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Political tidbits: Ad wars, Sarah Silverman and more

By Eric Fingerhut · September 26, 2008

• JTA’s Ami Eden critiques a Republican Jewish Coalition ad linking Barack Obama and Pat Buchanan, and reports on another one quoting Democrats who have praised John McCain.
• The New York Times reports that Obama is now running dubious ads about McCain, including one that hits below the belt in an effort to scare Latino voters.
  
• And the RJC cries foul over a Florida Democratic congressman saying, “anybody toting guns and stripping moose don’t care too much about what they do with Jews and blacks.”
• The National Jewish Democratic Council goes positive with a Rosh Hashanh-themed Obama ad.
• Sarah Silverman wants you to get your Jewish grandparents to vote for Obama.
• Remember ”Rabbis for Obama”? Well, the man who brought you the McCippah and the Obamaica introduces: ”Rabies for Obama.”
  
• Brett Lieberman at The Forward looks into the big funding disparity between the Republican Jewish Coalition and the National Jewish Democratic Council – which explains why NJDC chair Marc Stanley kept joking about finding a billionaire this week at the NJDC’s Washington Conference.
• How big a factor is race in the Jewish vote? The Jerusalem Post’s Hilary Leila Krieger looks into it.
  
• Anchorage’s Chabad rabbi talks to the Jewish Advocate about Sarah Palin.
• Two leaders of Republicans Abroad Israel, in the Jerusalem Post, continue the GOP criticism of Democrats for “sabotaging” this week’s anti-Iran rally.
• A Wisconisn political scientist says Sarah Palin may drive Jews away from John McCain, in the Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle.
• Daniel Halper, at Commentary’s blog, points out that John McCain seems to be garnering a great deal of support from independents in the AJC survey released yesterday.
• Juan Cole, in Salon, argues that Barack Obama and Sarah Palin overreacted to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s United Nations speech.
• Menachem Rosensaft, in the The Jewish Week, writes that the Republican Party stance on abortion “is in direct conflict with Jewish law.”
• In a piece headline “Sarah, Heavenly Sarah,” Laurence Kulak, in the 5 Towns Jewish Times, asks a question we’re hearing for the very first time: “Why does Sarah Palin seem to be so Jewish?”
• Yiddish singer Eleanor Reissa and actress Elaine Stritch will headline a party next month to raise money for the pro-Obama Jewish Alliance for Change.

15 Comments | Share This | ads, Alaska, Barack Obama, Florida, Iran, John McCain, NJDC, polls, Presidential Race, RJC, Sarah Palin, Tidbits

Political tidbits: A new addition to the oneg Shabbat this week in Fla.

By Eric Fingerhut · September 24, 2008

• A South Florida synagogue will be watching Friday night’s debate together after Shabbat services, according to the Sun-Sentinel.
  
• Yoav Sivan, in the Jerusalem Post, believes John McCain’s choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate makes the Obama-Biden ticket “the natural ticket” for American Jews.
  
• The St. Petersburg Times finds Jewish voters in South Florida still undecided about Obama.
  
• The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein complains that Joe Biden didn’t take any media questions at his National Jewish Democratic Council appearance on Tuesday.



Israelis for Obama talk about why they like him in a video distributed by the Jewish Alliance for Change.

• White supremacists distribute anti-Obama flyers in New Jersey, according to the Newark Star-Ledger.
  
• The Jerusalem Post reports that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is “ready” to meet Obama and McCain – but the candidates aren’t running to clear their schedules.
  
• CAIR has asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate the distribution of anti-radical Islam DVD Obsession, claiming that Aish HaTorah International is behind it, reports the AP. Aish HaTorah denies involvement, although current and former employees are involved.

2 Comments | Share This | ads, Barack Obama, Florida, Iran, Joe Biden, John McCain, New Jersey, Presidential Race, Sarah Palin, Tidbits

Ahmadinejad blogging

By Ron Kampeas · September 24, 2008

Where’s John McCain?

The Arizona U.S. senator and Republican presidential nominee got high marks for his quick as a flash response to the Georgia crisis this summer, leaving Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), his Democratic rival, in the dust.

