Reply With Quote
Ah, more made up from the "opinion-editorial" page.
http://washingtonexaminer.com/opinio...s-rules-debate
If it had been a fight, they would have stopped it.
Friday's showdown between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wasn't close, and it wasn't pretty -- though Netanyahu didn't want to leave any obvious marks. The end result was that our president is suddenly aware that Chicago rules don't work on tough-minded leaders of countries surrounded by terrorists.
The battle between the warrior and the academic was bound to turn out this way. President Obama was a community organizer once. Netanyahu was commander of the Israeli Defense Forces' elite special forces unit, Sayeret Matkal. Faculty meetings can get rough, but not as rough as the hostage rescue mission to free Sabena Flight 571.
So the president's absurd declaration about 1967 borders is off the table. In fact, the table is gone. Israel can wait out the 20 months left to Obama's presidency, or even 48 months if American voters insanely choose to experiment with epic incompetence at the top for another term. Israel isn't going back to the Auschwitz borders, and only a naive and inexperienced academic would think that Thursday's speech would do other than worsen prospects for a negotiated settlement.
Netanyahu's take-down of the president should be on the TiVo of Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Mitch Daniels, Jon Huntsman (and, yes, Rick Perry if what I have been hearing is true). One of those men will be standing opposite the president in the debates of September and October of 2012, and Netanyahu showed exactly how to respond to the prolixities and pauses of the teleprompter-dependent president.
First, let the president talk, and talk, and talk. (And talk.) His frequent rhetorical cul-de-sacs numb the minds of listeners and set up the opportunity for sharp contrasts between the definitive and the ambiguous, the purposeful and the feckless.
Second, look right at him when responding. This so unnerved President Obama that his anger and frustration was visible. Whether he brought the sense of superiority to the White House or whether it erupted there, the president does not care for people who challenge him directly, cannot seem to believe that anyone would have the temerity to do so. This is the sign of a deep insecurity, and Netanyahu used it.
Next, speak from specifics, using facts and especially history. Netanyahu used history to spank the president on Friday. A GOP nominee armed with specific references -- not just to Obama's many blunders but also to clear evidence of the American exceptionalism that Obama has clearly rejected -- will put the wordy academic on his heels.
Finally, express core truths bluntly -- especially the harshest ones, such as the nature of Hamas. The president has been shrinking from clarity for more than two years, whether it is clarity on Iran, on the butcher Assad and the nutter Chavez, and most recently on the key Palestinian problem -- that Hamas, like Hezbollah to the north, wants Israel destroyed.
Netanyahu showed a worldwide audience that purposefulness can be as polite as it is pointed, and that Obama has a glass jaw. A clenched glass jaw, but a glass jaw nonetheless.
Israel isn't going back to the 1967 borders. Hamas cannot be a partner in peace negotiations. And Israel is a friend and a valued ally, not a lap dog. The president would do well to figure out that our country prefers Netanyahu's approach to his. Even the president's own party does.
Ah, more made up from the "opinion-editorial" page.
Announcing and celebrating the success of a probable political lame duck over Obama.
Premature?
IS darrins happy that a foreign leader came to America to show up our President?
I thought he was patriotic and all that..
How are they allied with us?
What does the US get out of its alliance with Israel and the closing in on $100 billion it has cost?
does darrins realize that many americans want there to be peace in that region? many americans also realize Isreal will have to give up something in order for there to be peace. Or does darrins want perpetual war for which we fund a portion of it?
its hard to know what he feels because all he does is start threads.. and never leaves his thoughts
If all that is preventing peace in the ME is the current size of Israel, then I'm all for going back to their 1967 borders. Too bad this doesn't comport with reality.
Where did Obama say that the 1967 borders were to be the immutable and final borders of any peace deal, Darrin?
Here's the transcript. Point it out to us.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...ch-middle-east
C'mon Darrin, let's discuss this. As I understand it, you might be ignorant of what Obama actually said.
By: Hugh Hewitt
I was hoping to read Netanyahu's rules of debate... guess I'll have to look somewhere else.
But were the rules federally mandated?
Did they fill up the Superdome?
All these questions remain unanswered.
Is the "hero worship/warrior" mentality now one of the legs of the current Republican platform?
Like being a booster of Israel (more specifically, a likudnik) it's more of an unspoken assumption.
Author of such gems as:
If It's Not Close, They Can't Cheat: Crushing the Democrats in Every Election and Why Your Life Depends on It
A Guide to Christian Ambition: Using Career, Politics, and Culture to Influence the World,
Painting the Map Red: The Fight to Create a Permanent Republican Majority,
and
A Mormon in the White House?: 10 Things Every American Should Know about Mitt Romney
As well as (surprise) a talk radio show.
You will have to pardon me if I don't accept his analysis of the meeting at face value.
Why are you not expressing some skepticism about the author's conclusions?
Israel wouldn't be anything without the United states support.
The US does not have to kiss Israel's ass.
Netanyahu is the Cheney of Isreal....there won't be peace in the region until guys like Netanyahu are gone....
I was hoping to read
By: Netanyashu
given the thread and article's name. At least a few quotes from him.
The Greenwald: Congress gives Netanyahu a better reception than their own president
According to ABC News, Netanyahu received more standing ovations from the U.S. Congress (29) than the U.S. President did the last time he spoke (25).
In sum, the same faction that spent the last decade demanding fealty to the Commander-in-Chief in a Time of War upon pain of being accused of a lack of patriotism (or worse) now openly sides with a foreign leader over their own President. The U.S. Congress humiliates itself by expressing greater admiration for and loyalty to this foreign leader than their own country's. And because this is all about Israel, few will find this spectacle strange, or at least will be willing to say so.
The "Israel is the only democracy in the middle east" thing goes in the toilet, that's what happens.
Netanyahu could take his pants off, and wipe his smeg onto the Cons ution of the United States of America in front of the entire US congress and would receive thunderous, fervent applause, and Obama would be called out for not clapping.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
