Thomas Friedman, "U.S. Fringe Festival": No Room for Compromise?

Have you followed the Obama administration's efforts over the past five years to restart negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians? The Obama administration has persistently demanded that the Israelis toss the Palestinians some sort of bone, e.g., a halt in settlement construction, in order to get talks moving. A pity Obama cannot adhere to this same strategy when attempting to end the shutdown in the US and avoid a debt default.

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "U.S. Fringe Festival" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/opinion/friedman-us-fringe-festival.html), Thomas Friedman compliments President Obama on his intransigence involving negotiations with the Republicans. Friedman writes:

"President Obama is leading. He is protecting the very rules that are the foundation of any healthy democracy. He is leading by not giving into this blackmail, because if he did he would undermine the principle of majority rule that is the bedrock of our democracy.

. . . .

The president has said that he would give the G.O.P. an agenda for negotiations that could start when the government is funded and the debt ceiling lifted. He’s ready to consider trading the medical-device tax in Obamacare for another equivalent source of revenue or having a talk about closing tax loopholes and reforming entitlements — to both lower the deficit and raise revenue to invest in infrastructure or early childhood education. What Obama will not do, and must not do, is pay an entry fee to that negotiation — say giving up the medical-device tax — just to help Boehner down from the tree. Cruz & Co. would claim victory."

No "entry fee" to negotiation? Tell that to the Israelis.

Given what's at stake here - an epic economic disaster - there is no room for games involving ego. Obama has almost no experience in negotiations, and it shows. When you want to reach a settlement, there comes a time to drop the rhetoric and make some sort of conciliatory gesture in order to initiate talks.

Friedman is afraid that any such gesture could strengthen the hand of Ted Cruz? So Obama should call for round-the-clock talks with John Boehner to settle this thing. Boehner would emerge as the hero, not Cruz, and Obama would also share in the glory.

But then such a move would demand leadership on the part of Obama, which is not part of his repertoire.

Friedman can rail against Republican gerrymandering of Congressional districts, but sooner or later (let's hope sooner), compromise will be necessary.

Maureen Dowd, "Call an Audible, Dan": "What's in a name?" Actually, Quite a Bit

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet."

- Juliet, "Romeo and Juliet"

Well, Shakespeare's Juliet was wrong. Names are indeed capable of spurring racial prejudice and intolerance.

Perhaps unbeknownst to many Americans, a heated debate is raging on the other side of the pond over the use of the word "Yid" during Tottenham Spur football matches. As observed by Richard Ferrer in an article in The Independent entitled "Tottenham fans: Why get rid of Yid?" (http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/tottenham-fans-why-get-rid-of-yid-8820085.html):

"Last week the Football Association warned fans that chanting the word 'Yid' could result in a criminal conviction.

Cue inevitable objections from Spurs’ self-styled 'Yid Army', condoning in a stadium what they couldn’t on the street – dressing prejudice up in a lilywhite kit and calling it camaraderie.

. . . .

Such stubborn stupidity goads opposing fans who need little excuse to lower themselves to the depths of racist abuse. Note Chelsea’s Yid-inspired version of 'Spurs Are One Their Way To Wembley': 'Spurs are on their way to Auschwitz, Sieg Heil, Hitler’s going to gas them again.'

A glance at Google reveals a litany of Yid-inspired abuse. West Ham fans sung Hitler’s name and made hissing noises – mimicking the gassing of Jews in the Holocaust – during a match at White Hart Lane last November.

The same month, Leeds fans took to Twitter to brand Tottenham player Adam Smith 'a f****** diving Yid slag'.

In December, Huddersfield Town fan Gareth Smith found guilty of making a Hitler salute during match with local rivals Leeds United."

So much for English etiquette.

Meanwhile, as noted by Maureen Dowd in her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Call an Audible, Dan" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/opinion/dowd-call-an-audible-dan.html?_r=0), a debate is raging over changing the name of the Washington Redskins. Dowd concludes her opinion piece by referring to the change of names of another professional sports team in Washington:

"Asked whether he would ever switch the Washington Wizards back to the Bullets, team owner Ted Leonsis was noncommital. The late Abe Pollin, the previous team owner, dropped the name Bullets in 1997 as a message against gun violence, saying it was in honor of his friend Yitzhak Rabin, assassinated with a pistol.

