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Obama campaign responds to Obama’s comment that Israel is a “constant sore” that infects all US foreign policy [Karl]

Imagine the press release needed to explain Barack Obama’s comments in The Atlantic:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

In an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg published on The Atlantic’s website, Barack Obama referred to Israel as “this constant sore,” that “does infect all of our foreign policy.”

This comment should not be taken out of the context of the entire interview, in which Obama also called himself a “friend” of Israel and that his fondness for the Exodus story speaks to his own belief in Black Liberation Theology, as taught by his longtime spiritual adviser, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but without knowing that Wright called the 9/11 attacks “chickens coming home to roost,” the reasons why Wright gave Louis Farrakhan a Lifetime Achievement award, or that his church bulletin reprinted a Hamas manifesto. 

Any similarity between Obama’s comment that “the lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions” and that “chickens” comment is only in the minds of those who seek to distract the American people from the real issue in this campaign, which is Obama’s “judgment to lead.”  After all, nobody has spoken out more fiercely on the issue of anti-Semitism than Barack Obama, according to Barack Obama.

Barack Obama has been described as having “99 percent of the voting shares,” but he is of course just one of hundreds of advisers to the Obama campaign, much like the steady stream of Israel critics the campaign has distanced itself from these past months.  Obama is just a guy who Obama tends to see around the mirror as he gets ready each day to bring the audacity of hopeyness and changitude to the American people.  Our candidate gets overzealous, and starts saying things that Obama would not say.

We are confident the establishment media will do its utmost to spike these distracting comments by its favored candidate.  There is nothing to see here.  These aren’t the droids you’re looking for. MoveOn along.

O!

(h/t Memeorandum.)

431 Replies to “Obama campaign responds to Obama’s comment that Israel is a “constant sore” that infects all US foreign policy [Karl]”

  1. thor says:

    Slurp.

  2. Karl says:

    thor confirming what was already obvious, instead of explaining the political geniusness of this latest Kinsleyian gaffe.

  3. happyfeet says:

    One of our strongest allies is an icky runny sore? Oh. I see.

  4. thor says:

    Charles Krauthammer just said Mike Huckabee is, so far, McCain’s number choice to be Veep.

    OMG.

    They’ll surely celebrate in the Ozarks and Appalachia by skeet shooting Bibles. The Huck!

  5. Karl says:

    shorter thor: “look, BUNNIES!!!”

  6. happyfeet says:

    That’s retarded. I won’t vote for a ticket with that deranged hillbilly on it. I just won’t. Not when the only thing standing between him with his disgusting excess skin and his malformed spawn and his heinous wife and the presidency is the odd blood vessel in McCain’s head that just gets sick of listening to his own pious bullshit one day. God that’s depressing.

  7. Rob Crawford says:

    Hey, it’s not like he said the Jews were a “cancer”.

  8. Karl says:

    hf, don’t take the bait.

  9. Rob Crawford says:

    Maybe McCain’s thinking of it as assassination insurance, ‘feets?

  10. happyfeet says:

    oh. Sorry. I just get so upset.

  11. thor says:

    I bet Huckabee owns a dog named Frisbee and has a tire roped to the front bumber o’his pick’em-up truck.

    Huck, Huck, Huck!

  12. Karl says:

    BUNNIES!!!

  13. Rob Crawford says:

    Back on topic — what is it about a certain class of people who regard free nations with representative governments to be a bigger problem than despotisms? You had Carter’s “dictators speak for ALL their people” comment, now BHO’s clear disdain for Israel.

    Is it just the longing for supreme power? Their philosophical roots affinity for the fuhrerprinzip? Or just plain ignorance?

  14. thor says:

    Something tells me Huckabee didn’t carry the Jewish vote.

  15. Karl says:

    Talk of Huckabee is just a distraction from the real issues in the campaign, like Obama treating one of our allies as a pus-oozing sore.
    O!

  16. Karl says:

    Ronald Reagan would never said something that fantastically dumb, but he was — in the view of thor — just a “bench-warmer” to the political geniusness of the O.

  17. thor says:

    How many tries did it take until the Great Communicator got the nomination from his party?

    O! 1

  18. Karl says:

    How many times did O! challenge a sitting president and almost win?

    I’m still waiting for thor to explain the geniusness at work here. Or nishi. Either one, really.

  19. Faraday Cage says:

    I see in the recent Atlantic interview the Messiah himself also says:

    “It’s conceivable that there are those in the Arab world who say to themselves, “This is a guy who spent some time in the Muslim world, has a middle name of Hussein, and appears more worldly and has called for talks with people, and so he’s not going to be engaging in the same sort of cowboy diplomacy as George Bush,”…

    So Obabble is willing to take credit for putative Arab goodwill on account of his
    middle name? I thought his middle name was out of bounds. Now he’s made it relevant to assessing how Arabs view him. And we know he thinks he is very worldly too, having been to all 57 states. I think Barry is a perfect product of postmodern thinking, where the name of something is no more or less real than the thing itself. Why change his name from Barry to Barack in the first place? In his world, where all points of view deserve equal outcomes, equal consideration, if changing the name of something helps shift the narrative, why not do it? And doesn’t it show his disdain for the intelligence of The Other when he thinks his middle name on its own would shift their opinion?

  20. dicentra says:

    Is it just the longing for supreme power? Their philosophical roots affinity for the fuhrerprinzip? Or just plain ignorance?

    One and two. I don’t think we can afford to count on the third, especially given that ignorance is easily cured, while power-lust won’t go away without a Slayer or the Second Coming. And with Buffy off the air anymore, and the Second Coming on an “it will come when you least expect it” schedule, we’re pretty much screwed.

    …some of the tensions that might arise between me and some of the more hawkish elements in the Jewish community in the United States might stem from the fact that I’m not going to blindly adhere to whatever the most hawkish position is just because that’s the safest ground politically. –Barry O.

    I guess on his planet, all the protesters are pro-war, and Speed Racer was a major artistic achievement.

  21. Lisa says:

    I am prepared to be slammed for this, but here goes:

    Being critical of Israel is NOT anti-Israel or anti-Semetic. And holding a democracy to standards is not negating the shittiness of nearby dictatorships. Say Barack Obama wins the election, and you say, “This motherfucker is a socialist crank.” it would be spurious of me to say “Well, the president of Venezuela is a bigger asshole. Why aren’t you criticizing him instead of Barack Obama, you asshole.”

    I find that this weird defense of Israel is the same. They are a happy little free democracy like everyone else. Everyone else in the world gets slammed when they do stupid fucktardish shit to their citizens or neighbors. We don’t criticize France while carefully remembering to criticize Spain in the same breath, just to be fair. I realize that Israel is in a uniquely crappy situation, being surrounded by people who loathe them and having half of their citizens loathe them as well. That does not mean they get to act like fucking tards. When they screw up, it is perfectly fair and reasonable for someone to say “Now YOU definitely should know better, you asses.”

  22. Lisa says:

    But this is a clever tactic, politically speaking. AIPAC has gone easy on Obama so far. They even jumped to his defense. But if you can convince them that he is a Pali-lover, his campaign is dead in the water.

  23. Rusty says:

    There’s a name for guys like thor. Monica Lewinski.

  24. Karl says:

    Lisa,

    Being critical of some of Israel’s policies is not anti-Israel. Blaming Israel for the entire problem — as O!’s advisers tend to do — most certainly is. Blaming Jews in FL and NYC for US foreign policy is a bit worse, and O! has kept McPeak onboard as an adviser. Read The Atlantic piece and see how fantastically evasive O!’s answers are to various questions, please.

  25. Rick Ballard says:

    “But if you can convince them that he is a Pali-lover,”

    Hussein a Pali-lover? Oh Lordy, I sure hope it wasn’t with that Arafat man – did you know he had AIDS? Poor BHO. So young to go that way…

  26. happyfeet says:

    I don’t think Israel is an infection. Why does Baracky always have to make such a spectacle of himself?

  27. Karl says:

    Lisa,

    Also, the reference to AIPAC is a little telling on your side. Israel has broad support in any public opinion poll you care to look at. So unless you buy that most are hyp-mo-tized by them Joos in the media (and I am hoping that you do not), O! has a bigger problem than AIPAC.

  28. ThomasD says:

    Lisa is an infectious sore on this thread.

    What? Too critical?

    But hey, it’s a typical white person thing to read too much into statements of toughlove.

  29. dicentra says:

    Lisa:

    No one here is asserting that Barry O. is a Jew-hatin’ radical (yet; though many of his pals are) or that criticism of Israel is always Beyond the Pale. Frankly, I don’t know what Obama thinks about the Palis or Israel, because he’s a politician on the campaign trail, and therefore his words cannot be taken at face value.

    However, the MSM and the intelligentsia tend to side with the Palis no matter how badly they behave because they’re the putative “victims” in this monstrous conflict and Israel is the bully. They tend to see the Palestinians’ barbarity as a reasonable reaction to provocation, whereas Israel’s admittedly imperfect responses are Yet Another Reason To Hate Israel. Neo-Marxism is horrible that way, in that the strong horse is guilty until proved innocent (if ever), and the weak horse is always beyond reproach.

    The Palis crank out fake photos and footage to inflame passions against Israel (and are aided and abetted by the Western press), they beg for international aid then spend it on rifles and rockets instead of sewers and roads (or tuck billions away, c.f. Arafat), they have never ever complied with the dozens of peace agreements that are negotiated with Israel, ad infinitum.

    In short, what we have is one party that has the ability to annihilate the other but not the desire, and another party that has the desire to annihilate the other but not the ability.

    Israel just wants to be left alone. The Palis want eradication of all Jews. I have to side with the Israelis on this one, just on general principle.

    As for Obama, he’s a man of the far left as far as I can tell, and the folks he hangs with don’t take kindly to Israel in the least. They talked him out of wearing a flag lapel pin (until he campaigned in West Virginia, where he’s behind); they’ll try to talk him into a million more leftist positions. And Obama won’t protest in the least until he has to: then he pretends like he never knew them before.

    Great guy. Too bad all the others are such abysmal choices.

  30. Karl says:

    ThomasD,

    Lisa is one of pw’s better dissenters. But your comment does demonstrate that the whole “sore” label might be suggestive of an attitude to someone or some nation.

  31. RTO Trainer says:

    Being critical of Israel is NOT anti-Israel or anti-Semetic.

    Almost. How about “Being critical of Israel is not necessarilly anti-Israel or anti-Semitic.” Your formulation leaves the idea that any criticism of Israels is never either.

    Isreal has done some stupid things from time to time. No one considers pointing that out to be anti-Israel (I don’t care to use the term anti-Semitic in the context of Israel, as Arabs are also Semites–often overlooked, that).

    However, when Israel is criticized for actions that are taken persuant to its continued existance, that criticism IS anti-Israel. It cannot be anything else.

    When other criticism is one-sided, however, it may yet be anti-Israel, removing the “stupid fucktardish shit” done by Palestinians and their “supporters” from the context can, at the very least, give that appearance.

    blockquote>They are a happy little free democracy like everyone else.

    Who’s “everyone” in this context?

  32. happyfeet says:

    Lisa is neato mosquito, but Karl’s right that the AIPAC reference is a lot revealing.

  33. Karl says:

    RTO,

    Arabs are also Semites, but I stick with the colloquial, as there are plenty of people who will claim that they are not anti-Semitic because they support Arabs who just coincidentally want to wipe out Israel.

  34. Lisa says:

    AIPAC is not “Joos in the media” at all. They are a pretty powerful lobby whose purpose is to advance their interests. I do not conflate the influence of a powerful lobby (that has been known to sink more than a few campaigns) with “evil Jew banker/media/illuminati” bullshit. And though I respect you immensely, Karl, your trying to say that if one believes in one, they believe in the other is a pretty spurious assertion. Look on any list of influential lobby groups and you will see AIPAC right up there behind PhARMA, usually number two or three on the list.

    And yes, he may or may not have a bigger problem than AIPAC. We will see. If the meme “He is a creepy anti-semite, he hates Israel….and he is really really Farrakahnish and blackity black.” takes hold, then well, he is done.

    But should he actually beat McCain, I hope you guys don’t spend as much time pissing yourselves over him as you did over Bill Clinton (though he did turn out to be kind of dickhead).

  35. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    I hope you guys don’t spend as much time pissing yourselves over him as you did over Bill Clinton

    Sorry, after eight years of non-stop screeching about Bush, the left has lost that right.

    So to speak.

    Reap. Sow. It’s a bitch, innit?

  36. Lisa says:

    Almost. How about “Being critical of Israel is not necessarilly anti-Israel or anti-Semitic.” Your formulation leaves the idea that any criticism of Israels is never either. Well put, I stand corrected.

    And you can always tell the person who is getting ready to let loose with the crazy Jew-hate by the statement “I am not anti-semetic, I just think…..” which starts out reasonable, then disintegrates into “illuminati/tri-lateral commission, Jew owned media blah blah blah” really fast.

    However, there are a lot of reasonable people who think that there is room to be a little hard on Israel when they screw up, the same as any other country that makes a major boo-boo.

  37. Gulermo says:

    Lisa: Do you believe that returning fire is an initiative act or a responsive act? What color is the sky in your world? Additionally, I am interest in your opinions and do you have a newsletter?

  38. Lisa says:

    #36: When Bush is impeached, then we’ll chat. Sweetie, we haven’t even come close to your 8 years of hysteria and fuckery. I don’t know that we have it in us to reach that exalted level of whining/paranoia/pantysniffing.

  39. dicentra says:

    Bill Clinton (though he did turn out to be kind of dickhead)

    Turn out? Shewt, we had him pegged as a malignant narcissist from the get-go, during the campaign and before all his dirty laundry came piling out of the closet.

    We were never charmed by Bubba in the least, and it was truly sickening to see the MSM fawn all over him as if he were Elvis Reincarnate. They’re doing the same with Obama, and it’s equally revolting.

    But the left always did have a problem with those nekkid Emperors, didn’t they?

  40. Lisa says:

    Prays to Jeebus that Obama does not get his cock sucked by anyone but Michelle,

  41. ThomasD says:

    My comment was rhetorical, not actually intended to be personal. I too find Lisa a welcome and thoughtful source of comment. My sole intention was to highlight why Obama’s descriptors were not ones I would want an elected official to employ when describing an ally.

    For a guy who gets mucho kudos for his oratory skillz Obama sure uncorks some doozies.

  42. Lisa says:

    #40: You can see why we would have averted our eyes from Bill the Fat, Gaseous Nekkid Emperor. Eew.

  43. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Sweetie, we haven’t even come close to your 8 years of hysteria and fuckery.

    9/11 “truth” much?

    Whether or not it was worthy of impeachment (and I personally don’t think it was), Clinton actually did lie under oath. That’s a fact, sweetie. 9/11 “truth”, not so much.

  44. dicentra says:

    Sweetie, we haven’t even come close to your 8 years of hysteria.

    I don’t recall ever hearing Bubba called a Nazi or a War Criminal or BillHitler or declaring that Al Gore was Darth Vader or anything similar. We said that Clinton lacked character and was an adulterous liar who thought he could snow a Grand Jury by splitting linguistic hairs.

    Nor do I remember anyone making a film that fantasized about Bill being assassinated, or that anyone accused Bill of causing hurricanes that magically killed only black folks, etc.

    We had absolutely No Respect for Bubba, but we never accused him of being Evil Incarnate.

  45. Darleen says:

    Lisa

    Being critical of Israel is NOT anti-Israel or anti-Semetic. And holding a democracy to standards is not negating the shittiness of nearby dictatorships.

    I’m going to give you the benefit of a doubt and think you might be asking that out of innocent ignorance. So, go read this, on how Israel has become the world’s Jew, then get back to me.

  46. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    We had absolutely No Respect for Bubba

    Hell, I even voted for him the first time around.

  47. ThomasD says:

    Oh, I remember the black helicopter crowd saying some over the top things about Billy J. The big difference between him and Bush is how their more vocal detractors were treated by the MSM.

  48. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    The big difference between him and Bush is how their more vocal detractors were treated by the MSM.

    Exactamundo. There was no “black helicopter” analog of The View.

  49. Lisa says:

    What about a murderer (of 35 people)? A serial rapist? The Arkansas Project? Regenry Press? 7 years of special prosecutors, lawsuits, etc. We WHINED and cried about the war. We made movies about what an asshole Bush is. I admit we did a lot of whining, bitching, and moaning, but we never impeached his ass or shut down the govt trying force his hand (we would have liked to, but we are far too lazy and never had the burning, white hot impetus and motivation that the Repubs had in the 90s…ours has been more of a constant mosquito whine).

  50. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    What about a murderer (of 35 people)? A serial rapist? The Arkansas Project? Regenry Press?

    All fringe, sweetie.

    Come up with something comparable to The View or Fahrenheiht 9/11.

    Hint: you can’t.

    Regnery Press won no Pulitzers.

  51. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Fahrenheit, that should be.

  52. Darleen says:

    RTO, Karl

    Small point of order. While Arabs are “semites”, the term anti-Semite/anti-Semitic is exclusively the synonym for anti-Jew. It was coined specifically in the 1800’s in Germany to lend a “scientific” patina to old-fashioned Judenhass (maybe nishi should take notes). Today, many Arabs hostile to Jews and Israel have tried to usurp terms such as anti-Semitic, Diaspora and Holocaust, to themselves in order to blur and “disappear” the history of Jews. (kinda like Mohammed cribbed from Jewish and Christian tradition to come up with his own religion that demands the annihilation of Jews and Christians)

  53. Darleen says:

    but we never impeached his ass

    GW has never lied under oath.

