White House

Rahm Emanuel, appointed Chief of Staff to President elect Barack Hussein Obama has been touted as a sign of the future President's closeness to the Jewish people. The applause came from many corners. For some reason, there is a sense of pride that a Jew born into a family which fought for Israel's Independence can descend to Edom and ride his accomplishments to the White House. Pitch forks have come out from every corner too. AntiJews question his loyalty while Israel supporters have a vision of the political reality called "distancing" - don't expect too much from him. Others, fence riders and eternal optimists see a favorable voice for Israel in the White House. Some find his religious affiliation to be comforting.

But alas, Rahm has lost touch. Electoral politics rounds the edges of harsh, stark reality.

Rahm Emanuel's father, an Irgun veteran had some very real things to say about his son, "obviously he'll influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn't he? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to be mopping floors at the White House." Is this sentiment really so hard to believe?

Now, what is wrong with this? Rahm Emanuel is clearly no Arab. He had/has Israeli citizenship. In Israel, there is an on-going question just how loyal much of the Arab citizenry is and whose side they are on. Benjamin Emanuel's comment is acceptable and accurate coming from a perspective of someone who understands Israel and her interests.

Now we come to the problem. What is best for Israel? Rahm Emanuel's background in the Clinton White House means he believes that Oslo and withdrawal from Yosh is in Israel's best interest. I, and many others differ strongly with that proposal. This argument is the main point of contention now for all Jewry let alone the political scene in Israel. So how does that play out behind closed doors in the White House? The "friends of Israel" understanding is the most likely to transpire. Emanuel will continue to advocate for Israeli concessions in land for agreements with the barbarians to continue changing their ways from pure terrorist to democro-terrorist.

The American political environment, we are told is different. Loyal Arabian-Americans in the political arena, like Jews, have their own respective constituencies. Benjamin Emanuel's comment does not work in the American political context and his son, with un-paralleled access to the soon to be leader of the Free World was stuck between his Israeli - Jewish roots and his American current reality. Rahm had to make a choice between his father's reality and his political necessity. In so doing, he must now not be "pro-Israel" at least observably, and play by the rules as defined below.

Political maneuvering disguised as ethnic sensitivity is a rule of American politics. The Arabian-Americans utilize the rule regularly. For what other reason do anti-semites (for instance) have to claim "unfair" after being rightly labeled anti-semitic than to secure their claim to a sense of self-righteousness and credibility? Do Arabian-Americans really believe that Israel's security is based upon Israel surrendering Yosh? Mute point. How about America's national interest - better off without Israel? With "Palestine" in addition to or instead of Israel - chas v'shalom?

The current Arabian-American political least common denominator is to reduce the security of Israel as an issue by way of the political arena in the US in order to benefit their barbarian cousins which, in turn, aids their effort to destroy Israel. Not a pretty way to package this up in political correctness campaign talk but it is reality. See below and other links at those websites. Advocacy for "Palestine" is by default anti-Israel.

• (Obama's friend) Rashid Khalidi's organization
   
• Arab American Institute - (see Nakba articles especially)
   
• Arab American Museum: 2006 Arab American Book Award Winners - Rashid Khalidi The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood
  
   
• NAAJA National Arab American Journalist Association- with 'Al Quds' (wonder why?) on the website banner including their "media watch committee" and "also NAAJA-Palestine, the local Chapter for Palestinian Journalists."

All of this talk is framed within that great American concept of "fairness" mis-applied by liberals and lefties as a function of outcome. These associations are supposedly the main stream, CAIR and Islam specific organizations not included.

Does Rahm actually believe what his father said? Who knows? Did he respect his father enough to explain the difference between the realities of Israel and the US in terms of what is "acceptable talk"? No. To say, as he is quoted "These are not the values upon which I was raised or those of my family," he is dis-respecting his father (although his mother, according to Wikipedia was a union organizer and civil rights activist) and one could easily question his honesty for saying so but again only Rahm Emanuel can answer that question.

Israel would not exist today without the strength of commitment and courage defined as internal fortitude by the men and women of Benjamin Emanuel's generation. If Rahm and his Edomized balancing act of political correctness vs. reality were around instead of his father's sense of purpose in the middle of the 20th century, Israel today would look very different albeit even existing at all.

Emanuel 'sorry' for dad's Arab remarks- JPost
Nov. 14, 2008 Associated Press , THE JERUSALEM POST
US President-elect Barack Obama's White House chief of staff apologized to the Arab-American community on Thursday for remarks his Israeli-born father made to Ma'ariv.