It’s Obama’s turn, however, to leave McCain sputtering: the Obama campaign had a statement out within hours of possibly the most anti-Semitic speech ever delivered at the United Nations, and even got a dig in at McCain for not supporting Iran sanctions legislation in the Senate:

“I strongly condemn President Ahmadinejad’s outrageous remarks at the United Nations, and am disappointed that he had a platform to air his hateful and anti-Semitic views. The threat from Iran’s nuclear program is grave. Now is the time for Americans to unite on behalf of the strong sanctions that are needed to increase pressure on the Iranian regime. Once again, I call upon Senator McCain to join me in supporting a bipartisan bill to increase pressure on the Iranian regime by allowing states and private companies to divest from companies doing business in Iran.The security of our ally Israel is too important to play partisan politics, and it is deeply disappointing that Senator McCain and a few of his allies in Congress feel otherwise.”

Obama was referring to last week’s Senate tussle over sanctions legislation he helped sponsor. Democrats say they thing the GOP is blocking the legislation to deny Obama an election year score (and pro-Israel insiders agree); Republicans won’t fully explain why the legislation is stalled.

Nothing yet from the McCain campaign (although props to them for keeping their press release website absolutely up to date, still, bafflingly, a rarity in 2008.)

On the broader Iran issue, however, McCain has the jump on Obama: He’s come about as close as Obama’s primaries rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) did in threatening a military strike on Iran should it edge to close to the bomb. Here’s what he told CBS “60 Minutes” interviewer Scott Pelley this weekend:

Pelley: Would it be your policy in your administration to engage in preemptive war against a country that might pose a threat to the United States a country that hasn’t attacked us.

McCain: If it’s a provable direct threat. Suppose that the Iranians had nuclear weapons. And you had a whole lot of other information about Iranian intentions and you could make the case to the American people and to the world, I think it’s obvious that we would have to prevent what we’re absolutely certain is a direct threat to the lives of the American people.

Obama has said he will not take the military option off the table, but has not said so clearly he would strike if the Iranian threat is imminent.

Speaking of the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speech, though: How WRONG did CNN’s Christiane Amanpour get it in her analysis? She paid more attention to what he supposedly omitted (past alleged references to wiping Israel off the map) and none at all to how closely he hewed to the vilest anti-Semitic stereotypes, more - I think (I might be proved wrong if someone digs up some Stalin-era U.N. speech) - than anyone else has on the General Assembly podium. Here’s Ahmadinejad:

“The dignity, integrity and rights of the American and European people are being played with by a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists. Although they are a minuscule minority, they have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers, as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the U.S. in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner.

“It is deeply disastrous to witness that some presidential or premier nominees in some big countries have to visit these people, take part in their gatherings, swear their allegiance in a commitment to their interests in order to attain financial or media support. This means that the great people of America and various nations of Europe need to obey the demands and wishes of a small number of acquisitive and invasive people. These nations are spending their dignity and resources on the crimes and occupations and the threats of the Zionist network against their will.

“Friends and colleagues, all these are due to the manner in which the immoral and the powerful view the world, humankind, freedom, obeisance to God and justice. The thoughts and deeds of those who think they are superior to others and consider others as second class and inferior, who intend to remain out of the divine circle, to be the absolute slaves of their materialistic and selfish desires, who intend to expand their aggressive and domineering natures, constitute the roots of today’s problems in human societies. They are hindrances to the actualization of material and spiritual prosperity and to security, peace and brotherhood among nations.”

Ahmadinejad has, of course, long used anti-Semitic stereotypes to frame his attacks on Israel’s relationship with the Palestinians and with others in the Middle East; but this may be the first time that a world leader has used the U.N. podium to expand that toxic characterization to world control, a trope straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. (Look for more of this as the markets become more precarious.)

And Amanpour thinks Ahmadinejad was moderating his usual rhetoric??? She called this a typical “stump speech:”

“He did, as usual, start with the religious fundamentalist beliefs that he has, and he ended with that as well, a little of the end days philosophy that he has that the world is going to end and needs justice. But he also talked about the U.S. as occupiers in Iraq, as he has many time, and wants them out of Iraq.

“He talked about, as you said, the Zionist regime. But, this time, you didn’t hear him say wiped off the face of the map, as you have heard in the past. He simply talked about illegal occupation and oppression of Palestinians.