    Funny how that always gets lost in conversation, doesn’t it?

  54. ThomasD says:

    7 years of special prosecutors, lawsuits, etc

    I’m too lazy, so you go ahead and google up the results of those prosecutions and add up all the convictions.

    but we never impeached his ass

    Not for a lack of desire/effort, just a lack of, you know, evidence of high crimes or misdemeanors.

  55. Darleen says:

    Prays to Jeebus that Obama does not get his cock sucked by anyone but Michelle,

    Too late. Karl pointed out that Newsweek is just the latest to do that.

  56. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Funny how that always gets lost in conversation, doesn’t it?

    Sort of like the way that telling the truth about Kerry’s military service = “Swift Boating”, I think.

  57. Lisa says:

    I think the difference is that Republicans are closers. They tend to make it happen. They put action to the sentiment “you are crappy president, ergo, we are going to take your ass down, sonny”.

    Democrats and liberals tend to bleat about what a jerk someone is, and proceed to make indie movies and make snotty statements at the Oscars. We do tend to think up interesting alternatives, and sometimes we are quite visionary. But we just aren’t closers, man.

    Personally, I think that is why liberals and conservatives need each other. Liberals inject some vision into the mix, and conservatives take a sober look at things and get them done.

  58. sashal says:

    sigh…. Karl,
    I just read this interview, and hope the pw readers will do the same.
    Great reasonable answers, pragmatic approach and great support and understanding of Israel.
    I have no doubt that Obama administration will be as supportive to Israel as Bush’s or more. At least they would not harm Israeli cause.

  59. Lisa says:

    #54: He refuses to testify under oath. I find it interesting that it does not disturb you that someone would insist on NOT having to swear to tell the truth before talking to congress or a prosecutor.

    Funny how that TEENSY little nugget gets lost in the conversation, Darleen.

  60. FearandLoathing says:

    “JG: Do you think that Israel is a drag on America’s reputation overseas?

    BO: No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable.”

    That is the comment in full context. It seems pretty clear to me that he is comparing the conflict to a wound as opposed to Israel itself. A comparison that doesn’t seem too far out of line.

  61. Darleen says:

    I have no doubt that Obama administration will be as supportive to Israel as Bush’s or more. At least they would not harm Israeli cause.

    How the hell do you do that? Barry is all about a cuddle party with Ahmadawhackjob, issues strongly OOOOOooooSTRONGLY worded statements in the general direction of Hizbolleh that is in the process of taking over Lebanon, and is proudly for surrendering to the Islamists in Iraq.

    I don’t see anything Hopey changiy in all that save for the wipe-Israel-out crowd.

  62. Lisa says:

    Look, I am sorry to get this thread diverted. I don’t want to rehash my opinion vs. your opinion on who is the biggest fucking criminal president. I am not going to change any minds and you are not going to change mine. We can go back and forth endlessly about what a fucking lying sack of shit I think Bush is vs. what a lying sack of shit you think Clinton was. But it would get terribly boring, I think.

  63. happyfeet says:

    The conflict – whatever – doesn’t infect all of our foreign policy… that’s just gay. It hyperbolizes the problem to the aggrandizement of a small buncha dirty Palestinian animals. Fuck him.

  64. Darleen says:

    Fear

    The question was about Israel, not the CONFLICT in the ME (which a question such as “Do you think conflict between Israel and Arab-Palestinians is a drag … ” would reflect)

    Israel’s existence is what Barry thinks is a constant sore.

    Very revealing.

  65. sashal says:

    darleen, can you read?
    Jeez, you guys are incredible

  66. RTO Trainer says:

    I don’t recall ever hearing Bubba called a Nazi or a War Criminal or BillHitler or declaring that Al Gore was Darth Vader or anything similar.

    Unfortunately, you were just hanging out with the wrong crowd. I was engaging the neo-militia types back then. That said, Mark Koernke and the Montana Militia were never anything approaching mainstream. Ron Paul is as close to “respectible” as that group ever got.

  67. Lisa says:

    Wipe out Israel crowd? Dayum.

    I am afraid of two things: That Obama might pick his ass and look at the sky at the moment of crisis, ala Carter. Or, to prove that he is not a Nancy-boy, he might get trigger happy and listen to some neocon crank and get us into an even BIGGER quagmirepalooza.

    But I DON’T think he is going to join hands with Iran and try to give Israel the smackdown. Something like 80 percent of this country thinks Israel should always have our strong support (some people think it should be conditional, some think it should be unconditional). He would have to be completely delusional to think he could get away with anything other than having Israel’s back. And I don’t think he is delusional.

  68. Lisa says:

    “Israel’s existence is what Barry thinks is a constant sore.”

    Well that was a smooth transition out of the reality-based community into crazytown. Can you take us back to where he said that?

  69. RTO Trainer says:

    I agree with Fearand Loathing on the interpretaion of the remark. That said, I also think that if Obama wins, a revived United Arab Republic should take the opportunity to try again, and for that matter, North Korea should re-invade South Korea, and then China shoud re-invade both of them, plus move on Vietnam and Taiwan.

    They should all do those things if they are in the least serious about their goals and intentions in those places because an Obama administration will be the perfect time. I think he’s an empty suit. That he hasn’t a clue about how big what he’s walking into is. And that he’ll end up doing absoutely nothing in every case.

    In the meantime we’ll be trying to rebuild Haiti, until that gets too tough (meaning someone takes a shot at one of us upon which we’ll immediately scamper back to the mainland), and other equally momentous things.

  70. sashal says:

    how can anybody criticize this?—

    JG: Do you think that justice is still on Israel’s side?
    BO: I think that the idea of a secure Jewish state is a fundamentally just idea, and a necessary idea, given not only world history but the active existence of anti-Semitism, the potential vulnerability that the Jewish people could still experience. I know that that there are those who would argue that in some ways America has become a safe refuge for the Jewish people, but if you’ve gone through the Holocaust, then that does not offer the same sense of confidence and security as the idea that the Jewish people can take care of themselves no matter what happens. That makes it a fundamentally just idea.

    That does not mean that I would agree with every action of the state of Israel, because it’s a government and it has politicians, and as a politician myself I am deeply mindful that we are imperfect creatures and don’t always act with justice uppermost on our minds. But the fundamental premise of Israel and the need to preserve a Jewish state that is secure is, I think, a just idea and one that should be supported here in the United States and around the world.

    JG: Go to the kishke question, the gut question: the idea that if Jews know that you love them, then you can say whatever you want about Israel, but if we don’t know you –- Jim Baker, Zbigniew Brzezinski –- then everything is suspect. There seems to be in some quarters, in Florida and other places, a sense that you don’t feel Jewish worry the way a senator from New York would feel it.

    BO: I find that really interesting. I think the idea of Israel and the reality of Israel is one that I find important to me personally. Because it speaks to my history of being uprooted, it speaks to the African-American story of exodus, it describes the history of overcoming great odds and a courage and a commitment to carving out a democracy and prosperity in the midst of hardscrabble land. One of the things I loved about Israel when I went there is that the land itself is a metaphor for rebirth, for what’s been accomplished. What I also love about Israel is the fact that people argue about these issues, and that they’re asking themselves moral questions.

    Sometimes I’m attacked in the press for maybe being too deliberative. My staff teases me sometimes about anguishing over moral questions. I think I learned that partly from Jewish thought, that your actions have consequences and that they matter and that we have moral imperatives. The point is, if you look at my writings and my history, my commitment to Israel and the Jewish people is more than skin-deep and it’s more than political expediency. When it comes to the gut issue, I have such ardent defenders among my Jewish friends in Chicago. I don’t think people have noticed how fiercely they defend me, and how central they are to my success, because they’ve interacted with me long enough to know that I’ve got it in my gut. During the Wright episode, they didn’t flinch for a minute, because they know me and trust me, and they’ve seen me operate in difficult political situations.

    The other irony in this whole process is that in my early political life in Chicago, one of the raps against me in the black community is that I was too close to the Jews. When I ran against Bobby Rush [for Congress], the perception was that I was Hyde Park, I’m University of Chicago, I’ve got all these Jewish friends. When I started organizing, the two fellow organizers in Chicago were Jews, and I was attacked for associating with them. So I’ve been in the foxhole with my Jewish friends, so when I find on the national level my commitment being questioned, it’s curious.

  71. happyfeet says:

    What’s reality-based about the dopey-eared twit asserting that the status quo is unsustainable?

    It’s been pretty damn sustainable under Bush… what’s Baracky thinking is gonna be different when his scrawny ass is in the Oval Office? Dickhead needs to keep his hopey changey paws the fuck off Israel.

  72. sashal says:

    don’t worry RTO, Obama’s administration will handle all expediently and appropriately.
    As far as an empty suit-Bush was one and very harmful to USA interest btw

  73. Lisa says:

    #70: I fear that as well (don’t tell any of my fellow Obamabots). I see him easily becoming another Carter. We will see. He probably should try to keep the best of the Bush people (I hate to admit it) but they know what the hell they are doing and, more importantly, the crazies know that they know what the hell they are doing, and won’t try any funny business.

  74. happyfeet says:

    Jeebus, sashal, your esl is showing. That is NOT how people talk when they are affirming support for an ally.

  75. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    I am not going to change any minds and you are not going to change mine.

    The facts remain, Lisa:

    1) Clinton did lie under oath
    2) Bush did not orchestrate the 9/11 attacks.
    3) A legitimate charge of lying under oath is not as serious as a false charge of murdering 3,000 Americans.
    4) The “black helicopter” nutjobs didn’t win Emmies, Oscars, and Pulitizers. The 9/11 “truth” nutjobs did.

  76. happyfeet says:

    Where’s psycho? This is important.

  77. B Moe says:

    “It’s conceivable that there are those in the Arab world who say to themselves, “This is a guy who spent some time in the Muslim world, has a middle name of Hussein, and appears more worldly and has called for talks with people, and so he’s not going to be engaging in the same sort of cowboy diplomacy as George Bush,”…

    It’s also conceivable that there are those in the Arab world who say to themselves, “This is a guy who was born to a Muslim father, spent some time in the Muslim world, has a middle name of Hussein, and has now renounced all that in the name of Christ. Apostates must die.”

  78. Lisa says:

    #72: Happy, Israel is kind of badass. As a matter of fact, they are a lot badass and can take care of themselves. Obama can’t touch them if they don’t want to be touched. They have sat patiently through many different jackass American presidents. They will sit through this one – whoever he or she is – hopey-changey or bomb-bomb Iraney gimmicks and all.

  79. happyfeet says:

    Well, we had to ship them weapons when them Hezbollah people got their stupid on. I’m not at all sure Baracky would have done that.

  80. sashal says:

    #78, so they may hate him even more then Bush, right Moe?

  81. ThomasD says:

    Even if Obama was referring to the larger Israeli – Palestinian conflict, and not just Israel itself — an interpretation I do not accept, since the question was specifically about Israel being a drag on the US — he still said nothing about exactly what elements are preventing this issue from being resolved, only offering that it was in the interest of Israel (and again no mention of the Palestinians, also weighing against the broader interpretation) to see it resolved.

    Somewhere there is a camel named Obama’s anti-Israeliness and it just gathered another straw on it’s back.

  82. Sean M. says:

    Barack Obama has been described as having “99 percent of the voting shares,” but he is of course just one of hundreds of advisers to the Obama campaign, much like the steady stream of Israel critics the campaign has distanced itself from these past months. Obama is just a guy who Obama tends to see around the mirror as he gets ready each day to bring the audacity of hopeyness and changitude to the American people. Our candidate gets overzealous, and starts saying things that Obama would not say.

    I can’t wait until he denounces himself.

  83. nishizonoshinji says:

    Im isomorphic with Hitch.
    Israel is nobel and plucky and techie and those things i love, but it also was a very bad idea, and it can’t go on as is.
    it just isn’t sustainable.

    the international community could easily have agreed to place it within the defense perimeter of “the West” or the United Nations or, later, NATO. Aha, say the Zionists, the bad old days are gone when we were so naive as to rely on gentiles to defend us. Very well. But also mark the sequel. Israel is now incredibly dependent upon non-Jews for its own defense and, moreover, rules over millions of other non-Jews who loathe and detest it from the bottom of their hearts. How long do you think the first set of non-Jews will go on defending Israel from the second lot and from their very wealthy and numerous kinsmen? In other words, Zionism has only replaced and repositioned the question of anti-Semitism. For me, the Israeli family is not the alternative to the diaspora. It is part of the diaspora. To speak roughly, there are three groups of 6 million Jews. The first 6 million live in what the Zionist movement used to call Palestine. The second 6 million live in the United States. The third 6 million are distributed mainly among Russia, France, Britain, and Argentina. Only the first group lives daily in range of missiles that can be (and are) launched by people who hate Jews. Well, irony is supposed to be a Jewish specialty.

  84. nishizonoshinji says:

    and i think what Obama says is true.
    Israel poisons our MENA interactions. it is a constant sore.
    how do make it go away?
    the green line?

  85. Lisa says:

    #76: You play fast and lose with your imagined facts.

    1. Yes he did. At least you got ONE fact.
    2. I never said he did. Pull something else out of your ass, why don’t you.
    3. Mr. Apple, meet Mr. Orange. Again, you erect a straw man argument and then blow it down and declare yourself “factual”. Perhaps comparing the conspiracies about Waco, Ruby Ridge and 9/11 would have been more appropriate. They are all nasty, insidious conspiracies and the cranks on both sides have indulged in them.
    4. Name one Emmy, Pulitzer, or Oscar that any 9/11 conspiracy crank one. Just one. I will wait.

  86. ThomasD says:

    What conspiracies about Ruby Ridge? Are you saying it didn’t happen, or that the Feds didn’t pay out $3.3 million dollars to the survivors?

  87. happyfeet says:

    What Obama says empowers Israel’s enemies. Simple as that.

  88. Lisa says:

    #80: He might have stood there with his thumb in his ass for a while. But Someone from the Pentagon would have come over and pimp-slapped him and he would have gotten on the good foot.

  89. B Moe says:

    Nishi, go read Karen Armstrong’s Jerusalem.

  90. nishizonoshinji says:

    And i loved GW on the war.
    He is a decent honorable person, and that was never true of Clinton.
    Clinton is a lying sack of pure ambition and selfishness.
    But GW was only good on the war……he sux at everything else.
    He believed in the war, but he pandered like mad to keep it funded.

    and his religious beliefs have compromised his legacy.
    look now, GW is going to accept AGW, a fake science, while refusing to accept ToE and biotech, which are real sciences.
    still pandering.

  91. ThomasD says:

    Yeah, because we want a POTUS who subordinates civilian authority to the military.

  92. Lisa says:

    #87: There was a conspiracy theory that the feds (in cahoots with the Trilateral Commission/one world govt/UN/Illuminati) were trying to wipe out all of the patriot and religious movements.

  93. ThomasD says:

    92 was directed at 89

  94. nishizonoshinji says:

    “What Obama says empowers Israel’s enemies. Simple as that.”

    feets, literally everything empowers Israel’s enemies. that is what O is sayin.
    to the pali propaganda machine everything is fodder.

    constant. we need a solution.

  95. Lisa says:

    #92: And that is not the case now?

  96. ThomasD says:

    93. Yes, on that we agree (‘black helicopter crowd’ is often shorthand for such types.) But, as other have noted, these peoples never got the play in the establishment right much less in the mainstream media like the BDS crowd has over the past eight years.

  97. happyfeet says:

    No. For real. This is not game theory. Our role is to be a stalwart ally. That is the solution.

  98. B Moe says:

    we need a solution.

    What does behavior science tell you will be the likely results if we give in to the Palestinians and their allies?

  99. ThomasD says:

    96. So are you saying that Bush only sent aid to the Israeli’s in their actions against Hezballah at the behest of the military?

  100. nishizonoshinji says:

    what does that mean B Moes, “give in”?

    feets, Hitch is sayin he doubts it is sustainable.
    will there be Israel in 100 years?

  101. Lisa says:

    #100: Never said such a thing. But I do know that Bush has, on many occasions publicly stated that he would do “whatever the generals on the ground” think is best in both wars. That is not a bad thing, when it comes to war. He should have done what they said and ignored Wolfowitz, Dumbsfeld and Cheney in the first place.

  102. B Moe says:

    what does that mean B Moes, “give in”?

    surrender to, compromise with, allow to have their way, reward their bad behavior, etc…

  103. Karl says:

    sashal,

    Here’s another way O could answer questions:

    JG: Do you think that justice is still on Israel’s side?
    BO: Yes. That doesn’t mean I will always agree with Israel’s policies, but overall, the answer is yes.

    Instead, you get paragraph after paragraph suggesting Israel is a fine idea, but the execution sucks, and if they would just do what I and my Leftist friends want and risk their whole existence, I guess that would be okay… and… and… some of my best friends are Jews!

    Somebody who tapdances that much in response to these questions is going to be open to question.

