Bloodthirsty Liberal

We allowed her to overstay her visa for decades, turned a blind eye to her illegal contribution to her nephew’s campaign, and even gave her subsidized housing—against express regulations to the contrary. And when she got caught, we excused everything, as if her nephew himself had issued a blanket pardon.

No wonder she’s so sad:

Auntie Zeituni has written a book. It’s called “Tears of Abuse,” on account of how tough she’s had it.

Have I read it? Of course not. Have you read her nephew’s best-seller — Dreams from My Ghostwriter, I mean Father? No one has — it’s sold millions of copies, but until two weeks ago, not a single reader got far enough into it to learn that Obama was a dog-eater with “composite” girlfriends.

Anyway, I have the press release on “Tears of Abuse,” which describes Auntie Zeituni’s journey to the United States “where she faces the unthinkable; failing health and quarantined in a hospital while on vacation in a foreign country.”

Vacation? Surely she meant to say “welfare.”

“As her story unfolds she becomes a resident of (a) homeless shelter and a subject of deportation.”

How dare they! Just because she’s an illegal alien, they want to deport her.

Have they forgotten the immortal words of Marsha Coakley: “Technically it is not illegal to be illegal in Massachusetts.”

And if you don’t believe Marsha, just ask Uncle Omar, Auntie Zeituni’s brother, or half-brother, or whatever. Technically, it is also apparently not illegal to be driving drunk illegally in Massachusetts, at least if you’re an illegal alien.

“Quarantined” in a Massachusetts hospital? How many sick people around the world do you think would choose to be “quarantined” in this mecca for medical care? All of them, give or take, right? And how much, I wonder, did that set her back financially? Was she also under “house arrest” in the subsidized house she somehow received over other candidates, more legal, if not more worthy?

“‘Tears of Abuse’ reveals how this remarkable woman turns the unfathomable into triumph.”

Public housing, on the dole — what else would you call it but a triumph? The inscription at the base of the Statue of Liberty needs to be rewritten. Forget the huddled masses yearning to “breathe free.” Now the huddled masses demand to “live free.”

Speaking of “the homeless, tempest-tost,” Uncle Omar gets his driver’s license back today. I hope nobody at the registry is even thinking of slapping that $100 license-restoration fee on this proud Kenyan illegal alien assistant manager of Conti’s Liquors in Framingham. That restoration fee is for U.S. citizens only.

Howie’s right, though. Democrats don’t have the habit of reading the actual documents they favor. ObamaCare, Dreams of Barack’s Father (Wm. Ayers, author), I, Zeituni—no one actually reads them. They just feel them. You provide the abuse, we provide the tears. It’s a win-win.

In case you haven’t heard everywhere else:

Can you name the author of this quote?

“With Lolo, I learned how to eat small green chill peppers raw with dinner (plenty of rice), and, away from the dinner table, I was introduced to dog meat (tough), snake meat (tougher), and roasted grasshopper (crunchy). Like many Indonesians, Lolo followed a brand of Islam that could make room for the remnants of more ancient animist and Hindu faiths. He explained that a man took on the powers of whatever he ate: One day soon, he promised, he would bring home a piece of tiger meat for us to share.”

Yep, that’s Barack Obama, writing about his childhood with his stepfather Lolo Soetoro in Indonesia, from Chapter Two of his bestseller Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.

Were you reminded, as I was, of this exchange from Pulp Fiction?

Vincent: Want some bacon?
Jules: No man, I don’t eat pork.
Vincent: Are you Jewish?
Jules: Nah, I ain’t Jewish, I just don’t dig on swine, that’s all.
Vincent: Why not?
Jules: Pigs are filthy animals. I don’t eat filthy animals.
Vincent: Bacon tastes gooood. Pork chops taste gooood.
Jules: Hey, sewer rat may taste like pumpkin pie, but I’d never know ’cause I wouldn’t eat the filthy mother[bleeper]. Pigs sleep and root in [bleep]. That’s a filthy animal. I ain’t eat nothin’ that ain’t got sense enough to disregard its own feces.
Vincent: How about a dog? Dogs eats its own feces.
Jules: I don’t eat dog either.
Vincent: Yeah, but do you consider a dog to be a filthy animal?
Jules: I wouldn’t go so far as to call a dog filthy but they’re definitely dirty. But, a dog’s got personality. Personality goes a long way.
Vincent: Ah, so by that rationale, if a pig had a better personality, he would cease to be a filthy animal. Is that true?
Jules: Well we’d have to be talkin’ about one charming mother[bleepin'] pig. I mean he’d have to be ten times more charmin’ than that Arnold on Green Acres, you know what I’m sayin’?

