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We have a couple of subjects today; Netanyahu’s coming visit and some peeks at the GOP 2016 race. First Roger Simon posts on “Big Bad Bibi.”
Fee fi fo fum. Big bad Bibi is coming to DC town — and Barack is VERY angry. Not only that, and possibly worse, Jeffrey Goldberg at The Atlantic may be equally as angry. The journalist insists Netanyahu making a speech to Congress at the speaker’s invitation is a “disaster” or — in the words of my grandmother — “not good for the Jews.” And Jeff should know. He’s an important guy, I am told. He gets to talk… to Barack.
Goldberg accuses Netanyahu of electioneering (a rare thing indeed for a politician) and not showing the proper “RESPECT” for our president (cue Aretha), who always demonstrates so much respect for the Israeli prime minister.
Excuse me while I rend my clothes. Meanwhile, lost in Goldberg’s posturing, and the funfkeying by such great State Department intellects as Jen Psaki, is the subject of Netanyahu’s putative speech. What was it? Oh, yes… Iran. Now I remember. That country that has its hand in nearly every piece of Islamic mayhem from Buenos Aires to Sanaa. …
… And I’m sorry again to be so hostile to Goldberg and his “liberal” ilk, but I’m having echoes these days of 1938. Another Kristallnacht hasn’t quite happened yet, but we’ve come mighty close. Time’s up for being polite. Protocol-shmotocol. Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t the problem. Barack Obama is.
William Kristol on the president’s Israel problem.
The Obama administration is angry with Israel. Here’s the administration’s house organ, the New York Times, this morning:
“WASHINGTON — The Obama administration, after days of mounting tension, signaled on Wednesday how angry it is with Israel that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accepted Republican leaders’ invitation to address Congress on Iran without consulting the White House.
The outrage the episode has incited within President Obama’s inner circle became clear in unusually sharp criticism by a senior administration official who said that the Israeli ambassador, Ron Dermer, who helped orchestrate the invitation, had repeatedly placed Mr. Netanyahu’s political fortunes above the relationship between Israel and the United States.
The official who made the comments to The New York Times would not be named…”
Of course, the official who last summer called Prime Minister Netanyahu a “coward” and a “chickens–t” would not be named either. But there is no reason to think those unnamed angry officials do not speak for an angry president.
The Obama White House usually prides itself on not getting angry. Its self-image is that it’s cool, calm, and collected. And it doesn’t get angry at, for example, the Islamic Republic of Iran. The Obama White House understands and appreciates the complexities of the Islamic Republic’s politics and history. It is only with respect to the Jewish state that the Obama White House is impatient, peremptory, and angry. …
… So we have an angry president, increasingly desperate for vindication of his failed foreign policy, accelerating both his appeasement of Iran and his attacks on Israel. The good news is that the Republican party and the conservative movement—and most of the American people—stand with Israel and against President Obama. Of major parts of the American Jewish community, on the other hand, one can say no such thing.
Jennifer Rubin has more
… Other Israel watchers speculate that this is really a ham-handed way of interfering with Israel’s elections by giving fuel to Netanyahu’s opponents, who argue that he cannot get along with the United States. This would be par for the course for an administration that has strained to topple the Israeli government. Its offense? It simply refuses to knuckle under to administration bullying or go quietly as the United States appeases Iran, an existential threat to the Jewish state.
Ironically, the scuffle comes just after Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorists killed two Israeli soldiers, reminding us that Iran is on the march throughout the region and that the Iranian government with which Obama hopes to achieve a grand reconciliation is committed to Israel’s destruction.
To sum up, the administration uses Tehran’s talking points to decry passage of a sanctions bill that would go into effect only if Iran refused to make a deal by June along the lines the administration itself outlined. It attacks the leadership of our democratic ally Israel (which it tried to undermine in cease-fire talks at the end of the Gaza war by adopting the plan of Hamas’s patron Qatar) and refuses to meet with its elected leader when he visits. To boot, the administration throws a fit that Congress invited him to speak — all to give Netanyahu’s opponents back home fodder for their election campaign. At least there is no doubt this is the most anti-Israel and immature White House in history. …
Changing subjects, John Fund reviews last week’s Iowa GOP confab.
… The field this cycle is the most open and competitive I’ve ever seen. Traditionally, Republicans have picked as their nominee the candidate who placed second in the most recent competitive nomination contest (the “it’s your turn” mentality). Think Ronald Reagan in 1980, George H. W. Bush in 1988, Bob Dole in 1992, John McCain in 2008, and Mitt Romney in 2012. This year is different. The number-two candidate in 2012 was former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum; even though he might run again, he isn’t accorded first-tier status for 2016.
Clear winners and losers emerged from the marathon ten-hour session of back-to-back speeches that was hosted by Citizens United (the group at the center of the famous Supreme Court case) and Iowa congressman Steve King.
Here’s the rundown.
WINNERS Scott Walker — The Wisconsin governor proved he can be a dynamic speaker, striding the stage in shirtsleeves and demonstrating Midwest sensibilities that connected him to his Iowa audience. Who knew that he’d lived in Iowa until the third grade or that he was an expert coupon clipper at Kohl’s, a well-known regional department-store chain? Walker made a strong case for electability: “I’ve won the race for governor three times in the last four years — three times, mind you, in a state that hasn’t voted Republican for president since I was in high school 30 years ago.” Everyone knew Walker had triumphed in his hard-fought battles against the state’s public-sector unions. After his speech this weekend, Iowa audiences will clearly now get the rest of the Walker story. …
Matt Lewis says conservatives want someone like Scott Walker who prevails without caving.
… What we really crave is a conservative winner who doesn’t cave. And Scott Walker is very arguably that guy.
He won in 2010. He picked a fight with Big Labor and won. He survived a recall. And he won again in 2014 — by almost the same margin as he did in 2010. That’s three wins in four years for a man who governed as a conservative reformer in a state that the Republican presidential nominee hasn’t carried since 1984. As Taegan said, Walker is a winner who doesn’t cave.
Other conservative ”fighters” may try to frame fighting the good fight (and losing) as the highest virtue, but fighting and winning is vastly superior. And on that count, Scott Walker took on the unions — and won. …
Instapundit posts on a Bloomberg News piece on Walker’s surge in Iowa polls.
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is surging, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush is an also-ran and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is dominating in a new poll of Iowans likely to vote in the nation’s first presidential nominating contest.
The Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll, taken Monday through Thursday, shows Walker leading a wide-open Republican race with 15 percent, up from just 4 percent in the same poll in October. Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky was at 14 percent and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who won the Iowa caucuses in 2008, stood at 10 percent.
Bush trailed with 8 percent and increasingly is viewed negatively by likely Republican caucus-goers. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is in even worse shape, with support from just 4 percent. More troubling for Christie: He’s viewed unfavorably by 54 percent, among the highest negative ratings in the potential field. At 9 percent, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson pulls more support than either Bush or Christie. …
Interesting dose of humility from Michael Barone about the surprises already in the 2016 race. He closes with this Hillary zinger.
… There’s not much policy guidance either from Hillary Clinton, who currently towers above potential rivals — Jim Webb, Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley — for the Democratic nomination.
Mike Allen of Politico has a typically well-sourced preview of the Clinton campaign effort, chock full of names of experienced advisers and the 1970s singer Carole King.
But the tipoff comes in the last sentence: “Now that the architecture of the campaign is clear, the two [advisers] are helping with the next critical task: developing her message.”
Oh, that. My mistake: I thought she’d have developed one by now.