Omri Ceren
http://www.mererhetoric.com/archives/11274950.html
Barack Obama’s campaign has decided advisers and representatives of the Democratic nominee for president will no longer debate officials from the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC). This prohibition led Wednesday to the canceling of a debate scheduled for Sunday at Valley Cities Jewish Community Center in Van Nuys organized by the Council of Israeli Community in Los Angeles [CIC]. Larry Greenfield, California director of the RJC, said he still plans to show up. His counterpart, former Rep. Mel Levine, who is a Middle East adviser for Obama, will not participate in what would have been his fourth debate with Greenfield.
That's the nice way to describe it. What actually happened is that the Obama campaign demanded that the CIC ban Greenfield from the debate as a condition for their participation. They're doing the same thing all over the country: no preconditions for meeting Iran but thuggish demands before they'll sit down with American Jews. And they're getting really good at this game: have someone spend months organizing a non-partisan event, pull their people out right at the end, and then shriek about partisanship. The only thing left is for them to threaten legal action. Then it would be a perfect replay of how they detonated the anti-Ahmadinejad rally. The CIC, for its part, is pissed:
"It will be perceived as they are chickening out from a debate and they are ignoring the Israeli community and don’t want to face the truth that the McCain campaign is putting out," Linder said. "You are leaving Larry on a stage to put out the information he wants without being rebutted. The Israeli community needs to hear, face to face, both sides, so that people can decide who they want to vote for."
The Obama campaign is saying that they won't debate because of the RJC's "continual dishonesty." Which would already be incoherent if the RJC was actually being dishonest - in democracies, debates are exactly how we settle these things. But it's an especially disingenuous move given how the RJC's accusations are demonstrably true:
"My appearing with him gives him a prominence that he doesn’t deserve," Levine said when asked about the cancellation Wednesday afternoon by the Journal. "The RJC’s tactics have been continually dishonest, and the campaign has made a decision to not keep getting on the same stage with them." Levine pointed specifically to the RJC’s constant attacks on Israel-critic Zbigniew Brzezinski, who is an Obama foreign policy adviser but not concerning Obama’s Israel policy, and its claims that Obama would meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions. Indeed, Obama has said he would meet with leaders of rogue nations, but Ahmadinejad, a rabid anti-Semite, isn’t the head of Iran. Ayatollah Khamenei is.
Two things going on here. One, the Obama campaign is embarrassingly pathetic when it comes to addressing the valid concerns of American Jews. Two, they seem hell-bent on using their political power to prevent anyone from pointing that out.
Nice to see Obama finally claiming Brzezinski. Last time the campaign got pushed on it, they trotted out Wexler to say that Brzezinski was "not an adviser to the campaign and has done no work for the campaign." So either they're lying now or they were lying then (hint: they were lying then - and they knew just who to go to). But being almost honest doesn't make this argument any less asinine. Brzezinski believes that US tensions with Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are caused by US support of Israel. So when Obama asks him how the US can repair relations with Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia - what exactly do you think he's going to tell him?
I'm also glad that Obama is finally admitting that he'd meet Iran without preconditions. For a while the campaign was claiming the opposite. So either they're lying now or they were lying then (hint: they were lying then). But that doesn't make this version of the argument any more true. For the record: Levine is stealing this argument from Joe Klein, although Klein may have gotten a little help from elsewhere. It was a dumb argument then - but now? Come on. I know that the Obama campaign is using the Big Lie strategy to deal with Biden's anti-Israel record. But there's actual video and photographic proof that Obama promised to meet with Ahmadinejad. That's why Richardson - among others - explicitly criticized him for... wait for it... wanting to meet with Ahmadinejad.
And if he did mean that he'd meet Khamenei without preconditions? That's somehow better? Khamenei has repeatedly declared that Iran is trying to wipe out Israel. He openly supports Ahmadinejad as the President of Iran. He's trying to make sure that Ahmadinejad stays the President of Iran. This is the "dishonesty" that justifies banning conservative Jewish Americans from democratic forums?
