Meet Jen Psaki, President Obama's
new State Department spokeswoman, and a woman who will make you long for the comparatively non-partisan Victoria Nuland.
How
did she get the job? How else does one get a job in this
administration? As payback for service done not for the nation but for
the career and image of Barack Obama.
Jen Psaki first came to my attention back in 2007 when she zealously defended Barack Obama for attending a fundraiser
for his campaign held at the home of former NBA basketball player Allan
Houston, who has a history of espousing anti-Semitism -- a history that
drew the ire of the Anti-Defamation League,
American Jewish Congress and other groups. Among other statements,
Houston has said that Jews were responsible for the death of Jesus,
"spit in his face and hit him with their fists." When the AJC and other
anti-discrimination groups asked that Obama return the money since he
was doing well with fundraising anyway and did not need to take money
from an anti-Semite, Psaki blithely dismissed their concerns and said Obama had no plans or intentions of returning the money.
Similar
concerns were raised when news surfaced that hedge fund billionaire
George Soros was playing a key role in Obama's campaign -- not only
personally and with his family skirting campaign financing rules to fund Obama,
but activating his fundraising network and empire of 5217 groups to
propel Obama into the Presidency. Soros is well-known as a bitter
critic of Israel who also funds a wide range of groups that oppose
Israel. Psakis' response
was, well, Psakian: "Mr. Soros is entitled to his opinions" (with the
obligatory statement that Obama and Soros disagree on Israel -- the same
defense offered when the close ties between Obama and Reverend Jeremiah
Wright Jr. became known.
What could go wrong?
The State Department refused to condemn Iran for excluding women from the candidates allowed to run in the country’s upcoming presidential elections. When pressed by two reporters, State Department’s spokeswomen Jen Psaki’s response was, “We want this [election] to be free and fair. There’s a lot of ways to, of course, define that.”
ReplyDeletePsaki further commented that the U.S. “wouldn’t weight into decisions made by the [Iranian] government.”