Any attempt by a candidate to start some kind of real and meaningful dialogue will be drowned out by the lobby's hysterical cries, and most voters — who barely think about these issues but reflexively "support" Israel — will conclude that there is something
dangerously wrong with that candidate.

But with Obama, I sense (maybe incorrectly) that he understands — and even on some level feels — the complexities of the Israel-Palestine situation and that he will behave differently as president. The example in my mind is LBJ, who identified with all minorities thanks to his experience teaching impoverished Hispanic children as a young man in Texas. As he climbed the poltical ladder, he was publicly an arch-segregationist — it was, like the title of his book said, "the means of ascent." But when he had climbed high enough — Majority Leader — he showed his true colors. And the world was a better place for it.

I admit that I am becoming more than a little impatient with Barack Obama. The idea that the divisions and contradictions in America, which are real, serious and reality based, can be "healed" by the honeyed words of a few good speeches is an insult — perhaps well deserved — to American intelligence.

America owes much more to African-Americans than gratitude and shame for centuries of unpaid labor. Theirs is 90% of the magic of American identity, substance and style. Without Black America the United States would be some sort of Australia run amok. Among the infinity of cultural gifts that America has received from African-America is a richness of language that other English speakers do not possess and one of the most valuable words of this legacy is the word, "Jive", which Webster defines as, "glib, deceptive, or foolish talk".

I realize that for a white person to apply this marvelous word to any person of color breaks all the rules of political correctness, but as I believe that nurture is more important than nature and as Barack Obama was raised in a white home by white people in places, (Hawaii and Indonesia) where few African-American models existed, I consider that he is culturally as white as or whiter than I am and I have no compunction in admitting that I have never seen such a positively "jive-assed" politician in all my life.

The lobby can whine all it wants about this, but in the present economic climate the new president would certainly have cover. What other country 10 trillion dollars in debt would continue to support another country to the tune of 3b a year? Is Saudi Arabia ready to make the US another loan so it can continue to foot Israel's bills?

A politician has to repeat and to listen to repitition.

If you've ever done any fundraising, or organizing in reality, you KNOW that it is necessary to say and hear things that you've said and heard a thousand times, reiterating them, noting that the idiots will desparately look for inconsistencies in the vain hope of finding that you were a "hypocrite", or "not trustable".

If Obama sincerely believes his comments, and limits his comments to what he believes, and does not falsely adopt positions that conflict with his convictions, he is the right man in my book.

For him to state, "the holocaust was an abysmmal experience that is the fundamental straw that shifted Jewish identity to assertion from passivity", I say "YES, that is definitely true, and supportable".

You, Phil and others, want Jews to regard themselves as assimilated guests (sometimes welcomed sometimes thrown out). I guess that is your right, but its not my view.

What a masterfully sinister use of propaganda techniques.

Good propaganda punches an emotional button to bypass the rational process. Here, Obama evokes the tragedy of the Holocaust (stop thinking and emote!), slips in a contemporary reference to "Hezbollah's rocket attacks," and then segues back to the Holocaust (continue emoting!). Thus programmed, the unconscious mind concludes, "Hezbollah's rockets = genocide."

It's like a planting a cookie in someone's hard drive. I hope Obama was reading from an AIPAC script in that phone call. Because if he's capable of spinning such polished hypnotic induction scripts in off-the-cuff conversations, he's in a different league than most of us.

Get real, this unAmericanism isn't what we want, it's what many Jews choose to impose upon us all. America used to be referred to as a mixing pot back when it was succeeding. Now the wheels fall off as we have become a hyphenated nation, divided by ethnic differences that refuse to disappear by demanding a variety of special priveleges.