Rosen to the defense of Biden
Jack Rosen, the former president of the American Jewish Congress, and maybe the only person in the country to have backed Bill Clinton, then George W. Bush and now Barack Obama, sent along the following e-mail in defense of Joe Biden:
The smear campaign against Joe Biden on the internet, spread by viral emails, attributes to him all kinds of beliefs that he has never held. This is a man with a clear public record over many years, and it is a record of friendship and support. I think it is outrageous when some in the Jewish community unthinkingly or with malice pass on these scurrilous lies. Jews should know better than anyone how a small lie endlessly repeated becomes a big one, and how innocent people can be harmed by such falsehoods.The Jewish community ought to take particular comfort in Obama's choice of my friend Joe Biden as his running mate. I've known Joe for many years and we have discussed Israel and the Middle East privately many times. I can tell you, he is in private as he is in public: Joe Biden cares about Israel.
Nobody has a longer record on the issue, spanning nearly four decades. Joe's relationships with Israeli leaders go back to Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan, and include virtually every top Israel figure ever since. He has been to Israel dozens of times.
Joe is the kind of friend who will be there on a rainy day. He supported Israel at times when it was not popular – like defending Israel's right to use cluster bombs in the 1980s. He delivered multiple speeches in 2002 denouncing the false portrayal of Israeli military operations against terrorists in Jenin as a "massacre." He voiced strong support for Israel during its 2006 war with Hezbollah. He has consistently defended Israel's right to target terrorists who intend to strike at Israel. He said a few days ago, "Israel has an absolute right to defend itself. It doesn't have to ask us."
He is an outspoken supporter of the search for peace, but he also has a consistent record as a realist. For example, he was the original co-sponsor of the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006 which banned direct U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority as long as it is led by Hamas. He is a fierce critic of Arab extremism, and constantly reminds his many friends in the Arab world that they need to do more to end their state of belligerency with Israel and to end the economic boycott against Israel.
On Iran, Joe supports tough and urgent diplomacy and economic pressure to prevent an Iranian nuclear threat. He regards the danger of Iranian nuclearization as one of the central challenges of our era. According to the Washington reporter for Ha'aretz, Joe Biden believes "options should not be taken of the table – that is, he isn't willing to swear off the use of force as a last resort to prevent the nuclearization of iran "
Joe Biden has been steadfast in opposing the transfer of arms to Arab nations that might erode Israel's qualitative edge. With Congressman Mel Levine, Biden spearheaded legislation in 1988 to modify the Arms Export Control Act so that American arms sales to Arab countries would be severely constrained in the absence of their reaching peace agreements with Israel. Levine recently said, "Joe Biden has been as consistently supportive of preserving Israel's security as any Member of Congress."
Joe has many, many ties to the American Jewish community. His daughter-in-law is Jewish, and he is close to his Jewish relatives. Many years ago, he was the one who discovered Tom Lantos, who he hired as an adviser early in his Senate career. Their relationship over the last thirty years was close, and Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress, continued to be a mentor to Biden on the issues of Israel, genocide-prevention, and human rights.
Joe Biden is a man we can count on. His record speaks for itself.
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The roots of “cosmopolitan”
I was chatting with a RWSNBN (Republican who shall not be named) earlier today (Thursday) about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's strong showing last night at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul and how the Democrats have to tiptoe around criticizing her, lest they slide into sexist stereotypes. (It's a minefield: Her experience or lack of it is certainly fair game, but slams on experience have a way of slipping into "what does a woman know?" territory, or at least can come off sounding that way.)
I pointed out that this was a tetchy season for Republicans as well: A lot of the "elitist" cracks at Obama last night suggested to me a trope that could easily creep into "uppity" territory, and sure enough, a day later, that's exactly the word a southern congressman used to describe the Democratic candidate and his wife.
In my conversation with the RWSNBN, I cited the constant battering of community work as touchy-feely, somehow irrelevant (Palin made much of this; so did former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani). Sure enough, community organizers are duly outraged. To boot, over at CNN, Roland Martin said jibes at community organizers "degrade the women who fought for their rights."
And that's not all.
They disrespect the labor activists and immigrant worker activists like Cesar Chavez. They dismiss those in the civil rights movement – folks from small town America who were sick and tired of being sick and tired. They thumb their noses at the Nelson Mandelas of the world who want a better life for their children.