  104. happyfeet says:

    That’s the deal, nishi. You can ask that question. We can get coffee and share one of those lemon thingers. But the prospective president of the United States does not get to nosh on a lemon thinger and ask that question.

    Jeez. Be more Jimmy Carter you arrogant geeky marxist dumbass-looking intellectualizing snot. No wonder all the kids hated you in Indonesia.

  105. ThomasD says:

    102. You negleted to mention the part where Bush was ‘pimp-slapped’ into doing what someone else wants…

  106. thor says:

    #

    Comment by Rusty on 5/12 @ 5:37 pm #

    There’s a name for guys like thor. Monica Lewinski.

    “Rusty” sounds like the affectionate pet name Larry Craig would coo as he stretches his flaccid cock in a bathroom stall. So, um, what’s in a name, yeah.

    Karl, Barack Obama is not anti-Israel. You, Karl, are just, sadly, dumber than the crotch rot you rode in on, which is why you’d imply such non-sense.

  107. Dan Collins says:

    Israel’s like a pustulent chanker on the body politic of the United States. And I mean that in the most constructive way.

  108. wishbone says:

    There was a deal in 1948. The Palestinians walked away…er… attacked.

    There was a deal at Wye River. The Palestinians walked away…er…attacked.

    I will not be party to revisionist history that lays the blame for the past 60 years at the Israelis feet. And I won’t be silent in the face of those who peddle such nonsense.

  109. Lisa says:

    Gentlemen and lovely ladies, I bid you bon soir (or laila tov – for my Israeli brothers and sisters). As always, it has been fun and fascinating. This is a great place filled with lovely, lovely people.

  110. happyfeet says:

    bon soir you too. So this was Monday.

  111. nishizonoshinji says:

    well…all the young arabs and persians i know say that a return to the greenline would work.
    they all talk right-of-return but accept that it is impossible.
    but the Fence has already enclosed more than the greenline.
    is that punishment?

  112. nishizonoshinji says:

    bonne nuit et bonnes reves, lovely lisa.

  113. Darleen says:

    nishi

    but it also was a very bad idea, and it can’t go on as is.

    Do you feel the same way about Pakistan ..because it was the other nation created at the same time.

    See, the idea that Israel is not legitimate, but Pakistan IS makes one an anti-Semite. Period.

  114. thor says:

    Obama + McCain = Love

  115. happyfeet says:

    you have gone somewhere I can’t follow

  116. guinsPen says:

    @ #89
    someone from the Pentagon would have come over and pimp-slapped [a dawdling Obama] and he would have gotten on the good foot.

    @ #102
    Bush has, on many occasions publicly stated that he would do “whatever the generals on the ground” think is best…

    Lisa,

    You do understand the difference, yes?

  117. ThomasD says:

    Or the notion that it (Israel) represents the only unresolved conflict that poses a challenge for American diplomacy. Taiwan, the two Koreas, the Balkans, the aforementioned portion of greater India, the Falklands, all meaningless in comparison.

    Sure.

  118. wishbone says:

    Nishi, none of the young Arabs you know are members of Hamas apparently. And exactly what the Iranians have to do with the issue amounts to exactly dick except when they are arming Israel’s enemies…the same young Arabs that you don’t know.

  119. […] give up, it’s a “who can be more crazy” contest between him and […]

  120. Darleen says:

    #71 sashal

    and not one word in Barry’s diarhertoric “but some of my best friends are Jews” ramblings about what Israel suffers on a daily basis and Israel’s unparelleled restraint of response.

  121. nishizonoshinji says:

    What does behavior science tell you will be the likely results if we give in to the Palestinians and their allies?

    that is not possible. the palestinians want right of return.

    EGT would say…the palestinians must believe they are getting something from the bargaining.
    because face is incredibly important in middle eastern culture, they can’t be forced into a humiliating concession.
    the price of continuing the rocket attacks must made non-cost viable.
    jerusalem should be made an international city somehow, not belonging to any one state….like vatican city? maybe?

  122. wishbone says:

    No, nishi–Hamas wants to run the Jews into the sea–not a right of return. Fatah was of the same opinion not long ago.

    Like Darleen, the Israeli restraint amazes me.

  123. nishizonoshinji says:

    /sigh

    Pakistan was the first Islamic state, founded by native population.

    Do I sometimes wish that Theodor Herzl and Chaim Weizmann had never persuaded either the Jews or the gentiles to create a quasi-utopian farmer-and-worker state at the eastern end of the Mediterranean? Yes. Do I wish that the Israeli air force could find and destroy all the arsenals of Hezbollah and Hamas and Islamic Jihad? Yes. Do I think it ridiculous that Viennese and Russian and German scholars and doctors should have vibrated to the mad rhythms of ancient so-called prophecies rather than helping to secularize and reform their own societies? Definitely. Do I feel horror and disgust at the thought that a whole new generation of Arab Palestinians is being born into the dispossession and/or occupation already suffered by their grandparents and even great-grandparents? Absolutely, I do.

    Hitch is right….Israel was a guilt offering cobbled together after the Holocaust.
    completely different from Pakistan.

  124. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    #

    Name one Emmy, Pulitzer, or Oscar that any 9/11 conspiracy crank one. Just one. I will wait.

    1) The View has won three Emmy awards and has been nominated every single year since 1999.

    2) Rosie O’Donnell spouted 9/11 “truth” garbage on the show. Repeatedly.

    Next.

  125. LiveFromFortLivingRoom says:

    Lisa any bets on President Bush spending his last day in office pardoning everyone he can get grafts off of?

  126. nishizonoshinji says:

    /double sigh

    like O said, the constant sore infects all our foreign policy.
    it affects the way my arab and persian friends think, the way we interact with Saud and Iran, it affects all our diplomatic relationships in the ME.
    is that fair, is that just?
    no.
    but it is what it is.

  127. dicentra says:

    I got that the “sore” was U.S. support for Israel, not Israel itself or the conflict.

    Because our support for Israel is frequently mentioned by our enemies (jihadis and Leftists) as the justification for their attacks on the U.S. and our interests. Some Lefties say we should drop Israel like a hot potato and let the chips fall where they may. IOW, the Palis drive the Jews into the sea.

  128. B Moe says:

    Pakistan was the first Islamic state?

  129. MayBee says:

    Does Jordan have to stop existing, too?
    They were never very good at taking in all the Palestinian refugees.

    You know what would work for the Palestianian people? If all the bombs and missiles stopped falling on Israel. They’d get a homeland in a heartbeat.

  130. RTO Trainer says:

    the Feds didn’t pay out $3.3 million dollars to the survivors?

    Unless you can show me otherwise, I’ll say it didn’t happen.

    The only settlement that came out of that business was from the Waco media to the ATF agents and we don’t know that amount.

  131. cynn says:

    Bottom line, Israel is an open sore that weighs on on my children. Not a useful investment.

  132. RTO Trainer says:

    Okay, how do I undo a comment? I have a vested intrest in Waco and get touchy about the subject. Sorry.

  133. wishbone says:

    No, nishi–the “sore” is an excuse and “look over there” material for con artist governments. I am always amazed that 5 million Jews can threaten and destabilize hundreds of millions of Arabs and billions of Muslims from a strip of land the size of New Jersey.

    It’s bullshit.

  134. B Moe says:

    Here is a hypothetical for you nishi: If you had a magic wand that could remove the weapons and all hostile feelings from one side in the Israeli conflict, but only one side, which side would you choose? The Israelis, or the Palestinian? And what do you think the results would be?

    Now, tell me again who the fucking sore is.

  135. B Moe says:

    135 is for cynn, too.

  136. dicentra says:

    nishi:

    but it also was a very bad idea, and it can’t go on as is

    Israel was inhabited by Jews for a long time before the State got official recognition by the U.N. It’s a “bad idea” only because their neighbors are governed by irrational, barbaric, genocidal maniacs who can’t let the Jews live in peace in their ancestral homeland. I can’t back the Palis. Their “right of return” is code for extermination of the Joooos.

    because face is incredibly important in middle eastern culture, they can’t be forced into a humiliating concession.

    Humiliation is at the root of their current genocidal rage. Those filthy Jews took a spot of godforsaken wilderness and made it blossom as a rose. Israel thrives–without petroleum–while its oil-rich neighbors live in self-inflicted squalor.

    And in an honor-shame culture, the only way to expunge shame is to destroy or humiliate the cause of the shame. The Palis have declared that they will eradicate the Joooos and their state. You think they’ll be satisfied with anything less?

  137. MayBee says:

    it affects the way my arab and persian friends think

    Are they American, nishi?

  138. nishizonoshinji says:

    yup, the first of the league of islamic republics to ratify a constitution.
    Mohammed Iqbal wrote a lot of islamic/republican philosophy in the support of a state founded on shari’a law.

  139. Okay, how do I undo a comment? I have a vested intrest in Waco and get touchy about the subject. Sorry.

    oh, you’re not admitting the part Barbara Bach played?

  140. happyfeet says:

    Yay! Baracky is making the anti-Semitism safe and clean. Run and play, kids…

  141. RTO Trainer says:

    “There was a conspiracy theory that the feds (in cahoots with the Trilateral Commission/one world govt/UN/Illuminati) were trying to wipe out all of the patriot and religious movements.”

    Yes. Subscribed to aby only the most estreme fringe elements. You’ve got to go more mainstream than that. Political or public personas endorsing it, that sort of thing, if you wnat to show an analog.

  142. nishizonoshinji says:

    #138, some are naturalized, some just here for uni.

  143. MayBee says:

    Pakistan was the first Islamic state, founded by native population.

    Good thing Pakistan’s border with India is all settled and everything.

  144. wishbone says:

    Pakistan’s internal politics are completely free of strife as well, MayBee.

  145. nishizonoshinji says:

    sure dicentra, that is true, but it doesn’t do anything about solving the problem.
    how do you make the rocket attacks noncost viable?

  146. nishizonoshinji says:

    erm..we are talkin about Israel? wtf has Pak got to do with naything?

  147. dicentra says:

    nishi:

    The mindset of the Middle East is whack in more ways than I can possibly enumerate. It starts with the idea that nothing good exists on this planet except through Islam. They don’t accept our willingness to allow others to make their own way toward God. Or not. There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet, period, end of discussion. You don’t agree, you’re an abomination before Allah and must be exterminated or subjugated.

    They believe that they are entitled to push Shari’a on us either through force of arms, by using our legal system, or by other forms of intimidation (shouting down, etc.).

    They also believe that the Evil Joooos control the world (especially the U.S.) and that all their problems are the result of someone else’s malice.

    If the mid-east were a person, I’d diagnose him with Paranoid Personality Disorder: any measure to retaliate against slights is justified. And anyone who has dealt with PDs knows that they’re almost impossible to treat: nothing is wrong with them; it’s everyone else who is evil.

  148. nishizonoshinji says:

    the perps hide in the civilian population, so to get at them the IAF has to strike civvie targets.
    that just breeds resentment.

  149. wishbone says:

    Let us all remember something else: The Arab governments could have created a Palestinian state at any time from 1948 to 1967 and did not do so…

    Nishi–you make it nonviable in one way: Cut them off. But then, the world screams. We need a little less Israeli restraint in retailiation is all.

  150. B Moe says:

    So until Pakistan and the League of Islamic Republics there were no Islamic states. Is this more a phenomenon of nishi’s ignorance of history or language, do you think?

  151. thor says:

    Comment by cynn on 5/12 @ 8:33 pm #

    Bottom line, Israel is an open sore that weighs on on my children. Not a useful investment.

    You and me, we’re no longer dating, just thought you needed to know.

    Israel and Israelis are more than an “investment”. Yeah, they’re humans, in fact, with children who deserve better than to be snipered at by fuckin’ mass murdering religious extremists. First they come for the Jewish children then they come for yours, Mrs. Hedge Fund Manager.

    No way cynn, you take that back. You’re too good to say what you said.

  152. wishbone says:

    Addendum to 150: A Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital.

  153. Cut them off.

    well, if Israel really wanted to do that they would build a balloon fence and mile-high dirt berm. but they don’t. I wonder why that is…

  154. nishizonoshinji says:

    dicentra, that is wrong.
    Muhammed always instructed to respect the people of the book (jews and christians)
    you have been listening to that puffy buffoon robert spencer.
    infidels means pagans.
    kinda like the canaanites in the old testament.

  155. MayBee says:

    erm..we are talkin about Israel? wtf has Pak got to do with naything?

    I’m happy to talk about Jordan instead.

  156. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Bottom line, Israel is an open sore that weighs on on my children. Not a useful investment.

    Breathakingly vile.

  157. MayBee says:

    cynn- I am worried about you and your children this year. You seem to be quite stressed.

  158. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Muhammed always instructed to respect the people of the book (jews and christians

    Was that before or after he discovered penicillin and provided a slave to Pythagoras?

  159. […] Karl at Protein Wisdom pokes at the “constant sore.”  […]

  160. nishizonoshinji says:

    B Moes, i mean a modern islamic state, an islamic repubublic. ok?

  161. wishbone says:

    Maggie, heh.

    Umm, nishi, I think you need to read the WHOLE Koran. Not just the nice parts.

  162. B Moe says:

    Muhammed always instructed to respect the people of the book (jews and christians)
    you have been listening to that puffy buffoon robert spencer.

    No nishi, we have been watching fucking Islamic savages blow up buses of Goddam children for 60 years now. I have never read a damn thing by Robert Spencer.

  163. MayBee says:

    Muhammed always instructed to respect the people of the book (jews and christians)

    Ok.
    You know how you call all Christians theocons?

  164. B Moe says:

    Sorry, but a modern Islamic state is an oxymoron.

  165. thor says:

    Cynn’s breath is a vile wind!

  166. McGehee says:

    Umm, nishi, I think you need to read the WHOLE Koran. Not just the nice parts.

    There you go, trying to impose your — er, I mean Mohammed’s — dogma on a follower of — um, Mohammed.

  167. Mastiff says:

    Not that the foaming-at-the-mouth retards will care, but let’s not swallow the line that Israel was merely a creation of the UN.

    The UN acted on the issue because the British threw up their hands. The British threw up their hands because the Irgun had been blowing the crap out of them for decades, and had finally convinced the Haganah to play along.

    If the UN had voted no, Israel would still have come into existence. It just would have taken a few extra years. But the birth would have been every bit as bloody. Remember, Arab snipers were shooting at Jews dancing in the streets on the night of the vote.

  168. McGehee says:

    Spenser? My mom used to love that TV show. She thought Robert Urich and Avery Brooks were teh seXXy!

  169. “This comment should not be taken out of the context of the entire interview . . .”

    Good point, Karl, so why did you apply a headline to your post that is a blatant lie based on taking Obama’s words out of context?

    Here’s what Obama said just before the “infect” statement that you point to and get all rabid about (emphasis mine):

    JG: What do you make of Jimmy Carter’s suggestion that Israel resembles an apartheid state?

    BO: I strongly reject the characterization. Israel is a vibrant democracy, the only one in the Middle East, and there’s no doubt that Israel and the Palestinians have tough issues to work out to get to the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security, but injecting a term like apartheid into the discussion doesn’t advance that goal. It’s emotionally loaded, historically inaccurate, and it’s not what I believe

    .

    That’s the context, Karl. Obama was talking about the 60-year Palestinian-Israeli conflict as an infected wound, not about Israel.

    You should re-write your deliberately misleading headline, but I’m sure you won’t Anything to win, right?

  170. nishizonoshinji says:

    We need a little less Israeli restraint in retailiation is all.

    wishbone that isn’t working. every strike gets turned into a propaganda generator and just breeds more resentment among the noncombatants.

  171. dicentra says:

    nishi:

    I don’t read Spencer either. I get my information from my pal Musli You might want to check out this one especially.

  172. nishizonoshinji says:

    SW, they won’t win.
    mccain/huckabee in ’08?
    the repubs will bleed voters like a hemophiliac at a vamphyre convention. ;)

  173. wishbone says:

    nishi, I don’t think you understand my definition of less restraint.

    S.W.: I think you need to place Obama’s remark into the TOTAL context that Karl carefully noted. Unless that part went way over your head.

  174. nishizonoshinji says:

    Mastiff, it is an artificial state, cobbled up after WWII.

  175. MayBee says:

    S.W. Anderson,
    a)These are excerpts of a conversation and thus it is difficult to know the exact order of the conversation
    even so,
    b)there is another q/a between the part you bring up and the part Karl mentions and
    c)the question he is answering is specifically about Israel and whether it is a drag on the US’s reputation.

    Now, I don’t think he thinks Israel is a sore. I think he thinks if Israel could just be more reasonable, the Palestinians and everyone in the ME would be happy.

  176. B Moe says:

    Obama was talking about the 60-year Palestinian-Israeli conflict as an infected wound, not about Israel.

    That nuance thing again, huh?

  177. nishizonoshinji says:

    well…isn’t it Sun Tzu in the art of war that says you cannot wipe out guerillas embedded in the population when they have the support of the population?

    try again…….how to make the rocket attacks noncost viable.

  178. B Moe says:

    Could someone give me an example of a non-artificial state? Just for some perspective.

  179. […] Barack Obama interview caused quite a stir on the Right blogosphere. The New York Times not surprisingly finds the interview a smashing […]

  180. nishizonoshinji says:

    i know muslihoon, dicentra.
    he knows me too…..my muslim name is shams al-nahar.

