Two mistakes:
My headline and story on the new polling data were bad. The response everyone smart has to this new data is that 71 percent of Americans want an even-handed policy in the Middle East. Yes! Remember what happened to Howard Dean for saying that, 4 years ago? To the Democratic base, no less, the left-wing. Our politics are broken.
Speaking of the Israel lobby, my interpretation of Jack Ross’s comments was also off. Ross says:
Your insistence on the question of affinity [between Israel and the U.S.] makes it sound like I buy into Michael Oren’s narrative, which I certainly do not.
To
clarify, my view is that in keeping with Anatol Lieven’s Russia-Serbia
1914 precedent for a superpower like the US to be so totally
manipulated by a satellite like Israel, by its connection to the
Holocaust narrative, Israel is vital to the sacred story of the
American empire because the Holocaust is the ex post facto
justification for American entry into World War II, and thus the birth
of the American empire.
As to why this has taken on such an overtly religious coloration in the last generation, I have my theory about that..
Ross is 23 years old, I’ve got nearly 30 years on him. This isn’t the first time he’s taken me to school!
