Counterpunch two days ago: Obama and NATO must surrender in Libya before it's too late!

The blog Counterpunch claims to have learned of private conversations between President Obama and Sen. John Kerry with respect to Libya.

Obama disapproves of officials using colorful language that might offend voters. But he did reportedly tell his friend who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee recently that “We have stepped into a pot of s--- and we need to get out of it!” . . . 

Counterpunch (allegedly) quotes an anonymous member of Sen. Kerry's staff:

“Both the CIA and Pentagon told our committee that green lighting NATO to bomb Libya would be really quick and not even very dirty. Now it’s become a potentially endless nightmare.”

NATO insiders have advised Congressional staffers recently that the apparent eternal US armed “coalition of the willing” cannot afford another humiliation from its point of view, given Iraq and Afghanistan, so NATO has no plans to stop the bombing until one of three events occur. Those three in order of NATO preference are: Gaddafi is killed, Gaddafi “surrenders” or Gaddafi flees Libya.

President Obama is being advised by some members of the Foreign Relations Committee among others to “just pull NATO’s god-damned plug and get this mess behind us!”

I don't  do mean to disparage Counterpunch as a source of news, but, especially in light of recent events, this story shows signs of being complete and utter bullshit.  I don't believe that President Obama and the (again anonymous) members of the Foreign Relations Committee said these things, I don't believe that the Counterpunch reporter has a source who would be privy to those discussions, and I don't believe that the canned quotes in the article accurately reflect the thinking of the parties into whose mouth Counterpunch places them.

Best of all about the piece is its timeliness.  As the rest of the world watches the Gaddafi regime collapse and celebrates the demise of the dictatorship, Counterpunch readers are told that NATO and President Obama. must surrender to Gaddafi before it's too late or they will suffer the consequences.

Perfect!  As they say, timing is everything.







Franklin Lamb: Waiting for the Endgame in Libya

Minister who prayed for Obama's death says Andy Griffith Show causes homosexuality

Pastor Steven L. Anderson of the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Tempe, Arizona has, infamously, prayed in sermons for President Obama's death and posted the videos on the internet. He has repeatedly offered his version of a fatwa, saying that killing the president would not be a crime. (Read here and here.) One of his parishioners, Christopher Broughton, then armed himself with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle to protest outside a town hall meeting at which President Obama spoke.

I took a look at Anderson's website to get a sense of who Anderson is and what he stands for. Here's an example that may say it all.

As is typical for fundamentalist Christians, Anderson hates homosexuality, but Anderson verges on obsessing about it, and his views on the subject are extreme. He literally advocates that gays should be put to death. As upsetting as this is, I didn't find it surprising; there are sadly many of his ilk among the Christian right. What I found more surprising is what he considers the cause of homosexuality. I found it funny at first, but upon reflection, troubling in its sheer madness. In an essay entitled "Television: the Leaven of the Pharisees" (read here), Pastor Anderson says that the Andy Griffith show and several other 1960s situation comedies are to blame.

Alternative lifestyles

"From the beginning, the producers of television have had an agenda. Even in the most “harmless” of shows, alternative lifestyles are being promoted. Consider, for example, “The Andy Griffith Show.” The show centers around a single parent who lives with his aunt. Admittedly, his wife supposedly died, and he is not divorced. However, we are still being desensitized to the idea of a single parent which is neither the norm nor God’s plan. The show also features a character, Gomer Pile, who is played by a man who is a homosexual in real life.

"Consider the show “The Odd Couple” from the 1960’s. Aside from sinful content, we are being exposed to an alternative lifestyle of two men living together as roommates. Genesis 2:24 tells us God’s normal plan, “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” Although neither man in the show is a homosexual, this show was obviously a forerunner of the sitcoms of today which feature homosexual characters.

"Consider “The Brady Bunch.” The show is about a widowed man and a widowed woman who have three children each. Now they are married and have six children collectively. This is an extremely rare scenario but mirrors the very common scenario of divorce and remarriage. We are subliminally being exposed to the idea of stepparents and stepchildren which is far more common in divorced situations than in the rare circumstance of young widows.

"If you can see what is wrong with the above examples from forty years ago, you probably do not need me to go into what is wrong with the themes found in today’s television programming."

It's bad enough that armed followers of this guy are roaming around outside presidential speeches, especially in light of the fact that he teaches that killing the president would be a good thing. Knowing that this guy has written that Mayberry RFD was a modern Sodom and Gomorrah at first made me laugh and roll my eyes. But after reflecting on the fact that someone so obviously insane has followers who are willing to act on his words to threaten the president with violence, I'm not sure that this is very funny. Anderson and his followers are a dangerous cult. The absurdity of his beliefs only brings that into sharper focus.




Christopher Broughton with assault rifle outside presidential appearance.


Christopher Broughton and Pastor Steven L. Anderson

Howard Dean to be HHS Secretary?

A great idea.

Sen. Harkin Backs Dean For HHS Secretary

The idea of nominating Howard Dean to head up the Department of Health and Human Services has the backing of at least one prominent national Democrat.

Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, who endorsed Dean's presidential campaign in 2004 and is rumored to be in the HHS running himself, applauded the idea of the former DNC header taking over the cabinet post vacated by Tom Daschle.

"I think that would be a very good move," Harkin told the Huffington Post. "He brings all the background and experience. He's very strong on prevention and wellness, which I'm very strong on. I think he'd make an outstanding secretary of HHS."

Asked if he had spoken to White House on the matter, Harkin demurred: "I'm not going to get into that," he said after a pause.

Dean's hopes of taking over HHS -- he would, those who know him say, take the job if offered -- is, at this point, not a campaign. The former Vermont Governor has and will remain mum on the notion because, as he himself admitted, the surest way to not be chosen is to actively pine for a post. In progressive circles, however, supporters of Dean insist that he is best suited for the job, having managed health care in Vermont and served as a doctor himself.