Last week, Benjamin Emanuel talked about his son Rahm Emanuel's new job and told the Israeli daily that "obviously he'll influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn't he? What is he, an Arab? He's not going to be mopping floors at the White House."

That prompted an outcry from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which called on Rahm Emanuel, a former Israeli citizen, to condemn the "unacceptable smear."

On Thursday, Rahm Emanuel called the group's president, Mary Rose Oakar, to apologize on behalf of his family.

"These are not the values upon which I was raised or those of my family," the group quoted him as saying.
Oakar said the apology was accepted.

Emanuel spokesman Nick Papas confirmed the phone call and said Emanuel "offered to meet with representatives of the Arab-American community at an appropriate time in the future."

The Five Stages of Electoral Grief

Denial: Monday October 27th
There is no way this country is going to elect such an extreme leftist as Obama. Of course the country is fed up with Bush, but in the end they’ll see that McCain is no Bush. All the undecideds are starting to show movement and they clearly will go towards McCain. If they have not been lured in by Obama’s siren song of hope by now they should be safely in the republican column by the weekend. It’s going to be close but we should be able to pull it out in the end.

Anger: Friday October 31st
This is a Halloween nightmare. How can the polls still be breaking to Obama? Has the country paid no attention whatsoever to William Ayers? Rev. Wright? The “bitter” comments?  How can women even be considering him? Don’t they remember what he did to Hillary? I can’t believe this; he is going to tax us right into a second great depression! Why the hell didn’t McCain pick Romney!

Bargaining: Saturday November 1st
I can see the popular vote isn’t going to go our way, but that’s OK. We just need to take Pennsylvania and Ohio and we should be able to squeak through in the Electoral College. It won’t be popular and McCain will be somewhat handicapped in his ability to govern, but it will ensure conservative control of at least one branch of the government. Come on Joe the Plumber- bring me PA.

Depression: Monday November 3rd
That’s it. The final round of Mason-Dixon battleground state polls have come in and they don’t look good. Chris Mathews is already starting to gloat. Fox News can’t even put a positive spin on this one. It’s over.

Acceptance: Tuesday Night November 4th
The nation spoke with a clear voice, and that voice was a rejection of the Bush administration and general republican rule. Well, we deserved it. We went against our core principles of small government and strong national defense. This was a good cleansing fire. We will return from the ashes like the phoenix reborn in 2012. We will be stronger, more focused. Look what happened to the democrats when they were ousted from power. They found their own messianic figure in Obama. There is a conservative Obama out there and he will rise to prominence over the next four years. The Republican Party will once again be the party of big ideas, not big government. In the long run this has been good for conservatives; we just need to keep our eyes on the big picture. The national is still essentially split…

I need to go watch O’ Riley now.
 

Hey, I hope you all will get off of this ACORN kick, and blaming Fannie and Freddie alone for the current mess - let's get right to the root of the problem and his name is W.

Following is from a White House, August 2004 press release (and here's the link) - 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/08/20040809-9.html

• Expanding Homeownership. The President believes that homeownership is the cornerstone of America's vibrant communities and benefits individual families by building stability and long-term financial security. In June 2002, President Bush issued America's Homeownership Challenge to the real estate and mortgage finance industries to encourage them to join the effort to close the gap that exists between the homeownership rates of minorities and non-minorities. The President also announced the goal of increasing the number of minority homeowners by at least 5.5 million families before the end of the decade. Under his leadership, the overallU.S. homeownership rate in the second quarter of 2004 was at an all time high of 69.2 percent. Minority homeownership set a new record of 51 percent in the second quarter, up 0.2 percentage point from the first quarter and up 2.1 percentage points from a year ago. President Bush's initiative to dismantle the barriers to homeownership includes:
  
  • American Dream Downpayment Initiative, which provides down payment assistance to approximately 40,000 low-income families;
  • Affordable Housing. The President has proposed the Single-Family Affordable Housing Tax Credit, which would increase the supply of affordable homes;
  • Helping Families Help Themselves. The President has proposed increasing support for the Self-Help Homeownership Opportunities Program; and
  • Simplifying Homebuying and Increasing Education. The President and HUD want to empower homebuyers by simplifying the home buying process so consumers can better understand and benefit from cost savings. The President also wants to expand financial education efforts so that families can understand what they need to do to become homeowners.

There have been times, when I, as a Blogger, have wanted to bang my head on the desk. There are times, when I have become so frustrated at the level of stupidity being served by both sides of this political discourse, that I have seriously thought about just shutting this Blog down and disappearing into the mists of ether and finding something else to do. There are times, when I, as a Blogger, have shook my fist in righteous indignation at some of the things written by both sides of this political divide, that is called Politics.

