Israel Matzav

What happened in Massachusetts this week

For those of you who have not been keeping up with what happened in Massachusetts this week, and would now like to understand it, Victor Davis Hanson would be a good place to start. Here's what he has to say about the foreign policy front.

Obama thought the antidote to “smoke ’em out,” “dead or alive,” and “bring ’em on” braggadocio was bowing to the Saudis, promulgating new and undiscovered great moments in Islamic history, and reaching out to Ahmadinejad as he rounded up and beat down reformers in the streets of Tehran.

It’s one thing to accuse Bush of shredding the Constitution, quite another to adopt his anti-terrorism protocols like tribunals, renditions, Predators, intercepts, and wiretaps. Somehow Obama offended his base by such duplicity, and then his opposition by his tokenism of trashing Bush, promising the architect of 9/11 a show trial a few blocks from the former World Trade Center, and using touchy-feely euphemisms to suggest we are not in a war against terrorism emanating from the radical Islamic world.

Ahmadinejad, Assad, Chávez, the Castro Brothers, Putin, and others for the first six months liked us as much as they had little respect for our sycophancy; now they openly show contempt. We accept that obsequiousness cannot earn respect, but it apparently cannot earn affection either.

So why does Netanyahu still feel he has to listen to Obama when no one else does? I suspect that Ehud Barak has something to do with that.

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:03 AM