Whether this endorsement helps or hurts is a topic of debate. The conventional wisdom seems to be that Dean's frosty relationship with White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel will be the main impediment to his ending up at HHS. Others are concerned that a major netroots movement to appoint Dean will actually turn the White House off the notion. They don't want it to seem like they are "bending to the demands of the left," as one Democrat put it -- not because they aren't concerned with progressive priorities, but because the choice will be criticized as an effort in political pacification.

I'm frankly skeptical that the pragmatist Emanuel would put dislike of Dean ahead of what's in the interest of furthering the Obama administration's agenda.  The idea that Emanuel's personal conflict with Dean, stemming from their conflicting strategies in the 2006 Congressional race, might sidetrack a good nomination makes no sense.   If that angle of the story is true, and if the Obama administration wants to preach bipartisanship, they might start by putting an end to counterproductive grudges within the Democratic Party.

More serious an impediment to Dean's nomination to HHS might be concern that it would be spun as a move to the left by the Republicans and the news media.  I can just hear the Fox News crowd screaming "socialism" with wild-eyed expressions, and the CNN commentators thoughtfully intoning "partisanship".   Obama shows signs of wanting to placate the right and their media sounding board with centrist nominations and talk of compromise.  I don't know how Dean would fit into that strategy, but, frankly, that strategy is being overused.  Dean is hardly a leftist, although he, like Obama, is sometimes portrayed as such.  President Obama should choose the person best able to establish, articulate and implement the best policy.  If the Republicans choose to attack Dean without concern for the real world implications, let their strategy be exhibit one in President Obama's argument against partisanship and for pragmatism.  It's time to ask for bipartisanship to be reciprocated.

Obama Moves to Reverse Bush Labor Policies

President Obama: "You cannot have a strong middle class without a strong labor movement."

from the New York Times:

The orders he signed, which union officials say will undo Bush administration policies that tilted toward employers, would require federal contractors to offer jobs to current workers when contracts change, and would make it more difficult for federal contractors to discourage union activities.

In addition, Mr. Biden said the first meeting of the previously announced task force “to bring together those Cabinet members who have the greatest impact on the well-being of the middle class” would be Feb. 27 in Philadelphia. The task force will look at issues as diverse as health care and college opportunities, Mr. Biden said, and will focus on “restoring the balance in the workplace.”

The task force will be led by Jared Bernstein, a prominent liberal economist who has been writing a study on the impact of Mr. Obama’s stimulus plan. The focus of the first meeting will be “green jobs, those jobs that pay well, can’t be outsourced and will help us move toward a cleaner, more self-sufficient energy future,” Mr. Biden said.

Future monthly meetings will be held across the country to discuss the mundane but essential concerns of working people like child care, workplace safety and retirement security, the vice president said. The administration has set up a Web site, AStrongMiddleClass.gov, that Mr. Biden said would tell people what their government was doing and invite them to share their thoughts.

read the rest . . .

Illinois shul marks its own bit of civil rights history

from the Chicago Tribune:  Highland Park synagogue marks its own bit of civil rights history (By Robert Channick)

In the summer of 1966, three years after delivering his "I Have A Dream" speech, Rev. Martin Luther King spoke to several hundred congregants in the sanctuary of a Highland Park synagogue. 

Barely a footnote in the civil rights movement, King's visit continues to resonate at Congregation Solel, which for the first time will commemorate the unlikely event with a special service Friday, three days before Martin Luther King Day. 

"I believe that the presence of Dr. King in our sanctuary 42 years ago was a significant benchmark in our history as a congregation," said Michael H. Ebner, 66, a longtime congregant and retired Lake Forest College history professor who organized the commemoration. "That event ... should not be forgotten." 

Formed in 1957 as an offshoot of the venerable KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation in Hyde Park, Solel inherited a tradition of social justice, a mission that its founding rabbi, the late Arnold Jacob Wolf, would take to new heights during the turbulent '60s. From marching with King in Selma, Ala., in 1965 to protesting the Vietnam War in Washington, Wolf led congregants to the front lines of the civil rights movement.

When King came to Illinois in 1966 to organize the Chicago Freedom Movement—a campaign for fair housing in the inner city—he found a receptive audience for his message at Solel, a congregation of about 400 families which started its own initiative to foster diversity in the suburbs. 

Sponsored by the North Shore Fellowship of Rabbis, King was invited to speak on June 30. 

Beyond omnipresent concerns over King's safety, the event was not without its controversy, according to Ebner. 

The John Birch Society, a traditionally conservative political organization that opposed parts of the civil rights movement, was irate over King's visit to Highland Park, Ebner said.

Congregants, on the other hand, were enthused, according to Gail Goldstein, a longtime Highland Park resident who was one of about 600 people that packed the sanctuary on a Thursday night to hear King's speech. 

"If there were people that weren't happy about it, they didn't make their voices heard," said Goldstein, 71. 

"Certainly he got a rousing response from the audience that was there."

(Hat tip: History News Network)

Rest in peace Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf.  

from the New York Times:

Rabbi Arnold Jacob Wolf, a nationally prominent Reform rabbi known for his progressive, sometimes provocative public stances, including opposition to the Vietnam War, a speech at Yale accusing the university of a history of anti-Semitism and early political support for his neighbor Barack Obama, died last Tuesday in Chicago. He was 84.

Enlarge This Image

Arnold Jacob Wolf in 1994.

The apparent cause was a heart attack, his son Jonathan said.

At his death, Rabbi Wolf was rabbi emeritus of KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation in Chicago, where he had served as rabbi from 1980 until his retirement in 2000. The synagogue, the oldest in Illinois, is in the Hyde Park neighborhood, directly across the street from the Obamas’ home.

Throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, Rabbi Wolf was a highly visible advocate for Mr. Obama to Jews nationwide. In a letter Mr. Obama wrote to Rabbi Wolf’s family on Friday, which the family made available to a reporter, the president-elect said:

“My conversations with him were always lively. You knew that if he disagreed with you, he would let you know in no uncertain terms — especially if he thought you were overlooking the moral dimensions of an issue, or rationalizing your own failure to live up to the highest moral principles. But he did it with kindness, and often with a smile or a laugh to let you know that even though you were just plain wrong, and had no idea what you were talking about, he still loved you.”

Rabbi Wolf was a founding editor of Sh’ma, a magazine of Jewish social thought published 10 times a year. He wrote several books, most recently “Unfinished Rabbi: Selected Writings of Arnold Jacob Wolf,” published in 1998 by Ivan R. Dee.

Reviewing “Unfinished Rabbi,” Publishers Weekly said, “The volume presents a fascinating chronicle through writing of one of the great Jewish voices of the 20th century.”

Arnold Jacob Wolf was born in Chicago on March 19, 1924. His mother was a social worker; his father, a tailor, died when Arnold was 7. For several years, starting when he was about 10, Arnold acted in national radio dramas broadcast from Chicago on the Mutual Broadcasting System.

After receiving an associate’s degree from the University of Chicago, Arnold Wolf earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from the University of Cincinnati in 1945. He received his ordination from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati in 1948 and later served as a Navy chaplain with United States occupation forces in Japan.

In choosing his vocation, Rabbi Wolf had been greatly influenced by an uncle and a great-uncle, both Reform rabbis. (The great-uncle was the leader of the KAM congregation, a precursor of KAM Isaiah Israel. Founded in 1847, KAM took its name — an acronym for the Hebrew phrase “Kehilath Anshe Ma’arav,” “Congregation of the People of the West” — in tribute to its frontier origins.)

“I became more traditional theologically than my family and more radical politically,” Rabbi Wolf told The Chicago Tribune last year. “I like that combination.”

In 1957, Rabbi Wolf became the first full-time rabbi of Congregation Solel, a Reform synagogue near Chicago. Guest speakers there over the years included the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and the Chicago Seven, the seven defendants charged with inciting to riot and other offenses stemming from protests at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

In 1965, the rabbi marched in Alabama with the civil rights leader John Lewis. Two years later, he led a group of congregants to Washington to lobby against the Vietnam War.

Starting in the early 1960s, Congregation Solel conducted an annual weekend of Holocaust remembrance, among the first synagogues in the country to do so.

In 1973, Rabbi Wolf helped found Breira, an organization of progressive American Jews that advocated a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The organization, whose name means “alternative” in Hebrew, was a target of frequent, bitter public attacks by American Zionists. It disbanded in 1977.

Beginning in 1972, Rabbi Wolf spent eight years at Yale as a chaplain and the director of the university’s chapter of the Hillel Foundation, the Jewish student organization. In 1980, when he was preparing to leave Yale and return to Chicago, he delivered a blistering Yom Kippur sermon in which he charged the university with a “long and dishonorable history of anti-Semitism” and accused its administration of “callousness” toward the needs of Jewish students and faculty members. The sermon, and the university’s subsequent denial of Rabbi Wolf’s accusations, attracted wide public attention.

Rabbi Wolf’s first marriage, to Margery Steiner, ended in divorce, as did his second, to Lois Blumberg. He is survived by his third wife, the former Grace Weiner; two sons from his first marriage, Jonathan and Benjamin; four stepdaughters, Sara Berger, Justine Henning, Sarah-Anne Schumann and Dara Henning; and 10 grandchildren.

Even in retirement, Rabbi Wolf was a familiar presence in the news. Last year, for instance, he was the subject of newspaper articles in Chicago and around the nation, though for a far less controversial reason than usual. At 83, Rabbi Wolf was having his bar mitzvah, 70 years behind schedule. (“In those days, Reform Jews didn’t do it,” he told The Chicago Sun-Times.) He was a little nervous, he confessed, about having to chant Torah in public.

This year, Rabbi Wolf was in the news again, for having looked all but clairvoyant in 1996, when he backed a young Chicagoan running for the Illinois Senate.

“I said to him, ‘Mr. Obama, someday you will be vice president of the United States,’ ” Rabbi Wolf told The Jerusalem Post in October. “And he said, ‘Why vice president?’ and laughed.”

from the Jews for Obama blog: "My neighbor Barack" by Arnold Jacob Wolf:

Not everyone can claim to be the neighbor of a Presidential candidate – I can, though, because I am.

Barack Obama’s Chicago home is across the street from KAM Isaiah Israel, the Hyde Park synagogue at which I’ve served for 27 years. He spoke to our congregation as an Illinois state senator; more recently, his Secret Service agents have made use of our, shall we say, facilities.

But it’s not neighborly instinct that’s led me to support the Obama candidacy: I support Barack Obama because he stands for what I believe, what our tradition demands.

We sometimes forget, but an integral part of that tradition is dialogue and a willingness to disagree. Certainly many who call me their rabbi have taken political positions far from mine – just as Barack Obama’s opinions have differed from those of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

The candidate recently gave a speech which made abundantly clear that he and Wright often disagree. Obama condemned Wright’s “incendiary language,” and “views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but… that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation.”

Of course, race is only one issue on which Wright has stepped beyond the bounds of civil discourse. He’s frequently made statements regarding Israel and the Jewish community that I find troubling. But to limit our understanding of Obama to the ill-conceived comments of the man who once led his church is dishonest and self-defeating.