'My father was righteous, maybe even self-righteous,' my friend Bob Pollin, Abe’s son who is an economics professor, told me. 'He had a moral motive for doing this. Now some find the name Wizards wimpy. They think Bullets is cooler, as in Navy SEALs shoot bullets. But I take great pride in my father having done it.'

Snyder should change the Redskins name, he said, as 'an act of courage and a civic contribution.'

All you have to do is watch a Western. The term 'redskin' is never a compliment."

Dowd is right: Can you imagine walking up to an American Indian on the street and calling him/her a "redskin"? He/she would be sure to take offense. There is no place for any such appellation involving skin color. And if using the term "redskin" would be offensive on the street, there is certainly no place for it in a sports stadium, on a sports network, or on the sports page of a newspaper.

Frank Bruni, "Nazis, Lynching and Obamacare": Time for Obama to Cool the Rhetoric

Compliments to Frank Bruni on his balanced New York Times op-ed entitled "Nazis, Lynching and Obamacare" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/08/opinion/bruni-nazis-lynching-and-obamacare.html?_r=0). Bruni writes:

"The hyperbole and hysteria make any constructive debate impossible, and they insult the past, robbing important events of the specific meaning and individual detail they deserve.

. . . .

[W]e should watch our words. They have consequences. As irresponsible and detestable as the recent actions of the most conservative wing of House Republicans have been, we’d be better off without figurative talk of hostage taking and guns to heads, without headlines like one in The Huffington Post that said: 'Boehner Threatens to Shoot the Hostage.' That sort of language only turns up the heat."

Hmm, "guns to heads"? Who also made use of that figurative exaggeration? Now I remember. It was President Obama, who stated on Friday (see: http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/04/20820333-obama-no-negotiations-with-a-gun-held-to-the-head-of-the-american-people?lite):

"I'm happy to have negotiations but we can't do it with a gun held to the head of the American people."

Indeed, it's also time for Obama to cool the rhetoric and talk with Boehner, in order to avoid a disaster of epic economic proportions.

Roger Cohen, "A Jew Not Quite English Enough": What About Anti-Semitism at The New York Times?

In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "A Jew Not Quite English Enough" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/08/opinion/cohen-a-jew-not-quite-english-enough.html?_r=0), Roger Cohen decries the attempt by Britain's newspaper "The Daily Mail" to smear "Ralph (born Adolphe) Miliband, the late father of David Miliband, Britain’s former foreign secretary, and of Ed Miliband, the leader of the Labour Party" in an article entitled "The Man Who Hated Britain." Cohen says of this article:

"The headline stood atop a recent piece that portrayed Ralph Miliband as a disloyal socialist. He is accused of 'availing himself' of a good British education while criticizing the nationalism he encountered on arrival. He helped his father in 'rescuing furniture from bombed houses in the Blitz.' He stood reverently at the grave of Karl Marx in north London.

. . . .

Sound familiar? The rootless Jewish Bolshevik who profits from others’ losses, shows no loyalty to the society in which he prospers, and devises clever two-faced financial maneuvers that demonstrate his essential hypocrisy: All this could of course have been borrowed from the Nazi propaganda Ralph Miliband fled as a young man.

No matter, for The Daily Mail, that the young Jewish immigrant put his life on the line for Britain."

Cohen further observes:

"The Mail piece, which was written by a Jew, Geoffrey Levy, and defended most publicly by another Jew, The Mail’s deputy editor, Jon Steafel. For Levy and Steafel, in what the historian Lewis Namier characterized as the land of the 'trembling Israelites,' Miliband was somehow not quite English enough. He was the Jewish communist outsider masquerading as an Englishman."

Hmm, Jewish journalists defending or even advancing the cause of anti-Semitism? At what other newspaper have we experienced this same phenomenon?