Dog eats its own feces, Obama ate dog. Draw your own conclusions.

Such a novel idea!

The Obama administration is blaming Israel for the recent rise in global crude oil prices, according to a Sunday report in The World Tribune. The rise in fuel prices is deemed as harming the U.S. economy and has also hurt Obama in the polls as he seeks re-election in November.

The report cited a leading U.S. analyst, Robert Satloff, who returned from talks with Israeli officials.

Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said, according to The World Tribune, that the Israeli leadership saw Washington as attributing the higher gas prices to “Israel’s posturing” on Iran.

“They think the Iranians should be held responsible for the higher gasoline prices,” Satloff was quoted as having said.

He added that the officials told him the Obama administration was staging a campaign to undermine Israel.

“I cannot underscore how deep and visceral the [Israeli] comments of the leaking that came out of Washington were,” Satloff said, noting Israel is alarmed by what officials determined were leaks by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama of purported Israeli preparations to attack Iran.

Aggie, you and I shake our heads at the betrayal of a stalwart ally by this criminal regime currently in power. But has it ever been worse than this? They leak Israeli plans of a preemptive strike, they leak news of Israel having air bases in Azerbaijan. They are more hostile to Israel than they are to Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba, Syria, and Vanuatu combined.

It is enough to induce projectile vomiting.

If that’s okay with the Arabs, this is:

QUESTION: Is it the State Department’s position that Jerusalem is not part of Israel?

MS. NULAND: Well, you know that our position on Jerusalem has not changed. The first Media Note was issued in error without appropriate clearances. We reissued the note to make clear that Under Secretary – Acting Under Secretary for R, Kathy Stephens, will be traveling to Algiers, Doha, Amman, Tel Aviv, and Jerusalem. With regard to our Jerusalem policy, it’s a permanent status issue; it’s got to be resolved through negotiations between the parties.

QUESTION: Is it the view of the United States that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, notwithstanding the question about the Embassy, the location of the U.S. Embassy?

MS. NULAND: We are not going to prejudge the outcome of those negotiations, including the final status of Jerusalem.

QUESTION: Does that mean that you do not regard Jerusalem as the capital of Israel?

MS. NULAND: Jerusalem is a permanent status issue; it’s got to be resolved through negotiations.

QUESTION: That seems to suggest that you do not regard Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Is that correct or not?

MS. NULAND: I have just spoken to this issue –

QUESTION: No, no. But –

MS. NULAND: — and I have nothing further to say on it.

QUESTION: You’ve spoken to the issue but didn’t answer the question, and I think there’s a lot of people out there who are interested in hearing a real answer and not saying – and not trying to duck and say that this has got to be resolved by negotiations between the two sides.

MS. NULAND: That is our –

QUESTION: What is the capital of Israel?

MS. NULAND: Our policy with regard to Jerusalem is it has to be solved through negotiations. That’s all I have to say on this issue.

QUESTION: What is the capital of Israel?

MS. NULAND: Our Embassy, as you know, is located in Tel Aviv.

QUESTION: So does that mean that you regard Tel Aviv as the capital of Israel?

MS. NULAND: The issue on Jerusalem has to be settled through negotiations.

…

QUESTION: I just want to go back to – I want to clarify something.

MS. NULAND: Yeah.

QUESTION: Perhaps give you an out on your Jerusalem answer. Is it your position that all of Jerusalem is a final status issue or do you think – or is it just East Jerusalem?

MS. NULAND: Matt, I don’t have anything further to what I said 17 times on that subject. Okay?

QUESTION: All right. So hold on – so – I just want to make sure, you’re saying that all of Jerusalem, not just East Jerusalem, is a final status issue?

MS. NULAND: Matt, I don’t have anything further on Jerusalem to what I’ve already said. Please.

