The lede from today’s New York Times:
AMMAN, Jordan  For what feels like forever, Israelis and their Arab neighbors have been hopelessly deadlocked on how to resolve the Palestinian crisis. But there is one point they may now agree on: If elected president, Senator Barack Obama will not fundamentally recalibrate America’s relationship with Israel, or the Arab world.
One gent is downright denouncable:
“He’s like a chameleon,†said Walid Ghalib, 50, as he bought meat from a butcher in the Jabal al Nasr neighborhood of east Amman. “One day he is with the Palestinian cause. One day he’s with Israel. We have a saying here: ‘What’s better, a black dog or a white dog?’ It’s all the same. For us, nothing will change.â€Â
Andrew Sullivan told us something quite different:
What does he offer? First and foremost: his face. Think of it as the most effective potential re-branding of the United States since Reagan. Such a re-branding is not trivialâ€â€it’s central to an effective war strategy.
Sullivan appears to be vacationing this week and thus will be able to duck being mugged by reality. Wherever he is, however, he is likely gobsmacked and heartsick.
Update: Via JammieWearingFool, we find Der Speigel reporting:
In the run-up to Barack Obama’s visit to Berlin, leading foreign and security policy experts for Germany’s center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) are warning the United States presidential candidate against making any far-reaching demands on the Germans.
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“Obama should only ask of us what we are able to deliver,” Niels Annen — a member of Germany’s federal parliament, with the left wing of the SPD — told SPIEGEL ONLINE Monday. “We won’t increase our number of troops.”
If Obamamania cannot move German socialists, could it be that the sheer awesomeness of Obama’s visage might not cause the Iranian theocracy to abandon its nuclear program? Could it be that the iranians would like to lure us into an open-ended, cost-free, high-level negotiating process? I imagine Sullivan to be doubly-gobsmacked.
Update x2: Via HotAir, David Aaronovitch writes a column for the Times of London titled “Eventually, we will all hate Obama too: What makes America such an indispensable power is precisely what makes anti-Americanism inevitable.” Sullivan, also a columnist for the Times, is likely triply-gobsmacked.
Comment by shea versnatch on 7/22 @ 8:06 am #
WALID ABU GRAB UR RACIST!
Comment by Dan Collins on 7/22 @ 8:36 am #
He’s like a black dog chameleon.
Comment by mojo on 7/22 @ 8:46 am #
Meh. The Iraqis have seen smiling shit-weasels before, they know the drill: smile back, wave and hope he doesn’t talk to YOU…
Comment by Neo on 7/22 @ 8:47 am #
This sure makes that Obama’s legislation, for a fixed date withdrawal from Iraq by March 31, 2008, look pretty darn stupid .. but it’s so yesterday.
Obama now seems to be sounding like McCain .. didn’t Clinton do about the same sort of thing back in 1992 ? Taking their isssues by agreeing with them.
The pivot on Iraq is now complete, with tht bastion of anti-war, the netroots busily defending Obama.
Comment by Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) on 7/22 @ 9:01 am #
- How to have a press conference that isn’t a press conference:
“Make sure theres no mic available for those pansy reporters. If you slip up O! will have your nuts for lunch!”
- Obama stated that “….the Israeli’s and Palestinians need to learn to get along side by side in a spirit of conciliation and mutual support…”
- Hey, I don’t know about you, but that kind of clear headed vision and studied statemanship does it for me. I’m totally sold I tells yah.
Comment by Bender Bending Rodriguez on 7/22 @ 9:20 am #
The Black Chameleon would’ve been a great 1960’s superhero name.
Comment by Obstreperous Infidel on 7/22 @ 9:21 am #
“He’s like a chameleon,†said Walid Ghalib, 50, as he bought meat from a butcher in the Jabal al Nasr neighborhood of east Amman. “One day he is with the Palestinian cause. One day he’s with Israel. We have a saying here: ‘What’s better, a black dog or a white dog?’ It’s all the same. For us, nothing will change.â€Â
Is that black on black hate? Or at least brown on brown? Good for Walid.
David Aaronovitch makes a great point. Unfortunately, ingratitude and envy are too often inseparable.
Comment by Ouroboros on 7/22 @ 9:22 am #
““One day he is with the Palestinian cause. One day he’s with Israel. ”
Amazing how the middle easterners so easily see through O!’s scam and a couple hundred million Americans cant..
Comment by JD on 7/22 @ 9:28 am #
Obstreperous & Ouroboros – Those are 2 of my favorite online monikers. Plus, you tend to be good thinkers. If you acted like Cuminmymouthapalooza, not so much.
Comment by MayBee on 7/22 @ 9:28 am #
The Obamaphenomenon isn’t about the people that are actually listening to what he says.
I do love the Der Speiegel artticle, though, because I don’t think it has ever occurred to Obama that you cannot please everyone, not even all of your allies.
Look too friendly toward Britain, and France gets upset. Be too nice to China, and Japan gets angry. Be too nice to South Korea, and South Koreans are in the streets protesting.
Comment by kelly on 7/22 @ 10:10 am #
I hate him now.
Comment by Mr. Pink on 7/22 @ 10:14 am #
Somehow I doubt that a nice case of ODS will be considered teh Patriotic. There may be HOPE though if you can get it classified as “speaking truth to power” but I doubt anyone will let you get away with that. You racist.
Comment by kelly on 7/22 @ 11:20 am #
I only hate the white half.
Comment by TheGeezer on 7/22 @ 11:34 am #
BIGOT!!
Comment by Sdferr on 7/22 @ 11:48 am #
Y’know, I’m tired of hearing backhoes referred to as bulldozers. Let’s call a spade a spade howzabout?
Comment by Karl on 7/22 @ 11:50 am #
Sdferr,
Who are you calling a “ho?”
Comment by baldilocks on 7/22 @ 12:06 pm #
Heck, even Walid the terrorist…er…Jordanian citizen can see O. for what he is.
/denounce
Comment by Sdferr on 7/22 @ 12:07 pm #
Oh, Y’know, them backs over there. They’s all hos, ever damn one of em.
Comment by shea versnatch on 7/22 @ 1:05 pm #
Sullivan wouldn’t be gobsmacked; he’d be Danza-slapped.
Comment by Spies, Brigands, and Pirates on 7/22 @ 4:58 pm #
Excitable Andy might want to look into the history of blacks and Arabs….
Hint: it’s not good.
Hint #2: what does “abd” mean, Andy?