“It seems that he’s trying to actually pull back from some of that very fiery rhetoric that he’s directed towards Israel. Just this week in Iran, he actually said that Iran is friendly to the people of Israel and insisted that Iran has nothing against the Jewish people. He was backing one of his own ministers who had said that.”

Look, I’m as susceptible as anyone else in the Monday morning quarterbacking business to overparsing, but this was beyond belief. Wolf Blitzer, who must know better and who usually is quite good at gently tugging his interviewees back into the real world, said nothing.

1 Comment | Share This | Barack Obama, Iran, John McCain, Presidential Race

Sen. Durbin critcizes GOP for sinking anti-Iran sanctions

By Ami Eden · September 23, 2008

Here’s audio from Sen. Richard Durbin’s conference call last week criticizing Republicans for sinking anti-Iran sanctions legislation. The Obama campaign organized the call.

[audio:/images/archive/durbin.mp3]
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Political tidbits: A West Bank rabbi for Obama

By Eric Fingerhut · September 23, 2008

• A George Mason University professor and rabbi has news of a West Bank, pro-settlement rabbi for Obama. Rabbi Menachem Frohman, in an open letter to Obama, says his election “will be God’s outstretched hand for peace.”
• Haaretz’s Shlomo Shamir says Rabbis for Obama is one sign of the increasing influence of rabbis in the Jewish community.
• After a week talking to people in Israel, the Israel Policy Forum’s M.J. Rosenberg writes on TPMCafe that Israelis are now backing Obama.
  
• Caroline Glick, in the Jerusalem Post, says Sarah Palin would have delivered a “remarkable speech” at the anti-Iran rally, but Jewish Democrats prevented it because they value abortion more than Israel.
• Rush Limbaugh, in an interview with Greta Van Susteren on Fox News, uses the anti-Iran rally fiasco as an example of Democrats not wanting to “unify” on anything – but he gets the facts wrong when he blames the Obama campaign for the disinvitation to Palin.
• Jennifer Rubin rounds up the negative reactions of some Jewish groups to Palin’s disinvitation.
• Clyde Haberman in the New York Times on how the annual visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes “some normally sensible New Yorkers lose their bearings” – and this year it was the Jewish organizations’ turn.
• Minnesota Democratic Senate candidate Al Franken admits that he did suggest an idea that turned into a Saturday Night Live sketch this past weekend making fun of John McCain’s ads – but didn’t write it and says he didn’t even realize it would turn into a sketch. (By the way, it wasn’t nearly as funny as the Palin-Clinton sketch the previous week.)

0 Comments | Share This | Al Franken, Barack Obama, Iran, Israel, John McCain, Presidential Race, Sarah Palin, Tidbits

What Palin would have said today (and why Hillary backed out)

By Ami Eden · September 22, 2008

I’ve spent the past few days listening to people play the blame game about today’s Iran rally: Malcolm, Malcolm bo-balcom, banna fanna fo-Hillary, mi my mo-morman – Forman. One thing is clear: The McCain camp did intend to use the joint appearance with Hillary Clinton as a hammer with which to slam Barack Obama.

How do we know?

Because the McCain campaign is circulating the remarks that it says she would have given at the rally (they were published in Monday’s New York Sun).

Check out this passage:

Earlier this year, Senator Clinton said that “Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is in the forefront of that” effort. Senator Clinton argued that part of our response must include stronger sanctions, including the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization. John McCain and I could not agree more.

Translation: Clinton gets the threat, Obama and Biden don’t.

The back story: Clinton voted for a resolution calling on the Bush administration to designate the Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group. Obama and Biden voted against it.

The missing piece of information: Obama and Biden say they agree with the Bush administration’s subsequent decision to sanction the Iranian outfit, but opposed the resolution over concerns that the White House might use the measure to justify future military action against Iran without Congressional resolution.

So ... if we are to believe that these were really her intended remarks… Not only was Palin planning to use Clinton (and her platform at the Jewish community-sponsored rally) to swipe at Obama, but she was going to do so in a misleading way.

Democrats may have mishandled the situation, and may be unfairly assigning sinister motives to rally organizers, but one thing is clear: They were right to be concerned that the invitation to Palin would infuse a heavy dose of partisanship into what was supposed to be a unity rally.