However, this, my friends, is scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel. It seems that the Liberal Blogging world, with it’s lack of substantive accusations against John McCain, has, in fact, began publishing stories about a topic, that normally would not even receive the light of day in a legitimate publication; His Shoes.

That is right ladies and Gentleman; the liberal bloggers are now publishing stories about John McCain’s shoes. This female blogger at the Huffington Post by the name of Isabel Wilkinson, whose political credentials are that of a Dallas cowboy cheerleader, wrote a rather vain piece about the kind of shoes that John McCain wears. I have to honestly wonder aloud, who in the Huffington Post was the recipient of this woman’s oral sex, for her to get that job as a writer. Because whoever they were, they hired a real winner here.

I am not a John McCain cheerleader, not by a long shot. However, this sort of lame attempt by the left to paint John McCain as some sort of out of touch, rich, elitist is about the lamest thing I have ever read, in a good long while. This ranks up there with the New York Times piece on the supposed affair that McCain was having with a lobbyist.

It is not that I am against criticizing John McCain, not at all. There are legitimate concerns that I have with McCain as well, his closeness to Bush, his ties to lobbyists, his wanting to bomb Iran, but to write an article about his shoes? How absurd. The left can much better than this, and they know it. The quicker they start doing that, the better, because right about now, they look like total idiots in my eyes, and I would imagine in the eyes many other people as well.

(H/T Memeorandum)

Technorati Tags: Blogs, Conservative, Democrat, Democrats, Editorial, Election ‘08, Election 2008, Freedom of Speech, John McCain, Liberal, Liberals, Libertarian, McCain, Netroots, Opinion, Politics, Republican, Republicans, Stupidity, White House, blogging

Cross Posted @ Political Byline

[Promoted - The internet is becoming more and more important in politics, and Republicans are not doing well in that space.  This is going to have an impact that lasts for generations.  - Jon Henke]

We get it, the Internet matters - but how much in the political world? And what about younger voters? Will the Web affect the way they cast their ballots on Election Day? We found out. Earlier this week, Waggener Edstrom Worldwide released results from the Young Internet Voter of 2008 Study. We wanted to learn more about Young Internet Voters (18-35 year olds) and how they are using digital communications to gather information about the 2008 U.S. presidential race. As Waggener Edstrom's Vice President of Digital Strategies, and former White House Internet Director, I noted several points of interest based on our findings.

• It’s the Medium, Not the Message: The WE survey strikes another fairly significant ‘blow’ at traditional media, finding that an overwhelming majority (76%) prefer online sources for news and information rather than the traditional news sources. The primary reasons for this shift in preference - respondents feel the latter attempts to control and shape the news in a way they find problematic and off-putting. Some positive news, however, did emerge for traditional media: 38% of those responding to the survey have more confidence in its content; as opposed to slightly more than 30% who have confidence in Internet content.
• Digital Strategy Trumps Traditional Marketing/PR: The study further revealed that the Web and digital communications have helped bring teens and young adults into the fold this election cycle – more so that the candidates’ themselves or their personalities (e.g. Obamamania). Specifically 57% strongly or somewhat agree that the Internet and digital media have facilitated them feeling more engaged in this year's election process – more than they ever have in the past.
• Engaging with Digital Substance: While the Internet is surely playing a role and young voters are poised to turn out in record numbers in November, the campaigns have yet to engage young voters - a crucial demographic bloc in November - in substantial policy discussions.
• Getting Social: Perhaps some of the most telling statistics revolve around this demographic’s monthly participation in social media. For example, more than half (62%) of those polled indicated that they visited social networks such as Facebook and MySpace, 60% read blogs (compared with 25% who wrote) and 79% watched online videos on YouTube and other media sites. Many tout text messaging as the next step in online campaigning, yet only 24% have sent or received a text message at least monthly regarding a political candidate.
• And the Winner Is: Although the Internet clearly emerged as the medium of choice among this group, young voters also weighed in on the efforts of political parties to connect with them online. Overwhelmingly, 56% felt that the Democrats are doing a better job as compared with 13% for Republicans. When asked who they would vote for if the presidential election were held today, 49% chose Democratic Sen. Barack Obama, while 29% indicated they would support Republican Sen. John McCain – with 78% responding that they were certain to vote on election day or early/absentee.

