Obama, Jews & Newsweek: the MSNBC of mags

In the National Review today, Mark Hemingway looks at what he calls Newsweek’s “absolutely Herculean feat of water-carrying” for Barack Obama:

…before tackling the factual problems, the article’s biggest problem needs to be addressed — Newsweek aids and abets the Obama campaign’s decision to slander Joe Lieberman:

In a brief but animated Senate floor confrontation last week, according to a campaign aide who asked for anonymity when talking about private discussions, Obama told Lieberman he was surprised by Lieberman’s personal attacks and his half-hearted denials of the false rumors that Obama is a Muslim. (The aide says Lieberman was “strangely muted” during the exchange; a Lieberman spokesman says the chat was “private and friendly.”)

….almost as a rule political aides don’t go walking around leaking the contents of private conversations between senators on the Senate floor to the press. It’s also hard to imagine that an Obama aide would accuse Sen. Lieberman of “half-hearted denials of the false rumors that Obama is a Muslim” and Lieberman would have nothing to say about that other than their conversation was “private and friendly.”

So a call to Joe Lieberman’s office was in order. Since Newsweek didn’t make it, National Review Online did.

Read the whole thing. Hemingway dares to shine a light on Newsweek’s “Barack’s No Anti-Semite Happy Dance” and ask if they’re making up the steps as they go along.

Seems to me Newsweek, what with it’s creepily bigoted articles about Pope Benedict XVI and Non-Coastal Southern Scots-Irish Americans, and now its Obama-massaging tone, is positioning itself to be the print-cousin of MSNBC in this new era of unhinged and overtly partisan dubious journalism. (In Newsweek’s world, the fact that they find John McCain’s blog to be better than Obama’s is…wait for it…bad for the GOP.)

Jake Tapper at ABC has more on the tension between Obama and Lieberman, which brings into rather sharp focus the problem Obama has with Jews in general. Yesterday his website scrubbed some vile anti-semitic postings that had apparently been up since April. While the campaign may not have posted the paranoia, they allowed it to remain up there until it was noticed outside the echo-chamber. Tapper quotes a Lieberman aide:

“If the Obama campaign thinks they are going to intimidate Joe Lieberman with these sleazy tactics then they are sorely mistaken,” the Lieberman aide says.

Lieberman, for all his mildness of manner, has always struck me as a Jewish fellow who – quite rightly – is not about to let himself or his people get pushed around. And for some reason – I cannot tell you why, because I do not rightly understand it, myself – all of this reminds me of Daniel Pearl and his terrible murder, and Dave Shiflett’s wise and poignant writings about that event:

The murder of Danny Pearl tells a much different story. For these radicals, the issue is not merely a Palestinian state. They do not believe Israel should exist. For them, there is no room in this world for the Jews. By killing Danny Pearl, who no doubt approved of a Palestinian homeland, they reminded us, if we indeed need reminding, that when they chant “kill the Jews” between chanting “death to America,” they mean what they say.

Slightly O/T, – but only slightly – Laurance Alvarado at Inside Catholic looks at the mid-East view of George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He links to Sultan’s Notes where a post entitled, Obama the Flip-Flip is pretty interesting:

After eight years of a straight talking US President who speaks his mind, we are facing the prospect of one whose fine oratorical style may or may not reflect his personal opinion.
[…]
The Democratic Party contender’s promises appear to swing from one end of the spectrum to the other depending on the audience he is addressing. He had previously referred to the Cuban embargo as an utter failure and promised to end it; yet when he spoke last year to a Cuban-American audience he promised to maintain it because it is “an important inducement for change”.

The same has also occurred with regards to other issues such as immigration and the decriminalisation of marijuana. However, in the emotional Middle East, it was only when we heard him promise to keep Jerusalem united as capital of the state of Israel forever that we began to realise that he is not greater than the sum of his parts.

Mr Obama later spoke on CNN and backtracked on his unified Jerusalem comments as he once again adjusted his rhetoric to suit the audience he is targeting. Jewish voters have come to realise this about Mr Obama and that is one of the main reasons they are justifiably wary of voting for him.
[…]
Whatever we say of Mr Bush, being a flip-flop ain’t one of them.

In another section of NRO, Jim Geraghty (who sees the same toxic MSNBC strain in Newsweek that I do) brings up the interesting fact that Sen. Obama will not release his birth certificate. There are rumors swirling as to why he won’t. I think the one about his name on the certificate is probably closest to the mark. One rumor is that he was named Barry, which is not a big deal – lots of people decide, in processing their heritage, to take a more ethnic name. The other rumor, though, is that it is his middle name that is problematic; that it is not Hussein, but Muhammed. People do sometimes fiddle with their middle names, but if Obama did, but why he moved away from Muhammed (which is becoming the most popular baby name in Britain and elsewhere), to Hussein – a declared enemy of the United States – will surely be something people will wonder about.