UPDATED: Forgot to mention that Palin also planned to offer a strong plug for McCain’s Iraq policy:

If we retreat without leaving a stable Iraq, Iran’s nuclear ambitions will be bolstered. If Iran acquires nuclear weapons – they could share them tomorrow with the terrorists they finance, arm, and train today. Iranian nuclear weapons would set off a dangerous regional nuclear arms race that would make all of us less safe.

In general, that would be a perfectly understandable and legitimate point to make in a stump speech, but not the best talking point for a rally aimed at building a politically diverse coalition for tougher sanctions against Iran.

Here’s the full text:

I am honored to be with you and with leaders from across this great country – leaders from different faiths and political parties united in a single voice of outrage.

Tomorrow, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will come to New York – to the heart of what he calls the Great Satan – and speak freely in this, a country whose demise he has called for.

Ahmadinejad may choose his words carefully, but underneath all of the rhetoric is an agenda that threatens all who seek a safer and freer world. We gather here today to highlight the Iranian dictator’s intentions and to call for action to thwart him.

He must be stopped.

The world must awake to the threat this man poses to all of us. Ahmadinejad denies that the Holocaust ever took place. He dreams of being an agent in a “Final Solution” – the elimination of the Jewish people. He has called Israel a “stinking corpse” that is “on its way to annihilation.” Such talk cannot be dismissed as the ravings of a madman – not when Iran just this summer tested long-range Shahab-3 missiles capable of striking Tel Aviv, not when the Iranian nuclear program is nearing completion, and not when Iran sponsors terrorists that threaten and kill innocent people around the world.

The Iranian government wants nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency reports that Iran is running at least 3,800 centrifuges and that its uranium enrichment capacity is rapidly improving. According to news reports, U.S. intelligence agencies believe the Iranians may have enough nuclear material to produce a bomb within a year.

The world has condemned these activities. The United Nations Security Council has demanded that Iran suspend its illegal nuclear enrichment activities. It has levied three rounds of sanctions. How has Ahmadinejad responded? With the declaration that the “Iranian nation would not retreat one iota” from its nuclear program.

So, what should we do about this growing threat? First, we must succeed in Iraq. If we fail there, it will jeopardize the democracy the Iraqis have worked so hard to build, and empower the extremists in neighboring Iran. Iran has armed and trained terrorists who have killed our soldiers in Iraq, and it is Iran that would benefit from an American defeat in Iraq.

If we retreat without leaving a stable Iraq, Iran’s nuclear ambitions will be bolstered. If Iran acquires nuclear weapons – they could share them tomorrow with the terrorists they finance, arm, and train today. Iranian nuclear weapons would set off a dangerous regional nuclear arms race that would make all of us less safe.

But Iran is not only a regional threat; it threatens the entire world. It is the no. 1 state sponsor of terrorism. It sponsors the world’s most vicious terrorist groups, Hamas and Hezbollah. Together, Iran and its terrorists are responsible for the deaths of Americans in Lebanon in the 1980s, in Saudi Arabia in the 1990s, and in Iraq today. They have murdered Iraqis, Lebanese, Palestinians, and other Muslims who have resisted Iran’s desire to dominate the region. They have persecuted countless people simply because they are Jewish.

Iran is responsible for attacks not only on Israelis, but on Jews living as far away as Argentina. Anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial are part of Iran’s official ideology and murder is part of its official policy. Not even Iranian citizens are safe from their government’s threat to those who want to live, work, and worship in peace. Politically-motivated abductions, torture, death by stoning, flogging, and amputations are just some of its state-sanctioned punishments.

It is said that the measure of a country is the treatment of its most vulnerable citizens. By that standard, the Iranian government is both oppressive and barbaric. Under Ahmadinejad’s rule, Iranian women are some of the most vulnerable citizens.

If an Iranian woman shows too much hair in public, she risks being beaten or killed.

If she walks down a public street in clothing that violates the state dress code, she could be arrested.