These numbers should serve as a baseline for future campaigns, especially when targeting the growing Millennial generation. As they continue to age, their use of technology to communicate - and their ability to influence elections - will only increase. Of course, turnout has always been the key to winning elections and it still remains to be seen whether online activity will translate into actual votes in November.

It seems the Liberal sissy Moonbats have no love for one another.

This comes via Ann Althouse.

TNR's Dana Goldstein writes:

As anybody with high-speed Internet knows, MyDD and Daily Kos sit at the top of the liberal Netroots movement, which over the last five years has made astonishing strides in its campaign to transform the Democratic Party into a hard-fighting, proudly liberal, and, most importantly, victorious entity. Though their websites offer distinct communities and commentaries, and though they have very different personalities, MyDD founder Jerome Armstrong (a former astrologer) and Kos's Markos Moulitsas (a former Army man) have always gotten along--the two co-authored a 2006 book, Crashing the Gate, about the rise of their movement. Their bond has been rooted mostly in common foes: Republicans, namby-pamby Democrats, the Iraq War, divisive "identity politics," and the centrist Democratic Leadership Council. But the harmony that existed between MyDD and Kos since the birth of the Netroots no longer exists today, and a bitter internecine struggle within the progressive blogosphere is to blame. Just as bilious in tone as previous fights with Republicans or Joe Lieberman, it has revealed fault lines in the movement that will be tough to cover back up. There have been charges of misogyny and of bullying, and some longtime members have walked away from their cause altogether. And what's at the heart of it all is that most loaded of questions: Barack or Hillary?

[....]

After announcing her departure from the site, Alegre was the subject of insults by dozens of commenters. Moulitsas fumed on the site's front page, "People expect me to give a damn that a bunch of whiny posters 'go on strike' and leave in a huff. When I don't give a damn, people get angry that their expectations aren't being met." Of course, characterizing Clinton supporters, especially female Clinton supporters, as "whiny," didn't sit well with many. A Maryland mother of two in her mid-40s, Alegre said she won't publicize her real name because she fears harassment from anti-Clinton bloggers and commenters.

There's no doubt that the tone of the Netroots' Clinton-bashing has veered rather far from policy substance. After the Huffington Post scoop, Daily Kos front page writer Dana Houle wrote a bizarre diary (one he didn't post to the homepage) recounting how his impressions of Hillary Clinton had changed since 1992, when he saw Bill Clinton give a speech at the University of Michigan. "It was the night I learned the term MILF, and it was applied to Hillary Clinton," wrote Houle. In the same post, he described seeing a couple in the crowd at the Clinton speech engaged in a sex act. Later Houle, who is 43 and was once  chief-of-staff for New Hampshire Congressman Paul Hodes, brushed off the suggestion that sexualizing Clinton had been inappropriate. "Some people will look for a reason to be outraged no matter what," he explained, telling me that most of Clinton's support in the liberal blogosphere comes from marginal writers.

However, Ann Althouse disagrees:

Really? Upper middle class? I can believe there are more men than women, but enough to make it "relatively homogenous"?

She has a point, I did not care of Barry's style either, Being a former Conservative-Minded Democrat, He lacked substance, this was before all the Jeremiah Wright nonsense came out. He never could directly answer a question. He would always, and still does, dance around direct questions, he has zero substance, it is all flash and glam and personality. He might be a great person, but if he has no substance, what good is he? Nobody seems to want to address that question.

The answer is simply this, the Democrat Party is all about entitlements, Hillary is a Woman, she seems to believe that she is entitled to be President, because she was Bill Clinton's wife and because she is a woman, because she has a vagina, that makes her entitled to be President. The same way with Barry, He is a black man, He believes that he is entitled to be President, because of the injustices that were perpetuated against his people over 300 years ago, that makes B. Hussein Obama entitled to be President. Never mind that the fact that he is an empty suit with zero political experience. Never mind the fact that he did little or nothing of great impact in the Chicago senate, that is unless you count the cocaine snorting and gay sex.  However, because he is black, and he is the Obamassiah, he will ride into the White House on the shoulders of one the biggest liberals and communist sympathizers out there, the late Martin Luther King Jr.  By the way, the true story on Larry Sinclair's Lie detector is:

The raw computer readings showed that Larry Sinclair passed the test with flying colours. But two testers hired by Whitehouse.com re-interpreted the readings to claim that they showed deception. One of the testers was Edward I. Gelb who has been exposed by specialists in the field for claiming a phony Ph.D.

Can you say, Cover up? I knew you could!

Like I said, it is all about the entitlements. It is what the Democrats are all about. That and identity Politics, and we all know, Barry is a master at that.