Perhaps you recall New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman's declaration (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/14/opinion/friedman-newt-mitt-bibi-and-vladimir.html?ref=opinion):

"I sure hope that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby."

Then there was Roger Cohen's New York Times op-ed "Obama in Netanyahu's Web" (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/28/opinion/28iht-edcohen.html), whose title was painfully in keeping with the anti-Semitic tradition of depicting Jews as voracious spiders. As Andrew Rosenthal, editorial page editor of the Times, later acknowledged to me, this "was not a good headline."

More recently, let's not forget the retweet of a message by Nicholas Kristof, who is not Jewish, referring to AIPAC as one of "the 2 Most Pig Like Lobbies" (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/01/nicholas-kristof-retweets-obama-told-2.html). We never received an explanation concerning this horror from Nick, who soon thereafter took book-writing leave from the Times. Nicholas Kristof and anti-Semitism? You might want to have at look at my article entitled "Nicholas Kristof, Israel, and Double Standards" (http://www.jsantisemitism.org/essays/GrossmanJSA210(4).pdf) in The Journal for the Study of Antisemitism.

You might also want to have another look at Ron Dermer's December 2011 letter to The New York Times (http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/PM-advisers-letter-to-New-York-Times), denouncing perpetual criticism of Israel by the Times:

"I discovered that during the last three months (September through November) you published 20 op-eds about Israel in the New York Times and International Herald Tribune. After dividing the op-eds into two categories, 'positive' and 'negative,' with 'negative' meaning an attack against the State of Israel or the policies of its democratically elected government, I found that 19 out of 20 columns were 'negative.'"

In this regard, the US Department of State writes (http://www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/fs/2010/122352.htm) (my emphasis in red):

EXAMPLES of the ways in which anti-Semitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel, taking into account the overall context could include:

DEMONIZE ISRAEL:

• Using the symbols and images associated with classic anti-Semitism to characterize Israel or Israelis ["Obama in Netanyahu's Web"?]
  
• Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis
  
• Blaming Israel for all inter-religious or political tensions

 

DOUBLE STANDARD FOR ISRAEL:

• Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation

And then, of course, there was the persistent willingness of New York Times "moderators" to permit the publication of the most vulgar expressions of anti-Semitism (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2009/06/open-letter-no-2-to-clark-hoyt-public.html). In the past, only after I turned to Andrew Rosenthal were some of these comments expunged.

In short, although Roger Cohen bemoans the conduct of The Daily Mail, it is a pity that he is incapable to examining the behavior of his own newspaper.

Paul Krugman, "The Boehner Bunglers": Nothing "Incompetent" About Obamacare's Rollout

Study the question posed in the opening of Paul Krugman's latest New York Times op-ed entitled "The Boehner Bunglers" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/07/opinion/krugman-the-boehner-bunglers.html?_r=0) and see if you can't guess the answer. Krugman's conundrum:

"The federal government is shut down, we’re about to hit the debt ceiling (with disastrous economic consequences), and no resolution is in sight. How did this happen?"

No it's not a trick question. Paul's solution to this brain twister:

"The main answer, which only the most pathologically 'balanced' reporting can deny, is the radicalization of the Republican Party."

Holy baloney, why didn't I think of that! Those nefarious Republicans! (Excuse me as I stifle a yawn.)

Explaining that "health reform is Mr. Obama’s signature domestic achievement" and that "[y]ou’d have to be completely clueless to believe that he could be bullied into giving up his entire legacy," Krugman continues:

"Many people seem perplexed by the transformation of the G.O.P. into the political equivalent of the Keystone Kops — the Boehner Bunglers?

. . . .

Meanwhile, the government is shut, and a debt crisis looms. Incompetence can be a terrible thing."

Well, I'm not a Republican and with a little luck not destined for Krugman's "Inferno," but doesn't it sound sad that the Affordable Care Act will amount to Obama's "entire legacy"?