Obama’s strong positions on poverty and the climate, his early and consistent opposition to the Iraq War, his commitment to ending the Darfur genocide – all these speak directly to Jewish concerns. If we’re sidetracked by Wright’s words, we’ll be working against these interests. After all, a preacher speaks to a congregation, not for the congregation.

And still many remain concerned that Obama isn’t committed to Israel. Some want him to fall in line behind the intransigent, conservative thinking that has silenced Jewish debate on Israeli policy, and enabled the Bush Administration’s criminal neglect of the diplomatic process.

Clearly, though, anyone who thinks Obama waffles on Israel hasn’t been paying attention. In 2007, he spoke to AIPAC about “a clear and strong commitment to the security of Israel”; today, his website states clearly that America’s “first and incontrovertible commitment in the Middle East must be to the security of Israel.”

For my part, I’ve sometimes found Obama too cautious on Israel. He, like all our politicians, knows he mustn’t stray too far from the conventional line, and that can be disappointing. But unlike anyone else on the stump, Obama has also made it clear that he’ll broaden the dialogue. He knows what peace entails.

Speaking recently before a Jewish audience in Cleveland, Obama did the unthinkable – he challenged the room. He talked about the need to ask “difficult questions” on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict: “I sat down with the head of Israeli security forces,” he said “and his view of the Palestinians was incredibly nuanced…. There’s good and there’s bad, and he was willing to say sometimes we make mistakes… and if we’re just pressing down on these folks constantly, without giving them some prospects for hope, that’s not good for our security.”

Yet, in spite of all of Obama’s strengths, there’s another truth we’ve been loathe to admit: Among some American Jews,  race plays a key role in the hesitation to support the Obama candidacy. We’ve forgotten that Black and Jewish America once shared a common vision; in the civil rights era, I and many in our community stood shoulder to shoulder with the giants of our generation, demanding freedom for all Americans.

Obama himself doesn’t share our amnesia, however. “I would not be sitting here,” he said in Cleveland, “if it were not for a whole host of Jewish Americans.”  That was literal truth, but not everyone remembers it.

I’ve worked with Obama for more than a decade, as has my son, a lawyer who represents children and people with disabilities. He has admired Obama’s dedication and skill as he worked on issues affecting our most vulnerable citizens.

Obama is no anti-Semite. He is not anti-Israel. He is one of our own, the one figure on the political scene who remembers our past, and has a real vision for repairing our present.

Barack Obama is brilliant and open-hearted; he is wiser and more thoughtful than his former minister. He offers what America, Israel, and the Jewish community need: a US President willing to ask hard questions, and grapple with difficult answers.

I am very proud to be his neighbor. I hope someday to visit him in the White House.

Krugman to Obama: Think big

from Joseph Lazzaro at BloggingStocks:

New York Times (NYSE: NYT) columnist and Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman argues, in so many words, that, indeed, the United States must go back, to get to the future.

Krugman's advice for President-elect Barack Obama? Think big. Contrary to selected, conservative arguments about President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, the reason the New Deal had limited, short-term success was the fact that FDR's economic policies were too cautious, he said.

The New Deal: new life

The New Deal's long-term success and achievements, including the structural changes to the U.S. economy (including Social Security and bank deposit insurance), have proved to be both durable and essential, most economists, including Krugman, agree.

Hence, President-elect Obama should think big from the get-go, Krugman says, and avoid the mistaken belief that 'government spending made the Great Depression worse,' and Obama should move forward with a large fiscal stimulus to put people back to work, for work that needs to be done in these United States.

Further, Krugman doesn't bring author Amity Shlaes up, but she's one who argues, incorrectly in the view of yours truly, that the federal government's intervention prolonged the Great Depression. Briefly, in Shlaes' interpretation, the downturn of the 1930s was a pull-back following the Roaring 20s that the market would have corrected, had the federal government not intervened.

Shlaes' take on the Great Depression is as flawed an analysis of economic policy as one will find. Had the New Deal not intervened, the Depression would have been longer. Further, the problem, as Krugman noted, with the early New Deal years was not that the government had intervened, but that government spending was not big enough.

When government spending did increase to large levels, the Depression ended, Krugman notes, and the proof of that -- the evidence that philosophically and empirically refutes Shlaes' absurd thesis -- is the increased U.S. Government spending for World War II. When government spending increased to a large amount at the start of and throughout World War II, the U.S. economy boomed, and expanded, and became more dynamic, and diverse, and sophisticated, with an enormous increase in the nation's productive capacity - - to the point where the United States economy became the strongest economy on the face of the earth.

All because of government spending, Krugman states, adding that he hopes President-elect Obama is listening.

Fiscal Policy / Economic Analysis: Likewise, yours truly hopes President-elect Obama is listening, as well.

Take a look at Paul Krugman refuting George Will's advocacy of Shlaes' misinterpretation here:

Happy Days Are Here Again!

I can't find the Lucky Thompson version from his album on Prestige, so here's a classic:




and another one:



FOR THE ORIGINAL VERSION CHECK OUT THIS...

Martin Indyk declares his support for Obama ... in Israel

from Haaretz: On visit, ex-U.S. envoy Martin Indyk makes case for Obama to Israeli public

Former U.S. Ambassador Martin Indyk has taken the opportunity to declare to the Israeli public his support for U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama.

Indyk, who was born to a Jewish family in England but grew up primarily in Australia, has made a career of Middle East diplomacy and support for Israel. Among other entries on an impressive resume, he has worked at AIPAC, founded the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and served two stints as U.S. envoy to Israel.

On a visit last week to Israel to mark the 10-year anniversary of the Peres Center for Peace, he spoke directly to widespread Israeli fears that an Obama White House would be less friendly than an administration run by his rival, John McCain.

Dennis Ross on Israel and Obama

Dennis Ross speaking at a shul in Florida on what the Bush administration has not done for Israel, and what Obama will do.