  181. MayBee says:

    BMoe- you know. The states with the borders that weren’t set by war.
    Especially not WWII.

  182. nishizonoshinji says:

    sure B Moes, france.
    ;P

  183. dicentra says:

    how to make the rocket attacks noncost viable.

    “non-cost viable”? Google says: No matches.

    Please explain.

  184. Could someone give me an example of a non-artificial state?

    erm, Iceland?

  185. B Moe says:

    I have ancestors who were Basque. Try again.

  186. JD says:

    nishit could learn much from Lisa. Or from a sandwich, or a tree. But nishit only listens to nishit, which is not wisel

    Nishit is a festering fistula that infects every thread on this site. I say that to demonstrate my complete support of its mendoucheity.

  187. wishbone says:

    B Moe,

    That term is crap. Either the state exists or it does not according to de facto principles in international law on recognition. Yugoslavia was a mess, but it was a state. Ditto our discussions about Pakistan.

    Israel has a government, currency, armed forces, defined borders and hookers. What else does it need?

  188. J. Peden says:

    #54: He refuses to testify under oath. I find it interesting that it does not disturb you that someone would insist on NOT having to swear to tell the truth before talking to congress or a prosecutor.

    Funny how that TEENSY little nugget gets lost in the conversation, Darleen.

    Funny that it seems to escape Lisa’s notice that no one at all can force a President to testify under oath in the course of a purely fact-finding investigation.

    Lisa urgently needs to understand why this is the case instead of merely restating the fact in a rather desperate hope of equating this circumstance to Bill Clinton’s perjury in a sexual harrassment suit. Apples and Oranges, anyone?

    Then Lisa needs to examine her own Bush Derangement, which caused her failure to inquire to begin with – especially because the derangement might not be merely localized to George Bush.

  189. B Moe says:

    Exactly, wishbone. The whole concept of a state is an artificial construct, the don’t just naturally occur.

  190. nishizonoshinji says:

    oh….in evolutionary theory of games, any given strategy can be either cost viable or non cost viable.
    pay for a play.
    it doesnt cost anything for hamas to launch rockets into Israel and they get a propaganda payoff.
    so it is a cost-viable strategy.

  191. Darleen says:

    #124 nishi

    Israel was a guilt offering cobbled together after the Holocaust.

    FUCKING HISTORICAL REVISIONIST LIE!!! GodDAMN you, nishi.

  192. wishbone says:

    nishi, game theory does not apply if one actor is irrational. You try again.

  193. ThomasD says:

    RTO, I was referring specifically to Ruby Ridge. The money was awarded as compensation to the daughters and father for the ‘unconstitutional’ (Justice Department’s own term) murder of the mother.

    Oh and while the Boundary County Prosecutor’s office mysteriously dropped the charges some years back that FBI HRT sniper, Lon Horiuchi, who fired the illegal shot, thereby striking an unarmed woman in the face, is still on the hook for state murder if and when they choose to re-file.

    There may be conspiracy mongers who saw deeper things at work there (Horiuchi managed to get more practice in Waco) but even the leftists at Frontline tore Reno’s stormptroopers a new one over the Idaho incident.

    But, you know, in rural America saving face is a cultural thing that needs to be respected.

  194. The Lost God says:

    Rob Crawford-

    “Is it just the longing for supreme power? Their philosophical roots affinity for the fuhrerprinzip? Or just plain ignorance?”

    That’s a hard call, but whatever the answer actually is, I tend to lean towards ignorance. How dare ANYONE try to point out the Constitution and it’s original meaning? It is a LIVING, BREATHING DOCUMENT! Meaning it means whatever I want it to!

    Intent? Jeff?

    Baracky knows what this is all about, and it is about walking down the path of ALL failed Marxist’s and Stalinists have trodden into mass murder and equal misery. Because, bloody idiots! They could just never get it as right as The Big “O” will when he is president! Socialism/Marxism hasn’t worked before, because the people who implemented it just weren’t nearly as smart as O-Bla-Di-O-Blah-Da and his totally fucked friends. But “O” will get it right because he dresses cool and has a wife that never stops bashing America. Way cool, Michelle!

    They are just so fucking smart, that I want to stick my head in the toilet.

    Just give these prophets the chance to show their stuff, and they promise that there won’t be more than – oh, say – a million or two deaths – you know, only the ones with an IQ of over 150. And we are SO sorry, but logic and any knowledge of American history will be severely punished! Those two things are SOOOO un-American.

    History doesn’t really exist, and you are way out of line to refer to the Constitution.

    You know. Anyone who busts their butt to be succesful is fair game.

    All youse moneys izz mine!

  195. B Moe says:

    it doesnt cost anything for hamas to launch rockets into Israel and they get a propaganda payoff.
    so it is a cost-viable strategy.

    And if they get rewarded, they will keep repeating the strategy. The only option is punishment so severe it is not cost-viable.

  196. Karl says:

    Not that I care what SW thinks, but for the record:

    Inasmuch as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is ultimately about the existence of Israel, it seems like someone who wants to be President should not be referring to it as a “constant sore” in response to the question “Do you think that Israel is a drag on America’s reputation overseas?” because the question was not about the dispute per se.

  197. thor says:

    Comment by The Lost God on 5/12 @ 9:23 pm #

    They are just so fucking smart, that I want to stick my head in the toilet.

    And you should, repeatedly, as a matter of fact.

  198. thor says:

    Karl, you whinnying hysteric.

  199. nishizonoshinji says:

    B Moes, they are getting rewarded now.
    the game they are playing is tit-for-tat.

  200. dicentra says:

    how to make the rocket attacks noncost viable

    Easy. For every rocket launched into Israel, five rockets come back. Like clockwork. Put it on automatic. People do stop touching the electric fence if they get shocked every single time.

    Oh, thanks for the explication.

  201. RTO Trainer says:

    ThomasD,

    Yes. Potts, et al, should have been proscuted. I have fewer problems with Horiuchi’s conduct, contingent upon knowing how he and his HRT fellows actually responded to being given illegal ROE, something we do not know.

    As with the military, in principle, no one is bound to follow an illegal order, but it’s rarely as simple as that.

  202. thor says:

    Five non-aimed rockets. Just let ’em fly like bottle rockets into Gaza. Hell yes I’m serious. Random fire deserves random fire in return.

  203. nishizonoshinji says:

    hmm….the Israelis can try that…but in tit-for-tat that will likely just lead to iterative escalation.

    the conflict is really about land, not ideology.
    the solution has to involve land i think.

  204. wishbone says:

    Nishi, for crying out loud…the Palis HAD a deal for LAND and they walked away and started blowing people up. Quit trying to apply game theory to sociopaths.

  205. HPennypacker says:

    A lesson in antecedents for you, right wing opp researcher: it = Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Since you know that to be the case, but miscontrued it for the JD’s and Happyfeets of the world, let me just add

    Karl, there’s nothing left to say about you, except that when you’re not race-baiting, you’re Jew-baiting. You are an ass.

  206. happyfeet says:

    If genocide is good enough for the Iraqis, I really don’t see what Baracky’s hangup here is.

  207. wishbone says:

    “the conflict is really about land, not ideology.”

    And on this point, you are just wrong.

  208. happyfeet says:

    Um, what part of #64 was all elusive for you? Stop picking on me.

  209. RTO Trainer says:

    “involve land”

    Bullshit.

    If it were about land they would have accepted the original two-state proposition.

    Your depth of understanding of history is as great as, well… your depth of understanding of anything else–measureable in nanometers.

    It is ideological. NOTHING can change, there can be NO solution, until the Palestinians and their “supporters” agree that Israel can be allowed to exist. Well, or they actually succeed in pushing the Jews into the sea, not likley given the dismal military record of Arabs since the 17th Century.

  210. MayBee says:

    JG: Do you think that Israel is a drag on America’s reputation overseas?

    BO: No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable…
    I want to solve the problem, and so my job in being a friend to Israel is partly to hold up a mirror and tell the truth and say if Israel is building settlements without any regard to the effects that this has on the peace process,

    Does Obama ever talk about holding a mirror up to the Palestinians?

  211. dicentra says:

    the Israelis can try that…but in tit-for-tat that will likely just lead to iterative escalation

    Until the Palis run out of ammo or they sue for peace.

    Violence does not escalate infinitely. Wars do end. And Israel has the power to end it all now, if they were so inclined.

    nishi, hon, it’s not about land: it’s about expunging shame, remember? Islamists cannot abide sharing the same planet with Jews, let alone the same time zone.

    If the Palis want nothing short of genocide, what do you offer them that they want more than the extermination of the Jews? And if they love death more than the Israelis love life, what do you threaten them with that they fear more than their own annihilation?

  212. wishbone says:

    I’d go further back, RTO. Those were the Turks outside Vienna.

  213. nishizonoshinji says:

    they didn’t get enough land, so they walked.
    and they got the fence.
    they may have reconsidered by now.

    nite feets.
    sleep dwell in thine eyes and peace in thy breast.
    nite all.

  214. happyfeet says:

    Oh. Palis can’t see their reflections, MB. That and they get all flinchy around crosses…

  215. happyfeet says:

    g’night, nishi.

  216. MayBee says:

    happs- don’t worry about HPennypacker. He teaches us about the antecedent “it”, without telling us where to find “it” in the question or answer. That’s one reason I copied it here.

  217. happyfeet says:

    He seems angry.

  218. Darleen says:

    I think ‘packer is engaged in a lot of projection.

  219. RTO Trainer says:

    Yeah, Wish, but they still made it to Vienna and had to be stopped.

    And the whole uncontested Barbary Coast thing.

  220. happyfeet says:

    I really would like to know what Jeff thinks on this. It’s important I think.

  221. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    Yeah, Wish, but they still made it to Vienna and had to be stopped.

    Twice, actually.

  222. happyfeet says:

    Oh. Also. Are you there Karl? It’s me, happyfeet. I can’t help but think that if Novak was trial-ballooning Hick then maybe a post with some feedback on that idea might could be a service.

  223. B Moe says:

    they may have reconsidered by now.

    My cat may learn to cook biscuits and gravy in the morning, but I won’t go hungry if she don’t.

  224. Pablo says:

    try again…….how to make the rocket attacks noncost viable.

    Duh. Raise the price.

  225. Darleen says:

    There’s a scene in the very campy Independence Day where the President looks through the glass at the aliens and asks “why can’t we negotiate. tell us what you want”

    aliens: “we want you dead.”

    You’d think after 60 years, people would realize you can’t negotiate with people who have vowed to murder you.

    And the people who pretend to ignore that just don’t like Jews much to begin with.

  226. Karl says:

    hf,

    Reasons to be skeptical about the Huck story.

  227. happyfeet says:

    Thanks, Karl. That’s not really reassuring somehow though.

  228. Darleen says:

    Karl

    I’m with feets on this one … if the McCain campaign is thinking Huck because the “media loves Huck” like they love(d) McCain, then McCain is wrapping up the Presidency with a big shiney bow and deliver it to Barry with hugs and kisses.

    Cuz Republicans by the bushelful are going to stay home.

  229. Pablo says:

    The media loved Huck because he’d get slaughtered in the general. He’s the Republican they wanted to run against and they did their best to coronate him.

    Maverick, don’t be a moron, don’t be a fool with your life.

  230. dicentra says:

    That link, Karl? To Hot Air?

    I don’t think I’ve ever seen an HA thread hit six pages before. They’re arguing about religion and doing the “my Jesus can beat up your Jesus thing” again.

    I am so not going over there. What a freaking mess.

  231. dicentra says:

    Maverick, don’t be a moron, don’t be a fool with your life.

    From your lips keyboard to Mac’s ears.

  232. I am so not going over there.

    but… but… you’re a theocon.

  233. Karl says:

    That AP is (successfully) generating traffic by fueling the Huck story should surprise no one. It seems to me that you wouldn’t have those denials of Huck being under consideration if he was at the top of the list. The latest rumor is most likely put out there to make nicey-nice with Huck’s base vote, jsuat as Mac was nice to Huck in the primaries. For all of my problems with Maverick, I don’t see him picking a VP who he could not see being POTUS, and I don’t see Mav seeing Huck as that guy.

  234. Karl says:

    Complimentary theory: Huck’s name leaks as a trial balloon. People (donors) react just as hf does. Camp Mac now has the excuse to say to religious right-folk, “sorry, can’t pick him.”

    Seriously, does anyone think that Mac has really changed his view on “agents of intolerance” any more than he has on illegal immigration? I could be wrong, but I will be shocked to be proven wrong in this case.

  235. thor says:

    Obama proves you wrong everyday. Seems like you’d be over that sort’a shock.

    Hehe.

    If McCain picks the Huck I think that’ll be McCain’s last inexplicable boner of his career. I do like the Huck’s aw-shucks one liners, but as a Veep, not so much.

  236. eod says:

    Passed on the Women’s thing in Chicago? Plame and Michelle and six figures for a naked Plame.

    Israel is a check every year. This is why they did 9/11 1 and promised a 9/11 2. It is this simple.

  237. Karl wrote in comment 197:

    Inasmuch as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is ultimately about the existence of Israel, it seems like someone who wants to be President should not be referring to it as a “constant sore” in response to the question “Do you think that Israel is a drag on America’s reputation overseas?” because the question was not about the dispute per se.

    For those not given to insisting on their own reality, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is by definition ultimately about the existence of Israel and what’s to be done about Palestinians’ need for a state of their own.

    From the Atlantic interview:

    JG: Do you think that Israel is a drag on America’s reputation overseas?

    BO: No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable.

    So, clearly, obviously, Obama says Israel is not a drag on America’s reputation overseas. He goes on to assert, “The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions . . .”

    “This problem,” for anyone with grade-school reading comprehension and no political bone to pick (or maybe salary to earn by picking political bobes) with Obama clearly, obviously refers to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, not to Israel itself.

    And, to help the desperately dim get it, consider Obama’s statement regarding settlement building and the conflict:

    I want to make sure that the people of Israel, when they kiss their kids and put them on that bus, feel at least no more existential dread than any parent does whenever their kids leave their sight.

    You don’t talk that way about people you despise, about people you consider an infected wound, Karl. I don’t, I’m sure you don’t and neither does Obama.

    Agree or disagree with Obama’s take on settlements or pursuing a two-state solution, or whatever, just don’t lie about what he said. Don’t twist his words.

    Your headline is a lie, Karl. It shoots your credibility with anyone who’s read the interview and is not part of the right-wing noise machine, or equally far gone.

  238. Karl says:

    For those not given to insisting on their own reality, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is by definition ultimately about the existence of Israel and what’s to be done about Palestinians’ need for a state of their own.

    I love to be lectured by someone who either does not know or does not care that the “Palestinians” have been offered a state of their own more than once, and have responded by attacking Israel. Get back to me when Israel’s neighbors recognize Israel’s right to exist in the first place, S.W.

  239. alppuccino says:

    You know, from what I’ve seen lately, Johnny Mac could be working for Obama.

  240. Rev. Dr. E Buzz Miller says:

    “You know, when I think about the Zionist idea, I think about how my feelings about Israel were shaped as a young man — as a child, in fact. I had a camp counselor when I was in sixth grade who was Jewish-American but who had spent time in Israel, and during the course of this two-week camp he shared with me the idea of returning to a homeland and what that meant for people who had suffered from the Holocaust, and he talked about the idea of preserving a culture when a people had been uprooted with the view of eventually returning home. There was something so powerful and compelling for me, maybe because I was a kid who never entirely felt like he was rooted. That was part of my upbringing, to be traveling and always having a sense of values and culture but wanting a place. So that is my first memory of thinking about Israel.”

    I like how Barry wraps his feelings about Israel as how it relates to, yes, Barry Obama.

    He lost me with “Jewish-American”, this hyphenation shows he was thinking already about how he could tie Israel to some experience that he, Barry Obama, had.

    Barry and his loudmouth wife are some of the most self-centered assholes I’ve seen in a long time. They’re seemingly unaware of how they come off.

    That’s a great quality for a President. An aloof buffoon and a bitch of a wife. I’d be willing to give Barry the reigns as an experiment to see how badly he would fuck things up.

    That interview should be embarrassing to Barry…but I don’t think it is. Incredible.

  241. Rob Crawford says:

    Uh, folks, nishi will never admit the Palestinians view exterminating Jews as a religious duty.

    They’re her co-religionists, remember? They’re all followers of Mohammed (piss upon him).

  242. Pablo says:

    Agree or disagree with Obama’s take on settlements or pursuing a two-state solution, or whatever, just don’t lie about what he said. Don’t twist his words.

    That’s Obama’s turf. Stay off it.

  243. B Moe says:

    Debating for Dummies, Chapter One

    “This problem,” for anyone with grade-school reading comprehension and no political bone to pick (or maybe salary to earn by picking political bobes) with Obama clearly, obviously refers to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, not to Israel itself.

    Okay, but you just said:

    For those not given to insisting on their own reality, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is by definition ultimately about the existence of Israel and what’s to be done about Palestinians’ need for a state of their own.

    If you are going to argue that Karl is missing the distinction between the state of Israel and the conflict with Palestine, you should perhaps try to establish a distinction there to begin with.

  244. Rob Crawford says:

    Pakistan was the first Islamic state, founded by native population.

    More excuse-making from the Muslim for her co-religionists.