The weirdest riff of all, though, was Giuliani's improvised dig at Obama as a "cosmopolitan":
She's been a mayor. I love that. I'm sorry – I'm sorry that Barack Obama feels that her hometown isn't cosmopolitan enough. (Switching to deeper, haughty voice) I'm sorry, Barack that it's not flashy enough. Maybe they cling to religion there. Ooh.
Obama has cited Palin's experience as a "small town" mayor and he notoriously slipped during the primaries by describing rural voters in Pennsylvania and Ohio as "bitter" and "clinging to religion."
Tone deaf, sure, reductive too, and it offers ample material for portraying Obama as out of touch. But I'm not sure how that gets to the "cosmopolitan" slag, launched by Karl Rove not long ago.
They went to good universities, yes, but don't Rove – or Giuliani – want that for their own kids? They live in a nice house – don't Rove and Giuliani? Isn't that what we all want? The thing is, even the usual underpinnings to this fatuous class warfare cliche about "elites" (a love of ballet, classical music, fine food, etc.) are missing, as far as I know, from the Obamas' biography, so what the hell are Rove/Giuliani talking about? Even if the Obamas appreciated these things, so what? But, as far as we know, they don't. They're middle class, their song is "Signed, Sealed, Delivered," Michelle's favorite show is "The Brady Bunch." What gives?
What especially discomfits me about "cosmopolitan," then is... how it's been used against Jews. As in, rootless. Unbelonging. Not of us.
Look, I know Giuliani doesn't have an anti-Semitic bone in his body. But you can borrow a trope from a bigotry you reject to thrust forward one you uphold. And that's when it becomes viral. (See under: Balkans.)
I'm just saying. There are a lot of ways for this election to slip into ugly territory. Depicting the Obamas as "cosmopolitan" is among the slipperiest.
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The intermarriage party
You know you've been in this business (Jewish journalism) too long when ... the rest of the country is taking in Joe Biden's tragic/inspiring story of losing his first wife and a baby daughter in a car crash, then managing to press ahead with his political career and raise his other children – but the only family detail you care about is that one of his sons married into a Jewish family.
And if you think that's bad, here's what flashed through my head next:
- Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton's only child is seriously involved with a Jewish guy.
- One of Al Gore's daughters is married to a Schiff
- One of Nancy Pelosi's daughters is married to a Jewish guy.
- Harry Reid married a Jewish woman (they both eventually converted to Mormonism – read more here).
- Howard Dean is married to a Jewish woman – and lights the menorah.
For those keeping score, that's the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, the top Democrat in the Senate, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, the most recent Democratic president and first lady, the most recent Democratic vice president, and the current vice presidential candidate. All we're missing is the One, but to be fair the Obama children haven't even reached Bat Mitzvah age – give 'em time (until then, be happy with the news that Michelle Obama has a cousin who's a rabbi).
Back to Biden... he played up his Jewish connection Tuesday, during a town hall in South Florida packed with Jewish seniors:
"Look, my son married – and matter of fact, her, uh – my son married into the Berger family," he said, referring to his son Beau Biden's marriage to the former Hallie Berger. "We're going to be mishpokhe before this all is over, I promise you."
In general, I'm not sure whether that's the best crowd for boasting about the whole intermarriage thing (though I have a hunch that many in the audience would be more comfortable with a Biden marrying in than, say, an Obama). I'd be especially reticent during this campaign, given the Internet track record of the anti-Obama forces.
Forget the Muslim stuff, I can see the new conspiratorial e-mail: Stop the Democratic plot to destroy the Jews with intermarriage. Every time a Democrat wins, another Jewish family loses. And with those two precious Obama girls, this year it's likely to cost us two good Jewish boys.
Of course, for Jewish paranoids – I'm sure there are only a few of them out there, but they all seem to have my e-mail address – it's a tough choice: Do you prefer a party whose goyim want to marry us or convert us?
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Feminist Jewess: Palin’s gonna screw ya!
If you need a corrective after reading the Jewish NRA head's scorching of Barack Obama for not knowing how to properly skin an animal, here's Gloria Steinem's account of why Sarah Palin would be a monumental setback for women.
Palin: wrong woman, wrong messageBy Gloria Steinem
September 4, 2008
Here's the good news: Women have become so politically powerful that even the anti-feminist right wing – the folks with a headlock on the Republican Party – are trying to appease the gender gap with a first-ever female vice president. We owe this to women – and to many men too – who have picketed, gone on hunger strikes or confronted violence at the polls so women can vote. We owe it to Shirley Chisholm, who first took the "white-male-only" sign off the White House, and to Hillary Rodham Clinton, who hung in there through ridicule and misogyny to win 18 million votes.