It'd be nice if the Obama campaign's attempted thuggish ban was just because they were afraid to defend their awful arguments. But this is more basic: the Obama campaign is silencing opponents because it can. They've been using legal threats to shut down events and kill political messages that they don't like. They're not even in power yet and they're already threatening political opponents with jail time. They brag about the organized mobs that they activate to "fight the good fight" and prevent critics from speaking out. In the meantime they are quite literally blackmailing political opponents into silence. Across the country, Obama's more enthusiastic partisans have taken to violently intimidating conservatives and destroying their property. Just yesterday they demanded an FBI investigation into the FBI investigation of their ACORN allies. This is not a campaign that takes criticism well.
So who knows - maybe Greenfield is lucky. The last citizen who had the temerity to publicly question the purity of The One was savagely destroyed by the press after Obama and Biden repeatedly stocked the fire by mocking him on globally-broadcast news stations. Little 12 year old girls are being viciously smeared for daring to look up to America's most successful female politician.
From textbooks instructing students about Obama's "life of service" to illustrated children's books about "the name the whole world knows" to Obama Youth chanting and marching in lockstep to beatific children singing hymns about their Leader - let's just build a giant statue of him on a horse and get it over with. This election isn't about winning. As Obama's more honest supporters boast, they're in it to "crush the spirits" of social conservatives and foreign policy "neo-conservatives." Luckily "neo-conservative" is in no way a leftist code word for "pro-Israel Jew." So no cause for alarm.
Memo to ostensibly pro-Israel Obama supporters: circa 2010 there are going to be headlines about the "severe crisis in US-Israel relations." You're not going to be able to say that you didn't know.
References:
* Mel Levine's Defense Of Obama: He'll Make Obsessed Anti-Israel Lunatics Love The US. Presumably By Magic. [MR]
* Biden Now Actively Channeling Rabid Anti-Israel Partisans, Adopting Their Barely-Veiled Anti-Israel Euphemisms [MR]
* Obama campaign halts debates with RJC [Jewish Journal]
* Obama Won't Meet with Jews *even with preconditons [Atlas]
* Palin Speech Now Online, Liberal Jewish Groups Reach New Heights Of Pro-Obama Denials, Fabrications, And Smears [MR]
* Obama Defenders: What Brzezinski Guy? (Plus: That's Not Even Their Worst Argument) [MR]
* New Leftist Meme: Palin "Solved Jewish Problem" That Obama Never Really Had (Plus: Anti-Palin "Buchanan Endorsement" Meme Also A Lie) [MR]
* History re-written: Obama never said he would meet personally with Iran without precondition, says advisor; Update: Website excerpt added [Hot Air]
* I wonder where he got that idea? Oh, yeah! [Hot Air]
* Weak: Obama ducks question on whether he’ll meet with Ahmadinejad [Hot Air]
* Inevitable - Little Girl Sells Cookies To Buy Anti-McCain Attack Ad [MR]
* Did Obama Say He Would Meet with Ahmedinejad? Absolutely [Verum Serum]
* Richardson: "You don’t talk to Ahmadinejad" [Hot Air]
* Iranian Regime Unleashes Cacophony Of Genocidal Threats Against Israel [MR]
* Diplomatic Sophistication Heartbreak: Tension Between Iranian Political Factions A Little Exaggerated [MR]
* Iran's New Moderate Cleric Not A Moderate, Will Lose Anyway (Plus: Even The French Are Laughing At Obama's Idiotic Iran Policy) [MR]
* Obama Campaign Cripples Anti-Ahmadinejad Rally, Neatly Crystallizes Thuggish Liberal Fascism [MR]