    Pakistan (which means land of the pure — bit of religious supremacism crept in there) was not particularly founded by the “native population”. The only way you can come to that conclusion is to ignore the expulsion of non-Muslims and the decades of violence emanating from Pakistan that have followed. Pakistan is what the anti-Israeli mob thinks of Israel.

  245. Rob Crawford says:

    cynn:

    Bottom line, Israel is an open sore that weighs on on my children. Not a useful investment.

    I have an aversion to someone willing the murder and enslavement of millions of free people out of some sense of personal inconvenience.

    Fer crissake, conservatives and libertarians are excoriated for much tamer statements regarding affirmative action and foreign aid — called racists, “social darwinists”, “murderers” — yet the left is comfortable saying this kind of crap?

  246. Rob Crawford says:

    Muhammed always instructed to respect the people of the book (jews and christians)

    Go peddle your lies to people who are as illiterate as yourself, nishidiot. Mohammed (piss on him) was a murderer and a slaver, and made it very clear that the only time Jews and Christians were to be “respected” was when they submitted to being under the Islamic boot.

    If Spencer’s wrong, why don’t you prove him wrong, instead of asserting it? He cites original texts and the statements of Islamic authorities — you cite, what, a Kim Stanley Robinson novel?

  247. Rob Crawford says:

    Obama said:

    I want to solve the problem, and so my job in being a friend to Israel is partly to hold up a mirror and tell the truth and say if Israel is building settlements without any regard to the effects that this has on the peace process,

    Question — hasn’t Israel been dismantling settlements? What effect has that had on the “peace process”?

  248. datadave says:

    the Huckster makes perfect sense as the religious conservatives are getting hit as hard or harder by the Oligarch’s war on the middleclass as much if not more as anyone else. At least Huckabee acknowledges there’s a problem. With carin and jeffie downsizing their lives I guess they are getting a inkling of the Econ.Conservative’s war upon the middleclass. McCain certainly is a class warrior himself with his ultra rich wife refusing to reveal her Oligarchic income.

    the goal is always this: Lower “entitlements”….which is code for lower wages, more profit for the upper one percent. Higher costs of health care for the middle class and less for the Investment class. Labor liquidity. More marginalization of lower middle class (i.e. “working class”).

    It’s been going down, down for the ‘middle class’ since the 70’s. Statistically….but I agree we got more goodies today… Made in China mostly. Asia has saved our asses. Thank them! And the hard working ‘Intellectual and Artistic’ class which is designing products at less cost and more efficiencies. Note: this is not the “Investment Class” which is largely hereditary like the McCain’s. And the Intellectual and Artistic class is working harder and for less money too due to frequent layoffs in many of the dot boom startups ….and they’ll vote for Obama mostly except for the outliers like business owners of companies succeeding in getting contracts in the current climate (now some Professionals are not in this ‘class’ let’s say they’re in the Status Quo class i.e. medicine and law as examples–split down the middle– repub and dem._ but it’s not a Class system anyway…right?).

    It seems the military industrial conplex which PW seems to represent by its handfull of commentators (excepting Dan and who knows what the breadwinners do in various families or Karl does). OR the Israel first lobby. (now who says Israel is our number one friend….while it doesn’t admit it’s nuclear arsenal received mostly from France of all places…(look it up), for a long time France was Israel’s strongest ally and were just exploited for the deep pockets we have. The USA is a constant sore on Israel’s body politic. We’re the scab they’d like to get off their back! ( a throw in just to piss you off…but if you’re one of the Chosen…why’d you think USA is Number One???)

  249. B Moe says:

    Nobody ever wants to answer #135.

  250. Pablo says:

    Question — hasn’t Israel been dismantling settlements? What effect has that had on the “peace process”?

    Lebanon and Gaza are object lessons in one inescapable fact: Areas that Israel completely pulls out of are areas from which they then get attacked.

  251. B Moe says:

    Looks like dave’s cat learned to cook loonwaffles this morning.

  252. B Moe says:

    Areas that Israel completely pulls out of are areas from which they then get attacked.

    Which is the reason they were there in the first place. See also: Golan Heights. The problem is the media and most of the population of this country have the memory and attention span of a retarded terrier.

  253. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    datalessdave: if you want to live in North Korea, you know where to find it.

    Sure, people may have to eat grass to survive, but they’re all “equal”. That’s the important thing, right?

  254. Pablo says:

    Looks like dave’s cat learned to cook loonwaffles this morning.

    Careful, that’s not syrup.

  255. N. O'Brain says:

    Comment by datadave on 5/13 @ 5:59 am #

    Dude, it’s not a good idea to be doing shots at 6:00 in the morning.

    Just saying, ‘mkay?

  256. Carin -BONC says:

    With carin and jeffie downsizing their lives I guess they are getting a inkling of the Econ.Conservative’s war upon the middleclass. McCain certainly is a class warrior himself with his ultra rich wife refusing to reveal her Oligarchic income.

    Michigan’s economy isn’t the result of conservatives war upon the middleclass. Our economy has been devastated by liberals. Michigan (and Detroit) is what happens when you take liberal policies and apply them to a non-trendy location. Sure, everyone will put up with liberal BS when they live in NYC or California … but Detroit? All the foo-foo trendy youngsters (which is vital for liberal policies to work in any form) move out. Even Michael Moore moved away from the hoi polloi.

  257. Pablo says:

    Yeah, lay off the Demerol injections until noon, at least.

  258. nishizonoshinji says:

    /sigh

    roobart sbunsar (how he spells his name in arabic) just cherrypicks the same crap out of the Qur’an that the millenialist fundie whackjobs do. Like how the FLDS patriarchy daddies cherrypick the book of mormon and the bible.

    and yes, muslims want to incorporate what they percieve as superior morals and ethics into their government just like judeo-xians americans do.
    that is the base problem. in a democratic election the palis will elect Hamas, and Iraqis will vote for shari’a law.

    ima citizen first, not a mole for the caliphate.
    right now im wearing a WoW hoodie that i bought at hot topix and black cigarette jeans and blunnies.
    and eyemakeup and a tongue stud.
    im going drive in my car by myself to my job that i love and get paid just like a man.
    i don’t live in Saud and im not about to.
    even if i wore a burkha thay might kill me there just for bein a sufi.

    citizen first.

  259. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    cherrypicks the same crap out of the Qur’an that the millenialist fundie whackjobs do

    Except that the “millenialist fundie whackjobs” aren’t, you know, flying planes into buildings, cutting off the clits of millions of little girls, or sawing off reporter’s heads on videotape.

    Other than that, though, they’re JUST THE SAME.

  260. Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) says:

    But I DON’T think he is going to join hands with Iran and try to give Israel the smackdown.

    – Bin Laden must be sitting in his spidey hole scratching his head, trying to figure out what the crazy fucking Americans will do next. We were supposed to simply attack some ME areas, instead we come in abd try to nation build. Wasn’t in his plans. His ultimate goal was Saudi Arabia. Then Egypt,Iran.Syria,Lebenon,Jordon, with the UAE thrown in for good measure. He could give a shit less about America. We were supposed to do the heavy lifting of taking out his enemies so he would have an easy time of it.

    – On the other side, Palistine doesn’t exist, and never will. Its just a base4 of operations for the Iranian.Syrian terrorsist groups. That cabal started way back in the late 40’s, and hasn’t changed an inch in all these years. When that gang of maniacs had Russia and Egypt on their side they started a war and got their coillective asses kicked in 3 days. Totally screwed their plans. Then they run to the UN and anybody who would listen and whine.

    The real tradgedy is the Islamists, and Bim Ladens group can’t believe anyone would be so stupid as to use their position as THE worlds power, i.e. the US, to do anything but conquer and aggress. Its all they think about. The Left intelligensia still can’t acceot that such people exist in the world, and so go on trying to treat the situation totally off kilter with high minded ideals, with the usual resulting dusasterous results, i.e. Jimmah Cartah et. al.

    – They NEED things to be as they imagine.They NEED to treat issues with a lofty ideal of mans nature. Its in theor very blood. You’re not going to get anything useful from the Left ever, because they won’t deal with reality. Its just to messy for their elitist brains. They will forever try to meet with barbarians on the field of battle with a wad of papers in their hands, enumerating all their wonderful theories, and the best they can hope for is they won’t find their heads being shipped home in a box to their next of kin.

    – BTW. Its probably only because of Americas close involvement with Israel all these years that she has shown retraint. Its very possible by now that without our presence and support, a desperate Israel might have already done the deed.

  261. B Moe says:

    …just cherrypicks … crap out of the Qur’an…

    And what do you do?

  262. Rob Crawford says:

    roobart sbunsar (how he spells his name in arabic) just cherrypicks the same crap out of the Qur’an that the millenialist fundie whackjobs do.

    Odd that his “cherrypicking” is accepted dogma among all the major schools of Muslim theology/legal scholarship. And you didn’t actually refute him. You just asserted he’s wrong and made an ad hominem attack on how his name transliterates into Arabic.

    You’re not really into this thinking concept, are you?

    Somehow, I get the feeling you’re the one who’s studiously ignoring parts of your “faith”. Given the contrast between your belief in your knowledge of genetics and the reality of your knowledge of genetics, I think it’s a fair assumption.

  263. nishizonoshinji says:

    and there is nothing reassuring for feets in this Karl…..

    What’s changed in two months? For starters, remember that “Anyone but Mitt” campaign by Paul Weyrich and a bunch of other evangelical leaders? McCain can’t help but be jittery at seeing the Christian base taking a keen interest in his VP pick, especially with stories about their remorse for not having backed Huck in the primary circulating. Another thought: Romney’s always been touted as the logical pick for VP because of his fundraising prowess, to help close the money gap with Obama, but revisit this post from early March about Huckabee’s media savvy. By one estimate, the free coverage he received from the likes of Scarborough, Colbert, and the rest of the talk show circuit was worth $125 million in paid ads, more than Mitt could ever raise (especially with McCain accepting public financing). Having not one but two media darlings on the GOP ticket might convince the press to go merely hip-deep into the tank for Obama instead of face-first, like they’re planning. Finally, now that Barry O’s the nominee, McCain has both a worry and an opportunity that he wouldn’t have had opposite Hillary: Turnout among black voters in the south is sure to be huge this year, which, coupled with a weak turnout among southern evangelicals, could be lethal by putting red states in play. Adding a prominent Christian to the ticket solves that problem and frees McCain up to focus on the battlegrounds instead of fighting a rearguard action to preserve his base. Adding Huckabee specifically to the ticket, with his blue-collar populist rhetoric, holds an extra advantage in giving him a shot at Hillary’s base of working-class Democrats in Pennsylvania and Ohio.

    All of which is to say, while Hot Air readers might not like this idea, I can understand why Team Maverick might. Exit question: Who else will be joining me now in writing in Hillary this year?

  264. wishbone says:

    “crap out of the Qur’an”

    Deaf. To. Irony.

  265. B Moe says:

    Yeah, and the Palestinians heard that Condi Rice is going to be his veep. Why are you cherry-picking Hot Air links, nishi?

  266. nishizonoshinji says:

    /shrug

    don’t care.
    i could spend all time cherrypicking stuff.
    sbunsar tells you that all the major theological scholars support his cherrypicking….how do you know that is true?
    no real islamic scholar will debate him…he only has borrowed exegisis, no original stuff.
    he cant even get on al-Jazeerha…..and they took poor homely wafa on a debate show.

  267. Pablo says:

    And you didn’t actually refute him.

    Of course not. Never has, never will, is not capable of it.

    FAIL.

  268. Pablo says:

    rawr.

    lulz!

  269. Carin -BONC says:

    McCain is what “we” get when we allow the political machine to go on as it has. Huck would be the final blow. We’re allowing the future of our country to be determined by a bunch of fucking political consultants, each driven to success not by the ideology of their candidate, but by a paycheck.

  270. B Moe says:

    sbunsar tells you that all the major theological scholars support his cherrypicking….how do you know that is true?

    The evidence bears it out. You know, like that science thing you are so on about.

  271. nishizonoshinji says:

    SBP, FGM predates Islam and is in fact still practiced by xian converts in sub-saharan africa also.
    it is actually outlawed in Egypt.

  272. nishizonoshinji says:

    and anyways, doesn’t your culture cut the foreskins off millions of little boys every year?

  273. Carin -BONC says:

    no real islamic scholar will debate him…he only has borrowed exegisis, no original stuff.
    he cant even get on al-Jazeerha…..and they took poor homely wafa on a debate show.

    I’m sure that means something. Just not what you think it does.

  274. B Moe says:

    We? You got a Theocon in your pocket, Carin?

  275. Pablo says:

    The evidence bears it out. You know, like that science thing you are so on about.

    You know what ought to be easy? Finding the major Islamic theologians from the various schools of Islam that refute Spencer’s description of Koranic scholorship/jurisprudence.

    Well, it would be easy if it wasn’t a big, fat, ginormous secret that they’re not ‘apposed to tell you because you haven’t been vetted. Sort of like Scientology, but without the modernity.

  276. Darleen says:

    SW

    You don’t talk that way about people you despise, about people you consider an infected wound, Karl

    Barry, he loves him some Jews. It’s just that its the state of Israel he find problematic.

    Kinda like Chomsky and others who figure all would be kittens and puppies and [secular] Jews living in harmony with Arabs and Persians once the state of Israel is gone.

  277. nishizonoshinji says:

    /sigh

    theres tons of stuff like this.

    “This is a message from Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far, we are with them.

    “Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by Allah! I hold out against anything that displeases them. No compulsion is to be on them. Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims’ houses. Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God’s covenant and disobey His Prophet. Verily, they are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate. No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight. The Muslims are to fight for them. If a female Christian is married to a Muslim, it is not to take place without her approval. She is not to be prevented from visiting her church to pray. Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants. No one of the nation (Muslims) is to disobey the covenant till the Last Day (end of the world).”

    neither sbunsar or the millenialist fundies will ever show you a gram of it, i guarantee.

  278. Carin -BONC says:

    Well, “we” as those who would choose to vote Republican. The “we” who live here. Whether you or I voted for him or not in the primaries- he’s what we’re left with. I didn’t vote for him. Don’t care for him. Didn’t support him. Still, he’s the only person left who I could vote for now. If I vote.

  279. Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) says:

    “….and anyways, doesn’t your culture cut the foreskins off millions of little boys every year?

    – Yes we do nishi. Aside from all other considerations, religious and otherwise, it makes sex much more enjoyable, although I suppose it would be nice to see how big its going to be before you start cutting pieces of it off.

    – If you can seriously conflate circumcision with the sort of thing the Islamist practice on females, then theres no point in discussing anything with you.

  280. Carin -BONC says:

    nishi – if Islam is so compatible with Christianity, how come I can’t take a bible into SA? I guess they’re all just doing it wrong in the ME.

  281. Darleen says:

    neonazidavy @249 distilled: wages = entitlements.

    That, ladies and gents, is the core of the Left. There is no such thing as earnings. All that is good and wonderful flows from the government and it is the government’s fault if you get AIDS, refuse to evacuate in advance of hurricane warnings, pull stickups, sign closing papers for a mortgage you can’t afford or have a lousy job. And all that calls for MORE gubmint intervention.

    Fer our own good, of course! Wheeeee!

  282. B Moe says:

    neither sbunsar or the millenialist fundies will ever show you a gram of it, i guarantee.

    Neither will “all the major theological scholars”, which is the point being argued.

  283. Pablo says:

    Is that document part of the Koran? No.

    Don’t change the subject.

  284. Darleen says:

    yes, muslims want to incorporate what they percieve as superior morals and ethics into their government just like judeo-xians americans do.

    Here’s the nishi monster doing it again. She pretends that Islamism, a totalitarian ideology that disdains democracy and believes all government to be organized and run by mullahs is THE SAME THING as American Christians and Jews whose values are informed by their religions and look to see that their voices are heard in a Constitutional, representative government.

  285. mcgruder says:

    I think Bush has been a pretty crappy POTUS (voted for him 2x, so I’ve no leg to stand on) but one thing I have to give him props for is his manning up with respect to his staff. when a screw up happens, he doesnt toss them under the bus; he stands by them and takes the hits.

    Obama more and more indicates to me that he is simply unready to be POTUS; that he literally is not grown up enough. He also, and Karl, Dan C. and JG have done yeoman’s work on this, is indicative of a larger problem all Dems. have: the advisors, counsellors and funders who make their party go have a really, really seemy underside.

    You really don’t have to go far to see it.

  286. Darleen says:

    nishi

    what Pablo says in #285. Plus all the “people of the book” things in the Koran are early on, and are negated by the later “convert, submit or die” verses later. Isn’t that what “major theological scholars” argue behind close doors, even as they pretend to the kafir at large?

  287. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    it is actually outlawed in Egypt.

    No time to humiliate you this morning, nishidiot.

    I’ve got actual work to do.

    Why don’t you just cry yourself to sleep? After a bottle and a nice nap, you’ll feel much better. Promise!

  288. Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) says:

    – All the bullshit theories and wishful thinking doesn’t matter concerning what the Koran does or doesn’t say when the leadership of all the ME Muslims countries keep warring and cutting off heads.

