Egad, The New Republic is going after Jim Webb, saying that he is definitely not a liberal. Hear that? Not a liberal, even if Katrina vanden Heuvel likes him. Webb is in fact a "reactionary," a backward, bigoted Scots-Irish nationalist. Yes, let us throw in the ethnic angle. Jack Ross (Brooklyn Jew with Bundist ancestors; yes I can play the ethnic game too) tells me that the piece is a nighttime raid on Obama's left flank:
Now why do I have a feeling that if we were talking about Trent Lott or Tom Coburn that TNR wouldn't be so interested? Instead, we're talking about the persistent sponsor of a bill asserting the authority of Congress with regard to war against Iran and who can forge an alliance between Obama and the one force in America that can thwart the Israel Lobby – the military.
As for the surface case here, notice that its only the most right-wing Democrats who still call themselves "liberal", and who care about "liberalism" in an ideological or movement sense.
Related posts:
- Why Are Greeks Getting So Bent out of Shape by One Boy’s Death?
- This Just In: Niall Ferguson Uses ‘All Happy Families Are Alike’ Lead In New Republic
- Has ‘The New Republic’ ever published anyone who’s been critical of Israel?
- Let Me Not to the Marriage of AIPAC and The New Republic Admit Any Impediments
- Commentary and the New Republic Say, Repeat After Me: ‘There Is No Israel Lobby’
{ 15 comments }
.
Gotta love clueless, purblind 'liberals' like Richard Just, author of the New Republic article. He takes Webb to task for being reactionary, not liberal, and out of step with Obama's liberal crowd. He specifically charges Webb with being "very much in love with violence."
Well, let's see what candidate Obama has to say about violence. Before an audience of Cleveland Jewish leaders, he essentially promised to continue Bush's tradition of ordering the targeted, secret assassinations of thousands (which Bush BRAGGED ABOUT during his 2003 State of the Union speech):
"I am not naïve. There is a hard core of jihadist fundamentalists who we can't negotiate with. We have to hunt them down and knock them out. Incapacitate them. That's the military aspects of dealing with this phenomenon. Now somebody like a Richard Clarke would estimate that the hard core jihadists would gladly blow up this room maybe it's 30,000 people, maybe it's 40,000 people, maybe it's 50,000 people. But it is a finite number. And that is where military action and intelligence has to be directed."
http://www.nysun.com/national/in-cleveland-obama-speaks-on-jewish-issues/71813/
Webb out of step with Obama? I don't see a millimeter of daylight between them. 'Liberals' LOVE violence, man! Don't you remember "Hey, hey, LBJ; how many kids have you killed today?" That's old-school, TNR liberalism for you.
Moving on with his indictment and bearding Webb for alleged neo-Confederate sympathies, Just comically remarks, "For one thing, they [Confederates] share an unhealthy obsession with the past."
Obsession with the past??? What are all the Holocaust museums about, Richard? I'm like, dude, where are all the Confederate museums? Sure ain't any round here. I can't even cruise Riverside Drive without Grant's friggin' tomb getting in mah face. LOL!
Liberalism really isn't the issue.
Peretz is not exactly a liberal, and there is little in Nazi ideology with which he would not agree as long as Arab is substituted for Jew, Jew for German, Medinat or Eretz Israel for Germany, and Palestine for Poland.
While Webb does not seem to like Arabs much (see http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2008/05/nuremberg-law-and-hollywood-films.html ), he has not shown any particular affection for Jews, and with his psychological profile, Webb probably is not particularly amenable to Zionist manipulation and might even make achieving Zionist influence over Obama more difficult — probably the only real issue for Peretz, CanWest and TNR.
Webb has some personal integrity. I have a slight acquaintance, who was hitting on him a few year ago before she knew he was married. Then she decided his marriage made little difference to her, but it did to him.
With Webb as VP, there would not be any Lewinsky's in the VP's office.
i sorta think the pro-war people use the words "liberal" and "conservative" to confuse people. like the refrain several years ago from the administration , "even the liberal nytimes says"… , basicly to back up its latest insane position. these labels need to be retired or redefined. the israel hawks will switch sides on a dime to republican or democrat. foreign policy positions are quite another matter than domestic agendas like health care, social security, etc. i can't see why people continue to lump them together as if there was some ideological continuity. like the tnr masquerading as a "liberal" publication. can jouralists please quit using this shorhand? you are playing into the hands of the closet neocons.
Obama's best bet to win the election is select a conservative-leaning white male like Webb that middle America is comfortable with. Electing a black man president is more than enough change for most people, and if they are going to take a chance on Obama (who has a very liberal egalitarian record) they want to know there will be somebody more traditional there to right the ship if things start getting too wacky.
