall, East Jerusalem is, in international law, part of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. And as President Sarkozy recently explained will eventually be the capital of two states.

Moshebaer ben Yoseflevi

Your critique is overstated. Rev
Wright is wrong as Kahane was in
their vitriol towards perceived
enemies. I value the latter in a
narrow glimpse of what produced
such hatred & understand Wright
in that context. There are too
many ignorant, uneducated black
Americans easily manipulated to
hate "whitey" or the Jews and so
become fodder for Islamist final
solutions that suggest problems
of being & becoming human are in
jihad or shari'a. Now what about
the church of Mammon and one of
its high priests, Phil Gramm? He
seems to believe that if you are
not happy & wealthy then you are
mentally ill. Calvin & Darwin -
"winners" who are "fit" urging
the Family of Believers to keep
the "losers" out of power else
the barbarians destroy what this
priviledged class has "earned" -
Republicanism most Jews reject.

Seraph

What worries me most about Obama is his good intentions. It always brings to mind the pavement of a certain road.

skydog

Ben-Tsiyon (ha rishon)
July 15th, 2008 2:09pm
And skydog needs a history lesson, although since his is almost certainly a case of treasured ignorance, I doubt that he would really benefit from it !

I am however enjoying a state of bliss Benny! Tomorrow in Tel-Aviv eh? ;o)

Miranda Rose Smith
July 15th, 2008 2:17pm
Dear Skydog: You didn't notice when Obama thought the U.S.A. had 57 states?

Obama? Who he? :ob

Ann

A tour of national parks, eh? I suppose that is equivalent to living among educated Americans in Chicago and San Francisco ... ah, well, we'll bow to your expertise on rock formations, redwoods and political trends, all picked up during 2 weeks trotting round national parks.

Ann

"As the International Court of Justice confirmed in its advisory opinion on the Separation Wall, East Jerusalem is, in international law, part of the Occupied Palestinian Territories"

ROFL. That cangaroo 'court' was utterly ignorant on both the facts and what 'international law' says. It had no clue about the status of the Green Line, for a start.

ndm

Ann writes:

-- ROFL. That cangaroo 'court' was utterly ignorant on both the facts and what 'international law' says.

I wonder if it is possible for Ann to open her mouth without making a fool of herself. As any educated American in Chicago or San Francisco could tell her, the word is "kangaroo." The rest of her sentence is imbecilic folly.

P.S. Before Ann makes too much more of a fool of herself regarding my knowledge of "rock formations, redwoods and political trends" in America she might want to consider my placement of quotation marks round the word "kangaroo."

ndm

Spencer Ackerman writes of a new poll by J Street - the pro-peace/pro-Israel/pro-Palestine Jewish lobby - in which the American Jewish community smacks down the likes of Melanie Phillips:

Let's go down the line. Seventy-four percent of us view Bush unfavorably and 83 percent of us disapprove of his job performance. While 76 percent of the country as a whole says the U.S. is on the wrong track, an astonishing 90 percent of American Jews say the same. Only 21 percent of us approve of the Iraq war and only 29 percent think Bush is good for Israel, and those are clearly the shmucks that kissed ass in Hebrew school and snitched when the rest of us used the synagogue phone booth and cloakroom to make out or get high.

J Street's poll supports its contention that the attitudes of most of us are far, far out of whack with what this country's self-appointed Jewish leaders -- the Joe Liebermans, the AIPACs, the Sheldon Adelsons, the Commentary magazines -- say we're about and what we're actually about.

Harvey

ndm asks - I wonder if it is possible for Ann to open her mouth without making a fool of herself.

Nope.

There's something morbidly fascinating about her postings, though. Like watching a car crash.

Robert

The humiliation of Carter or Pelosi in foreign policy will be as nothing compared to the humiliation of the Ubermessiah

Ann

Wow, so I misspelled a word in a blog posting. Me bad.

OTOH, ndm and Harvey are totally ignorant about the Middle East and evidently as ignorant about the Green Line as that useless bunch of jumped-up idiots masquerading as a 'court'. As any fool should know, the Green Line was never an international border between states in any shape or form, but a ceasefire line (look up the 1949 Rhodes accords). Thus, in 1967 it ceased to exist.
Of course, some fools are bigger fools than others, and none more so than ignorant antisemites who are determined to exhibit their ignorance and stupidity by calling a post from someone who knows the facts far more than they ever will, 'imbecilic folly'. It's sad and hilarious in equal measure, but hardly new: fools calling more knowledgeable people 'imbecilic'.

