If I hear once more that anyone who fails to vote for Obama is a racist; that everyone who is Jewish only cares about Israel; that anyone Jewish who cares about Israel is a racist who will not vote for Obama, even though Absolute Truth has it that Obama is the next Herzl; I will, I swear, hang the biggest "McCain" sign you've ever seen from my window in Park Slope, thereby setting forth a chain of events leading to the first-ever excommunication from the neighborhood.
And I say this even though, for the foreseeable future, I might well be stuck voting Democrat for the following reasons. My mind and heart may be with Jewish nationalism, but my reproductive system--and my categorically-imperative solidarity for those with the same--requires other inclinations.
How's that for an official WWPD endorsement?
Friday, May 23, 2008
Assez!
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3 comments:
I am a big fan of your blog, but it might help if you recognized that the position of Democrats who actually get elected to run things and those they appoint to implement policy are not exactly identical with trendy hipsters or the academic left who might, on a good day, have some sympathy for Democratic candidates. The latter groups are indeed quite desabusee with Israel as it is and, increasingly, the Zionist Project.
I am a Clintonista and find Obamamania creepy and off-putting. But I still think it would be wrong to believe that Obama would have the hacky-sac intifada crowd and trendy keffiyah-wearers that appear to be your points of reference running the State Department. Were this his plan the uterus-medinah trade-off might indeed be acute.
Yet in all probability some mix of political calculation and sincere conviction (with the balance varying from person to person) insures that these are not yet the positions of the politically relevant Democrats one should consider in an election year. Howard Dean is pro-Israel. Nancy Pelosi is pro-Israel. And these are liberal leaders. Obama even backed the Lebanon War. I am not one who would defend him if I thought he was dangerous on this issue and I don't think it's at all illegitimate (!) for people to care about this. So far I just don't see it though. Everything suggests that whatever's "in his heart" he is too much of a politician to go all Walt and Mearsheimer on us. Maybe he will turn around and make Tony Judt National Security Advisor, but I'd be surprised.
B'kitzur: At least for now, you can have your uterus AND your Zionist Project. May it remain ever so.
Phoebe: your analysis is admirably clear. As to the tradeoffs ... the danger lies not so much in what a Pres. Obama would do as in what he would not do; what fatal lassitude would afflict him in Israel's hour of peril; what vetoes the Israelophobes would impose on any positive American policy needed to save Israel from destruction. You may weigh this danger as you will; but I do encourage you to consider how American inaction can be fully as fatal as American action.
The irony is that Obama is probably more against abortion is his private life than is McCain. This is just an educated guess based on what someone who worked on the campaign said about Mrs. Obama's views - Vs. the very libertine life McCain admits to have led whilst in the navy.
Plus ca change - The GOP is loaded with this.
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