Colin Powell endorses Obama for presidency

General Colin Powell has given a thoughtful, well-reasoned endorsement to Barack Obama's presidential candidacy. An excerpt from his statement on Meet the Press this morning is embedded below:

Amir Taheri in NY Post: Jesse Jackson claims Obama will tilt U.S. policy against Israel

A grain of salt warning is not sufficient for this story. Maybe a boulder of salt is required. Amir Taheri has been accused of falsifying stories for political reasons on several occasions. (Read here and here.) Shaul Bakhash (professor of Persian Studies at George Mason University) reviewing Taheri's book Nest of Spies in the New Republic, found that many of its footnotes referred to non-existent documents, i.e. they were deliberately falsified. Taheri's previous "reporting" included an invented claim that Iranian Jews were being forced to wear yellow stripes reminiscent of the yellow stars that Nazis forced on Jews -- a claim that was taken seriously and entered the debate over U.S. foreign policy until it was debunked.

Most recently, Amir Taheri was the author of a disputed story (also in the Post) claiming that Obama was secretly working behind the scenes with Iraqi back channels to delay the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq (read here). This story was promoted by the likes of Melanie Phillips who wrote of it in a typical state of selective distress "(y)et more disturbing evidence of Barack Obama’s patent unsuitability for high office has dropped like a stone having briefly surfaced in the mainstream media" (read here), and repeated as true by Sarah Palin (read here). Palin must know how to judge accuracy in news because, as she told Katie Couric, when it comes to newspapers and magazines, she "read(s) most of 'em / all of 'em" (view here). What Phillips and Palin fail to address is the fact that Obama's alleged contact, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, denies this ever happened or that he even talked to Taheri, and Taheri's other source seems a bit iffy on whether the discussion he overheard concerned the Status of Forces agreement or a Strategic Framework Agreement (read here and here). Taheri's source appears to be playing a dangerous game of telephone.

So Taheri is clearly not a reliable reporter, just a sometimes reliable, sometimes unreliable, source who has repeatedly evidenced a vested interest in distorting stories for political reasons. In order to repeat what he reports as news requires another confirming source. If anyone knows of a second, confirming source, feel free to post it to the comments below. In the meantime, I give the possibility of this story being accurate even odds at best. My sole reason for repeating it is to point out the absurd lengths the anti-Obama smear artists are going to, and (Melanie Phillips statement to the contrary notwithstanding) how their biased and/or false reporting reaches the mainstream media and helps distort our political discourse.

With that lengthy proviso in mind: Taheri, writing in Rupert Murdoch's New York Post, says that Jesse Jackson has told a conference of the World Policy Forum meeting in Evian that Obama is planning to tilt U.S. foreign policy against Israel. He allegedly went on to accuse "Zionists" of controlling the U.S. If Jackson truly said this, I put as much stock in Jackson's view of Obama's intentions with respect to Israel as I do with respect to Jackson's other views about Israel: not much. I also can't help but recall the last time Jackson made the news by latching onto Obama's fame. For reasons known only to himself (most likely a need for for attention), he called for Obama to be given a form of radical involuntary surgery usually done by lynch mobs, not doctors. That joking threat is the sort of verbal weapon used on school playgrounds by bullies, not by reasonable adults who claim to be your friends.

Now another story concerning Jackson's view of Obama is spreading through the Republican blogosphere. Republicans are anxiously looking for ways to cast Obama as dangerous in general and anti-Israel in particular. They may choose to promote Jackson's (alleged) statement as an accurate view of Obama. But choosing to believe Jesse Jackson, or for that matter Amir Taheri, about this merely because it's convenient is no excuse. To be frank, neither man's opinion is worth a hill of beans.

Now can someone confirm Taheri's story, or will it permanently reside in the netherworld of purported news from reporters of dubious reliability?

from the New York Post: REV. JESSE JACKSON PREDICTS CHANGE IN U.S. FOREIGN POLICY WITH OBAMA, by Amir Taheri

Prepare for a new America: That's the message that the Rev. Jesse Jackson conveyed to participants in the first World Policy Forum, held at this French lakeside resort last week.

He promised "fundamental changes" in US foreign policy - saying America must "heal wounds" it has caused to other nations, revive its alliances and apologize for the "arrogance of the Bush administration."

The most important change would occur in the Middle East, where "decades of putting Israel's interests first" would end.

Jackson believes that, although "Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades" remain strong, they'll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House.

"Obama is about change," Jackson told me in a wide-ranging conversation. "And the change that Obama promises is not limited to what we do in America itself. It is a change of the way America looks at the world and its place in it."

UPDATE 10/16/2008:

Jesse Jackson has issued what must be considered a non-denial denial of this story. (Read here.) He condemns Taheri for reporting on his statement but does not deny making it. That as good as confirms the story's truth. I apologize for doubting Amir Taheri's reporting on this. I had no idea that Jesse Jackson was giving such frank exclusive interviews to conservative columnists. I stand by what I wrote about Taheri's earlier questinable reporting.

By the way, does this remind anyone else of Jackson's condemnation of the Washington Post reporter Milton Coleman for reporting Jackson's childish, bigoted reference to Jews as "Hymies" and New York as "Hymietown"? (Read here.) His statements about Barack Obama, Israel and Zionism were similarly reckless, childish and bigoted and his condemnation of Taheri for reporting about this were similarly ill-advised.

And for the Republicans attempting to capitalize on Jackson's meaningless ravings: Obama has utterly disavowed Jackson's comments and stated unequivocally that he Jackson is in no way privy to any information about Obama's positions beyond what is available in the media. Obama's national security spokeswoman, Wendy Morigi, said Obama has an "unshakable commitment to Israel's security." She went on to say:

"Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. is not an adviser to the Obama campaign and is therefore in no position to interpret or share Barack Obama's views on Israel and foreign policy. As he has made clear throughout his career and throughout this campaign, Barack Obama has a fundamental commitment to a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, and he is advised by people like Dennis Ross, Daniel Kurtzer, Rep. Robert Wexler, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Senator Joe Biden who share that commitment."