The reporter is being unfair. Ms. Nuland can’t redefine her boss’s (and her boss’s boss) offensive and ignorant policy toward Jerusalem.

A point made by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen:

“For more than three years, the Obama Administration has followed in the flawed footsteps of its predecessors by refusing to fully implement U.S. law and move our embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

“Now, the Administration has gone even further. A mistake on a press release is understandable, but today the Administration doubled down on its determination to treat Jerusalem as separate from Israel. Where does the Administration think Jerusalem is? On Mars?

“Legitimizing the myth that Jerusalem isn’t part of Israel undermines our ally Israel’s sovereign right to designate its own capital, and lends credibility to efforts by Palestinian leaders and extremists who continue to deny the connection of the Jewish people to their historic capital, Jerusalem.

“The Administration needs to face reality, recognize publicly that Jerusalem is the undivided capital of Israel, and fully enforce U.S. law by moving our embassy to Jerusalem.”

If Jerusalem were on Mars, the UN’s Human Rights Council would declare it an illegal occupation and a daily humiliation of the Martian people.

A blog I read from time to time, Arlene [Kushner] in Israel, twigged me to this story:

The United States ambassador to Spain recently met with a group of Muslim immigrants in one of the most Islamized neighborhoods of Barcelona to apologize for American foreign policymaking in the Middle East.

U.S. Ambassador Alan Solomont told Muslims assembled at the town hall-like meeting in the heart of Barcelona’s old city that the United States is not an “enemy of Islam” and that U.S. President Barack Obama wants to improve America’s image in the Middle East as quickly as possible by closing the “dark chapters” of the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the war in Afghanistan.

“There are things that the United States has done badly,” Solomont said at the February 28 gathering organized by a non-profit organization called the Cultural, Educational and Social Association of Pakistani Women. “But now the Obama government wants to improve relations with Muslims,” he promised.

…

The U.S. State Department — working through American embassies and consulates in Europe — has been stepping-up its efforts to establish direct contacts with largely unassimilated Muslim immigrant communities in towns and cities across Europe.

Proponents of Obama’s approach to public diplomacy — some elements of which originated with his immediate predecessor — say it is part of a “counter-radicalization” strategy which aims to prevent radical Muslims with European passports from carrying out terrorist attacks against the United States.

A key component of the strategy is to “empower” Muslims who can help build a “counter-narrative” to that of terrorists. In practice, however, Obama ideologues are crisscrossing Europe on U.S. taxpayer funded trips to “export” failed American approaches to multiculturalism, affirmative action, cultural diversity and special rights for minorities.

Further, American diplomats are repeatedly apologizing to Muslims in Europe for a multitude of real or imagined slights against Islam, and the U.S. State Department is now spending millions of dollars each year actively promoting Islam — including Islamic Sharia law — on the continent.

There’s one main problem with this approach: it’s hard to convince Moslems we’re their friends when we’re killing them. We may be justified in killing them (we are); we may observe that the Moslems we’re killing are the biggest killers of other Moslems (they are); but as the recent killings in Toulouse have reaffirmed, apologies and self-recrimination, let alone reason, do not make you popular among a radicalized ideology with which you are at war.

You may be surprised to learn that the European nations where Obama is doing this outreaching do not appreciate his meddling:

Ambassador William Eacho, an Obama campaign fundraiser turned political appointee, awarded the first prize to a group of students in the northern Austrian town of Steyr who produced a one-minute silent film promoting tolerance for Muslim women who wear Islamic face-covering veils such as burkas in public spaces.

Obama and his team may think they know what is best for Europeans, but according to recent polls, more than 70% of Austrians are in favor of a law that would ban the burka.

In Belgium, U.S. Ambassador Howard Gutman, another Obama fundraiser turned diplomat, told lawyers attending a conference in Brussels in November 2011 that Israel is to blame for Muslim anti-Semitism in Europe.

According to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronot, Gutman, who is Jewish, showed conference attendees a video of himself receiving a warm welcome at a Muslim school in Brussels, which he said proved that Muslims are not anti-Semitic. Following a barrage of criticism for rationalizing the growing problem of anti-Semitism in Europe, the U.S. Embassy in Belgium removed the evidence by uploading an amended transcript of Gutman’s remarks on its website.