    – After awhile it gets kind of embarrassing, even for the most willfully reality blind elitist, when the bodies keep piling up

  289. Carin -BONC says:

    BBH – it’s like Socialism. The book may be good, but to truly evaluate it you need to see how it operates IRL. Nishi keeps points to the loverly versus. But I can’t look away from incidents such as this.

  290. nishizonoshinji says:

    well..part of the whole arabian penninsula dealio is !!colonialists, go home!!
    a cultural reaction to oh, i dunno….the British Raj and the Crusades, etc. etc.
    that is why is Israel is such a constant….it gets used to validate conspiracy theories about the west reimposing colonialism.

    In large part muslims just want the West to get the fuck out and quit tellin them how infinitely superior xianity is to islam….also let them solve their own problems.
    That is why missionaries and bibles are illegal….muslims see missionaries as your basic colonialists.
    It is a base CSS (culturally stable strategy from evo theory of culture, dicentra).

  291. nishizonoshinji says:

    #286, yes darleen, from an evo theory of culture perspective it is exactly the same.

  292. N. O'Brain says:

    “#Comment by nishizonoshinji on 5/13 @ 7:03 am #

    and anyways, doesn’t your culture cut the foreskins off millions of little boys every year?”

    There’s a difference between removing a foreskin and, you know, chopping a cock off.

    Or it that too nuanced for you?

  293. Rob Crawford says:

    don’t care.
    i could spend all time cherrypicking stuff.

    How’s that different from your normal modus operandi?

    sbunsar tells you that all the major theological scholars support his cherrypicking….how do you know that is true?

    I can go to those scholars and read what they say.

  294. Pablo says:

    That is why missionaries and bibles are illegal….muslims see missionaries as your basic colonialists.

    Ahem. Are Bibles colonialists? Tool.

  295. Cowboy says:

    ….the British Raj and the Crusades, etc. etc.

    …again, cease and desist with the whole history thing. You have no idea what you’re talking about, nishit.

    Either go back to the wading pool or shut up and put those water wings back on.

  296. N. O'Brain says:

    The Crusades were a reaction to islamist aggression and expansionism.

    Self-defense, IOW.

  297. Rob Crawford says:

    neither sbunsar or the millenialist fundies will ever show you a gram of it, i guarantee.

    What Mo’ (piss on him) wrote early in his career, or what he wrote to people he wanted to lull into complacency, is meaningless compared to what he did.

  298. nishizonoshinji says:

    you can go to the ones sbunsar cites.
    qed

    dur, guyz, removing the prepuce or clitoral hood is the exact analog of removing the foreskin.
    muhammed himself says “to remove the smallest amount”. the stipulated method.

  299. Rob Crawford says:

    well..part of the whole arabian penninsula dealio is !!colonialists, go home!!
    a cultural reaction to oh, i dunno….the British Raj and the Crusades, etc. etc.

    The fucking Crusades?!

    The Crusades were the original “colonialists go the fuck home” movement, as far as I’m concerned. The damned Muslims decided they had the right to rule the world and over-ran regions that had peaceably converted to Christianity.

    Your knowledge of history is as deep as your knowledge of genetics.

  300. Cowboy says:

    Rob:

    That distinction is going to be lost to someone with barely a government high school graduate’s understanding of historical events.

    Christianity is bad…’cuz of the Inquisition…and, um, the Crusades and stuff.

  301. Rob Crawford says:

    In large part muslims just want the West to get the fuck out and quit tellin them how infinitely superior xianity is to islam….also let them solve their own problems.

    Bullshit. Muslims want to force Christians to bow.

    It’s in the fucking book, nishidiot.

  302. nishizonoshinji says:

    how can they force you to bow if you aren’t there?

  303. Cowboy says:

    In just a few posts, you’ve managed to demonstrate once again the mind-numbing depth and breadth of your ignorance.

    Today’s menu? Barely even superficial knowledge of history, religion, and the “special”–anatomy!

  304. Pablo says:

    nishi should probably go write a post or 15000 about Spencer on her blog. After all…

  305. nishizonoshinji says:

    it is how muslims percieve the crusades….an there’s operation ajax, and Israel, and the shah of iran, and the whole benevolent dictator strategy that once comprised the West’s entire mideast policy.
    islamic fundamentalists were the only defense of the population against the “benevolent” dictators.

  306. nishizonoshinji says:

    why should i pablo?
    i’ve decided sbunsar is just another sandwichboard guy.
    there are lots of them at Hotair.
    they group there for some reason, like St. Olaf and Redpills.
    you could take one of St. Olaf’s rants and substitute muslim for xian and you’d have bin laden down pat.
    ;)

  307. Pablo says:

    Why are you brining up your issue here? Because you’re a fucking obsessive and you’re banned over there, right?

    The appropriate solution is writing on your blog, not inane and incessant threadjacking here. Or if you want to debate Spencer, go do it at Jihad Watch.

  308. JD says:

    standard nishit dogma … When cornered, lash out at the xians.

  309. nishizonoshinji says:

    hey, you guyz brought it.
    i was just splainin why the Israeli/pali conflict is a constant open sore, and affects all ME policy initiatives sponsered by the US.

    i still marvel that allahpundit banned me for sayin michelle wore clownmakeup, but he tolerates St. Olaf and redpills and apacalyps. ;)

  310. nishizonoshinji says:

    dur, pablo, you can’t debate sandwichboard guys.
    ;)

  311. Pablo says:

    i was just splainin why the Israeli/pali conflict is a constant open sore, and affects all ME policy initiatives sponsered by the US.

    And you missed it by a mile. Nice corkscrew, genius.

  312. Carin- says:

    how can they force you to bow if you aren’t there?

    That’s exactly their plan, nishi. Convert, kick ’em out, or kill ’em. See Africa. Asia.

  313. Pablo says:

    You can’t debate insane people. Or, conversely, no one can debate you.

  314. Carin- says:

    i was just splainin why the Israeli/pali conflict is a constant open sore, and affects all ME policy initiatives sponsered by the US.

    Yes, and we basically disagree as to WHY it’s an open sore- or more specifically an unresolved issue. It’s an open sore because just about everyone, except the JOOOS, WANT IT TO BE.

  315. nishizonoshinji says:

    if the jews want it to stop, they should stop settlements.

  316. Pablo says:

    Explain Gaza, then. No more settlements, no more Joos, much more violence.

    Settlements are an ancillary issue, not the root of the problem. Places Israel evacuates are places Israel gets attacked from.

  317. MayBee says:

    I don’t see how there is any denying that the ball is in Palestine’s/Hamas’s court. Stop sending missiles and bombs over Israel, and the rest of the world will pressure Israel to give them (most of) what they want.
    It isn’t a chicken and egg scenario.

  318. Dave in SoCal says:

    People, you gotta stop addressing the TTP.

    It’s like someone put in an extra GOTO line and she’s stuck in an infinite feedback loop.

    Either hit the reset switch or ignore it.

  319. The Lost Dog says:

    Lisa =

    It’s nice to see someone on the left with a reasoned approach to debating.

    But, I am afraid that, like 97% of Americans, you think that the Israelis went to Palestine with guns blazing.

    Nothing could be farther from the truth, and I am still waiting for someone to show me just one incident of Israel acting aggressively just for the hell of it.

    A few hours spent researching the histoty of Israel (and the hundreds of years before it became Israel will turn on that littlr lightbulb in your head that says: “Oh. Now I see how we got where we are, and why things remain the same”. Until the Palestinians stop cramming hate down their children’s throats freom the moment of birth, Israel will have to act as they do. I am pretty sure that if your neighbors were insane and kpt raining missles down on your front yard, you would do whatever it was you had to do to try and stop them.

    Too many people are totally ignorant of the history of recent Palastine, and think that the Jooooos are some sort of trigger happy bad guys.
    The Palestinians (of which there are very few actual Palestinians) are totally and absolutely insane. They hate the Jooooos because their Imams have told them to for too many decades to count. Meanwhile, the Imams got rich dealing with the Jooooos, even while strictly prohibiting their “flocks” from even talking to a Jooooooooooo.

    It’s ridiculous to blame the Israelis for trying to protect themselves from a pack of rabid dogs.

    Like I said, until some miracle of God or Allah erases the deep seated hate and ebvy in the Palestinian population, nothing is going to change – unless Barry, out of misguided “understanding” of the problem, permits the annihilation of Israel.

    And from The Big O’s performance so far, it wouldn’t surprise me a lot. He seems to be convinced that he will be dealing with rational human beings in Palestine (and the Arab world in general), when the fact is, ain’t a whole lot of “rationals” pulling the levers of power over there.

  320. Lisa says:

    Sigh, these arguments about Israel get shrill really fast. They are always so disappointing and pointless.

    Nishi: The settlements are problematic to the peace process. But the rockets and terrorist attacks are much more problematic. The terror attacks and rockets are not going to stop if the settlements stop, and Israel is going to continue to react to the bombs, the rockets, and the crazy guys shooting and killing Israeli soldiers. I feel bad for all of the innocent people caught up in the mix who are getting killed, can’t work, have a hard time getting food, medicine, etc. They always pay in blood for the fuckery of the few. It is so sad and distressing. It is too much to contemplate.

  321. Lisa says:

    Lost Dog: I agree with you that Israel does not start fights. But they do occasionally react in a way that is unproductive. I say that knowing that I live in a country that is not surrounded by countries shooting rockets into my fellow citizens yards 24 hours a day, seven days a week. I don’t have to worry about hearing that border guards are getting killed regularly by shooters and bombers. I can get on a city bus or train and not have to wonder if I am going to make it from point A to point B without being vaporized. I realize if I lived under that kind of pressure, I would tend to react harshly to any threat. I am at a loss to say what would make things right. I just don’t know. I don’t know why some groups living under conditions that they perceive as oppressive produce amazing people like Nelson Mandela, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King, who use non-violent means to bring down oppression, while others produce Khaled Mashaal, Yassir Arafat, or Michael Collins who think killing innocent people is entirely justified in a struggle for justice. It makes my brain hurt.

  322. Rob Crawford says:

    you can go to the ones sbunsar cites.
    qed

    And unless you cite other ones, no one is aware of them.

    Muslims in general (and you in particular) refuse to do so.

    Q.E.Fucking D.

  323. Rob Crawford says:

    it is how muslims percieve the crusades…

    So what?

    They’re wrong. And clinging to their wrongness because it makes them feel good is stupid. And using that wrongness to justify murder makes them evil.

  324. Rob Crawford says:

    why should i pablo?
    i’ve decided sbunsar is just another sandwichboard guy.

    Which, based on past experience, means “Nishi’s incapable of addressing any of Spencer’s arguments, so she’s decided to pigeon hole him as insane in order to avoid having to think about what he says.”

    In other words, much as you do with anyone who disagrees with you on any topic.

  325. Dave in SoCal says:

    But they do occasionally react in a way that is unproductive.

    Can you give an example? Do you think that reacting to a missile attack with a missile attack of their own is unproductive? If so, what else should they do?

    The failure of many on the Left is to assume that if Israel would just refrain from responding to every attack on their country and citizens with an attack of their own, then the Palistinians would somehow pause and reconsider what they were doing or what they wanted. The exact opposite would be true. “Hah! You see Omar, the Israelis are no longer fighting back. We are winning! We must increase the attacks so we can hasten the day when the evil Jews are pushed into the sea”.

    The Jimmy Carter mindset is very prevalent on the Left side of the aisle.

  326. nishizonoshinji says:

    Settlements are an ancillary issue,

    dude! settlements are THE ISSUE.
    sure Israel gave Gaza back, but continued to enclose pali orchards and houses with the Fence.
    so Gaza as a trial balloon was useless.
    there can be no treaty until the settlement stops.
    unfortunately the settlers are somewhat autonomous in a democracy, and they won’t stop.

  327. Rob Crawford says:

    sure Israel gave Gaza back, but continued to enclose pali orchards and houses with the Fence.

    What “Pali orchards”?

    What really happened was the Israelis handed the Palestinians a few dozen green houses that were part of an industry involved in international trade. Rather than use those green houses to provide jobs and trade, the “Palis” trashed them, then turned the land they were on into part of their Kill The Jews industry.

    there can be no treaty until the settlement stops.

    Israel has abandoned settlements in attempts to make peace with the Palestinians. The Palestinians have responded with murder.

    Maybe you should go lecture the Palestinians on game theory. They don’t seem to comprehend tit-for-tat very well. Or maybe their goals don’t involve peace, and anything Israel does to attempt to achieve peace is a waste of effort.

  328. nishizonoshinji says:

    look….let’s go back to classic SDB

    There’s been a lot of analysis of this, and it turns out that honesty isn’t the best policy. One guy decided to run a computer tournament; people were permitted to create algorithms in a synthetic language which would have the ability to keep track of previous exchanges and make a decision on each new exchange whether to be honest or to cheat. He challenged them to see who could come up with the one which did the best in a long series of matches against various opponents. It turned out that the best anyone could find, and the best anyone has ever found, was known as “Tit-for-tat”.

    On the first round, it plays fair. On each successive round, it does to the other guy what he did the last time.

    When Tit-for-tat plays against itself, it plays fair for the entire game and maximizes output. When it plays against anyone who tosses in some cheating, it punishes it by cheating back and reduces the other guys unfair winnings.

    No-one has ever found a way of defeating it.

    tit-for-tat is a “cat” game, if both sides have unlimited resources, no side can ever win.

  329. Rob Crawford says:

    What’s your point, nishidiot? The Palestinians have responded to peace offerings with violence. THEY ARE THE ONES WHO NEED A LECTURE ON GAME THEORY.

    Were the Israelis to strictly follow tit-for-tat, there would be no al’Aqsa mosque, and a hell of a lot fewer Palestinians.

  330. nishizonoshinji says:

    Israel has abandoned settlements in attempts to make peace with the Palestinians.

    sure, some settlements….but read the article i linked.
    they continue to build new settlements as of march 2008.

  331. nishizonoshinji says:

    well…ima big on EGT.
    i think the palis likely reguard the building of new settlements as cheating in tit-for-tat.

  332. Education Guy says:

    nishi continues to show us the depth of her lack of morality. The time for Israel to need to do anything to bring about peace with the Palis has long since past. At this point the ball is in the Palis court, and if they cannot or will not stop the attacks on Israel then they need to be written off as lost.

  333. Earl Warren says:

    Meanwhile, Jake Tapper notes Karl’s pathetic source and the interviewer himself calls it “comically refutable.” But, congrats on spreading a smear, Karl. At least you and the weanies that make up the far-right of Likud, errr, the Republican Party have something else to lie about. I’d say you’d be embarrassed, but I see how to proprietor of the site so easily passes along racist smears and I see the nature of the intellectual bankruptcy. You people are the New John Birchers

    http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/05/house-republica.html

    http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/05/the_honorable_mr_boehner_1.php

  334. Pablo says:

    No, Dumbass. Jews are the issue, the existence of Israel is the issue and the point is to wipe them out. Read the Hamas charter. Read the PA charter. And shut the fuck up until you know what the hell you’re talking about.

  335. Rob Crawford says:

    they continue to build new settlements as of march 2008.

    So what? Israelis building homes on Israeli territory excuses Palestinians attempting to murder Israelis?

    Again, the folks who need to learn game theory are your co-religionists the Palestinians. Unless, of course, their goal doesn’t involve peaceful coexistence with the Israelis.

  336. Rob Crawford says:

    i think the palis likely reguard the building of new settlements as cheating in tit-for-tat.

    No doubt. Because building homes is as provocative an act as murdering people.

  337. Pablo says:

    Racist smears? Far right? Easy there, Reverend Wright.

  338. Pablo says:

    Huh.

    When Obama twisted Sen. John McCain’s “100 Years” comment, it was pretty dishonest as well.

    Fucking right wing, racist Likdunik, that Obama bastard.

  339. Rob Crawford says:

    At least you and the weanies that make up the far-right of Likud, errr, the Republican Party have something else to lie about.

    WTF? Likud?

    What’s your issue, asshat?

  340. Muslihoon says:

    Nishi: I’m afraid, old chap, that I don’t find your online moniker or your “Muslim” name to be familiar to me at all.

    Regarding the entire peace process stuff, I think a fundamental error is assuming that Palestinians want peace. They don’t. As Arabs, they are a honor-based society, and the very existence of Israel is an insult to Arab honor, seeing as they view the land comprising of Israel as eternally Arab land, in their mindset. The entire behavior of Palestinians from the very beginning has been one of propagandizing, lying, and strategizing so as to destroy Israel. Nothing less will suffice.

    Even if the Palestinians got their own state–and they have, in a sense, two separate autonomous regions–it would only be in preparation (hudnah) to the greater destruction of Israel. This is the only way it can be: generations of leaders, teachers, and people have invested in anti-Israeli propaganda and strategizing and so it makes no sense that they would suddenly chuck out decades of social teaching and assumptions simply because they have a state. Back to my point: they have a state, in fact, and what have they done with it?

    We are projecting our own behaviors, desires, assumptions, goals, mindsets, and paradigms on the Palestinians, which is a very dangerous thing to do. They are not like how most, from what I have noticed, assume them to be. They are Arabs, and we must view and treat them accordingly.