* Ho hum: Obama’s lawyer threatens TV stations that run NRA ad [Hot Air]
* Obama threatens TV stations airing Ayers ad [Michelle Malkin]
* Gov. Blunt Statement on Obama Campaign’s Abusive Use of Missouri Law Enforcement [Matt Blunt]
* EDITORIAL: The new 'digital brownshirts' [Wash Times]
* Obama’s character assassins target another National Review journalist [Hot Air]
* Free Speech for Me, Not for Thee [Rich Lowry]
* The Loneliness of the Blue-State Conservative [American Thinker]
* Obama Lawyer Asks for Probe Into Vote-Fraud Claims (Update1) [Bloomberg]
* The Left Declares War on Joe the Plumber [Malkin]
* Nice. Obama & Biden Mock "Joe the Plumber" (Video) [Gateway Pundit]
* Biden: I don’t know Joe the Plumber [Hot Air]
* Video: Obama hits McCain over Joe the Plumber [Hot Air]
* Video: 12-year-old called racist for wearing Palin t-shirt [Hot Air]
* Textbooks About Obama's "Life Of Service" To The People Already Being Used To Indoctrinate Youth [MR]
* Obama Children's Book Instructs Youth About The "Name The Whole World Knows" [MR]
* Video: Obama Youth March In Lockstep, Chant About Inspirational Leader Who Will Guide Them Into Glorious Future [MR]
* Smith College Student: Obama Is My "Personal Jesus" (Plus: Children Now Singing Choral Hymns To Obama) [MR]
* Kos: We Must Crush Their Spirits [Ace]
* Joe Klein Enters the Fever Swamp [TNR]
Previously:
* Guy Who Smeared "Pro-Likud Approach To Israel": "US-Israeli Relationship Transcends Parties"
* Jesse Jackson: Obama Will End "Zionist Control Of American Policy."
* Moronic Hollywood Nutjob: Palin Too Stupid To Understand The "Complicated Dialogue" In "W"
Obama shill Mel Levine has never been shy about throwing around his AIPAC credentials. That's a good strategy given how his pro-Obama arguments are mindbogglingly stupid, but it does beg a question: given how the Obama campaign is on the attack against AIPAC, aren't Levine's credentials kind of a bad thing? Maybe someone should ask him about that. Not a Republican though, because they're not allowed: Barack Obama’s campaign has decided advisers and representatives of the Democratic nominee for president will no longer debate officials from the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC). This prohibition led Wednesday to the canceling of a debate scheduled for Sunday at Valley Cities Jewish Community Center in Van Nuys organized by the Council of Israeli Community in Los Angeles [CIC]. Larry Greenfield, California director of the RJC, said he still plans to show up. His counterpart, former Rep. Mel Levine, who is a Middle East adviser for Obama, will not participate in what would have been his fourth debate with Greenfield.
That's the nice way to describe it. What actually happened is that the Obama campaign demanded that the CIC ban Greenfield from the debate as a condition for their participation. They're doing the same thing all over the country: no preconditions for meeting Iran but thuggish demands before they'll sit down with American Jews. And they're getting really good at this game: have someone spend months organizing a non-partisan event, pull their people out right at the end, and then shriek about partisanship. The only thing left is for them to threaten legal action. Then it would be a perfect replay of how they detonated the anti-Ahmadinejad rally. The CIC, for its part, is pissed:
"It will be perceived as they are chickening out from a debate and they are ignoring the Israeli community and don’t want to face the truth that the McCain campaign is putting out," Linder said. "You are leaving Larry on a stage to put out the information he wants without being rebutted. The Israeli community needs to hear, face to face, both sides, so that people can decide who they want to vote for."
