I've mentioned a couple of times over the last few months that I have had the pleasure of meeting Hot Air's Ed Morrissey in person - first at the President's Conference here in Jerusalem in June, and then at the Hudson Institute Conference on Global Intolerance in New York in September. Aside from all his well-thought-out posts, Ed is an amazingly nice guy in person.
With the Minnesota caucuses coming up, Ed has made his choice for the Republican nominee for President, and it's a choice that I have been thinking about as well for a while now (and have hinted at a lot already). Seeing Ed put it so well has inspired me to come right out and say it, albeit for slightly different reasons. Ed has endorsed Rick Santorum (Hat Tip: Memeorandum).
Before I explain that decision, let’s be clear. I could cast a vote happily for Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich in a general election. Both are massive improvements over the current incumbent, and both have admirable qualities that would reflect well on the GOP once in office — even if those admirable qualities aren’t always on display now. I will enthusiastically support any of those three men should they win the nomination. My focus will be on beating Barack Obama and promoting the conservative agenda, in that order, throughout 2012, and I also believe that any of those three could beat Obama in a general election campaign.
Why Santorum? In my estimation, Santorum is the last consistent conservative standing, and the only one both promoting the conservative agenda and campaigning as a conservative in the race. That doesn’t make Santorum perfect; he lacks the executive experience I’d like to see, and some of his positions in the past and present give me pause. However, compared to the heterodoxies of his competitors in the GOP race, Santorum has a superior record on promoting conservative policies and values.
Even more than that, though, Santorum has demonstrated a level of personal integrity in this race that outshines the rest of the field.
And let me add that Santorum has been the most consistently pro-Israel of the three candidates, and doesn't have any skeletons in his closet regarding past support of the 'Palestinians.' But I agree that Romney and Gingrich would both be improvements over the current occupant of the White House.
By the way, the two good men in the title of this post are Ed Morrissey and Rick Santorum. I'm small potatoes next to them.
I forgot to mention that you can watch the Durban Watch conference that I am attending on Livestream by going here.
Unfortunately, I just spent the last hour and a half outside working, and will have to leave early because of a business meeting as well. But you can all keep watching the conference.
I am sitting with Ed Morrissey of Hot Air. Click that last link for a good laugh.
Ed Morrissey reports that President Obama has tipped his hand on what his tax policy will be if he is re-elected.
“So, when you hear folks saying ‘Well, the president shouldn’t want massive job killing tax increases when the economy is this weak.’ Nobody’s looking to raise taxes right now. We’re talking about potentially 2013 and the out years.”
A couple of weeks ago, I blogged an article by Elliott Abrams, in which Elliott argued that President Obama would never risk his re-election by imposing a 'settlement' on Israel vis a vis the 'Palestinians.' My post asked what would happen on January 20, 2013.
The next day, I saw Elliott at the President's Conference, and asked him what he thought would happen with regard to imposing a 'settlement' on January 20, 2013 if Obama were re-elected. Elliott told me that's what he has nightmares about.
So let's see if we can get Obama to show his hand now, before the elections, like he's done on taxes. Maybe we can encourage a few more supporters of Israel to vote against him.
When I met with Ed Morrissey on Wednesday, he told me that he had spent about half an hour interviewing Alon Pinkas, Israel's former consul general in New York and an occasional commenter for Politico. Ed has put the interview up and I'm going to post the first part of it below.
Let's go to the videotape.
You can find the second part of the interview, and Ed's comments about it, here.
Pinkas sounds more realistic than Livni, but I doubt he would have the patience that Yisrael Aumann advocates.
This one requires a little bit of mood setting, so let's go to the videotape.
Ben Smith reports that the Odd Couple of - no not Felix and Oscar - Barack and Bibi - is breaking up.
The notion that the two men could prove a productive diplomatic odd couple has been tossed aside because, in the American view, the worst expectations about Netanyahu’s intransigence have been confirmed. The new view: Netanyahu chose the constraints of a coalition that he steered further right this month, and the U.S. won’t be offering him help, or sympathy, with his domestic politics going forward.