In France, the U.S. Embassy in Paris co-sponsored a seminar to teach Muslims in France how they can politically organize themselves. Operatives from the Democratic Party coached 70 Muslim “diversity leaders” from disaffected Muslim-majority suburban slums known as banlieues on how to develop a communications strategy, raise funds and build a political base.

The French government — which has been trying to reverse the pernicious effects of decades of state-sponsored multiculturalism — expressed dismay at what it called “meddling.”

I’ll bet they did—especially after Toulouse.

Europeans dismissed Bush as a “cowboy”. What is Obama, but a boy? (We pause here for the requisite outrage at using a racially tinged word. I use it not in that context—obviously—but to seize the theme of his naiveté, his cluelessness.)

As Aggie reports below, we had this maggot in our custody in Afghanistan—where we were killing one brand of Moslem to save another—but handed him over to the French. Okay.

PS: The Toulouse killings were no different from the slaughter in Itamar of the Fogel family—children massacred in the name of Arab nationalism—but who besides the Israelis mourns them?

PPS: Oh, this is Smart Power! Why didn’t you say so?

The much-ballyhooed Breitbart tapes of Obama reveal less than meets the eye. Unless you don’t bother to watch, and turn your attention elsewhere.

Obama praises Harvard Law Professor Derrick Bell, who has just announced his voluntary unpaid leave of absence in protest of Harvard’s lack of tenured position for a black woman at the Law School. That Obama was able to do so without a teleprompter might just be blockbuster enough. But behind Bell’s noble chivalry there are other, less savory, beliefs.

Wikipedia cracks open the door just a bit:

Returning to Harvard in 1986, Bell staged a five-day sit-in in his office to protest the school’s failure to grant tenure to two legal scholars on staff, both of whom adhered to a movement in legal philosophy that claims legal institutions play a role in the maintenance of the ruling class’ position. The administration, not giving an inch, claimed substandard scholarship and teaching on the part of the professors as the reason for the denial of tenure, but Bell called it an unambiguous attack on ideology. Bell’s sit-in galvanized student support but sharply divided the faculty.[3]

Bell reentered the debate over hiring practices at Harvard in 1990, when he vowed to take an unpaid leave of absence until the school appointed a female of color to its tenured faculty.[4] At the time, of the law school’s 60 tenured professors, only three were black and five were women. The school had never had a black woman on the tenured staff.[3]

Students held vigils and protests in solidarity with Bell with the support of some faculty. One of these students was future U.S. president Barack Obama, who introduced Bell at a protest at Harvard Law School.[5] Critics, including some faculty members, called Bell’s methods counterproductive, and Harvard administration officials insisted they had already made enormous advances in hiring.

Not much here: lots of students support lots of causes that are far more complex—dare I say nuanced?—than they first appear. So, what’s the secret? Why would a screen shot of Obama hugging Derrick Bell be so damaging?

Care to join me?

Bell was one of the chief proponents of Critical Race Theory, a radical doctrine that holds that American legal institutions—including our civil rights laws—perpetuate white supremacy.

Bell’s ideas were not only radical, but bizarre. After leaving Harvard (he resigned in 1992), he wrote a racialist, antisemitic fictional essay titled “The Space Traders,” which Ninth Circuit judge Alex Kozinski described in the New York Times with disgust:

Imagine, if you will, that space aliens land in the United States and offer ”untold treasure” in exchange for surrendering all black citizens to them. What does white America do? It votes to accept the deal by overwhelming margins. So says the law professor Derrick Bell, who poses the question in an allegorical tale he calls ”The Space Traders.”

There is opposition, however. Jews condemn the trade as genocidal and organize the Anne Frank Committee to try to stop it. Empathy from another group that has suffered oppression? Not according to Bell. Instead, Jews worry that ”in the absence of blacks, Jews could become the scapegoats.”