For his part, Jackson has admitted that he "has never had a conversation with Sen. Obama about Israel or the Middle East." His statement was based on nothing and consisted of his own distorted, wishful thinking. Anyone among the Republicans who chooses to believe Jesse Jackson about this subject has to explain how Jackson could be wrong about everything else he says about Israel, but somehow is a reliable source about this.

Did McCain "pal around with terrorists"?

The accusation that Barack Obama "pals around with terrorists", promoted by John McCain, is a gross McCarthyite smear: classic guilt by association cynically using the very real terrorist threat to tarnish the reputation of patriotic Americans. Maybe those who level such charges should look into their own associations with a more critical eye before casting the first stone.

from the Huffington Post: Carl Bernstein: Ayers and the McCain-G. Gordon Liddy Symbiosis

Does John McCain "pal around with terrorists?"

Certainly McCain's continuing "association" and relationship with the convicted Watergate burglar and domestic terrorist G. Gordon Liddy might suggest that is the case, if we are to apply the standards drawn by the McCain campaign.

In 1998, Liddy gave a fundraiser in his Scottsdale, Arizona home for McCain's senatorial re-election campaign -- the two posed for photographs together; and as recently as May, 2007, as a presidential candidate, McCain was a guest on Liddy's syndicated radio show. Inexplicably, McCain heaped praise on his host's values. During the segment, McCain said he was "proud" of Liddy, and praised Liddy's "adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great." From the program:

LIDDY: Your experience in the Hanoi Hilton is remarkable. I mean, I put in five years in a prison [for masterminding the Watergate burglary, and associated crimes], but it was here in the United States, and they didn't torture - the only torture that I had was being forced to listen to rap music from time to time.

McCAIN: Well, you know, I'm proud of you. I'm proud of your family. I'm proud to know your son, Tom, who's a great and wonderful guy. And it's always a pleasure for me to come on your program, Gordon. And congratulations on your continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great.

Which of Liddy's "principles and philosophies" was McCain referring to? Liddy's advocacy of break-ins? Firebombings? Assassinations? Kidnappings? Taking target practice with figures nicknamed Bill and Hillary?

During the same period that Bill Ayers was a member of the Weather Underground, Gordon Liddy was making plans to firebomb a Washington think tank, assassinate a prominent journalist, undertake the Watergate burglary, break into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, and kidnap anti-war protesters at the 1972 Republican convention.

Re: Liddy's "continued success and adherence to the principles and philosophies that keep our nation great:" Did McCain mean to include Liddy's instructions to listeners of his radio show in 1994 (around the time Ayres and Obama were on a board together discussing education programs and other plots) on how to shoot Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms agents (aim for the head)?

If ATF agents attempt to curtail a citizen's gun ownership, Liddy counseled, "Well, if the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests."

More recently, Liddy explained making the Clintons objects of shooting practice: "I did relate that on the 4th of July of last year, when I and my family and some friends were out firing away at a properly-constructed rifle range and we ran out of targets, and so we - I drew some stick figure targets and I thought we ought to give them names. So I named them Bill and Hillary, thought it might improve my aim. It didn't. My aim is good anyway. Now, having said that, I accept no responsibility for somebody shooting up the White House."

McCain's strong praise of Liddy stands in stark contrast to Obama's condemnation of Ayers. Does McCain stand by his praise of Liddy's "philosophy" (whatever that is) or has he renounced his ties to this domestic terrorist? Don't hold your breath if you're waiting for him to address this.

Of course, none of this is ulitimately that important. What I, and apparently a majority of voters, really want is for John McCain to focus not on Ayers or Liddy, but on the issues. If McCain chooses to do this, he helps himself and the nation. Now more than ever we need to have a thoughtfully framed debate. McCain must stop clouding the issues with smears.

Dennis Ross endorses Obama

from the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles: Why I support Barack Obama | by Dennis Ross

It is highly unusual for me to be speaking out politically.

I have worked for Republican and Democratic presidents alike. I was a political appointee during the Reagan administration, serving on the National Security Council staff in the White House. I held a senior position in the

State Department during George H. W. Bush's presidency. And, I was Bill Clinton's Middle East peace negotiator -- also a senior appointee position.

I have been largely nonpartisan, living the ideal that politics stopped at the water's edge, and foreign policy should somehow be above politics. So why am I now speaking out and calling on others to support Sen. Barack Obama?

Put simply, because the stakes are so high. For one thing, the financial meltdown has huge implications for our place in the world. We cannot be strong internationally if we are weak at home, with an economy in crisis. Our next president must understand the global economy and financial markets -- and be able to inspire confidence at home and abroad. But he must do so at a time when our standing in the world has, at least in my memory, never been lower.

While we must never rely on anyone else to do for us what we must do for ourselves in national security, there are multiple threats today that we cannot resolve without the cooperation of others. In fact, when it comes to preventing the worst weapons from falling into the worst hands or defeating apocalyptic terror groups or coping with global health challenges or stopping global warming or avoiding an international depression, we cannot do everything on our own. We need others internationally to accept our objectives and be prepared to join their means to ours.

When I was with Obama in Berlin and more than 200,000 people turned out in the heart of Europe to wave American flags, this was an extraordinary development. It reminded us that an American leader who is admired can lead not only our country but also make it easier for others to follow our lead. And, when I look at the Middle East -- where we face our greatest threats today -- we need others to follow our lead in stopping Iran from going nuclear and discrediting radical Islamists.

