Boo. Hoo. Schumer says Hagel almost cried
Trying to justify his decision to support Chuck Hagel's nomination for Secretary of Defense, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) told a breakfast meeting on Tuesday that Hagel '
almost had tears in his eyes' when the two met to discuss the nomination.
“Look, I had doubts about Sen. Hagel when his name was
first floated, and I expressed those publicly on ‘Meet The Press’ and
other places,” Schumer said. “And the president called me and said,
‘Before you come out with any decision, please sit down and talk to
him.’ That was only fair.”
Schumer said he spent 90 minutes asking Hagel questions — including about a “nuclear Iran” — and “he answered them very well.”
“He struck me as sincere, and you know, you have to be sitting there
at the meeting obviously, but I also told him when he used the word
Jewish lobby what it meant to Jewish people,” he added.
“And I told him what a double standard is. That Jewish people
throughout the centuries have suffered a double standard. Everyone could
be a farmer except Jewish people. Everyone could live in Moscow except
Jewish people. I said when everyone else can lobby but all of a sudden
when those of us who are pro-Israel lobby, it’s a negative, that’s a
double standard. And I’m sure you didn’t mean it, but it harkens to the
old days.
“And he really, you know, he almost had tears in his eyes when he understood. So I believe he will be good.”
Schumer noted that there is “not a major Jewish organization against” Hagel.
“The main fight on Hagel is coming from the neocons, who you know
well. And they resent Hagel’s apostasy on Iraq. You may remember — the
neocons helped push Iraq — and Hagel was one of the first Republicans to
say Iraq wasn’t working. And he was right. But that’s where it’s coming
from.
“So I have no qualms about my position,” Schumer added. “And as you
can see now, Sens. McCain and Graham and Alexander have said they may
not vote for him, but they’ll let the vote come forward.”
Really?
The ADL and AJC aren't major Jewish organizations and they're 'neocons'? He can't be serious.
Labels: ADL, American Jewish Committee, Barack Hussein Obama, Charles Schumer, Chuck Hagel, Neocons
WaPo's Milbank, Atlantic's Wright: Hagel smeared by neocons and Zionists
The Washington Post's Dana Milbank and the Atlantic's Robert Wright will both tell you that it was the all-powerful Zionists and neocons who did in Chuck Hagel. All-powerful? In Obama's Washington? That's just about the most paranoid statement I've heard in a long time.
Here's
Milbank (Hat Tip:
Weasel Zippers).
The neoconservative journal, no fan of the iconoclastic former Republican senator, published a smear under the headline:
“Senate aide: ‘Send us Hagel and we will make sure every American knows
he is an anti-Semite.’ ” In the posting, this anonymous aide went on to
accuse Hagel of “the worst kind of anti-Semitism there is.” As
evidence, the article included a quotation from Hagel referring to the
“Jewish lobby.”
Other right-wing publications and conservative Zionist groups inevitably joined the chorus, including a column by Bret Stephens in the Wall Street Journal saying Hagel’s prejudice has an “especially ripe” odor.
And
Wright:
Over the past year, as I've written about Israel critically and
gotten a milder version of the kind of blowback Hagel is getting, my
view of the people
generating it has changed. I used to think that all the
"anti-Israel" and "anti-Semitism" charges were just cynical smears, and I
still think some of them
are. But I also think some of them come from people who genuinely
believe that any severe critic of Israel speaks out of malice. These
people are blinded
by their passions, and the fact that their smears are wild and
unfounded doesn't mean they're insincere.
Still, these smears have been hugely counterproductive from a truly
pro-Zionist standpoint. What you're seeing now is one of the final
desperate spasms of
a group that has already helped destroy the thing it loves, and will
probably destroy a few other things before finally, like Joseph
McCarthy, destroying
itself and receding mercifully into the pages of history.
Yeah, that's it. If you criticize a critic of Israel, it's just a smear. What a coincidence that the biggest adherents of forcing Israel to live with a 'Palestinian state' designed to undermine its existence alongside it are the most vehement critics of measures to stop Iran's nuclear weapons drive.
But there's nothing to see here, so let's just move on.
Labels: anti-Semitism, Chuck Hagel, Neocons, Zionist
Caroline Glick blasts the neocons but Obama is worse
Shavua tov, a good week to everyone.
This post is being written on Friday afternoon. Posting may be sporadic again tonight as I am spending the night as the companion to my friend's son and son-in-law (two different friends have a son and a daughter who married each other), who is in isolation in Hadassah Hospital after having a bone marrow transplant this past week.
Please pray for Moshe Aharon ben Leah Tzipora.
I was a little surprised to see Caroline Glick go after the neoconservatives on foreign policy, but she did.
Here's some of what she had to say.
THE NEOCONSERVATIVE preference for populist forces over authoritarian ones propelled leading neoconservative thinkers and former Bush administration officials to enthusiastically support the anti-Mubarak protesters in Tahrir Square in Cairo in January. And their criticism of Obama for not immediately joining the protesters and calling for Mubarak’s removal from power was instrumental in convincing Obama to abandon Mubarak.