Such parables pass for legal scholarship these days…

Consider the ”Space Traders” story. How does one have a meaningful dialogue with Derrick Bell? Because his thesis is utterly untestable, one quickly reaches a dead end after either accepting or rejecting his assertion that white Americans would cheerfully sell all blacks to the aliens. The story is also a poke in the eye of American Jews, particularly those who risked life and limb by actively participating in the civil rights protests of the 1960′s. Bell clearly implies that this was done out of tawdry self-interest. Perhaps most galling is Bell’s insensitivity in making the symbol of Jewish hypocrisy the little girl who perished in the Holocaust — as close to a saint as Jews have. A Jewish professor who invoked the name of Rosa Parks so derisively would be bitterly condemned — and rightly so.

The essay was not too offensive for Hollywood, however—or HBO, which turned it into a TV movie, Space Traders, in 1994 as part of a “bizarre, thought-provoking” blaxploitation trilogy, Cosmic Slop.

Bell received a writing credit for the short film…

All perfectly legal (heh) and above board in America today (and then). Then why wasn’t it above board? Why keep the literal and symbolic embrace hidden from view? Why not reveal the roots and the soul of Barack Obama—the man who later embraced Jeremiah Wright, Bill and Bernadette, Rashid, and all manner of other radicals? Why not add another name to the roster?

You don’t have to answer any of those questions.

From Obama, squat:

Q: You might not be beating the drums of war, but you did very publicly say, we’ve got Israel’s back. What does that mean?

THE PRESIDENT: What it means is, is that, historically, we have always cooperated with Israel with respect to the defense of Israel, just like we do with a whole range of other allies — just like we do with Great Britain, just like we do with Japan. And that broad statement I think is confirmed when you look at what we’ve done over the last three years on things like Iron Dome that prevents missiles from raining down on their small towns along border regions of Israel, that potentially land on schools or children or families. And we’re going to continue that unprecedented security — security commitment.

It was not a military doctrine that we were laying out for any particular military action. It was a restatement of our consistent position that the security of Israel is something I deeply care about, and that the deeds of my administration over the last three years confirms how deeply we care about it. That’s a commitment we’ve made.

Japan and Great Britain? Who, pray tell, is vowing to wipe them off the map? And does that mean we’re going to give Israel an iPod loaded with Obama’s greatest speeches?

As for Iron Dome, that is an Israeli project, in both design and funding, to which we have made only a recent contribution.

And on that front:

EXAGGERATION #2: Obama Has Committed to The Joint Missile Defense Programs—Including “Iron Dome”—That Protect Israel.

President Obama claimed:

“As a senator, I spoke to Israeli troops on the Lebanese border. I visited with families who’ve known the terror of rocket fire in Sderot. And that’s why, as president, I have provided critical funding to deploy the Iron Dome system that has intercepted rockets that might have hit homes and hospitals and schools in that town and in others. Now our assistance is expanding Israel’s defensive capabilities, so that more Israelis can live free from the fear of rockets and ballistic missiles.”

Here are the facts:

President Obama Has Undermined The Joint Missile Defense Program We Operate With Israel By Trying to Vastly Underfund It.
President Obama has consistently lowballed funding for our cooperative missile defense programs with Israel that are meant to develop and improve Israel’s capability to defend against short and medium range ballistic missiles. In FY2012, he proposed a budget of $106.1 million, which Congress recognized as wholly inadequate. Congress rejected that budget and increased it to $235.7 million. This year, President Obama has proposed an even lower budget of $99.8 million. This includes a $72.3 million reduction in funding for the Iron Dome system, from $110.5 million to $38.2 million.

Other than that, the story was accurate.

PS: Other than the military sense, “I’ve got your back” is meaningless. Words, just words.

UPDATE:

Upon landing, Prime Minister Netanyahu said, “I return from a very important visit to the US and Canada. I was received warmly, we have many courageous friends.

We are returning for Purim, and this evening we will read in the Book of Esther about those days in which Jews were not masters of their fate and could not defend themselves.

Today we are in a different world and a different era; we have a strong state and army.

The threats have not disappeared, but we can defend ourselves.

We have very many friends that stand at our side and will do so at all times.”

Sigh… a leader.

I’m not so sure Obama has Israel’s, but we know who has Obama’s:

New York Times commentator Thomas Friedman praised US President Barack Obama on Wednesday for redefining the Iranian issue as not being simply about Israel’s security, but about US national security and global security.