Today, we are in trouble in the Middle East. Everywhere we look -- whether in the Gulf, Iraq, Lebanon or Gaza and the West Bank -- we see Iran challenging American interests and allies. Iran uses coercion and intimidation -- using groups like Hezbollah and Hamas -- to weaken existing regimes and to employ terror. It is Iran that arms these groups and threatens Israel on a daily basis.

Consider what has happened to Israel's strategic position during the course of the Bush administration. In 2001, Iran was not a nuclear power, but it is today. It could not enrich uranium then but it does so now and has already stockpiled several-hundred kilos of low-enriched uranium -- about half of what it would need for its first nuclear bomb. The Bush policy on Iran has failed, and unless the next president can change Iranian behavior, Israel will face an existential threat. It already faces a dramatically different threat from what it faced seven years ago from both Hezbollah and Hamas.

Hezbollah now has a veto power over any decision the Lebanese government can make and possesses 40,000 rockets -- and those rockets are not only three times as many as it had only two years ago but are more accurate and have longer range than the ones that hit Israel in the summer of 2006. Hamas has taken over Gaza, creating a miniterror state there and today has over 2,000 rockets.

Israel cannot afford four more years of seeing the threats grow against it. It cannot afford four more years of U.S. policies that are tough rhetorically but soft practically. It cannot afford four more years of America being on the sidelines diplomatically.

When I was in Israel a few weeks ago, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Sheikh Hamid of Qatar were all visiting Damascus, and Israelis asked me who was there watching out for Israel's interests? Similarly, who was there to watch out for Israel's interests when Qatar brokered the understanding that gave Hezbollah a veto over any Lebanese decision after the fighting in May? Israel can surely watch out for its own interests in the indirect negotiations that Turkey is mediating between Israel and Syria, but will Turkey be as concerned for Israel's interests as America would be?

It should come as no surprise that when America sits on the sidelines in the Middle East, it creates a diplomatic vacuum, and others invariably fill it. Since the Bush administration would not engage Iran, the Europeans have taken the lead on the diplomacy. While their efforts have been serious and genuine, it is clear that they have not generated the pressure that America in the lead might have produced -- and absent that pressure and absent the Iranians being forced to make a choice, Iran will not change its behavior.

I was with Obama in Israel and in Europe, and I saw how he focused on the urgency of the Iranian threat. I saw how he used his discussions in Israel to remind the European leaders that Israelis are justified in seeing Iran with nuclear weapons as an existential threat -- and that for Israel's sake and our own we must put far more pressure on Iran if we are to stop it from going nuclear.

Obama understands that weak sticks and weak carrots -- the current policy -- can't work. We need strong sticks to concentrate the Iranian mind on what they stand to lose, and we need strong carrots, conveyed directly, to show the Iranians they have something to gain by giving up their nuclear weapon pursuit. And, if in the end diplomacy fails, the fact that we engaged directly and Iran was unwilling to alter its behavior creates a very different context for tougher options.

Engaging without illusions might be one way to describe how diplomacy would be conducted in an Obama administration. Just like with Iran, he would engage on Arab-Israeli peace. Not because he knows it will produce peace, but because he again understands the consequences of disengagement. Who gained when the Bush administration walked away from peace making for more than six years and then in its last years pursued it incompetently? Hamas, because like all radical Islamists, they gain when there is hopelessness and frustration. Who lost? Those in the Arab and Palestinian world who favor a two-state solution but need the possibility of peace to make their case and to have the political space to build their authority.

It is my Middle Eastern hat and my attachment to Israel that ultimately inspires my support for Obama. I saw first hand his appreciation for Israel's predicament, its needs and his instinctive and emotional commitment to the relationship. But more than this, I know he understands that neither Israel nor America can afford four more years of Iran and the radical Islamists gaining strategic leverage in the Middle East. Slogans won't prevent that. A fixation on Iraq won't prevent that. But a leader who understands how to use all the elements of American power, revitalize that power and influence and get others to follow us in order to ensure we win the battle for hearts and minds will be able to do so.

In this election, it is clear to me that Obama is that leader.



Dennis Ross served as President Bill Clinton's Middle East negotiator and President George H.W. Bush's head of policy planning in the State Department. He gives advice to the Barack Obama presidential campaign and recently accompanied Sen. Obama on his trip to the Middle East and Europe.

Juan Cole defends Ahmadinejad, condemns Obama's denunciation of his anti-Semitic U.N. speech

As I recently posted, Barack Obama has strongly condemned the bigotry of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's statement to the U.N. and called for increased pressure on Iran to thwart their developing nuclear weapons (read here).

Ahmadinejad said the following to the U.N. General Assembly:

"A small but deceitful number of people called Zionists ... dominat(e) an important portion of the financial and monetary centers ... (in) a deceitful, complex and furtive manner."

Obama said this in response (read here):

"I strongly condemn President Ahmadinejad's outrageous remarks at the United Nations, and am disappointed that he had a platform to air his hateful and anti-Semitic views. The threat from Iran's nuclear program is grave. Now is the time for Americans to unite on behalf of the strong sanctions that are needed to increase pressure on the Iranian regime.

"Once again, I call upon Senator McCain to join me in supporting a bipartisan bill to increase pressure on the Iranian regime by allowing states and private companies to divest from companies doing business in Iran. The security of our ally Israel is too important to play partisan politics, and it is deeply disappointing that Senator McCain and a few of his allies in Congress feel otherwise."

Now Juan Cole has written a lengthy column for Salon in which he condemns Obama's condemnation while entirely glossing over Ahmadinejad's outrageous bigotry. To Cole, it's as if it never happened.

from Salon:Obama goes over the top in bashing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

"Sen. Barack Obama responded with outrage to the remarks made Tuesday by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad before the United Nations General Assembly, expressing regret that the quirky little president was even allowed to speak."