Maybe the best way to stop the rumors is to simply release his birth certificate. As Michelle Malkin recalls, John McCain had to answer such basic questions as his birth citizenship – Obama, with his superlightworking abilities – should be able to put something this small to rest, fairly quickly. As president he’ll have much tougher assignments.

Andy McCarthy notes:

Remarkable, isn’t it, that someone so concerned about our image in the “international community,” so offended by Bush’s purported cowboy insensitivity, can get so spun up over “false rumors that [he] is a Muslim.” Even if his accusations against Sen. Lieberman had any merit, why does Sen. Obama — who used to say that his middle name, Hussein, would be a real asset in the signals it would send to the world — now think it’s defamatory to be taken for a Muslim?

Since we’re talking Obama (and who isn’t? He is all things to all people, like imagination, itself) Siggy has written a sort of follow-up to my piece posted earlier this week at Pajamas Media, entitled Obama, the Trophy Wife, in which I had written:

As a trophy wife, Obama would be content to let the Democrats pull out of Iraq; Hillary might actually suggest they stay. Obama would be able to sell the socialized health care Hillary couldn’t pull off. Most importantly, Obama would schmooze and photo-op with the elites for whose approval the Democrats so desperately yearned; Hillary was untrustworthy, there. She might snub Ahmadinejad and, like Bill Clinton before her, pledge to jump into a trench with a rifle to defend Israel. Obama would smile and look good while doing neither.

In The Ecstasy of Easy Choices, Siggy writes:

Obama makes it easy. Obama makes political and moral choices seem effortless, without agony and without consequence. The ecstasy of easy choices- that is the dream that is being foisted upon us, a fantasy too spectacular and too hypnotic to ignore.
[…]
The Leftists today would have you reject everything that preceded their ascendancy. They want the trophy wife and care little for those whose ideas facilitated their rise. They openly admit their revulsion for those who blazed the trail and who now are in the way of their exercising their lustful desires for power and self gratification. For them, it is not enough that Hillary Clinton be rejected. She must be vilified and painted ugly as well.

Someone wrote me the other day accusing me of being shrill about Obama and my dislike for him. I admit there have been times when – writing too fast and too angry – I may have sounded the shrill note, but I do not accept that I have been shrill about Barack Obama. I began with a very open mind about him, and in fact, I credited him as the Moses of the Democrat party, who freed them from the Pharaoh Clinton tag-team. At that time I wrote:

There will be lots of time for taking a long hard look at Obama’s experience, his ideas and his character. For today, let’s just give props to the man for running a clean campaign and re-charging the nation’s battery.

So, now, I’m taking the long, hard look, and what I see is a guy with a socialist mindset, who will say whatever is expedient to the moment and the audience, and who has some very naive ideas about foreign policy and mid-East Diplomacy, a hunger to destroy our military capabilities. He’s got no economic strategy beyond “raising taxes”, no energy strategy beyond “raising taxes” and no plans to re-form social security, or education.

And frankly, if he is not an anti-semite (and I want to believe he is not) he has a long, long row to hoe before he can be convincing about it.

Also…and this might be the worse thing about Obama, in some ways – he strikes me as pessimistic, and – as we learned under Jimmy Carter and his embrasure of malaise – The American President cannot be a pessimist. A pessimist telling America what it “cannot do” (as in “we cannot win in Iraq, the surge cannot work) is antithetical to the historic American character; it disrespects the American people. His “new kind of politics” is a happy face, singing a dirge.

I tend to agree with President Bush that – taking the long view – there needs to be a Palestinian state. But it needs to be a civil and sane state ready to put down the missiles, stop talking about “wiping the Jews off the map” and enter the marketplace of goods and ideas. I want to know where Obama, who apparently sees the “suffering” of the Palestinians but does not see their own aggressions, stands on that.

Oh, and by the way, just in case you haven’t read it anywhere, because you probably haven’t: we’re on the verge of victory in Iraq. The thing Obama and the Dems could not be done is happening. Just something to keep in mind while we await whatever Obama’s (and the Dems’) slowly transitioning opinion on Iraq – which he will not visit, but doesn’t really say why – turns out to be.

And, just note the different tone the press takes: Obama stays out of Cedar Rapids to “to ensure that no resources were diverted away from Iowans”. Clappity, clappity from the same sort of folks, who savaged Bush when he stayed away from New Orleans for the same reason.

I like Jim’s question, here. And note Instapundit’s links and observations:

A new kind of politics? Yep. One even more shamelessly dishonest than the old.