Playing the Allinsky Card on Obama, one of the mantras of Allinskyism to make your opponent live up to his own standards, In that regard Glenn Greenwald lays a beauty down on Dumbo, b/k/a Barack Obama, from Salon [1]:
“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation” — candidate Barack Obama, December, [2]
Obama’s war of choice on Libya is now officially illegal. So sayeth candidate Obama.
Bibi comes to town, reax from Jeffery Goldberg, Atlantic [3]:
For whatever reason, I tend to react strongly when a foreign leader disrespects the United States, and its President. I didn’t like it when Hugo Chavez of Venezuela insulted President Bush; I don’t like listening to Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan lecture the U.S. on its sins, and I’m not happy when certain Pakistani leaders gin-up righteous indignation about American behavior when it was their country that served as a refuge for the greatest mass murderer in American history.
And so I was similarly taken aback when I read a statement from Prime Minister Netanyahu yesterday that he “expects to hear a reaffirmation from President Obama of U.S. commitments made to Israel in 2004, which were overwhelmingly supported by both House of Congress.”
So Netanyahu “expects” to hear this from the President of the United States? And if President Obama doesn’t walk back the speech, what will Netanyahu do? Will he cut off Israeli military aid to the U.S.? Will he cease to fight for the U.S. in the United Nations, and in the many international forums that treat Israel as a pariah?
Counter-reax, William Jacobson, Legal Insurrection [4]:
But what if Netanyahu did use the word “expect” as a demand. Is it so wrong for a foreign leader to “expect” that the U.S. will honor prior security assurances?
And particularly in this case, where those assurance were given as an inducement for Israel to leave Gaza (we know how that worked out), is it so outrageous for Israel to “expect” the U.S. to keep its word? I would expect nothing less from my president.
What Netanyahu did was to give the President of the United States a very firm and forceful history lesson. See next.
Bibi to ‘Bama: “It is not going to happen”, Jeff Dunetz calls this a smack down, from Yid with a Lid: [5]
It was a stunning tableau, a President of the United States sitting back and glaring while the Prime Minister of Israel pushed back against the words made by the POTUS yesterday. Both parties made their presentations in friendly diplomatic words, but Netanyahu gave the President a “friendly” dressing down, his words were instructive and firm. You could tell by the body language that Bibi was letting the President know that he was not going to give in, and Obama was very angry.
video:
Is college a rip off? From Rich Lowry, RCP [6]:
There’s no doubt that graduating from college brings a significant economic advantage, but that doesn’t excuse the waste and self-satisfied lassitude of American higher education. Colleges appropriate tuition dollars from America’s students with an ever-accelerating voracity, yet don’t deliver any additional educational benefits – indeed, they do the opposite. Higher education is one of the sectors of American life that most desperately needs a thorough re-conception.
I not against college, per se. Rather, the perspective employee is a commodity in the job market. To get a job, an applicant must convince his prospective employer, that he a commodity worth buying. A college degree is but one part winning job skill set.