But here is even better news: It won't work. This isn't the first time a boss has picked an unqualified woman just because she agrees with him and opposes everything most other women want and need. Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It's about making life more fair for women everywhere. It's not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It's about baking a new pie.
Selecting Sarah Palin, who was touted all summer by Rush Limbaugh, is no way to attract most women, including die-hard Clinton supporters. Palin shares nothing but a chromosome with Clinton. Her down-home, divisive and deceptive speech did nothing to cosmeticize a Republican convention that has more than twice as many male delegates as female, a presidential candidate who is owned and operated by the right wing and a platform that opposes pretty much everything Clinton's candidacy stood for – and that Barack Obama's still does. To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."
This is not to beat up on Palin. I defend her right to be wrong, even on issues that matter most to me. I regret that people say she can't do the job because she has children in need of care, especially if they wouldn't say the same about a father. I get no pleasure from imagining her in the spotlight on national and foreign policy issues about which she has zero background, with one month to learn to compete with Sen. Joe Biden's 37 years' experience.
Palin has been honest about what she doesn't know. When asked last month about the vice presidency, she said, "I still can't answer that question until someone answers for me: What is it exactly that the VP does every day?" When asked about Iraq, she said, "I haven't really focused much on the war in Iraq."
She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax. Perhaps McCain has opposed affirmative action for so long that he doesn't know it's about inviting more people to meet standards, not lowering them. Or perhaps McCain is following the Bush administration habit, as in the Justice Department, of putting a job candidate's views on "God, guns and gays" ahead of competence. The difference is that McCain is filling a job one 72-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency.
So let's be clear: The culprit is John McCain. He may have chosen Palin out of change-envy, or a belief that women can't tell the difference between form and content, but the main motive was to please right-wing ideologues; the same ones who nixed anyone who is now or ever has been a supporter of reproductive freedom. If that were not the case, McCain could have chosen a woman who knows what a vice president does and who has thought about Iraq; someone like Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison or Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine. McCain could have taken a baby step away from right-wing patriarchs who determine his actions, right down to opposing the Violence Against Women Act.
Palin's value to those patriarchs is clear: She opposes just about every issue that women support by a majority or plurality. She believes that creationism should be taught in public schools but disbelieves global warming; she opposes gun control but supports government control of women's wombs; she opposes stem cell research but approves "abstinence-only" programs, which increase unwanted births, sexually transmitted diseases and abortions; she tried to use taxpayers' millions for a state program to shoot wolves from the air but didn't spend enough money to fix a state school system with the lowest high-school graduation rate in the nation; she runs with a candidate who opposes the Fair Pay Act but supports $500 million in subsidies for a natural gas pipeline across Alaska; she supports drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, though even McCain has opted for the lesser evil of offshore drilling. She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.
I don't doubt her sincerity. As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Assn., she doesn't just support killing animals from helicopters, she does it herself. She doesn't just talk about increasing the use of fossil fuels but puts a coal-burning power plant in her own small town. She doesn't just echo McCain's pledge to criminalize abortion by overturning Roe vs. Wade, she says that if one of her daughters were impregnated by rape or incest, she should bear the child. She not only opposes reproductive freedom as a human right but implies that it dictates abortion, without saying that it also protects the right to have a child.
So far, the major new McCain supporter that Palin has attracted is James Dobson of Focus on the Family. Of course, for Dobson, "women are merely waiting for their husbands to assume leadership," so he may be voting for Palin's husband.
Being a hope-a-holic, however, I can see two long-term bipartisan gains from this contest.
Republicans may learn they can't appeal to right-wing patriarchs and most women at the same time. A loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women.
And American women, who suffer more because of having two full-time jobs than from any other single injustice, finally have support on a national stage from male leaders who know that women can't be equal outside the home until men are equal in it. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are campaigning on their belief that men should be, can be and want to be at home for their children.
This could be huge.
Gloria Steinem is an author, feminist organizer and co-founder of the Women's Media Center. She supported Hillary Clinton and is now supporting Barack Obama.
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NRA Jewess: Palin’s gonna get ya!
First Linda Lingle, Hawaii's Jewish Republican governor, came to the defense of Sarah Palin. And now Sandra Froman – the only Jew and only the second woman to serve as president of the NRA – has the GOP running mate's back, in an op-ed that she's sent out via e-mail.
