Ground premise* numero uno*: Obama is really, really smart.
Ground premise* numero two-o*: Obama is a somewhat browner Bill Clinton: an enormously gifted politician of high intelligence and the ineffable moxie, who wants to be President with every fiber of his being. It is safe to say, then, that he has given this all considerable thought, for a pretty long time.
No major national politician disfavors Israel. None. Zero, zip, zilch, nada. An ambitious politician who publicly associates himself with anti-Semitism might as well nail his pecker to a tree and set the tree ablaze. Anybody who has read the Big Golden Book of American Politics knows that, and I daresay this ain’t Obama’s first rodeo. He knows this shit cold. He is as sure-footed and cautious as a mountain goat in a mine field.
There is no way - none whatsoever - that Obama knowingly and publicly associated himself with approving of anti-Semitism. It would be worse than just wrong, it would be* stupid*.
I’m sure Obama has his faults, and the list may be long, but “stupid” ain’t on it.
Who does? See McCain chumming around with Muslims? Biden? Lieberman? Palin? Anybody? If Obama is precisely the same as all the others in this regard, why bother to bring it up? If you could be a little more forthcoming and distinct with your innuendo and inference, it might help. Are you suggesting something nefarious here? Or more like “Obama takes the newspaper with him when he takes a dump!”
I already said it was speculation in post 64. When you attend a farewell event for a friend there is the assumption that you are the company you keep. Khalidi is not exactly a supporter of Israel nor apparently are the people who came to his farewell party. At Khalidi’s 2003 farewell party, for example, a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel
This video is an opportunity to see how Obama reacts to the situation. Given the nature of the event and the sentiment expressed it casts a poor light on Obama if it is deliberately withheld.
Because Obama, using his superpowers or God like abilities, should be able to force the LA Times to violate their promise? How do you get that it in any way that the non release reflects poorly on Obama?
Holy crap! You didn’t tell me there were people at the party who criticized Israeli policy. And in a poem you say! What will they think of next? Well…now all of your unsupported paranoid innuendo makes perfect sense. We cannot allow a politician to associate with people who would dare question Israeli policy. I mean, even if this politician openly disagrees with those positions, to allow people to express opposing policy arguments is tantamount to condoning terrorism. We can’t have that.
Bad news dopers - no one here can ever run for president. You’ve all read opinions that someone will find offensive here at the SDMB. You may not have condoned them; you may have even spoken out against them. But you read them, and that’s enough.
I’m so disillusioned. Now instead of preparing myself for a presidential run in 2016 I’m going to move to Ohio and wait for Sarah Palin to tour my neighborhood so I can ask her some smart ass questions.
I think the Times is hurting Obama, not Obama hurting himself. I guess I don’t understand the premise that someone gave a newspaper a video and told them not to show it to anyone.
The reasons people do stuff like this isn’t always clear from the outside, but it does happen, and a paper only hurts itself by going back on an agreement like that, even if it’s stupid.
I cannot even describe how much this pisses me off:
SANCHEZ: Now, is the – I need to parse this out as best I can from you, Michael. The fact that John McCain’s organization gave $448,000 to this group that was founded by Mr. Khalidi, is there no reason for some to be critical of as well just as some might be critical of Barack Obama for being at a meeting with some girl read a poem for example?
GOLDFARB: Look. You are missing the point again, Rick.
Obama attends a dinner with Khalidi, and that’s a"dangerous association", McCain gives Khalidi hundreds of thousands of dollars to fund his organization and that’s “not the point”. My friggin head is going to 'splode.
So why hasn’t Obama struck back with that little factoid about McCain’s contribution as loudly as he can? I assume he’s just waiting to see if this turns out to be a big deal outside the opposition faithful.
From wandering to and from upon the tubes, I gather this fellow is highly respected in the policy wonk community, a subset of the Church of Wonk of which Obama is a communicant. I suspect that this reluctance stems from a notion of common decency, such that he is reluctant to bring any more attention to this poor man than he has already suffered.
On balance, I doubt that he believes this is a mortal threat to his ambitions. He might very well act differently if he believed it was.
The video is also an opportunity to see what McCain does with it.
And what he does is the same-old same-old “gosh look at that, is that a terrorist?” routine. He’s like my paternal grandfather, using the tip of his thumb to pretend to pull off the end of his own finger. Again. And again. Look, I know how the trick is done, Pop, and I ain’t impressed no more.
As I’ve already said, it doesn’t matter if they review the tape. Release it. Publish it to the Internet. McCain would just say, “Where’s the real tape? This isn’t the tape we were told about. Somebody edited the anti-Israeli rants off of this mystery video! We demand accountability!”
If you cave in to McCain’s irrelevant shrieks about the tape, you have let him control the conversation. Just think of McCain as an alt.old.delusional.runningforpresident Usenet troll, and DNF him.