Meanwhile, this distinctly non-rose colored view of Netanyahu has taken hold in the White House just as there is growing doubt about whether Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas can ever be a consistent, strong American ally. The twin conclusions have brought a distinct frost to administration relations with both men — a chill that for now seems likely to freeze the chances for any new U.S. peace initiative in the region.
“Every leader faces difficult politics — the question for both sides is whether they’re willing to make tough choices that are in their interests despite the politics,” said a White House official of both Netanyahu and Abbas, the latter of whom has drawn White House ire for what officials described as inconsistent demands.
This latest moment of gloom comes as the White House has lost interest in the Middle East for another reason. Obama’s two departing senior aides, Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, were personally deeply involved in the Middle East talks, viewing them as historic and politically promising opportunities. They’re being replaced with staffers with little demonstrated interest and few ties to Israel, Bill Daley and David Plouffe.
“There’s definitely been a change since Rahm and Axelrod left,” said Zvika Krieger, a senior vice president of The S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace in Washington.
...
But the Thanksgiving collapse of talks launched just weeks earlier with great fanfare — prompted by Netanyahu’s refusal to negotiate on points other than security, and the Palestinians’ refusal to enter the American-led talks without prior concessions — has sent the U.S. into a period of re-evaluation, and of frustration with the two leaders in particular.
“It was a total failure of imagination on both their parts,” said a former U.S. official who has been involved in the recent peace talks. “The problem is when you have leaders who lack the imagination to understand how their political environments would change with a deal.”
The U.S. has no obvious path to punish, much less replace, either leader, through a sharp statement . Netanyahu secured his political standing this month by shedding the leftmost elements of his coalition and bringing former Labor leader Ehud Barak into the government in a new party. Abbas’s role as Fayyad’s protector and as a counterbalance to Hamas, meanwhile, makes him better than possible alternatives.
But observers have noted the change.
“There is a sense of frustration, which is genuine — both in terms of the inability to choreograph a positive result and the continuing nature of delay and excuse that is too often exhibited by both sides to this conflict,” said former Rep. Robert Wexler, who now heads the Abraham Center.
“There’s no question that this represents a recognition that they really are up against certain limitations,” said veteran Mideast negotiator Aaron David Miller, now a senior fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, saying it showed the realization that Obama’s rhetoric and efforts “simply cannot substitute for the absence of ownership in these negotiations on the part of the Israelis and the Palestinians.”
Observers debate the consequences of the new chill, and pro-Palestinian activists in particular worry that they will be its victims.
If Obama really has “lost interest” in solving that standoff, then give him credit for being a faster study than most of his predecessors. It only took Obama two years to realize that it’s not solvable in the current political paradigm, which is to say that the Palestinians won’t settle for just the West Bank and Gaza, and the Israelis won’t settle for annihilation. Palestinians want the entire territory and have spent the last sixty years convincing themselves that they’re both entitled to it and can recapture it. Palestinians aren’t interested in peaceful coexistence, and Israelis aren’t interested in the Helen Thomas plan.
Heck, it took both George W. Bush and Bill Clinton two full terms to figure it out. Kudos to Obama if he decides to stop wasting time and effort on the issue.
However, that doesn’t mean that Obama should cut Netanyahu loose over his rightward leanings. Israel remains a critical ally, if for no other reason to Obama than as a key component for containment of Iran. The alliance between the US and Israel is too critical for it to decline because of personal pique on the part of any President. He doesn’t have to like Netanyahu, but Obama had better figure out how to work with Netanyahu, because the time is rapidly approaching where the US and Israel will need Bibi.
Ed's right, but I can see Obama letting his personal pique over the 'peace process' get in the way of that relationship. Yet another reason to work to make Obama a one-term President.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
I've mentioned a couple of times over the last few months that I have had the pleasure of meeting Hot Air's Ed Morrissey in person - first at the President's Conference here in Jerusalem in June, and then at the Hudson Institute Conference on Global Intolerance in New York in September. Aside from all his well-thought-out posts, Ed is an amazingly nice guy in person.