Our favorite line: "In addition, Palin's an NRA member and hunter. Barack Obama has never hunted wild game or field-dressed an animal. Frankly, Barack Obama should not welcome a comparison with Sarah Palin as to who is more rugged."
Fine, but how would Palin stack up against Woody Allen?
Here's Froman's full piece:
Sarah, Get Your Gun!By Sandy Froman
This week's treatment of Sarah Palin has been an appalling display of sexism and elitism. But the hatchet-men are in for a rude awakening.
The attacks over the past few days come down to two things:
First, Sarah Palin is supposedly out of her depth. She's only been in high office for two years, age 44, and has no foreign policy or national security experience. They say she's not ready for the big game.
Second, they imply she's a bad mother. She has a Down Syndrome baby, and her seventeen-year-old daughter soon will have a baby as well. Some are saying that a fit mother wouldn't take on a job like this under these circumstances.
This is rank sexism, and dripping with condescension.
Would anyone dare ask these questions if the candidate were a man? Evidently not because they haven't with Barack Obama. The freshman senator has only four years in office and half that campaigning for president, so really only two years foreign policy experience and has never handled national security. He has young children, but no one's suggesting he'd be a bad father.
The comparison is worse when you consider their experience and their jobs. She runs a state several hundred times bigger than Joe Biden's Delaware and has roughly as many constituents as Biden. And while Obama and Biden talk for a living, Governor Palin daily makes dozens of decisions and is commander-in-chief of the fiercely-independent Alaska National Guard.
In addition, Palin's an NRA member and hunter. Barack Obama has never hunted wild game or field-dressed an animal. Frankly, Barack Obama should not welcome a comparison with Sarah Palin as to who is more rugged.
Conveniently lost in this male condescension of an "uppity" woman who refuses to know her place is that she's a candidate for vice president, not president. The president is the commander-in-chief, sets the government budget and makes appointments. The vice president breaks tie votes in the Senate and advises the president. That being the case, I want to ask all these men who have trouble with Governor Palin one question:
Explain to me how Barack Obama can be qualified for president if someone with at least as much, if not more, experience is unqualified for vice president?
Their answer, I suspect, is that Barack is a man, Sarah is a woman. Therefore with equal or less experience, he can be president while she can't even be vice president. Any woman who claims to support equality for women, but doesn't fume in rage at this, is a hypocrite.
I know something about unspoken sexism. When I graduated from law school in 1974 there weren't many woman lawyers and it was still considered a man's job. I was the first partner in the, then, 50-year history of the major California law firm where I worked. When I joined the NRA, some expressed surprise because it was thought of as a man's organization. When I was elected to the NRA board of directors, it happened again. And when I was elected president of the NRA some male jaws dropped while women nodded in knowing approval.
During my tenure as NRA president, there were a few male advisors who tried to coax me into ridiculous speeches in settings that underutilized me because even then, they didn't consider me up to certain tasks. Never mind that I was a graduate of Harvard Law School and an honors graduate of Stanford, or that I had a resume a mile long. I was a woman, and so a man would be better suited to be where the hottest battles were being fought.
I went ahead and did those things anyway. I never fumbled the ball, I never faltered, and when I concluded my term of office, I left on a high note.
I look to Governor Sarah Palin as someone who can do that on a much higher level on the national stage. This tough Western woman refuses to take a back seat. This woman who knows how to look down the barrel of a gun and gut an animal in the wilderness is not afraid that she'll break her nail when she punches some deserving opponent right between the eyes in a political brawl. She's demonstrated that grit and determination in pummeling the former Republican governor out of office, felling the former Alaska attorney general, and dispatching the former Alaska GOP chairman. Do you think those men rolled over? Do you think they graciously conceded? No, they fought her tooth and nail, and she beat them into the ground.
The sexist commentators denigrating her right now are destined for the same fate. Watch out, boys. This girl's gonna get ya!
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Catering by Wolfgang Puck, red meat from Dennis Prager at RJC event
A number of Jewish organizations don't have kosher events, but will eschew non-kosher meat for fish or vegetarian meals. Despite the many yarmulkes in the crowd, that wasn't the case at the Republican Jewish Coalition's "Salute to GOP Governors" this week at the Republican National Convention. While there was a kosher table in the back with hummus, pita, desserts and other selections, the Walker Art Center event was catered by Wolfgang Puck's company and featured lamb, duck and sliders that were being pronounced delicious by a number of the hundreds in attendance – in addition to vegetarian fried rice and chocolate-covered strawberries.