The Obama campaign is saying that they won't debate because of the RJC's "continual dishonesty." Which would already be incoherent if the RJC was actually being dishonest - in democracies, debates are exactly how we settle these things. But it's an especially disingenuous move given how the RJC's accusations are demonstrably true:
"My appearing with him gives him a prominence that he doesn’t deserve," Levine said when asked about the cancellation Wednesday afternoon by the Journal. "The RJC’s tactics have been continually dishonest, and the campaign has made a decision to not keep getting on the same stage with them." Levine pointed specifically to the RJC’s constant attacks on Israel-critic Zbigniew Brzezinski, who is an Obama foreign policy adviser but not concerning Obama’s Israel policy, and its claims that Obama would meet with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad without preconditions. Indeed, Obama has said he would meet with leaders of rogue nations, but Ahmadinejad, a rabid anti-Semite, isn’t the head of Iran. Ayatollah Khamenei is.
Two things going on here. One, the Obama campaign is embarrassingly pathetic when it comes to addressing the valid concerns of American Jews. Two, they seem hell-bent on using their political power to prevent anyone from pointing that out.
Nice to see Obama finally claiming Brzezinski. Last time the campaign got pushed on it, they trotted out Wexler to say that Brzezinski was "not an adviser to the campaign and has done no work for the campaign." So either they're lying now or they were lying then (hint: they were lying then - and they knew just who to go to). But being almost honest doesn't make this argument any less asinine. Brzezinski believes that US tensions with Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are caused by US support of Israel. So when Obama asks him how the US can repair relations with Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia - what exactly do you think he's going to tell him?
I'm also glad that Obama is finally admitting that he'd meet Iran without preconditions. For a while the campaign was claiming the opposite. So either they're lying now or they were lying then (hint: they were lying then). But that doesn't make this version of the argument any more true. For the record: Levine is stealing this argument from Joe Klein, although Klein may have gotten a little help from elsewhere. It was a dumb argument then - but now? Come on. I know that the Obama campaign is using the Big Lie strategy to deal with Biden's anti-Israel record. But there's actual video and photographic proof that Obama promised to meet with Ahmadinejad. That's why Richardson - among others - explicitly criticized him for... wait for it... wanting to meet with Ahmadinejad.
And if he did mean that he'd meet Khamenei without preconditions? That's somehow better? Khamenei has repeatedly declared that Iran is trying to wipe out Israel. He openly supports Ahmadinejad as the President of Iran. He's trying to make sure that Ahmadinejad stays the President of Iran. This is the "dishonesty" that justifies banning conservative Jewish Americans from democratic forums?
It'd be nice if the Obama campaign's attempted thuggish ban was just because they were afraid to defend their awful arguments. But this is more basic: the Obama campaign is silencing opponents because it can. They've been using legal threats to shut down events and kill political messages that they don't like. They're not even in power yet and they're already threatening political opponents with jail time. They brag about the organized mobs that they activate to "fight the good fight" and prevent critics from speaking out. In the meantime they are quite literally blackmailing political opponents into silence. Across the country, Obama's more enthusiastic partisans have taken to violently intimidating conservatives and destroying their property. Just yesterday they demanded an FBI investigation into the FBI investigation of their ACORN allies. This is not a campaign that takes criticism well.
So who knows - maybe Greenfield is lucky. The last citizen who had the temerity to publicly question the purity of The One was savagely destroyed by the press after Obama and Biden repeatedly stocked the fire by mocking him on globally-broadcast news stations. Little 12 year old girls are being viciously smeared for daring to look up to America's most successful female politician.
From textbooks instructing students about Obama's "life of service" to illustrated children's books about "the name the whole world knows" to Obama Youth chanting and marching in lockstep to beatific children singing hymns about their Leader - let's just build a giant statue of him on a horse and get it over with. This election isn't about winning. As Obama's more honest supporters boast, they're in it to "crush the spirits" of social conservatives and foreign policy "neo-conservatives." Luckily "neo-conservative" is in no way a leftist code word for "pro-Israel Jew." So no cause for alarm.
Memo to ostensibly pro-Israel Obama supporters: circa 2010 there are going to be headlines about the "severe crisis in US-Israel relations." You're not going to be able to say that you didn't know.
