Tony McPeak. Samantha Power. Richard Lugar.
To all my friends who are voting for Obama:
I have only one small request. When the day comes that you are ashamed to look me in the eye (and it will come soon), please don't insult my intelligence by telling me that you had no way of knowing. You knew. You had other priorities.
posted by Ben at 8:41 PM
9 Comments:
Ben,
You are giving too much credit to those who vote for Obama (i.e. leftists, liberals, etc.). They will not be ashamed to look you (or me) in the eye; rather, they will merely deny (just as they reufsed to blame Arab terrorists for 9/11), i.e. they will find some way to blame George W. Bush (and/or John McCain) for any of Obama's failings. This would be consistent with the well-known truism: "Never waste your time re: arguing with a leftist, because they always deny the facts."
Ben,
You forgot to mention Robert Malley and Zbigniew Brzezinski.
The curse of the electoral college means that likely the vote of your friends is useless. The election is decided in 5-6 tossup states, all except Florida have no tangible Jewish vote.
As much as I think that the criticism of Bush is undeserved, the last 8 years have been a massive neglect of the huge tectonic shifts. In the final months Bush presided over largest nationalization since Vladimir Lenin. It is precisely into this vacuum that Obama was sucked in.
you speak with such confidence about impending catastrophe. care to be a little specific about the doom at our door? what exactly [or more or less] do you predict, for the us and for israel?
Just because someone has to say it...where does Rahm Emanuel fit on that list?
Indeed, I did have other priorities. Living as a well-to-do academic in Israel with American friends and family who are similarly well-to-do and whose own friends and family are well to do as well (and please don't insult my intelligence by mentioning some former classmate of yours working at the Burger King) it's understandable how your only major concern would be "what's good for Israel". Indeed, that's a concern that rather high up on my own interest list as well and I'm moineh it l'shvach for every yid whose priorities are similar.
But there are other priorities.
mnuez
HK,
Your first comment is correct. As for Malley and Zbig, they were never acknowledged by BO as significant players; the others were.
TA,
True but irrelevant. Even in swing states, any individual voter has zero chance of having an impact. Voting is signaling.
mnuez,
As I was saying...
what's the deal with lugar? i thought that was the best of the potential sec states?
From a NY Sun editorial, Feb. 1, 2008:
When, on May 22, 1998, the Senate, by a vote of 90 to 4, passed the Iran Missile Proliferation Sanctions Act, imposing sanctions on foreigners who help Iran's missile program, Mr. Lugar fetched up among the four senators who voted against the measure.
On July 24, 2001, the Senate voted 96 to 2 to renew the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act to help deny Iran and Libya money that they would spend on supporting terrorism or acquiring weapons of mass destruction. The only two senators who opposed the measure were Obama's buddies Lugar and Hagel.
On April 6, 2001, 87 members of the Senate sent President Bush a letter saying Yasser Arafat should not be invited to meet with high-level officials in Washington until he renounced terrorism against Israel. Lugar declined to sign the letter.
On April 18, 2002, when the Senate, by 88 to 10, voted to ban the import to America of Iraqi oil until Iraq stopped compensating the families of Palestinian Arab suicide bombers, Messrs. Lugar and Hagel were among the handful who voted to bring in the oil.
In a July 10, 2003, editorial headlined "Ayatollah Lugar," have already reported on how Mr. Lugar watered down the Iran Democracy Act that was introduced by Senators Brownback, Schumer, Kyl, Inouye, and others.
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