Hotter than the food was emcee Dennis Prager. The conservative radio talk-show host blasted Jews for being liberals, saying that "it will be one of the great services to the Jewish people and to America and the world if we can stop the idea that Jewish and liberal are synonymous. ... Jews on the left often mean well but have no wisdom on the issues of the day."
"Auschwitz was not liberated by peace activists," said Prager. "They'd still be gassing Jews if we listened to peace activists."
Later he added, "There is no one as hated by the liberal world as a black conservative or a woman conservative. God forbid women should get the idea that you are more liberated ... on this side of the aisle."
Prager also used the old joke about Republican Jews being able to meet in a phone booth – in order to say that the number of GOP Jews has grown so much that "large stadiums" are now needed for their gatherings.
Utah Gov. John Huntsman Jr., Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue and Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle were among those who stopped by the reception. A number of other Gulf Coast governors, including Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, were scheduled to come but stayed home because of Hurricane Gustav.
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Attacking Obama for having the same position as McCain
After hearing the charge three times in the last 36 hours, it is obvious that attacking Barack Obama for "flip-flopping" on the issue of Jerusalem is going to be a major talking point for Republicans in the Jewish community this fall. But there's one huge problem with it. While even Obama has acknowledged that, at the very least, he has clarified his stance on Jerusalem, his original position was more hard-line than John McCain's – and his current one is exactly the same as the one held by his GOP opponent.
Obama surprised many people at the AIPAC policy conference in June when he told delegates that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided."
The next day, after he received criticism from Palestinians and others for the speech, Obama revised his remarks in an interview with CNN. "Obviously it's going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be part of those negotiations," he said. Asked whether he would be "against any kind of division of Jerusalem," the candidate said, "My belief is that as a practical matter it would be very difficult to execute. And I think that it is smart for us to work through a system in which everybody has access to the extraordinary religious sites in old Jerusalem. But Israel has a legitimate claim on that city."
That same week, McCain was asked for his thoughts on Jerusalem. After criticizing the Democrat for changing his mind, he said, "The point is Jerusalem is undivided ... Jerusalem is the capital." McCain then qualified his comments by emphasizing that regardless of his position, the status of the city is still subject to negotiation. "The subject of Jerusalem itself will be addressed in negotiations by the Israeli government and people," he said.
One candidate says "Jerusalem will be a part of ... negotiations." Another candidate says "Jerusalem ... will be addressed in negotiations." Sounds remarkably similar – but not to Republicans.
Wednesday night in his keynote speech, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani told the crowd in St. Paul, "When speaking to a pro-Israel group, Obama favored an undivided Jerusalem, like I favor and John McCain favors. Well, he favored an undivided Jerusalem – don't get too excited – for one day until he changed his mind." He didn't add "to the same position John McCain actually has taken."
On Tuesday afternoon, Republican Jewish Coalition Matt Brooks also criticized Obama for changing his mind on Jerusalem, but when asked whether the candidates' position on the division of Jerusalem were identical, said he didn't think so but would check it out.
And earlier Wednesday evening, Sen. John Ensign (Nev.) leveled the same charge. He said the "flip-flop" indicated that Jewish voters are "not sure what they're going to get with Barack Obama. There's doubt – it depends on what audience he is talking to."
Perhaps, but that would mean that on the division of Jerusalem, the two choices are either the same position as McCain – or a position that goes much further in allowing Israel to dictate the terms of a Jerusalem settlement than McCain has endorsed. Hardly a choice that should make voters concerned about Israel nervous.
To be fair, there is one major difference in the two candidates' positions on Jerusalem. McCain has said he would move the embassy to Jerusalem when he enters office. Obama has not, and his campaign has called McCain a liar for suggesting he would. That's because the last two presidents both made the same promise during their campaigns – and neither ever even made an attempt to actually carry that promise out in the last 16 years.
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At RNC, foreign policy on stage, and in the margins
Not a lot of foreign policy in Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's vice-presidential acceptance speech on Wednesday night at the Republican Party convention in St. Paul, but what little there was nodded to pro-Israel concerns about her thin resume. (Palin met with officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on Tuesday.)
Lots of red meat from Rudy, though.