  341. nishizonoshinji says:

    Rob, you didn’t read the link.
    sure, im sympathetic to the Israelis.
    but being “right” doesn’t mean they will win at tit-for-tat.

    this is from my sailing class on Lake Walloon, long ago.

    here lies the body of john o’ day
    who died defending the right of way
    he was right, dead right! as he sailed along
    but he’s just as dead as if he’d been wrong.

    as long as the Iraelis continue to build settlements on the disputed ground outside the green line, the Israeli/Pali conflict is an endless tit-for-tat game with no winners.

  342. Muslihoon says:

    Building a settlement = okay to blow people up?

  343. Pablo says:

    i know muslihoon, dicentra.
    he knows me too…..my muslim name is shams al-nahar.

    Well, go figure.

  344. Carin -BONC says:

    The difference is that Israel could destroy the Palestinians if they wanted to -but don’t. I really doubt the Pali’s would do the same if they had the ability. The “game” isn’t a tit-for-tat because the two are not equal. The parties are both working from a different set of assumptions.

  345. nishizonoshinji says:

    muslihoon, hmm..you might know me better in my GNXP name. ;)

    an sure, the Palis don’t want peace. But the only projections im making on them are evo theory of culture and games theory. but the Palis may be forced to accept peace if they run out of resources to play tit-for-tat.
    right now it is a resource contest.
    neither side is serious about peace as long as they are being resupplied.

  346. Pablo says:

    Building a settlement = okay to blow people up?

    And to damn your own society in the process.

    The Palestinians can’t play tit for tat. They don’t have any tat. They have, at best, futile and stupid gestures.

  347. nishizonoshinji says:

    #344, yes.

  348. Education Guy says:

    Israel has made all the moves to attempt peace and the Palis have spit in their face at every step. So when you say “neither side is serious about peace” what you really mean is “I wish to spin on behalf of my murderous co-religionists”.

  349. nishizonoshinji says:

    shams means “the sun” in arabic.
    shams al-nahar is from the arabian nights. she’s juliet if you like, in a faery story.
    and shams is also atribute to Rumi’s great shayyk.

  350. nishizonoshinji says:

    edu, as long as Israel continues to build settlements on disputed territory, the game is still on.

  351. Dave in SoCal says:

    Palis may be forced to accept peace if they run out of resources to play tit-for-tat.

    Apparently, you really are just that stupid. As Muslihoon noted in #342, they will NEVER EVER EVER EVER accept peace. EVER. What part of that can’t your tiny little brain process? Even if the Palistinians run out of resources, they will simply put their war on hold until the day that they gain new resources. Then it’s “crank up the war machine and push Israel into the sea” all over again. The only way to break this cycle would be for the Palis to raise a generation or two of children who grow up not being told the Jews are evil and Israel must be destroyed. But that’s not likely to happen any time soon, is it?

  352. Pablo says:

    Sham means fraud or hoax in English. It fits.

  353. Dave in SoCal says:

    #344, yes.

    Fuck you nishi, you dishonest, lying, delusional, genocidal piece of shit.

  354. MayBee says:

    right now it is a resource contest.

    No it isn’t. Israel has many more resources that it restrains itself from using.

  355. Education Guy says:

    edu, as long as Israel continues to build settlements on disputed territory, the game is still on.

    The game is “still on” because the Palis have reared themselves a bloodthirsty society with only one goal, the destruction of Israel. You are either deluding yourself that the goals are otherwise, or you are lying. If it wasn’t “the settlements”, it would surely be some other excuse.

    Also, Israel can change the rules whenever they want. The can build walls, cut off access to power and supplies, and act in any number of ways that are detrimental to those who are actively trying to kill them.

  356. nishizonoshinji says:

    No it isn’t. Israel has many more resources that it restrains itself from using.

    jeez maybee dont be so dumb.
    this is tit-for-tat.
    Israel’s resupply is the US.
    Palestine’s resupply is the Arab Union.
    never doubt that the pali’s resupply would chip in.

    are u suggesting a tactical nuke? right, brilliant.

  357. nishizonoshinji says:

    edu guy, if the settlement building stops and a two state peace is negotiated, then the palis resupply will dry up.
    otherwise we keep playing until the West gets strapped for cash and walks away, or we get Hagee’s Rapture.

  358. Pablo says:

    Palestine’s resupply is the Arab Union.
    never doubt that the pali’s resupply would chip in.

    When? They don’t. They won’t. This is not tit for tat. This is about keeping the wound that is Palestine open and weeping.

    Tool.

  359. Pablo says:

    If my aunt had testicles, she’d be my uncle.

  360. Karl says:

    Just dropping by to note for assorted Leftards dropping by and making accusations with out reading the comments that I have addressed their point here and in subsequent comments. If you want to say the “sore” is the conflict, then you have to ask yourself about the actual root cause of said conflict, which is the existence of Israel. One side of the conflict has been willing to accept a two-state solution,; one has not, and remains committed to the destruction of Israel. Thus, saying that Obama was speaking of the “dispute” — in response to a question not specifically about the dispute — is both a dodge on Obama’s part of the question asked, and on the part of his supporters in trying to wish away the true meaning of his statement.

  361. MayBee says:

    Palestine’s resupply is the Arab Union.

    Yeah, they’d resupply Palestine about the same way they open their arms to Palestinian refugees.

    are u suggesting a tactical nuke? right, brilliant.

    I am suggesting nothing. I’m only stating the fact that Israel has more resources than Palestine, and Palestine relies on Israel not using them.

  362. Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) says:

    “Sigh, these arguments about Israel get shrill really fast. They are always so disappointing and pointless.”

    – Yes. That phenomena has a tendency to cause a loss of interest in a subject, whenever you’re arguing the idiotarian wrong headed side of any issue, and you feel your ass turning to debating mush.

    – I feel your pain. If the roles were reversed, Israel the manic power hungry aggressor, and the Syrian terrorists the peaceful indigenous people who just want to be left alone, with the shit the Bedouins have pulled over the last 50 years they would have been burned cinders and melted sand a long time ago.

    – Again I repeat. There is no Palestine. Never has been, most likely, unless its the only way a vestige of the Syrian/Iranian cabal can survive, there never will be. The entire screed of “The Palestine state” is the champion of all straw men, and the Left knows that, but rides on it like a rented mule. Thats one of the things you have to realize about the Left. They not on;y lie through their teeth because they hate Western Democracy/Republics, the life long enemy of all Marxo-totalitarian regimes, they even lie about what they’re lying about.

  363. In comment 239, Karl wrote:

    I love to be lectured by someone who either does not know or does not care that the “Palestinians” have been offered a state of their own more than once, and have responded by attacking Israel. Get back to me when Israel’s neighbors recognize Israel’s right to exist in the first place, S.W.

    Sorry, Karl, but the fact the Palestinians have behaved foolishly all these years and have been their own worst enemy is not the issue. The issue is your baldfaced lie of a headline. The Palestinians’ nonsense isn’t your license to lie about Obama and what he said.

    I take it as a measure of your desperation in this election year that you feel you have to resort to such lame, transparent deceit, then hide behind patriotism for Israel to do it. From what I’ve seen of the Israelis, they don’t need and wouldn’t respect this kind of thing either.

  364. Pablo says:

    Sorry, Karl, but the fact the Palestinians have behaved foolishly all these years and have been their own worst enemy is not the issue.

    On the contrary, it’s a constant sore that infects all of our relationships in the ME.

  365. nishizonoshinji says:

    jeez maybee, where do you think Hamas is getting materials for rocket manufacture?
    dont be stupid.

  366. Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) says:

    – #365: I will await with great expectation, your erudite explanation of what BO thinks about anything, because in some ways, being the consummate political animal, forged in the Daily Chicago machine, hes worse than sKerry when it comes to saying what he thinks, or really means.

    – Therefore, one is left to take what he says at face value, followed quickly by the clamor of you Leftloons culters, to the effect, “No,no,no….thats not what he meant…..its all very nuanced…..heres what he meant”.

    – Sort of a consistent problem you and your candidate have it would seem.

  367. nishizonoshinji says:

    dur….in evolutionary games and iterated games, intelligent organisms tend to abandon strategies that don’t work.
    the Israelis need to make kassams non-costviable.
    how do they do that?

  368. MayBee says:

    jeez maybee, where do you think Hamas is getting materials for rocket manufacture?

    Oh my God, nishi. Do you really think those rockets come close to matching what Israel has at their disposal?
    What a stupid line of argument.

  369. Pablo says:

    jeez maybee, where do you think Hamas is getting materials for rocket manufacture?

    Hmmm…steel, potassium nitrate, sugar and TNT? Clearly, Israel is missing enormous supply convoys into Gaza.

    Tool.

  370. Pablo says:

    Ah, games. What we need to do is send the Palis a million or so copies of Monopoly.

  371. Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) says:

    – When the Left finally comes to understand that the Jihadists are not into games, then they might be able to contribute something.

    – You Lunarbats seem to be incapable of recognizing that, with the exception of a handful of Islamo-fascist leaders, you’re dealing with people, agreesors, that have a typical 4th grade education, no future they can see for themselves, no moral compass, a take what you don’t have from the other guy rather than work for it, something they share with Western Progressives, a political dogma of strong horse weak horse, and cradle to grave indoctrination to viscerally hate all things non-Muslim.

    – Until you engage reality, you are simply part of the problem.

  372. nishizonoshinji says:

    maybee…resupply.
    tit-for-tat is a cat game as long as both sides are resupplied.

    lets say Israel tries to wipe out a serious segment of the civvie population with their superior rockets.
    cost? the UN, the Arab League, and pretty much the rest of the world brands them as bullies.
    there is a propaganda penalty.
    that is why they don’t do it.

  373. Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) says:

    – And before you ask, it won’t end until a generation gets enough of an education that they finally realize they’re strapping bombs on their bodies and blowing up pizzeria’s for absolutely no reason whatsoever.

  374. MayBee says:

    there is a propaganda penalty.
    that is why they don’t do it.

    Yes. Palestine counts on Israel not using all the superior resources it has. As I said several comments ago.

  375. I love this little tidbit from S.W. Anderson’s Blog (He is of course slaming McCain):

    “Who a presidential candidate surrounds himself with in the heat of a campaign says a lot about him or her.”

    Yes Mr. Anderson. Yes it does. Now about Obama…

  376. Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) says:

    #374 – That entire meme is typical Left-wing tripe. The Israeli’s unlike your comfortable Western ass, is in a fight for their very survival. They could give a flying fuck what any of those organizations think about anything, particularly the morally bankrupt UN.

    – That isn’t “why they don’t do it”. They don’t do it because they haven’t been indoctrinated from birth to take joy in killing anything thats not a Jew.

    – But then, maybe thats too nuanced for you nishi.

  377. Muslihoon says:

    What is “GNXP”?

  378. nishizonoshinji says:

    Gene Expression

    see maybee? you are gettin it.
    ;)
    unbalanced retaliation by the Israelis is not cost-viable.
    all they can do is attempt surgical strikes on the hamas leadership embedded in the pali population.

    /beams

    that is very good, maybee, you are getting it.

  379. Lisa says:

    Big Bang Hunter: Take a chill. Israel doesn’t give a fuck what you think either – to tell the damned truth. They can and will take really good care of themselves, whether you have a coronary arrest about the issue or not. They are not little whiney babies. They can and will act in their best interests, no matter what we blather about.

    I am critical of some of their foreign policy decisions, but really I like the way Israel runs things. They have a great system of public financing of education, housing, and healthcare. They have a lovely socialist system.

  380. MayBee says:

    You have done nothing to support this statement I (and others) disagreed with:
    right now it is a resource contest.

    Unless you use the word “resource” as you use the word “secular” and the number “12”.
    Other than that, you aren’t saying anything a million people, including me, have not already said in this thread.

  381. B Moe says:

    in evolutionary games and iterated games, intelligent organisms tend to abandon strategies that don’t work.

    Or go extinct. You forgot that part.

  382. Earl Warren says:

    Comment by Karl on 5/13 @ 11:26 am #

    Just dropping by to note for assorted Leftards dropping by and making accusations with out reading the comments that I have addressed their point here and in subsequent comments. If you want to say the “sore” is the conflict, then you have to ask yourself about the actual root cause of said conflict, which is the existence of Israel. One side of the conflict has been willing to accept a two-state solution,; one has not, and remains committed to the destruction of Israel. Thus, saying that Obama was speaking of the “dispute” — in response to a question not specifically about the dispute — is both a dodge on Obama’s part of the question asked, and on the part of his supporters in trying to wish away the true meaning of his statement.

    So, Karl, you whore for John Boehner, when Goldberg himself, hardly a lefty and hardly any less concerned about Israel that all the good Gentiles represented here, says of your “interpretation”

    If he doesn’t, however, I would, sadly, have to agree with my colleague, the less-forgiving Andrew Sullivan, who called Boehner’s statement a “flat-out lie.” In fact, I would add to Andrew’s post, by calling Boehner’s statement mendacious, duplicitous, gross, and comically refutable. So Mr. Boehner, do the right thing, and correct the record. I’ll be happy to post the correction right here.

    But you know more than Mr. Goldberg, sitting in your house/office in the Midwest than the guy who conducted the interview! On a site dedicated to intentionalism, Karl tells us what Barry really meant, instead of what the listener and speaker said! The irony combines with the lying and makes Pablo look nuanced and Jeff sane. Nice work, Karl, you officially make Floyd Brown look like less of a liar, less of a racist, and less of a loon.

    But, in the face of Goldberg and the face of the Truth, you keep up the bullshit. FOR THE INTENTIONALISM!

  383. happyfeet says:

    If Baracky would just stop with all his bigotry a lot of this would just blow over I think, Earl.

  384. nishizonoshinji says:

    yup B Moes
    evolve or die out.

  385. JD says:

    Why do I suspect that Earl lifted a comment completely out of context?

    Because of the Joooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooos

  386. JD says:

    “this constant sore,” that ”does infect all of our foreign policy.”

    Earl is a constant sore, that does infect all threads he participates in. That should not be taken the wrong way. It is intended to show my support of Earl.

  387. Rob Crawford says:

    the Israelis need to make kassams non-costviable.
    how do they do that?

    Napalm.

  388. Earl Warren says:

    JD, the link is in the post above. Try clicking on it this time.

    http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/05/the_honorable_mr_boehner_1.php

    I’ll expect your apology as soon as Karl corrects his John Boehner inspired lie, in other words, I doubt you have the balls to apologize much like I doubt Karl will back away from his lie.

  389. Pablo says:

    The irony combines with the lying and makes Pablo look nuanced and Jeff sane.

    But you what’s really tasty? What the irony does for Obama, that’s what.

    What say you, Earl?

  390. Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) says:

    – Lisa, you take a chill. Your comment was totally off the wall, having nothing to do with Me or what I’ve posted. Seems like you want to arrack my points somehow, but you can’t come up with anything that makes sense.

    – Israel take care of itself. Fucking a right they’ll take care of themselves. I’ve been watching this Palestinian clusterfuck since the early 50’s. How long you even been alive sistah? I’ll bet I don’t need any advice from your ass on almost any subject you could name.

    – Problem with blowing air out your ass. which is what you have with 99% of the SecProg comments, is there is bound to be someone in the crowd who has been there, and actually knows something about the conflict beyond the carefully crafted propaganda pap you kids have been fed since the late 60’s.

    – You need to stick to someone your owb age and lack of experience.

  391. datadave says:

    Israel take care of itself.

    yes. let’s stop helping them and save billions of dollars a year. I’d like to see a self sustaining Israel. Them maybe they’d make compromises with their neighbors.

    Karl, the two state solution has always been a sham and always will be if the Arabs are giving only the worse land and little water for said land. Actually a One State solution with equal rights of neighbors: Jews, Muslims, irreligious and Christians is the best solution.

    So big bang are you Jewish and why do you feel threatened by those who disagree about the primacy of Israel? You take this way personal.

  392. Reverend Jeremiah says:

    Karl, they’re calling you a liar. You shouldn’t be shocked, by the way.

  393. happyfeet says:

    That’s dist… oh nevermind.

  394. Earl Warren says:

    Pablo, try not to be too afraid of Obama and follow along: Karl, relying on John Boehner, passed along a lie. He has yet to back away. I understand if you have a problem knowing what a lie is, given your love of right wing clowning, but I can say this: karl’s interpretation of Obama’s remarks, being at odds with the two dudes in the room on a site operated by the king of intentionalism is ironic.

    P.S. Since you are playing bait and switch arguments, pabby, should we check the archives for your righteous anger at John Kerry being pilloried for saying “I voted for it before I voted against it” line? I mean, since intentional misinterpretations get you all hot and bothered….and all.

    Consistent much?

  395. Lisa says:

    #393: I wonder if he is an Israeli. That would be interesting, and would explain his ubercranky reaction to the subject. Probably PTSD.

  396. happyfeet says:

    It’s not like Baracky likes Israel. Sheesh. You can tell cause he went to that Jew-hating church for twenty years.

  397. happyfeet says:

    And also, pabby? To me that just sounds deliberately scornful. His name is Pablo.

  398. Pablo says:

    Sounds like Earl is having a snit, ‘feets. BTW, I laughed at Kerry..harder than I’m laughing at you, mostly because you’re sort of sad. And Baracky’s “new way of doing things” that’s exactly like the old way of doing things? That’s pretty funny too.

    But let me consider your impression of The Misinterpretation of Flipper, because that might also be hilarious, unless you botch the joke.

