WSJ lies about Israel and Obama

The we hate Obama crowd is enjoying a new editorial published by the WSJ which begs a question, and then tries to answer it. Under the heading "Why Obama Is Losing the Jewish Vote?" (Oh, really?) we find a list of bullets, each containing errors, omissions, exaggerations, misstatements of fact, or outright lies. Perhaps in time, I'll point all of them out, but for now, here's a debunking of one, especially egregious error.

• July 2009: Mr. Obama hosted American Jewish leaders at the White House, reportedly telling them that he sought to put "daylight" between America and Israel. "For eight years"—during the Bush administration—"there was no light between the United States and Israel, and nothing got accomplished," he declared

This is not a fair description of what occurred. First of all, common sense ought to tell you something smells fishy here. Would an American president really be foolish enough to announce his plans to screw Israel in front of an audience of American Jewish leaders? And indeed, the facts tell a different story.

Here's the version reported at the time by JTA:
[Malcom] Henlein said that peace progress was likelier when there was "no daylight" between Israel and the United States. Obama agreed that it must always be clear that Israel has unalloyed U.S. support but added that for the past eight years, referring to the Bush administration, there was "no daylight and no progress."

Here's how the New York Times reported it at first 
Participants said some of the toughest questioning of Mr. Obama came from Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Two said that Mr. Hoenlein told the president that diplomatic progress in the Middle East has traditionally occurred when there is “no light” between the positions of the United States and Israel. But Mr. Obama pushed back, citing the administration of his predecessor, George W. Bush.

“He said, ‘I disagree,’ ‘’ said Marla Gilson, director of the Washington action office of Hadassah, the women’s Zionist organization. “He said, ‘For eight years, there was no light between the United States and Israel, and nothing got accomplished.’

Here's how the New York Times reported it later
During the July meeting, held in the Roosevelt Room, Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, told Obama that “public disharmony between Israel and the U.S. is beneficial to neither” and that differences “should be dealt with directly by the parties.” The president, according to Hoenlein, leaned back in his chair and said: “I disagree. We had eight years of no daylight” — between George W. Bush and successive Israeli governments — “and no progress.”

From the context it seems absolutely clear that Obama was not threatening Israel, nor was he announcing a policy shift. Rather, he is telling us that he has Israel's best interests at heart, and that he does not believe that Bush's approach was successful.  He wants progress. He wants peace. And he's not afraid to point out that Bush failed to deliver it. This is not scandalous - unless you're unscrupulously searching for any quote or misquote that can be used to hurt the president.

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How did the Dems lose NY9?

What happened in NY9? Simple. Weprin lost because he didn't call Turner on his lies and because he allowed Turner to distract the voters with non issues. He lost because he ran an awful campaign, and allowed his opponent to set the tone. For example:

Gay marriage: This doesn't affect the people of NY9 in any way shape or form, and I've been unable to find a principled objection to it, that doesn't boil down to simple bigotry.

Israel: There is very little daylight between Weprin and Turner on this, just as there is very little daylight between Bush and Obama. One of the top ten disgusting things I've seen GOP supporters do is lie about Obama's Israel record. Its virtually identical to Bush's! Specifically, I mean the outright lie about the '67 borders. Obama simply repeated what every president for the last 40 years has said, but liars on the right such as Bob Turner said it was something new and something terrible. Anyway, a US representative has very little influence over foreign affairs.

Spending. Sure Turner says he wants to cut spending, but so does every GOP candidate, for every office..  Ronald Reagen said he wanted to cut spending. So did Bush Sr. So did W. Did it happen? No. All three of those presidents increased spending, and W. did it with a GOP house that supported all of his spending increases. So is Turner's promise credible? Doubt it.

Instead the campaign in NY9 should have been about credentials, character, and achievements. Weprin should have talked about his superior track record, and his years of service to the community. He should have forcefully rebuffed every single Turner lie. And he should have made it clear to the people of NY9 that he's "their guy." For over 30 years he's represented the people of Brooklyn and Queens in the corridors of power, and received nothing but high marks for his performance. He always delivered.  That service  have been rewarded, and Weprin's' past success should have been taken as an indication that Weprin would continue to deliver as a Congressman.

Unfortunately, this message was not received, and the fault lies squarely with Weprin.

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Search for more information about how Weprin lost his race at 4torah.com

Norm!

Remember how mad Republicans were when Bill Clinton almost banned military uniforms from the White House grounds? [*] Soldiers have always appeared in unfirom at the White House, they cried. This disrespects our traditions. Well that, says Jeffrey Rosen at tnr, is exactly what the current Washington scandal is all about -- only the stakes are much higher.

Presidents have always been allowed to fire their prosecutors midterm. They just didn't. And the result of this longstanding tradition, or "norm" was prosecutoral independence, professionalism, and the guarantee that the US As would worry about the law and not politics.

Now the Bush has gutted the tradition and fired two US Attorney Generals for political** and not performance-related issues the norm has been violated to the detriment of us all. As TNR has said:

...once a president destroys an old norm, it isn't very easy to restore it. The next presidents, even high-minded ones, will have difficulty denying themselves the political advantages accrued by Bush. The history of reform, not to mention the annals of cultural anthropology, is filled with cautionary tales about the near-impossibility of restoring old standards. For example, every time a candidate or political party discovers a new loophole in the campaign finance laws--soft money, 527s--every other candidate quickly embraces the very same reform-skirting device.

[*] In fact, no such ban was ever considered. Like so many things the RW tell us, this was a lie.

[**]Bushies: Dont even try to argue:

(1) Carol Lam was the U.S. attorney in San Diego, and responsible for investigating powerful republicans who collaborated with former Representative Randy "Duke" Cunningham, who resigned from Congress in 2005 after pleading guilty to accepting more than $2 million in bribes from defense contractors. On May 10, 2006, Lam notified the Department of Justice that she was planning to seek search warrants for the home and CIA office of Kyle "Dusty" Foggo, who had resigned two days earlier as the number-three official at the agency under a cloud of Cunningham-related suspicion. The following day, Sampson sent an e-mail to the White House: "The real problem we have right now with Carol Lam ... leads me to conclude that we should have someone ready to be nominated on 11/18, the day her 4-year term expires." What was the real problem? The fact that she was investigating Republicans, I bet. [Most of the preceeding paragraph is from here]

(2) David Iglesias was fired (according to the AG) for being insufficiently enthusiastic in his prosecution of alleged voter fraud committed by New Mexico Democrats. According to Iglesias in a recent New York Times op-ed, he received phone calls just before the November 2006 elections from Representative Heather Wilson and Senator Pete Domenici. Both asked whether he was planning to bring corruption charges against local Democrats before the election, and, when he said no, Domenici responded, "I'm very sorry to hear that." Soon after Wilson's call, Iglesias's name was added to Sampson's list of U.S. attorneys who were asked to resign. Iglesias convincingly argues that he took voter fraud allegations seriously. But, after he reviewed 100 allegations of voter fraud, he concluded that only one case warranted federal prosecution. Iglesias (in other words) believes he was fired for not bringing charges in a case he considered without merit--that he was, in other words, "fired for not being political."
[Almost all of the preceeding paragraph is from here]