But in the face of this harsh regime, the Iranian women have shown courage. Despite threats to their lives and their families, Iranian women have sought better treatment through the “One Million Signatures Campaign Demanding Changes to Discriminatory Laws.” The authorities have reacted with predictable barbarism. Last year, women’s rights activist Delaram Ali was sentenced to 20 lashes and 10 months in prison for committing the crime of “propaganda against the system.” After international protests, the judiciary reduced her sentence to “only” 10 lashes and 36 months in prison and then temporarily suspended her sentence. She still faces the threat of imprisonment.

Earlier this year, Senator Clinton said that “Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps is in the forefront of that” effort. Senator Clinton argued that part of our response must include stronger sanctions, including the designation of the IRGC as a terrorist organization. John McCain and I could not agree more.

Senator Clinton understands the nature of this threat and what we must do to confront it. This is an issue that should unite all Americans. Iran should not be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons. Period. And in a single voice, we must be loud enough for the whole world to hear: Stop Iran!

Only by working together, across national, religious, and political differences, can we alter this regime’s dangerous behavior. Iran has many vulnerabilities, including a regime weakened by sanctions and a population eager to embrace opportunities with the West. We must increase economic pressure to change Iran’s behavior.

Tomorrow, Ahmadinejad will come to New York. On our soil, he will exercise the right of freedom of speech – a right he denies his own people. He will share his hateful agenda with the world. Our task is to focus the world on what can be done to stop him.

We must rally the world to press for truly tough sanctions at the U.N. or with our allies if Iran’s allies continue to block action in the U.N. We must start with restrictions on Iran’s refined petroleum imports.

We must reduce our dependency on foreign oil to weaken Iran’s economic influence.

We must target the regime’s assets abroad; bank accounts, investments, and trading partners.

President Ahmadinejad should be held accountable for inciting genocide, a crime under international law.

We must sanction Iran’s Central Bank and the Revolutionary Guard Corps – which no one should doubt is a terrorist organization.

Together, we can stop Iran’s nuclear program.

Senator McCain has made a solemn commitment that I strongly endorse: Never again will we risk another Holocaust. And this is not a wish, a request, or a plea to Israel’s enemies. This is a promise that the United States and Israel will honor, against any enemy who cares to test us. It is John McCain’s promise and it is my promise.

Thank you.

20 Comments | Share This | Democratic convention, hillary clinton, Iran, Presidential Race, Sarah Palin

Hillary sends a letter…

By Ami Eden · September 22, 2008

Hillary Clinton may have pulled out of today’s anti-Iran rally. But she did send a note.

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Source: Hoenlein aimed for bipartisanship

By Ron Kampeas · September 18, 2008

A source helping Malcolm Hoenlein organize next week’s Iran rally tells JTA – on condition of being quoted only as an “official” – that Hoenlein genuinely saw the pairing of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republican vice presidential pick, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) as an appropriate match for the event.

As I reported earlier, Democrats are furious that organizers, in particular the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations executive, matched a Democratic lawmaker with the number two on the GOP ticket. The official agrees that, in hindsight, Hoenlein’s decision not to approach the campaign of Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) after he secured Palin (apparently last week) was naive. The official adds, however, that Hoenlein’s decision was fueled by anxiety that, after having secured Clinton early in August, he was having trouble finding a Republican. In other words, Hoenlein’s relief at finally getting a Republican might have gotten in the way of anticipating the fury of Democrats in general and Clinton in particular (she pulled out Wednesday, essentially accusing the organizers of making the event partisan).

Palin has yet to confirm. Officials in the Obama campaign say a surrogate will be there – but would not say if Obama’s running mate, Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), would be the one.

11 Comments | Share This | hillary clinton, Iran, Joe Biden, Sarah Palin

Political Tidbits: Everyone is still talking about Sarah Palin

By Eric Fingerhut · September 15, 2008

• The Washington Post editorial page says Palin’s refusal, in her ABC interview, to “second guess” Israel about a potential Iran strike leaves a big question unanswered – would she permit Israeli forces to fly through U.S.-controlled airspace to make such an attack?
  
• MSNBC’s Chris Matthews didn’t like Palin’s “second guess” answer, but was he reporting her response correctly? Newsbusters doesn’t think so.
  