And if we're on the subject of "competence," how is it that more than three years after the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, the Obama administration can roll out a website for persons wanting to sign up for insurance, which is not navigable. As observed by liberal pundit Ezra Klein in a Washington Post item entitled "Wonkbook: Obamacare’s Web site is really bad" (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/04/wonkbook-obamacares-web-site-is-really-bad/):

"No one knows how many people have actually signed up through the federal exchanges. As of Thursday morning, health-care reporters were desperately trying to find even one."

Concerning the security of the website, John McAfee, founder of McAfee, Inc., tells us (http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/10/04/John-McAfee-On-Obamacare-Tech-People-Will-Lose-Millions-of-Dollars):

"Well, here's the problem -- it's not something software can solve. I mean, what idiot put this system out there and did not create a central depository? There should be one website, run by the government, you go to that website and then you can click on all of the agencies. This is insane. So, I will predict that the loss of income for the millions of Americans who are going to lose their identities -- I mean, you can imagine some retired lady in Utah, who has $75,000 dollars in the bank, saving her whole life, having it wiped out one day because she signed up for Obamacare. And believe me, this is going to happen millions of times. This is a hacker's wet dream. I cannot believe that they did this."

Only Republican incompetence? Yeah, right.

Maureen Dowd, "Welcome to Ted Cruz’s Thunderdome": Dystopia in 2084? How About 2038?

In her latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Welcome to Ted Cruz’s Thunderdome" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/opinion/sunday/dowd-welcome-to-ted-cruzs-thunderdome.html), Maureen Dowd paints a dystopic picture of Washington 70 years from now, destroyed by the shutdown. Drawing on imagery much akin to scenes from Will Smith's 2007 "I Am Legend," Dowd writes:

"The year is 2084, in the capital of the land formerly called North America.

The peeling columns of the Lincoln Memorial, and Abe’s majestic head, elegant hands and big feet are partially submerged in sludge. Animals that escaped from the National Zoo after zookeepers were furloughed seven decades ago migrated to the memorials, hunting for food left by tourists.

The white marble monuments are now covered in ash, Greek tragedy ruins overrun with weeds. Tea Party zombies, thrilled with the dark destruction they have wreaked on the planet, continue to maraud around the Hill, eager to chomp on humanity some more."

Describing a conversation between a "gaunt man" and a "sickly boy" concerning who was responsible for this tragedy, Dowd is quick to name the villain :

"The boy frowns. 'But Papa, didn’t the healthy Republicans realize the infected ones had lower brain functions?”

'Well, son, they knew there was something creepy about the ringleader, Ted Cruz,' the man replies. 'His face looked pinched, like a puzzle that had not been put together quite right. He was always launching into orations with a weird cadence and self-consciously throwing folksy phrases into his speeches, like ‘Let me tell ya,’ to make himself seem Texan, when he was really a Canadian.'"

Blame it all on Ted Cruz? Forgive me if I don't assign that much importance or significance to any one member of America's dysfunctional Congress.

As I have said in the past, I support universal health care, but I am also worried by America's national debt, which is now just a tad under $17 trillion, growing by the minute and unsustainable.

And as even Paul Krugman asked yesterday (see: http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.co.il/2013/10/paul-krugman-reform-turns-real-welcome.html) regarding Obamacare:

"What we still don’t know, and is crucial for the program’s longer-term success, is who will sign up. Will there be enough young, healthy enrollees to provide a favorable risk pool and keep premiums relatively low?"

Or stated otherwise: Are there enough healthy youngsters willing to pay more in order to subsidize the unfavorable risk pool, thereby preventing a fiscal disaster, i.e. Democratic Senator Max Baucus's "train wreck"?