And around the margins of the convention, Republicans are trying hard to make the case that it wasn't all about John McCain, the man. (Much - no, make that just about all - of the convention has been about the extraordinary biography of Sen. McCain (R-Ariz.), with little room left for policy.)
In a special press conference Wednesday for foreign press (with an RNC official checking passes!) and at a session of the Center for U.S. Global Engagement (held at U-Minnesota's Hubert Humphrey Institute), top foreign policy advisers to the campaign said McCain was much friendlier to the notion of working with allies than - well, it was left unsaid, but certainly the Bush administration's record of unilateralism hung heavily over the proceedings.
Key to making the case was Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), the onetime Democratic vice-presidential nominee - and McCain's preferred running mate until the Arizona senator caved last week to party base demands for a conservative candidate (embodied in "hockey mom" Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin).
Lieberman was the star speaker at the event hosted by Global Engagement (a group that advocates for greater political investment in foreign policy and that held a similar event at the Democratic confab in Denver last week) and brought reassurances that McCain has been mis-characterized as a hawk. McCain, a former POW, "hates" war, Lieberman said, suggesting that as president, McCain would shift powers from the Pentagon to the diplomatic corps.
"He's going to take a very close look at our foreign and defense policy," Lieberman promised.
At the foreign press event, deputy foreign policy adviser Kori Schake was asked what foreign policy advice McCain would take from Palin. Schake evaded the answer, replying that McCain would keep trusted advisers close - chief among them, Lieberman.
Schake also emphasized that McCain would reach out to allies, but was uncompromising on facing down Iran's suspected nuclear threat: "A nuclear Iran would be an unacceptable danger for all of us." Pressed for details, Schake told reporters to dig up two speeches: one to the Los Angeles Council on World Affairs, and the other to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
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Nu, clear?
Someone misunderestimated Sarah Palin.
The John McCain campaign sent out the Alaska governor's prepared remarks just as she began delivering her speech accepting the vice presidential nomination at the Republican Party convention in St. Paul.
I thought the idea was to keep us on tenterhooks, to stop leaks but ... it appears that the campaign was working on the speech until the last minute, because it was not cleaned up for press.
It included ellipses to flag pauses for applause.
It also included a none-too-subtle reminder that President Bush, the least popular president in modern history, was not to be invoked.
A couple of bloggers have already noticed that Palin pronounces "nuclear" in the same trisyllabic way Bush does.
Palin had this reminder in the written speech:
Starting in January, in a McCain-Palin administration, we're going to lay more pipelines ... build more new-clear plants ... create jobs with clean coal ... and move forward on solar, wind, geothermal, and other alternative sources.
You saw that right: new-clear.
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Hizzoner got in the Jerusalem line.
Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, brought attacks on Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) to a crescendo on Wednesday night at the Republican Party convention in St. Paul. That's the night when parties traditionally trash the opposition, and then use whatever time's left over to debut vice presidential picks (in this case, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin).
"When speaking to a pro-Israeli group, Obama favored an undivided Jerusalem, like I favor and John McCain favors it. Well he favored an undivided Jerusalem, don't get excited – until one day later when he changed his mind."
In fact, Obama did not retreat from favoring an undivided Jerusalem: After his speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in June, Obama's campaign clarified (after Palestinian complaints) that Jerusalem's final status should be left to the parties.
That's also the position of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), the Republican candidate, by the way.
Israelis (and, I suspect, much of the AIPAC room) understand a pledge to keep Jerusalem "undivided" to include the possibility – however discomfiting – of a shared capital. The underlying pledge is not to keep Israel sovereign in every neighborhood – but to ensure that the United States will not allow a war that could end with the city divided, as it did 1948.
The Obama campaign muddled the message, though, with surrogates apologizing for "poor wording" in the days that followed, although the wording was boilerplate. That gave Republicans wiggle room to cut away at what had been a very well-received speech.
It was hardly a surprise, then, that Giuliani brought it up as a flip-flop.
A few lines later, Rudy got back to the Middle East, by way of tearing into what he said was Obama's equivalence in dealing with the Georgian crisis.
"Obama's first instinct was to create a moral equivalency, suggesting that both sides were equally responsible, the same moral equivalency that he's displayed in discussing the Palestinian Authority and the State of Israel."
Here, I'm not not clear about what Giuliani was referring to: Obama has said he is willing to pressure both sides in peace talks, but has always added that he believes there is a greater onus on the Palestinians to push forward with peace negotiations.
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