The New (Zionist) Republic knows this, which means they probably don't want Obama to get elected.
NTZ — Never Trust a Zionist. That little lesson is quickly becoming a moral navigational guide through modern America.
I agree with Ed. But I've floated out Webb's name as VP to some people and nobody was interested, or even knew who Webb was, nor where he came from, or what he's accomplished to date. I think Webb would bring in a good slice of the very votes he hasn't been able to get. Not to mention, the limo Repubs would have a hard time tearing down Webb's credentials as a "real American" compared to them.
i think we should let good honest debate take center stage and let the issues be presented to the american people….oh wait thats right the american people wont know how to make these important decissions, sort of like the wall street conundrum, only the supereducated can pretend to explain whats going on there.
we have let these over educated and indoctrinated individuals run our politics and our financial superstructures and now were in the shitter.
"Obsession with the past??? What are all the Holocaust museums about, Richard? I'm like, dude, where are all the Confederate museums? Sure ain't any round here. I can't even cruise Riverside Drive without Grant's friggin' tomb getting in mah face. LOL!"
That's not obsession with the past, Jim. Those museums are modern shrines erected in the name of the 21st century America's de-facto state religion, zionist interventionist imperialism.
Better give some praise, Haygood!
"That's not obsession with the past, Jim. Those museums are modern shrines erected in the name of the 21st century America's de-facto state religion, zionist interventionist imperialism.
Better give some praise, Haygood!"
Grant's tomb would be a shrine to a forceful central government and military expansion. The two feed off one another- with zionism doing more of the feeding lately.
"…the one force in America that can thwart the Israel Lobby – the military."
And you are still arguing how to develop the skeptisemitism needed to prevent America's ruin. The treshold is long passed. Just cross the Rubicon and be done with it.
does TNR have absolutely no fear of how they'll be treated under an Obama/Webb administration? the attacks are so smug, shallow and obvious. then again, Republicans have stolen the last two Presidential elections. and i have no confidence the Democrats have spent any time cleaning up the electoral chicanery at the state level involving electronic voting. so i guess third time's the charm.
the chosen racist people who love diversity in every country except their own…whats up with that jewish agenda?
those neocons are such authorities in so many subjects arent they?
http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/2008/06/obama_hope_and.php
Many Jewish Americans, no strangers to racism, are also spreading anti-Obama sentiments. An intense, below the radar campaign is going on among Jewish groups warning that Obama is `soft on Israel’ or even a closet Muslim. `I don’t trust that Schwartz in a suit,’ as one New Yorker puts it.
Even Obama’s embarrassing ritual kow-towing to the Israel lobby in Washington this week did not allay such hostility.
Contradicting his vows to change US foreign policy, Obama vowed fealty to Israel’s positions, even going so far as to promise to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s `undivided capitol,’ threatening Iran and joining in the mantra that it is a grave world danger. John McCain’s positions expressed the same week were almost identical.
What this all means is that no matter who becomes president, the Israel lobby, which is an arm of Israel’s expansionist right wing parties, will remain firmly in charge of US Mideast policy while Israel’s center-left, which advocates land for peace, remains ignored. A genuine peace settlement between Arabs and Israelis will thus remain unlikely, and the United States will increasingly be seen as the enemy of the Muslim world.
Those who hoped Obama might change US Mideast policy will find their hopes dashed.
Speaking of "liberals," Michael Walzer proudly uses that term. His views on the I-P conflict are so out of step w. mine that it makes me feel like "liberal" is the new neocon. Not that Walzer is a neocon. He just sympathizes with some of their key views.
Jeesh, I can still remember when liberal was a respectable term of political discourse. First it got shellacked by the Reaganites; then it got hijacked by the Walzers of the world.
If you think any candidate's statements during their campaign for office have any correlation with what they will do while IN office, you haven't been paying very close attention. Remember "He kept us out of war!"? (while he – FDR – manipulated the Japanese into having to attack us or starve and freeze) Or "I believe in a kinder, gentler foreign policy (unless, of course, I get the flimsiest of excuses to bomb the **** out of innocent people all over the world)"? etc. I like that Obama will say whatever he has to say to get elected. I have no expectations that his actions as President will bear any relation to those statements.
http://eaazi.blogspot.com/2008/06/whitest-black-guy-on-earth.html gives my take on Obama's political promises.
"Webb's world is an eclectic concoction — move to the right by neutralizing the Republican advantage on military issues; move to the left by sending the pendulum back in the direction of economic equity; move to the center by replacing an ideological foreign policy with enlightened pragmatism. These are important insights — and far too zesty, I'd guess, to be vice presidential."–from Time.com, June 12 last.
Comments on this entry are closed.