  399. Rob Crawford says:

    datadave:

    So big bang are you Jewish and why do you feel threatened by those who disagree about the primacy of Israel? You take this way personal.

    Lisa:

    #393: I wonder if he is an Israeli. That would be interesting, and would explain his ubercranky reaction to the subject. Probably PTSD.

    The Left cannot comprehend of someone objecting to their callous disregard (often bordering on hatred) for Israel without speculating the person is Jewish or Israeli.

    (Take a look at dave’s comment; he completely ignores what the Palestinians say they want and completely buys into their propaganda. It’s amazing how utterly some people give themselves over to lies.)

  400. datadave says:

    he completely ignores what the Palestinians say they want and completely buys into their propaganda.

    not true. anyway, most of the PWers are saying the Palestinians are an artificial nationality anyway and what is the difference between their ‘want’ and their “propaganda”? Arabic speakers due to the culture and language are very passionately over-the-top on negotiation. In quieter moments they’ll admit when they say “death to Israel” they are speaking rhetorically (and unfortunately a overwhelmingly macho-type of cultural language) and know full well that Israel’s never going to die. The dual-state artifice is an outgrowth of that negotiating technique and Israeli’s have cleverly fostered it knowing that the Palistinian “non-people” would only get the dregs in the end. Palestinians know they are in between a rock and a hardplace and thus are suicidally mad over it. And the PLO was a corrupt and bankrupt leadership…. and Israel also fostered the Hamas movement until it got too powerful and then turned on it. So the clever and powerful Israelis have had the Palestinians snookered and then betrayed and now wonder why so many people are mad at Israel.

    Reason’s why the American Right loves Israel are including that it snubbed the noses of all law-abiding nations and has done things unilaterally including the widest use of international assassinations, unregulated nuclear bomb making, use of massive physical force (cluster bombers etc) and uses clever manipulation of propaganda. The American Right is agog in wanting that for itself as it feels both priveleged and besieged and paranoid…(all w/o warrant unlike Israel’s real concerns). All the bad of Israel is good in the minds of right-wingers everywhere. The early Zionist movement was in fact allied with fascism in Europe and even helped Hitler by attacking the British during World War 2. Zionism at first ignored the Holocaust while fighting the British in Palestine and then while attacking the resistant inhabitants of Palestine (a long time Ottoman ‘state’) who rebelled against increased Jewish invasion of the land (whether paid for or not isn’t the question)…and after WW2 Zionism took on the mantle of self righteousness due to the European fascist’s AntiSemitism…(even while ignoring the Left’s concern over antiSemitism) while during the actual event doing nothing to help Europe’s Jews..unlike the Partisan Left and many individuals who tried to save Jews w/o using them for an ideological excuse. Clever Propaganda? you bet!

    However, that is the Right of Israel. The Left of Israel is quite different. Let’s see some more discussion about Israeli’s solutions rather the US bullshit artists getting involved. Obama is correct in that Israel’s problems aren’t ours. Let them fix their own sores. The American Right is using Israel as a model of manipulation… a game that even Nishi admits can’t be won. Better to look to the Israeli Left for creative pursuits of peaceful co-existance…with a firm hand in it’s own defense. The two: creativity and defense; aren’t exclusive. Bernard Avishai seems to have more sense than the lot of US neo fascists proclaiming their concern for Israel’s survival while ignoring the nuclear stockpile they’ve got. Again NPR’s shows have a lot more to offer than most political websites trying to foist each of their own narrow agendas.

  401. JD says:

    Earl – How exactly did I lie, or Karl for that matter. I said I suspected something and Karl pointed out what Baracky was referring to when he said those oh so statesmanlike words of support like constant sore that infects everything.

  402. Carin -BONC says:

    Actually a One State solution with equal rights of neighbors: Jews, Muslims, irreligious and Christians is the best solution.

    A quick check at population growth demographics should tell you why that’s not going to work.

  403. Spies, Brigands, and Pirates says:

    quieter moments they’ll admit when they say “death to Israel” they are speaking rhetorically

    And in less-quiet moments they set off nail-bombs on school buses and saw off people’s heads on videotape.

    Stupid and amoral is no way to go through life, dave.

  404. Rob Crawford says:

    Jesus, dicklessdave. The amount of anti-Israeli/anti-semitic bile in that little screed is breath-taking. You honestly don’t have any source besides Palestinian propaganda, do you?

    Oh, wait. You listen to NPR as if it were gospel. Of course you don’t.

  405. Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) says:

    – Damn dataless. When you jump the shark, you really do a job of it. How can you expect anyome to take your posts seriously when you base all of your comments on total fiction.

    1) There is no Palestine state. The area called Palestine is made up of a gaggle of Bedouin nomads that have farmed the area for centuries, and various immigrants from surrounding Islamic countries, and the assholes from Israel that thought it would be great to start a civil war because they didn’t get to own everything. Its all total fabricated bullshit. A useful construct that gives Syrian/Iranian terrorists a base of operations. The UN cobbled together a “state” by edict, and it didn’t take because that was never the intention or motives of Damascus or Thiran.

    2) There never was a “Zionist” group or movement. That little cannard is the result of a fucking single nutcase and his fictional book, “The Elders of Zion”. The only movement that could be approximated as “Zionist” that has ever existed, was a small group of Jewish separatists who decidedly did not have any of the characteristics you repeated. But it makes a great propaganda launching point to demonize the Israeli’s with. Again, total bullshit.

    – That you would cite works of fiction as historical fact, just emphasizes how ready some people are to buy any sort of garbage, because the tiny state of Israel, only 600,000 people at the start, have been able to outsmart all the aggressive murdering millions that surround them. Fuck you.

  406. Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) says:

    – Just so you’ll have a clue about the history of the area, you mentioned your hero Adolph. He did, in fact, equip and train a regiment from the ME. Muslims, not Sionists. Apparently he never trusted them very much, because they were never sent to Israel for there intended purpose, killing jews, and saw limited service. After the war some did return to Isreal, with the xpress purpsoe of undermining and overthrowing any established stable government.

    – Nice group of murdering thugs you’ve decided to side with douchebag.

    – People that rumor monger and repeat lies meant to inflame others against people they hate, but are to cowardly to face, are worse than the Juhadists.

  407. Lisa says:

    Rob Crawford: Don’t randomly slam NPR. They are pretty evenhanded with the whole thing. They do those touchy-feely stories about Israeli Jews and Arabs reaching out to each other and opening up flowershops together all the time – which is really naive and keeps people thinking that they are just one Jew/Arab flowershop or jointly owned olive grove away from peace in the Middle East. That always annoys me. They tend to overthink the simple questions and run away from the really hard questions – but, in my humble opinion, they do okay with coverage as a whole.

    I think we have reached the place where if a person is not shrieking and pulling their hair out over the plight of Israel, they are considered “anti-Israel” – which is a bit disturbing.

  408. Big Bang Hunter (pumping you up) says:

    – Defending an isolated Nation that labors mightily to NOT kill as they are being rocketed on a daily basis, is not shrieking and hair pulling Lisa.

    – What is it with the Left and Israel. Are you just simply jealous of their morality and intellige4nce. Funny that, for elitists to espouse, wouldn’t you say?

  409. Rob Crawford says:

    Don’t randomly slam NPR.

    Oh, it’s not random. It’s very carefully considered and targeted.

  410. Earl Warren says:

    JD, did you click on the link? You accused me of cutting and pasting out of context. I directed you, for the second time no less, to the author’s posting on this very topic. Then I typed that I would expect your apology for accusing me of cutting and pasting out of context about the same time Karl apologizes for his lie. In other words, never. See, JD, you not only don’t have the capacity to read; you also lack the capacity to think.

    At first, I thought “JD is a dunderhead, but maybe my post was unclear.” So, I went to 335 where I posted Tapper making fun of the lie and Goldberg calling it “comically refutable” and posted the links. Then, I read again Karl excessively psychic divining of Barack’s intent. Then, at 384 I posted a paragraph from Goldberg.

    Soon after, the apparent Forest Gump of Protein Wisdom (that would be you, JD) accused me of posting it out of context. So, at 390 I re-posted the link and told you that you, JD, would not click on the link.

    Now, you’ve returned to show not only is clicking on a link beyond you, but basic reading comprehension is beyond you. I was thus able to determine that you are very, very stupid. I expect you to respond with one of your “insults.”

    Meanwhile, proving my prose can be read, resident Human Events/far right/nutball journalist Happyfeet saw “pabby” and understood I meant it as scorn. He comically says afterwards “His name is Pablo,” which is either a hilarious homage to the movie Fight Club or just plain silliness, since Pablo is as much a nomme de plume for him as Happyfeet is a nomme de plume of the aforementioned right wing loon.

  411. MayBee says:

    Rob Crawford: Don’t randomly slam NPR. They are pretty evenhanded with the whole thing. They do those touchy-feely stories about Israeli Jews and Arabs reaching out to each other and opening up flowershops together all the time – which is really naive and keeps people thinking that they are just one Jew/Arab flowershop or jointly owned olive grove away from peace in the Middle East.

    Ha!

    I heard part of David Mamet’s interview with NPR after he wrote the “Why I’m no longer a brain dead liberal” article. He slammed NPR for being so pro-Palestinian. I thought the interviewer (was it Robert Siegal?) was going to cry.

  412. Earl Warren says:

    Finally, and then I must retire to that great big bench in the sky,
    Happyfeety:

    although Obama has pledged fealty to the state of Israel as a matter of policy and ideology, you continue to make the ridiculous claim that one must love Israel as Bibi Netanyahu does to be an American President.

    What would Obama have to do for you, oh happyfeety? Does he need to invade Lebanon? Personally execute a Hamas member on national TV? Take David Ben-Gurion’s jawbone and kill 10,000 Arabs? Arrest and torture Olmert? How does one satisfy the Jed Babbins and Christianists of America’s dank pool of right wing “thought”.

    You fancy yourself the judge, oh right wing reporter guy (JD is your fool and pabby the bailiff (as nearly as I can tell Karl is the Prosecutor with trumped up charges), tell us what can Barry do to prove he loves Israel enough to be President?

    I mean, I know the answer is to have an “R” after his name, but I am wondering if your wit comes with self-knowledge.

  413. MayBee says:

    No, Earl Warren. Happyfeet is his real name. His parents were a bit capricious.
    Have you ever posted as someone called Juke Box Grad?

  414. Education Guy says:

    Is that true happy? Are you really a journalist?

  415. McGehee says:

    Wise it is not, the feet that are happy to mock.

  416. Pablo says:

    He comically says afterwards “His name is Pablo,” which is either a hilarious homage to the movie Fight Club or just plain silliness, since Pablo is as much a nomme de plume for him as Happyfeet is a nomme de plume of the aforementioned right wing loon.

    Mr Chief Justice, it might help you to know what the fuck you’re talking about before you start declaring things as fact. happyfeet is not a loon and you are not correct.

    Now, since you’ve been dodging it, despite it being discussed in the very link you demand be taken into immediate and thoughtful consideration, how do you feel about Obama lying about McCain’s 100 years comment and then lying about lying about it. Jake Tapper is not impressed. What say you?

  417. McGehee says:

    And I think if Ear Worrem can call the inoffensive Happyfeet by other than his proper chosen handle…

  418. Pablo says:

    I was gonna go with Swirl Torrent but the robe scared me off.

  419. Lisa says:

    Comment #420!! Woot woot. You will be mailed a complimentary bag of medical marijuana within 6-8 business days.

  420. Pablo says:

    Sweet! I knew this would pay off sooner or later.

  421. Lisa says:

    – What is it with the Left and Israel. Are you just simply jealous of their morality and intellige4nce. Funny that, for elitists to espouse, wouldn’t you say?

    The Leftâ„¢ is eeeeeeevil. Eeeeevvvvvilllllll! (echo, echo, echo, echo)…

  422. Education Guy says:

    Sadly, shortly after your delivery the DEA will show up to haul you off to federal prison.

  423. Rob Crawford says:

    although Obama has pledged fealty to the state of Israel as a matter of policy and ideology, you continue to make the ridiculous claim that one must love Israel as Bibi Netanyahu does to be an American President.

    The only person saying that is you.

    We’re saying that referring to an ally as an “open sore” is probably not a sign of actually thinking highly of that ally.

  424. Rob Crawford says:

    Lisa, I’ve been debating lefties about Israel for close to 20 years. Many on the left cling to a collection of myths about Israel that would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. Challenging those myths is met, more often than not, with slanders and anger.

    Look at datadave’s comments — the “Zionists worked with the Nazis” canard is straight out of antisemitic screeds.

    But who did you take to task in this thread? BBH.

  425. Lisa says:

    #426: I don’t doubt it Rob. I don’t have strong feelings about Israel or the Palestinians. I find taking those strong positions is just plain unproductive. My position is that I hope they resolve their fucking issues, though I doubt they will. But I don’t really have any hope that there will ever be peace as long as they are both there. Someone is going to have to go. That little strip of land is not big enough for the two groups. Eventually, as Israel is the established state with the democracy and the badassed military, they are going to have to take some kind of action. Keeping things as is is unacceptable. They are going to have to say “ya ain’t gotta go home, but you gotta get the hell outta here” to the Arabs. All roads (IMHO) lead to that end. Arguing about whether it will be mean or shitty of them to do so is pointless. It probably will be mean and shitty, but they are likely still going to have to do it – and if the roles were reversed, the Arabs would do the same thing. The current situation is just not workable. And it is wearisome on the rest of the globe as they watch and wring their hands endlessly about the situation.

  426. Lisa says:

    Oh, and I responded to BBH’s taking the disagreement so personally. He asserted that he has some real-life experience over in Israel and that I should fuck off, as a callow, silly and inexperienced member of the Leftâ„¢.

    The whole thing is pretty sad. I don’t want to demean him and minimize what he has lived through, but I am not some crazed anti-semite either and feel like I should say so when I am accused.

    Oh and btw, I immediately ingore a person if they spout the “Teh Zionists are coming! Eeek” blather. That is not even worthy of my attention. They have boundless energy and you will end up spending pointless hours trying to convince them that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is, in fact, bullshit. It is exhausting.

  427. Earl Warren says:

    Pablo, I’m not here to play 20 questions with a half-wit hypocrite; I’m here to call a blogger a lie for posting a lie he refuses to retract.

    Don’t kill the messenger, pablokins, just because you are a Karl fanboi. The good news is that you can totally throw your bra on stage at the next Claude Pate reunion!

    As for your ploy, I don’t dance when you toss nickels at me, especially since you’ve acknowledged your hypocrisy on the subject.

    I suppose in the end, I personally don’t like misusing McCain. One doesn’t need to. He’s a terrible candidate, running against the tide. Doesn’t mean I don’t laugh every time I watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yq0tMYPDJQ

    Live by the sound bite in 2004, p’lo, die by it in 2008.

  428. gotta be timmah.

  429. datadave says:

    BBH is obviously full of @@@@. Palestinians are obviously not just Bedouins (a small subset of Arabs of the region). Israel wasn’t long in recent existence (it’d been ‘scattered’ and reduced to a ‘Syrian’ province under the Romans in the first century AD.) Zionism has been a movement of centuries (is BBH so ignorant to not know of Theodor Herzl who’s spoken of in any decent Poli Sci 101 class_)

    Anyone who has participated in a sedar knows that Zionism’s roots are in the long time traditions of the Jews. I say this as a neutral fact, not as denigration….”Next Year in Jerusalem.” Again I asked whether BBH is a Jew but now I think he is not as he hasn’t studied enough to be a Jew. Such ignorance and rancor is not seemly to a true Jew. He lacks knowledge of the Talmud and the traditions that sustained those of Jewish faith thru centuries of persecution and eventual success in finally returning to Jerusalem. Israel is reality, but not in the past and Palestine was reality but is now the diaspora…the ‘sore’ that Obama is really acknowledging.

    If Israel wants to remain a purely Jewish state then it needs to stop taking land from non Jews in the area once known as Palestine “(פלשתינה (א״י” (Palestina E”Y) or TransJordan, or whatever Canaan.

    perhaps BBH needs to study and return to the traditions and practice a more peaceful path of fulfillment not the path of hatred that many Arabs and some Jews and many Christians pursue. Instead listen more closely during sedar:

    “9. MARROR

    At the Seder we say: “In every generation they rise against us to annihilate us.” The Egyptians broke our backs and our spirits. The Romans destroyed the Second Temple and rivers of Jewish blood flowed. And so it was in every generation: Crusades, Inquisitions, Pogroms, Holocaust, Arab terrorism. Intense and irrational violence has stalked our people to every corner of the globe. Why the hatred?

    The Talmud says the Hebrew word for “hatred” (sinah) is related to the word “Sinai.” At Mount Sinai, the Jewish people acquired the legacy of morality and justice — a message that evil cannot tolerate. We taught the world “to beat their swords into plowshares.” We taught the world “to love your neighbor as yourself.” We taught the world equality before justice, and that admiration belongs not to the rich and powerful — but to the good, the wise, and the kind. Hitler said: “The Jews have inflicted two wounds on mankind — circumcision on the body, and conscience on the soul.” How right he was and how much more work we have to do.

    Throughout the generations, the forces of darkness have sought to extinguish our flame. But the Jews have somehow prevailed. We have God’s promise that we will be the eternal nation. For without our message, the world would revert to utter chaos.”

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