American Voter

To Joe Camel: Speaking as an American, who is listed as an Independent (that means my vote and soul are up for grabs), I would say that the answer to your polite enquiry is that Obama will work his magic to ensure that that New Yorker cover will work against him. His pomposity and arrogance are matched by his stunning failure to recognize that attacking a cartoon dealing (however indirectly with Muslims) as "offensive", is going to remind a helluva lot of people of another invented cartoon outrage by Muslims. A classic example of shooting oneself in the foot while managing to stuff the other foot in one's mouth.

ndm

Ann writes:

-- OTOH, ndm and Harvey are totally ignorant about the Middle East and evidently as ignorant about the Green Line as that useless bunch of jumped-up idiots masquerading as a 'court'. As any fool should know, the Green Line was never an international border between states in any shape or form, but a ceasefire line (look up the 1949 Rhodes accords).

The International Crminal Court (ICC) defines the Green Line as follows in its < href="http://www.icj-cij.org/docket/files/131/1497.pdf">judgment (large pdf) on the so-called Separation Wal:.

-- Gravely concerned at the commencement and continuation of construction by
Israel, the occupying Power, of a wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,
including in and around East Jerusalem, which is in departure from the Armistice
Line of 1949 (Green Line) and which has involved the confiscation and destruction
of Palestinian land and resources, the disruption of the lives of thousands of
protected civilians and the de facto annexation of large areas of territory, and
underlining the unanimous opposition by the international community to the
construction of that wall,

Ann defines the Green Line as a "ceasefire line" yet criticizes as "jumped-up idiots" an ICC that defines the Green Line as an "Armistice Line." Once again, Ann proves my assertion that every time she opens her mouth she makes a fool of herself.

Ann

ndm, once again, proves what a spectacularly ignorant prat he/she/it is. The green line was a ceasefire line (1948). It was also an armistice line (1949) drawn along the ceasefire line. The point, which is way beyond his capacity to comprehend, is that this was never an international border. All the nonsense issued by this 'court' derived from this misunderstanding.

field

BJ said:

"Obama's ill-judged statement about Jerusalem was appalling. As the International Court of Justice confirmed in its advisory opinion on the Separation Wall, East Jerusalem is, in international law, part of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. And as President Sarkozy recently explained will eventually be the capital of two states."

I agree. And that will be the crux of the settlement if both sides want it. But there is no doubt in my mind that it is the Arabs that have to make the first move. They do not face an existential threat as do the Israelis. As soon as the Arabs signal peace, peace will arrive.

ndm

Ann -

If you keep this up, knowing how to spell "kangaroo" is going to come in handy.

Richard

My dear, there was a recent poll of American Jews conducted - reported in the JPost. Only 58% of Jews have said that they will definately vote Obama. The field is wider than presently thought.
I think it was probably that crowd that were unrepresentative.
Still, you are right to despise that cycnical leftist and his credulous supporters.

tonymixan

To Joe the Camel. The New Yorker cartoon has hurt the Obama mama.

Joe Camel

tonymixan, thanks for your response. So now, I suppose, we're waiting to see whether the New Yorker's McCain cover will be even more hard-hitting ("tasteless and divisive") than this one, right?

Joe Camel

. . . And my thanks to American Voter as well, with apologies for failing to mention your name in my earlier post (July 20 at 2:56 pm)

American Voter

Joe Camel: Happy to have obliged with my two cents or tuppence ha'penny! I don't think we should linger about waiting to see if the New Yorker does a scorching send-up of McCain: there is an absolute godsend in The Obama's World Tour. Word is out that he has barred all European reporters from his accompanying adulatory American msms and has announced that he shall not be answering any questions from that alien lot. The opportunities for faux pas, gaffes and banana skins are still all there, though. Trust me, this is going to be a jaw-dropper of a trip, for the hangers-on as much as for the sidelined fureners and the pundits back home.