Maureen Dowd, "Hillary Battles Bernie Sanders, Chick Magnet": Hillary Headed for the Showers?

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Bernie Sanders, chick magnet? I don't think so. I look at Bernie and see his capitalist alter ego, Mr. Burns from "The Simpsons."

But when was Maureen Dowd every really interested in the improbable socialist candidate for president? And not surprisingly, in her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Hillary Battles Bernie Sanders, Chick Magnet," Dowd devotes most of her "sweetness" to Mrs. Clinton. Dowd writes:

"She was in on sliming her husband’s ex-girlfriends who told the truth about liaisons. She has long been driven by a fear of being 'dead broke,' as she put it — and a conviction that she deserved the life and perks she would have had if she had gone into the private sector. That led her to do her suspiciously lucrative commodity trades while Bill was Arkansas attorney general and to make Wall Street speeches on the cusp of her 2016 campaign, even though she and Bill had already made more than $139 million between 2007 and 2014."

Hillary's perks? Dowd goes on to say:

"The Wall Street Journal calculates that since the Clintons first entered national politics in the early ’90s, Wall Street has given more than $100 million to their campaigns, foundation and personal finances.

When Anderson Cooper asked why Hillary had taken the obscene Goldman Sachs windfall, she gave a stupefyingly bad answer to a predictable question. 'Well, I don’t know,' she said, throwing up her hands and shrugging. 'That’s what they offered.'"

"That's what they offered"? I suppose that's also the reason that the Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars from Saudi Arabia, which whips gang rape victims and beheads persons accused of engaging in witchcraft.

I suppose it's also why the Clinton Foundation accepted millions of dollars in donations from banks which were convicted not too long ago of rigging the value of world currencies.

And I suppose it also explains Colbert King's Washington Post opinion piece entitled "Clinton email scandal: Why it might be time for Democrats to draft Joe Biden," which he concludes by observing, "the manager in the White House dugout might consider telling the bullpen to start warming up Joe Biden."

I suppose we'll just have to wait and see if it's New Hampshire or the FBI that sends Hillary to the showers.

Colbert King, "When ‘Black Lives Matter’ is linked with ‘Palestinian Lives Matter’": Israel Responsible for Wright's Wrongs?

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"Them Jews ain't going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter that he'll talk to me in five years when he's a lame duck, or in eight years when he's out of office."

- Jeremiah Wright, June 10, 2009 interview at the 95th annual Hampton University Ministers' Conference

In a Washington Post opinion piece entitled "When ‘Black Lives Matter’ is linked with ‘Palestinian Lives Matter’," Colbert King links a speech by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright at an October 10, 2015 event commemorating the 20th anniversary of the Million Man March to African American attitudes toward Israel. Mr. King writes:

"Whether Wright’s speech hit the mark with those in attendance is open to speculation. There was, however, no mistaking his aim: to equate and link the plight of Palestinians in the Middle East with the quest of blacks for full equality in the United States.

“The youth in Ferguson and the youth in Palestine have united together to remind us that the dots need to be connected,” Wright told the crowd, according to media reports.

Citing what he called the “three-headed demon” of “racism, militarism and capitalism,” Wright implored the gathering to “stand beside our Palestinian brothers and sisters, who have been done one of the most egregious injustices in the 20th and 21st centuries.”

“Apartheid is going on in Palestine,” Wright said. “As we sit here, there is an apartheid wall being built twice the size of the Berlin Wall in height, keeping Palestinians off of illegally occupied territories, where the Europeans” — presumably Israelis — “have claimed that land as their own.”

Drawing on the black chant, Wright observed, “Palestinians are saying ‘Palestinian lives matter,’ ” and added, “We stand with you, we support you, we say God bless you.”

As a longtime supporter of Israel, and a believer — as Obama is — that Palestinians have a right to be a free people on their land, I don’t think Israel gained attention in a good way that day."

Regrettably, with regard to Wright's allegation of "one of the most egregious injustices in the 20th and 21st centuries," Mr. King doesn't mention what Palestinian Authority President Abbas  told  The Washington Post's Jackson Diehl in 2009:

"'I will wait for Hamas to accept international commitments. I will wait for Israel to freeze settlements,' he said. 'Until then, in the West Bank we have a good reality . . . the people are living a normal life.'"

Nor does King mention Israeli Prime Minister Olmert's 2008 offer of an independent Palestinian state along the 1967 lines with agreed upon land swaps and Palestinian control of east Jerusalem.

An "apartheid wall"? A pity that King does not mention that the separation barrier, erected to prevent suicide bombings that took the lives of about 1,000 Israelis, is some 90 percent fence, i.e. only 10 percent "wall."

"'Where the Europeans' — presumably Israelis — 'have claimed that land as their own'"? This was the place where King might have mentioned that the majority of Israeli Jews are Sephardic, whose families arrived in Israel after being forced to leave their homes in the Muslim Middle East. King might also have observed that Ethiopian Jews comprise 1.75 percent of Israel's population and that there have been seven Ethiopian members of the Israeli Knesset (parliament), but he didn't.