Taken a step further, can payments from healthy youngsters ensure that Obamacare is fiscally neutral, i.e. a zero-sum game that does not contribute to massive rapid expansion of America's debt?
As posited by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office earlier this month with regard to America's financial future (http://www.cbo.gov/publication/44521):

"Between 2009 and 2012, the federal government recorded the largest budget deficits relative to the size of the economy since 1946, causing federal debt to soar. Federal debt held by the public is now about 73 percent of the economy’s annual output, or gross domestic product (GDP). That percentage is higher than at any point in U.S. history except a brief period around World War II, and it is twice the percentage at the end of 2007. If current laws generally remained in place, federal debt held by the public would decline slightly relative to GDP over the next several years, CBO projects. After that, however, growing deficits would ultimately push debt back above its current high level. CBO projects that federal debt held by the public would reach 100 percent of GDP in 2038, 25 years from now, even without accounting for the harmful effects that growing debt would have on the economy . . . . Moreover, debt would be on an upward path relative to the size of the economy, a trend that could not be sustained indefinitely."

Yes, unless government spending is brought under control, dystopia could come to the US some 50 years earlier than the time imagined by Dowd. But in order to bring that spending under control, people need to talk to one another, a skill that was lost in the beginning of the 21st Century, when narcissism infected the land.

Thomas Friedman, "A Wolf, a Sheep, or What?": What the Heck Is Friedman Saying This Time?

Thomas Friedman is the sort of person who attaches importance to almost any random thought that arises in his head. And so, some two weeks ago, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "The Man With Pink Hair" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/18/opinion/friedman-the-man-with-pink-hair.html), Tom described for us how, shuffling down Schifflaube Street on a mission to buy nectarines, he encountered . . . a cashier with neon pink hair. Wonder of wonders!

Today, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "A Wolf, a Sheep, or What?" (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/opinion/sunday/friedman-a-wolf-a-sheep-or-what.html?_r=0), Tom would build upon his successful "Man With Pink Hair" op-ed and toss at us some more horse apples regarding developments in Iran. Asking whether Iran is "content to be a big North Korea or does it aspire to be a Persian China," Friedman writes:

"But Iran is not North Korea. It’s a great civilization, with great human talent. It can’t keep its people isolated indefinitely. In theory, Iran’s regime does not have to keep the world out and its people down for Iran to be powerful. But do Iran’s leaders accept that theory? Some do. The decision to re-enter negotiations is a clear signal that crucial players there do not think the status quo — crushing sanctions — is viable for them anymore."

Does Friedman really want to tell us that Iran is a "great civilization," but Korea, North and South, is not? That Korea, which is home to Samsung, Daewoo, Hyundai and the LG Group, does not have great human talent?

Moreover, since when did Iran decide to "re-enter negotiations"? Hassan Rouhani, who is subordinate to Iran's hardline Supreme Leader, Ali Hosseini Khamenei, refused to shake Obama's hand at the UN, but was finally persuaded to accept a 15-minute call from Obama on his way to the airport.

This was a major breakthough? This is Friedman's basis for claiming that Iran has agreed "to re-enter negotiations"?

In fact, as reported by the Tehran Times (http://www.tehrantimes.com/politics/111233-irans-right-to-enrichment-non-negotiable-rouhani-) this past week:

"'The people should be assured that the right to nuclear technology and the right to enrichment in Iran are not negotiable,' Rouhani told reporters after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday when asked about U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent remarks in which he said the sanctions could be eased if Iran took certain measures, including signing the additional protocol to the NPT and reducing the level of its uranium enrichment.

'We hold negotiations on details, but we never regard our principles as negotiable,' Rouhani stated."

Sounds like a non-starter to me.

But more to the point, Iran thrives on so-called "negotiations," intended to allow them to continue with their nuclear weapons development program unmolested. In a pre-election interview, Rouhani, all smiles, bragged how he had lulled the West into complacency while radically expanding Iran's nuclear weapons development program (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cjbrqPK-BBg). Of course, he would never dare attempt to deceive a weak-kneed but personable Barack Obama . . . not.

Friedman fails to mention that on the basis of his 15-minute phone call with Rouhani, Obama is already asking Congress to delay implementation of additional sanctions against Iran (see: http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/la-fg-wn-state-congress-iran-sanctions-20131003,0,1909747.story). I can only ask myself if this decision to take the pressure off Iran without any quid pro quo is based upon cowardice, idiocy or naivete.

May God have mercy on us.