“The only question I have when it comes to President Obama and Israel is whether he is the most pro-Israel president in history or just one of the most,” he said.

Friedman also claimed that the US should lead the international effort against Iran adding that “America is the only country that can truly take down Iran’s nuclear program.” Friedman said that if it comes to war the US will to act to protect the global system, not just Israel.

He noted that the decision whether to attack Iran or not coincides with the US election year. “The last thing Israel or American friends of Israel — Jewish and Christian — want is to give their enemies a chance to claim that Israel is using its political clout to embroil America in a war that is not in its interest.” This could easily happen, he said, because backing for Israel today has never been more politicized.

To be fair to Obama (for a change) the bar for being most pro-Israel president is pretty low. If I had to rate presidents of my adulthood from least pro to most pro, I’d list them Carter (last by a mile), HW Bush (James Baker was awful), Reagan, Clinton (tied, more or less), and W Bush (best by a mile, with warts). I don’t know where to stick Obama in that list, but anything below first is hardly praiseworthy.

But what is Friedman talking about? (What is he ever talking about?) We just cited a poll that showed Israel’s popularity at 71% among Americans. His point is made up, fictionalized, utterly specious. Which is why he has his job, come to think of it.

He added that “money in politics has never been more important for running campaigns, and the Israel lobby — both its Jewish and evangelical Christian wings — has never been more influential, because of its ability to direct campaign contributions to supportive candidates.”

Oh, please. Not only is that shameful, it’s lazy. Just writing the words “Israel Lobby” is shorthand for shady, treasonous, protocol-ist behavior. The Israel Lobby exists, as all lobbies exist, registered and licensed, to argue a point of view. But why “has [it] never been more influential”? And what lobby doesn’t “direct campaign contributions to supportive candidates”? The World Wildlife Fund does. Should we be suspicious of whales and pandas?

What a disgraceful column. Someone should really show Friedman how to use that speech-recognition software. This is what you get when you talk out your a**.

Bret Stephens, former editor of the Jerusalem Post, considers the evidence:

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.

Bad enough. But then he digs a little deeper. Past Ayers, past Wright, even past Alinsky:

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.

That’s it, I’m convinced! (There’s a lot more besides.)

Being as objective as I can, we are being asked to believe that Obama is either the sum of his parts—those parts being the influence of Wright, Ayers, Dorn, Khalidi, Alinsky, Wolf, Said, et al—or that he isn’t. We are told that he’s a brilliant man with a loving family, who may love golf just a little too much. And all that may be true. But it’s not the whole man.

Rhetorical question, but why can’t the media present the rest of him, his wilderness years, and let us decide if we trust him or not?

Just not necessarily in the White House:

“My friends, Israel has waited patiently waited for the international community to resolve this issue. We’ve waited for diplomacy to work,” Netanyahu said.

“We’ve waited for sanctions to work,” he said. “None of us can afford to wait much longer. As prime minister of Israel, I will never let my people live in the shadow of annihilation.”

…

“The United States will always have Israel’s back when it comes to Israel’s security,” Obama said, repeating a line from the Sunday speech as Netanyahu nodded in agreement.

“I reserve all options and my policy here is not going to be one of containment; my policy is prevention of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons and, as I indicated yesterday in my speech, when I say all options are on the table, I mean it,” Obama added.

Netanyahu said he welcomed Obama’s “strong speech” on Sunday and noted that Iran considers the United States and Israel to be similar foes.
The United States will always have Israel’s back when it comes to Israel’s security

“For them, you’re the great Satan, we’re the little Satan,” Netanyahu said. “For them, we are you, and you are us. And you know something, Mr. President? At least on this last point, I think they’re right. We are you, and you are us. We’re together. … Israel and America stand together.”

How come Obama can decry too much “loose talk” of war, yet warn Iran he’s not “bluffing”, and get away with it? Oh yeah, the Democrat-Media Complex. I forgot.

I don’t know if Ahmadinejad is still in charge or hanging by his thumbs in a dungeon, but he’s got a choice between Israel’s Jericho missile:

Or America’s bunker busters:

Eeny-meeny miny-mah,
Catch an aya-toll-ah.
If he hollers good and loud,
Nuke him with a mushroom cloud!