• Robert Schlesinger of U.S. News and World Report blogged that Palin’s constant repetition of “second guess” reminded him of a famous scene in the classic film “This Is Spinal Tap.”
• Beth Reinhard writes that Jews should “demand” to know more about Sarah Palin’s views on Jews for Jesus and Israel.
• Frank Rich in the New York Times argues that Palin’s use of a quote by the anti-Semitic Westbrook Pegler in the “most chilling passage” of her convention speech demonstrates the Republicans’ return to the “vitriolic animus of right-wing populism.”
  
• The McClatchy News Service examines what’s “on the record” about Palin’s religous beliefs.
  
• ABC’s Jake Tapper has news of “The Great Schlep” for Obama, along with more on Michelle Obama’s rabbi cousin.
• Editor & Publisher investigates why copies of the anti-radical Islam DVD “Obsession” are being inserted into newspapers in “swing states.”
• Edward Luce of the Financial Times attends a tai chi class in Miami Beach to find undecided Jewish voters – who raise questions about Palin and Barack Obama.
  
• Joseph Epstein, in the Wall Street Journal, discusses about why he’s a Jewish Republican – which he calls thinking “outside the lox.”
  
• “If there’s any year when a blind rabbi is going to get elected to Congress, this figures to be the one,” writes Peter Applebome in the New York Times about New Jersey congressional challenger Dennis Shulman.
  
• Israel’s chief negotiator on the Oslo Accords, Uri Savir, tells the Jerusalem Post that the “peace process” would be better served by Barack Obama than by John McCain.
• Two St. Paul Jews, Paul and Paula Maccabee, criticize the Republican Jewish Coalition’s ad campaign with an op-ed in the American Jewish World newspaper.
• The Republican Jewish Coalition’s blog is defending that John McCain ad claiming Barack Obama supported “sex education” for kindergarteners, even though nonpartisan observers say it’s false.

0 Comments | Share This | Barack Obama, Congressional races, Florida, Iran, John McCain, Presidential Race, Sarah Palin, Tidbits

Can Biden and Palin be believed?

By Ami Eden · September 12, 2008

Remember the hubbub back in April, after George Stephanopoulos asked Hillary Clinton what she would do if Iran attacked Israel and she said the Islamic Republic would be met with ”massive retaliation”? Well the question – and henceforth the answer – struck me as utterly besides the point.

After all, does it really matter what the United States would do if God forbid such a thing took place, considering that Israel is believed to posses a second-strike capability? The real question is what the next president will do if the Israelis decide to launch a first strike against Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

Well, if the veep candidates have any say, the answer is that the next administration will trust whatever decision the Israelis make. “We are friends with Israel,” Palin told ABC’s Charlie Gibson on Thursday. “I don’t think we should second-guess the measures that Israel has to take to defend themselves and for their security.”

As for Joe Biden ... “This is not a question for us to tell the Israelis what they can and cannot do,” the Democratic vice presidential candidate said last week in a conference call with members of the Jewish media. “I have faith in the democracy of Israel. They will arrive at the right decision that they view as being in their own interests.”

Clinton’s answer may have been honest, but the question was irrelevant. In contrast, Biden and Palin tackled the fundamental question – yet their answers were thoroughly unbelievable. This isn’t 1967, 1981 or even 2007, when ultimately Israel bore the bulk of the risk, responsibility and consequences of a preemptive strike against a looming threat. By most accounts, it will be impossible for Israelis to attack Iran without U.S. knowledge and cooperation, considering America’s control over Iraqi air space and Israel’s need for the electronic Identification Friend or Foe codes that combat planes need to cross international airspace. And, if you believe the gloomiest of doomsday scenarios, Iran would not only retaliate with a rocket barrage against Israel, but would also move to cripple the world’s oil supply with pinpoint attacks and unleash a wave of terror against U.S. and European targets.

This is not to say that a President McCain or a President Obama would automatically order the Israelis to hold their fire (though, depending on whom you believe, the Bush administration is doing just that right now). It’s just to stress how suspect Biden’s and Palin’s answers are – how implausible it is that, given the need for U.S. cooperation and the wider ramifications of a strike against Iran, Obama or McCain would blindly follow the lead of the Israeli government.

1 Comment | Share This | Barack Obama, Iran, Iraq, Joe Biden, John McCain, Presidential Race, Sarah Palin