Between those who predicted a flowering liberal democracy in a post-Mubarak Egypt and those who predicted the empowerment of radical, Muslim Brotherhood aligned forces in a post-Mubarak Egypt, it is clear today that the latter were correct. Moreover, we see that the US’s abandonment of its closest ally in the Arab world has all but destroyed America’s reputation as a credible, trustworthy ally throughout the region.
In the wake of Mubarak’s ouster, the Saudis have effectively ended their strategic alliance with the US and are seeking to replace the US with China, Russia and India.
In a similar fashion, the neoconservatives were quick to support Obama’s decision to use military force to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi from power in March. The fact that unlike Syria’s Bashar Assad and Iran’s ayatollahs, Gaddafi gave up his nuclear proliferation program in 2004 was of no importance. The fact that from the outset there was evidence that al-Qaida terrorists are members of the US-supported Libyan opposition, similarly made little impact on the neoconservatives who supported Obama’s decision to set conditions that would enable “democracy” to take root in Libya. The fact that the US has no clear national interest at stake in Libya was brushed aside. The fact that Obama lacked congressional sanction for committing US troops to battle was also largely ignored.
Neoconservative writers have castigated opponents of US military involvement in Libya as isolationists.
In so doing, they placed Republican politicians like presidential candidate Rep.
Michele Bachmann and former Alaska governor Sarah Palin in the same pile as presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul and Pat Buchanan.
The very notion that robust internationalists such as Bachmann and Palin could be thrown in with ardent isolationists like Paul and Buchanan is appalling. But it is of a piece with the prevailing, false notion being argued by dominant voices in neoconservative circles that “you’re either with us or you’re with the Buchananites.” In truth, the dominant foreign policy in the Republican Party, and to a degree, in American society as a whole, is neither neoconservativism nor isolationism. For lack of a better name, it is what historian Walter Russell Mead has referred to as Jacksonianism, after Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the US. As Mead noted in a 1999 article in The National Interest titled “The Jacksonian Tradition,” the most popular and enduring US model for foreign policy is far more flexible than either the isolationist or the neoconservative model.
According to Mead, the Jacksonian foreign policy model involves a few basic ideas. The US is different from the rest of the world, and therefore the US should not try to remake the world in its own image by claiming that everyone is basically the same. The US must ensure its honor abroad by abiding by its commitments and maintaining its standing with its allies. The US must take action to defend its interests. The US must fight to win or not fight at all. The US should only respect those foes that fight by the same rules as the US does.
THE US president that hewed closest to these basic guidelines in recent times was Ronald Reagan.
...
A Jacksonian president would understand that using US power to overthrow a largely neutered US foe like Gaddafi in favor of a suspect opposition movement is not a judicious use of US power.
Indeed, a Jacksonian president would recognize that it would be far better to expend the US’s power to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad – an open and active foe of the US – and so influence the nature of a post-Assad government.
For all the deficiencies of the neoconservative worldview, at least the neoconservatives act out of a deep-seated belief that the US is a force for good in the world and out of concern for maintaining America’s role as the leader of the free world. In stark contrast, Obama’s foreign policy is based on a fundamental anti-American view of the US and a desire to end the US’s role as the leading world power. And the impact of Obama’s foreign policy on US and global security has been devastating.
Read the whole thing.
It will be interesting to see if Caroline endorses anyone in the Republican primaries.
Note that the main principle of Jacksonian foreign policy is one that Obama has rejected: American exceptionalism.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Jacksonian foreign policy, Neocons
The end of the notion of an Israeli neocon
This should put an end to the notion that
Likudniks are neocons or vice versa.
The Egyptian unrest provides a great opportunity to refute once and for all the ridiculous but still strangely common belief that Israelis or, even more commonly, "Likudniks" are the oriental equivalent of American neocons. Just Google Likudnik and neocon together, and you'll see it all: the "neocon-Likudnik nexus," and "Joe Lieberman the Likudnik," and "Likudnik neocons at the Pentagon," and "neocon Likudniks who don't care about American casualties." On and on it goes, from people who either don't understand neoconservatism, don't understand Israel, or, in most cases, don't understand either.
In recent days there's even been some talk of a neocon "split" with Israel, or vice versa. "The neoconservatives, who have made democracy promotion in the Middle East an overarching goal, are scratching their heads at what they see as Israeli shortsightedness," wrote Jeffrey Goldberg. If that's true, I'm not sure why they're so confused—the Israeli position is completely predictable.
Those head-scratching neocons should know—as I'm sure most of them do—that there's no such thing as an Israeli neocon. The Israeli establishment never believed in promoting democracy in the Arab world, and it still doesn't. It never much cared about Arab democracy, period. In Israel—if you feel an urgent need to make such comparisons—the establishment tends to reflect American pragmatic (some would say cynical) "realism." America's "freedom agenda" was anathema to Israelis, even when President George W. Bush—whom they respected and liked much more than they like President Obama—was in power. It was anathema to them not because Arab democracy isn't a tempting notion, and not because they want Arabs to live forever under Mubaraks and Assads and Husseins. They just think it's a pipedream, a wonderful idea that the people of Tel Aviv might pay a high price for.
Yes, most people here believe that the Islamists will ultimately gain control in an election in just about any Arab country. And don't buy the notion that they're not interested in taking control. They played the same game in Iran 30 years ago.
Labels: Islamist, Likudniks, Neocons
