Bragging rights: I’m proud of Pajamas Media this morning. If you haven’t seen it, we had a great story by Ardeshir Arian yesterday from inside Iran (with video). The mainstreammedia is of course missing or ignoring this entirely.
This morning, we have, via our perspicacious Tel Aviv editor Allison Kaplan Sommer, the first translation of Barack Obama’s interview with Israel’s leading daily Yediot Aharonot. Obama has clearly woken up to the fact that Jews are a major Democratic Party constituency – and he is in danger of losing them. This could be fatal, especially in the general election.
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6 Comments
1. Lightnin' Hopkins:The MSM wouldn’t recognize the importance and newsworthiness of a story like Ardeshir Arian’s if it bit them on the ass! Besides, it doesn’t fit their Bush sucks/All is lost narrative anyway. To admit that incidents like this are encouraging and that Iranians may prefer to be free after all is to give “The Decider” his due on transforming the Middle East – and that’s a major no-no. What a pathetic shame.
Just imagine an honest press reporting on a united West, led by America, with a do-something Congress actually helping the Executive branch, truly supporting the military, citizens engaged in the fight in whatever way that would help, a UN casting out thugs and criminals in its midst supporting democracy and liberty for all nations – what a different world we would have in a few short years. It appears that many young educated Iranians are impatient with the glacial pace and blase level of concern about them exhibited by the outside world – they seem poised to kick some ass, quite literally (ask that stranded cop). A tipping point may be at hand – it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of Mullahs.
Feb 27, 2008 - 10:19 am 2. Eric Akawie:We’ll see what he says in the Arabic press. On the other hand, just how hard does he have to woo the Jewish vote post-primary? If Bush didn’t get a significant portion in 2004 against Kerry, I doubt McCain will this year, no matter how many bagel-and-lox brunches he goes to.
Feb 27, 2008 - 10:44 am 3. Roger:Not sure you’re right, Eric. Bush did much better than expected with Jewish voters. This time around it could be worse for the Dems, especially with Obama. This one has yet to play out.
Feb 27, 2008 - 11:41 am 4. Doug S.:I would add that the Dems rely very heavily on locking up racially and ethnically defined constituencies. Even slight defections will leave a mark. That’s why, before the War on Terror turned up the heat on the immigration issue, you heard some talk in Repub circles about courting the Hispanic vote. That’s also why promising black Republicans (like Michael Steele) are treated as such intriguing figures.
Feb 27, 2008 - 12:19 pm 5. Barry Dauphin:Steven Hayes had an interesting piece of Obama in yesterday’s WSJ. He was considering the possibility that too many Republicans are dismissing Obama the way (and in the same terms) that Dems did of Reagan. While I don’t swallow his thesis, there is something to it. Obama has been more effective than expected in many ways. He appears to have destroyed the Hillary parade and that isn’t a small thing. He has been effective at persuading people to come to his side. To say the least, there has to be a lot more than that and I don’t see anything so far to suggest that there is, but his success thusfar ain’t nothing.
Feb 27, 2008 - 5:36 pm 6. Mike_Nargizian:Can you say South East Florida Jewish vote?
Florida being a key swing state?
I know people in Florida already who are noting his apparent anti-Isreal posture.
All things otherwise being equal -
1) Both of his fathers are Muslim
2) He attended a Muslim “secular” (yeah ok) school in Indonesia.
3) His personal pastor and adviser is a BIG fan of Louis Farrakhan, and surprise surprise, has made several anti-Israeli and borderline (gotta be pc) anti-semitic I mean anti-Zionist remarks.
4) He adamantly calls for withdrawal from Iraq immediately upon his possible ascension to President.
5) He apparently told Ali Abuminah that he had to posture towards the Jewish community after an event where Abuminah noted dissappointedly how Obama swung against many of his avowed views he espoused in private and public at Arab and Muslim group funcions. (Article at EIntifadah I believe?)
FOR THE FINAL CAPPER/WHOPPER OF THEM ALL -
6) Many of his key foreign policy advisers are far left Jimmy Carter people including Malley who’s revisionist history of Camp David contradicts Clinton and Ross’s… basically they “rushed” Arafat and were “rude” to him as well and the failure was really the US and Israel’s fault for trying to “take advantage” of the “poor” Arafat.
Remember how many times Arafat was sucked up to with White House visits during Clinton’s Presidency? Guilliani kicked him out of an event in the late 90’s at an event in NYC… yet the guy who “fought” his entire life for “Palestine” was rushed when he was offered virtually everything he supposedly wanted and was “fighting” for his entire life? Finkelstein and the far left use this line in all of their speeches about Camp David.
You add all those up and even if you take the “best case scenario” of all of those why would you vote for him?
Feb 29, 2008 - 2:29 pm