--cut

"In his speech, Ahmadinejad said "the American empire ... is reaching the end of the road" and accused the U.N. Security Council of allowing "Zionist murders" because of "pressure from a few bullying powers." Obama issued a statement saying, "I strongly condemn President Ahmadinejad's outrageous remarks at the United Nations, and am disappointed that he had a platform to air his hateful and anti-Semitic views." He added, "The threat from Iran's nuclear program is grave." Obama then called on his rival in the presidential race, Sen. John McCain, "to join me in supporting a bipartisan bill to increase pressure on the Iranian regime by allowing states and private companies to divest from companies doing business in Iran." He slammed McCain, saying that the senator was playing partisan politics by declining to join Obama in this divestment campaign.

"In the heat of the campaign, Obama surely overreached himself in appearing to advocate barring leaders of member states from addressing the United Nations because their views are obnoxious to Americans. He also fell into the trap of declining to make a distinction between anti-Zionist views and anti-Semitic ones."

Cole has swallowed whole Ahmadinejad's substition of the word "Zionist" for "Jew" in the context of a classic anti-Jewish stereotype: Jewish control of international finance. Moreover, Cole says that he doubts that Ahmadinejad has any ill intentions for Jews because he hasn't killed them in Iran.

"If Ahmadinejad wanted to launch a second Holocaust, would he not begin at home?"

So Cole is satisfied that Ahmadinejad is just a quirky guy who means no harm to Jews. The problem as he sees it is that bad guys like Barack Obama just don't understand Ahmadinejad like Cole does. After all, all Ahmadinejad wants to do is wipe out the state of Israel. But according to Cole, that's really no big deal, and people who do think it's a big deal are playing the anti-Semitism card. That kind of person just won't accept any criticism of Israel, and they will unfairly destroy the reputation of anyone who opposes them.

Cole says that Ahmadinejad merely supports what Cole calls the "vanishing of the regime" and replacing it with "a single democratically elected state in Israel and Palestine". Cole goes on to say:

Committed Zionists, that is to say, Jewish nationalists, who believe that Israel must remain a Jewish-majority state, often see the advocacy of a one-state solution (in which Israeli Jews might be reduced to a simple majority or even only a plurality of the population) as a dire threat to the Jewish people. They are also known to smear anyone who demurs from their rigid conception of nationalism as an anti-Semite or even a terrorist. However, neither their conviction that any criticism of Israel must be prohibited, nor their insistence on a state dominated by a single ethnicity, nor their often unpleasant tactics of the destruction of reputations should stand in the way of Americans seeking an unblinkered understanding of contemporary Iran and pursuing American interests in regard to relations with Tehran.

Wow.

Cole is very "understanding" of Ahmadinejad. He seems to think of him as a fellow misunderstood victim of Zionist smears.

Ed Koch backs Obama, calls Palin "scary'"

from Politico.com: Ben Smith's Blog: Koch backs Obama, calls Palin 'scary'

Former New York Mayor Ed Koch, who endorsed and worked for George W. Bush in 2004, is endorsing Obama today, NY1 first reported.

I asked Koch just now what prompted the move.

"The designation of Palin to be vice president," he said. "She's scary."

He said he was alarmed by the report that she'd triggered a conflict with the local librarian in Wasilla, Alaska by inquiring about the possibility of banning books.

"Any time someone goes to the library and says, 'I want to ban books,' and the librarian says 'no,' and she threatens to fire them -- that's scary," he said.

(Palin at the time said she was just inquiring about the library's policy on banning books, with no aim of actually banning any. "It was a rhetorical quesiton -- nothing more," the McCain-Palin campaign said in a memo yesterday. And no books were banned, the town says.)

In an endorsement statement, Koch wrote that "the issue for me is who will best protect and defend America" and that both parties were strong on terrorism.

I have concluded that the country is safer in the hands of Barack Obama, leader of the Democratic Party and protector of the philosophy of that party. Protecting and defending the U.S. means more than defending us from foreign attacks. It includes defending the public with respect to their civil rights, civil liberties and other needs, e.g., national health insurance, the right of abortion, the continuation of Social Security, gay rights, other rights of privacy, fair progressive taxation and a host of other needs and rights.

If the vice president were ever called on to lead the country, there is no question in my mind that the experience and demonstrated judgment of Joe Biden is superior to that of Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin is a plucky, exciting candidate, but when her record is examined, she fails miserably with respect to her views on the domestic issues that are so important to the people of the U.S., and to me. Frankly, it would scare me if she were to succeed John McCain in the presidency.

Koch said he'd visited six states for Bush in 2004, primarily Florida, but also several others. ("Why they sent me to Iowa, I don't know.") He said he'd be happy to campaign for Obama "if they ask me to."

Koch also said:

One foreign policy issue that particularly concerned me in 2004 was the security of Israel. I thought in 2004 that issue was better left to President George W. Bush, and I believe I was right. President Bush understood the need to support the security of Israel and did so. I did not feel that way about Senator John Kerry.

That is not an issue in this election. Both parties and their candidates have made clear, before and during this election campaign their understanding of the need to support Israel and oppose acts of terrorism waged against it by Hamas and other Muslim supporters of terrorism.

Lieberman calls Obama "Baruch" and himself Obama’s mentor

from the Los Angeles Jewish Journal: VIDEO:Lieberman calls Obama ‘Baruch’ and himself Obama’s mentor:



“As far as I’m concerned [Barack Obama] is a ‘Baruch,’ which means a blessing. He is a blessing to the United States Senate, to America, and to our shared hopes for better, safer tomorrows for all our families. The gifts that God has given to Barack Obama are as enormous as his future is unlimited. As his mentor, as his colleague, as his friend, I look forward to helping him reach to the stars and realize not just the dreams he has for himself, but the dreams we all have for him and our blessed country.”