Bottom line: Israel is not responsible for Wright's incendiary remarks, nor is Israel responsible for Susan Rice's reprehensible comment, also cited by King, "that the Israeli leader did everything but “use ‘the N-word’ in describing the president.” I am no fan of Netanyahu, but I also know that he is not capable of making such a racist remark.

Obama believes that "Palestinians have a right to be a free people on their land"? I would also like to see a prosperous, democratic Palestine living side-by-side with Israel in peace. But that is not going to happen if Palestinian Authority President Abbas continues to declare as he did on September 16, 2015:

"We bless every drop of blood that has been spilled for Jerusalem, which is clean and pure blood, blood spilled for Allah, Allah willing. Every martyr will reach paradise, and everyone wounded will be rewarded by Allah. The Al-Aqsa Mosque is ours, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is ours, and [the Jews] have no right to defile it with their filthy feet. We will not allow them to, and we will do everything in our power to protect Jerusalem."

Or stated again, Israel is not responsible for Wright's wrongs.

Colbert King, "How Israel may be damaging the alliance between blacks and Jews": Ridiculous

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I just sent the following email to Michael Larabee, op-ed editor of The Washington Post, concerning Colbert King's WaPo opinion piece entitled "How Israel may be damaging the alliance between blacks and Jews":

Dear Mike,

On the online homepage of The Washington Post today, we find the following:

 

Opinions

How Israel may be damaging the alliance between blacks and Jews

Colbert I. King

Israeli politicians have launched racially charged affronts toward Obama over Iran.

 

Note how WaPo refers to "Israeli politicians," i.e. in the plural.

However, when one goes to Mr. King's opinion piece, one is told of two comments made by Israeli rabbis. Mr. King also refers to an offensive tweet by Judy Mozes. I would note, however, that Mozes is not a politician, but rather a television personality and the wife of  Israeli Vice Prime Minister Silvan Shalom. Her disgraceful attempt at humor was made at a time when her husband was out of the country, and created an uproar throughout Israel. As reported by The Jerusalem Post:

"Followers of Mozes responded immediately to the tweet with criticism, such as: '@JudyMozes no doubt racism has no connection to brains.'

Others responded in Hebrew with tweets such as, 'Have you gone mad,' and 'You'd better erase this...frighteningly racist.'"

After deleting her tweet, Mozes subsequently wrote that she hoped her husband wouldn’t divorce her over the social media uproar. Although some regarded this as another attempt at humor, Mozes was obviously concerned by her husband's response.

Regarding Mr. King's charge that Michael Oren is engaging in "racially charged affronts," this is pure rubbish. Mr. King writes:

U.S.-born Michael Oren, Israel’s former ambassador to the United States, has done his own anti-Obama number. Citing President Obama’s upbringing, Oren suggested in a series of recent articles in Foreign Policy that the president’s “abandonment” by his mother’s “two Muslim husbands” created in him a desire for “acceptance by their co-religionists” that has now influenced his foreign policy. Conspiracy theorists and birthers could hardly have said it better — Obama’s Christianity notwithstanding.

I would note that Islam is a religion and not a race, and although one can certainly argue that Oren's "psychoanalysis" of Obama was misplaced and absurd, this is not racism. I would further note that I served in the army with Michael Oren, and he is no racist.

Mr. King would also have us believe that Netanyahu's most recent appearance before the US Congress in opposition to the nuclear deal with Iran was racist:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech before Congress drew rave reviews from his Republican hosts and most — but not all — of Israel’s supporters. Many members of the 46-member Congressional Black Caucus were outraged that Netanyahu would go behind the back of the White House and arrange with Republicans to use the U.S. Capitol as the stage to challenge the president’s Iranian nuclear negotiations. Several chose to stay away.

U.S. representative and caucus member James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the third-ranking House Democrat, said he regarded Netanyahu’s speech as an “affront to America’s first black president.”

Well, it has been argued by many in Israel that Netanyahu's speech was ineffective, disrespectful and counterproductive, but where was there any reference to race in Netanyahu's speech? Netanyahu wouldn't have gone to Congress if, for example, a white president was seeking to sign a nuclear deal with a country that calls for the eradication of Israel every week? Sorry, but this is an obscene allegation which, to the best of my knowledge, has not even been made by Israel's left-leaning press, which is implacably opposed to Netanyahu. In addition, I never heard any such allegation from Israel's sizable Ethiopian community.

In short, I believe that Mr. King's opinion piece is ridiculous; however, I also understand that it is an opinion piece with which readers can agree or disagree. On the other hand,  to state on WaPo's homepage that "Israeli politicians [in the plural] have launched racially charged affronts toward Obama over Iran" is going too far, and I believe that even Mr. King, if asked, would acknowledge as much.

Best,

Jeffrey