References:
* Mel Levine's Defense Of Obama: He'll Make Obsessed Anti-Israel Lunatics Love The US. Presumably By Magic. [MR]
* Biden Now Actively Channeling Rabid Anti-Israel Partisans, Adopting Their Barely-Veiled Anti-Israel Euphemisms [MR]
* Obama campaign halts debates with RJC [Jewish Journal]
* Obama Won't Meet with Jews *even with preconditons [Atlas]
* Palin Speech Now Online, Liberal Jewish Groups Reach New Heights Of Pro-Obama Denials, Fabrications, And Smears [MR]
* Obama Defenders: What Brzezinski Guy? (Plus: That's Not Even Their Worst Argument) [MR]
* New Leftist Meme: Palin "Solved Jewish Problem" That Obama Never Really Had (Plus: Anti-Palin "Buchanan Endorsement" Meme Also A Lie) [MR]
* History re-written: Obama never said he would meet personally with Iran without precondition, says advisor; Update: Website excerpt added [Hot Air]
* I wonder where he got that idea? Oh, yeah! [Hot Air]
* Weak: Obama ducks question on whether he’ll meet with Ahmadinejad [Hot Air]
* Inevitable - Little Girl Sells Cookies To Buy Anti-McCain Attack Ad [MR]
* Did Obama Say He Would Meet with Ahmedinejad? Absolutely [Verum Serum]
* Richardson: "You don’t talk to Ahmadinejad" [Hot Air]
* Iranian Regime Unleashes Cacophony Of Genocidal Threats Against Israel [MR]
* Diplomatic Sophistication Heartbreak: Tension Between Iranian Political Factions A Little Exaggerated [MR]
* Iran's New Moderate Cleric Not A Moderate, Will Lose Anyway (Plus: Even The French Are Laughing At Obama's Idiotic Iran Policy) [MR]
* Obama Campaign Cripples Anti-Ahmadinejad Rally, Neatly Crystallizes Thuggish Liberal Fascism [MR]
* Ho hum: Obama’s lawyer threatens TV stations that run NRA ad [Hot Air]
* Obama threatens TV stations airing Ayers ad [Michelle Malkin]
* Gov. Blunt Statement on Obama Campaign’s Abusive Use of Missouri Law Enforcement [Matt Blunt]
* EDITORIAL: The new 'digital brownshirts' [Wash Times]
* Obama’s character assassins target another National Review journalist [Hot Air]
* Free Speech for Me, Not for Thee [Rich Lowry]
* The Loneliness of the Blue-State Conservative [American Thinker]
* Obama Lawyer Asks for Probe Into Vote-Fraud Claims (Update1) [Bloomberg]
* The Left Declares War on Joe the Plumber [Malkin]
* Nice. Obama & Biden Mock "Joe the Plumber" (Video) [Gateway Pundit]
* Biden: I don’t know Joe the Plumber [Hot Air]
* Video: Obama hits McCain over Joe the Plumber [Hot Air]
* Video: 12-year-old called racist for wearing Palin t-shirt [Hot Air]
* Textbooks About Obama's "Life Of Service" To The People Already Being Used To Indoctrinate Youth [MR]
* Obama Children's Book Instructs Youth About The "Name The Whole World Knows" [MR]
* Video: Obama Youth March In Lockstep, Chant About Inspirational Leader Who Will Guide Them Into Glorious Future [MR]
* Smith College Student: Obama Is My "Personal Jesus" (Plus: Children Now Singing Choral Hymns To Obama) [MR]
* Kos: We Must Crush Their Spirits [Ace]
* Joe Klein Enters the Fever Swamp [TNR]
Previously:
* Guy Who Smeared "Pro-Likud Approach To Israel": "US-Israeli Relationship Transcends Parties"
* Jesse Jackson: Obama Will End "Zionist Control Of American Policy."
* Moronic Hollywood Nutjob: Palin Too Stupid To Understand The "Complicated Dialogue" In "W"
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