Obama: His Jewish challenge
Posted: Thursday, May 22, 2008 9:13 AM by Mark Murray
Has Obama done a bad job defining exactly what he means when he says he'd meet with hostile leaders? The AP's Woodward thinks so. "Obama gets cheers at his rallies when he declares there is nothing to fear, and potentially much to gain, from talking to enemies as well as friends. But U.S. diplomacy is not that simple and neither is his position. This week, Obama qualified his past statements that he would meet the Iranian leadership directly and without precondition by saying he did not necessarily mean Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's hardline, anti-American president.”
Pegged to his campaign stop in Florida today, the New York Times takes a look at the doubts Florida Jews have about Obama. "Jews, of course, are just one of the many constituencies Mr. Obama must persuade: Latinos, women, working-class whites and independents are vital as well. Thanks in part to enthusiasm from younger Jews, he won 45 percent of the Jewish vote in the primaries (not counting the disputed ones in Florida and Michigan), a respectable showing against a New York senator, Hillary Rodham Clinton.”
“But in recent presidential elections, Jews have drifted somewhat to the right. Because Mr. Obama is relatively new on the national stage, his résumé of Senate votes in support of Israel is short, as is his list of high-profile visits to synagogues and delis. So far, his overtures to Jews have been limited; aside from a few speeches and interviews, he has left most of it to surrogates. American Jews hold two competing views of Mr. Obama, said Rabbi David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington. First, there is Obama the scholar, the social justice advocate, the defender of Israel with a close feel for Jewish concerns garnered through decades of intimate friendships. In this version, Mr. Obama’s race is an asset, Rabbi Saperstein said.”
“The second version is defined by the controversy over his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., worries about Mr. Obama’s past associations and questions about his support for Israel and his patriotism."
Has Obama done a bad job defining exactly what he means when he says he'd meet with hostile leaders? The AP's Woodward thinks so. "Obama gets cheers at his rallies when he declares there is nothing to fear, and potentially much to gain, from talking to enemies as well as friends. But U.S. diplomacy is not that simple and neither is his position. This week, Obama qualified his past statements that he would meet the Iranian leadership directly and without precondition by saying he did not necessarily mean Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's hardline, anti-American president.”
“Nor is it certain lately at what point he, as president, would speak personally with some of the dictators he says should be engaged. This, despite months of assertions that his willingness to sit down with foes sets him apart from Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and now McCain, the likely Republican presidential nominee, who challenges Obama on that point.”
“Last year, Obama on this issue: In a Democratic presidential debate last summer, Obama was asked if he'd meet the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea without precondition and during his first year in office. ‘I would,’ Obama said. Since then he has frequently reiterated his belief that no preconditions should be set."
Now: "Obama objected on CNN this week to ‘this obsession with Ahmadinejad’ and explained guardedly: ‘I would be willing to meet with Iranian leaders if we had done sufficient preparations for that meeting. ‘Whether Ahmadinejad is the right person to meet with right now, we don't even know how much power he is going to have a year from now,’ Obama added. ‘He is not the most powerful person in Iran.’ He said he would expect ‘to meet with those people who can actually make decisions’ in Iran on its nuclear program, its aid to terrorists and destabilization in Iraq. He did not explain how he would get around Iran's president to other people of influence.”
Shocking, we know… Karl Rove isn’t too fond of Obama. But Rove the columnist has helped give the RNC and McCain a mouthpiece to amplify their Obama critiques. “Barack Obama is ambling rather than sprinting across the primary-season finish line. It's not just his failure to connect with blue-collar Democrats. He has added to his problems with ill-informed replies on critical foreign policy questions,” Rove writes in a Wall Street Journal op-ed. “If Mr. Obama believes he can change the behavior of these nations by meeting without preconditions, he owes it to the voters to explain, in specific terms, what he can say that will lead these states to abandon their hostility. He also needs to explain why unconditional, unilateral meetings with Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or North Korea's Kim Jong Il will not deeply unsettle our allies. If Mr. Obama fails to do so, voters may come to believe that he is asking them to accept that he has a ‘Secret Plan,’ and that he is hopelessly out of his depth on national security.”
The New York Times has a piece this morning that looks back on JFK's '61 meeting with Khrushchev and it's not helpful to Obama's argument. "Kennedy’s one presidential meeting with Nikita Khrushchev, the Soviet premier, suggests that there are legitimate reasons to fear negotiating with one’s adversaries. Although Kennedy was keenly aware of some of the risks of such meetings — his Harvard thesis was titled ‘Appeasement at Munich’ — he embarked on a summit meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna in June 1961, a move that would be recorded as one of the more self-destructive American actions of the cold war, and one that contributed to the most dangerous crisis of the nuclear age.”
“Senior American statesmen like George Kennan advised Kennedy not to rush into a high-level meeting, arguing that Khrushchev had engaged in anti-American propaganda and that the issues at hand could as well be addressed by lower-level diplomats. Kennedy’s own secretary of state, Dean Rusk, had argued much the same in a Foreign Affairs article the previous year: ‘Is it wise to gamble so heavily? Are not these two men who should be kept apart until others have found a sure meeting ground of accommodation between them?’”
“But Kennedy went ahead, and for two days he was pummeled by the Soviet leader. Despite his eloquence, Kennedy was no match as a sparring partner, and offered only token resistance as Khrushchev lectured him on the hypocrisy of American foreign policy, cautioned America against supporting ‘old, moribund, reactionary regimes’ and asserted that the United States, which had valiantly risen against the British, now stood ‘against other peoples following its suit.’ Khrushchev used the opportunity of a face-to-face meeting to warn Kennedy that his country could not be intimidated and that it was ‘very unwise’ for the United States to surround the Soviet Union with military bases.
Politico's Smith and Martin write about the viral emails that have hurt Obama.
“A prominent national abortion rights group's endorsement of Barack Obama last week is continuing to cause waves. After NARAL Pro-Choice America's political committee announced its decision, several state affiliates, including the one in Massachusetts, made clear that they were not involved in the choice and were remaining neutral themselves. They write that Hillary Clinton has ‘a much stronger record on the issues your organization espouses,’ and that they are ‘stunned you would endorse someone who, while in the Illinois Senate, showed his unwillingness to take a stand on reproductive rights by voting 'present' seven times on Republican anti-choice legislation.’
“The letter ends: ‘We believe NARAL's endorsement was not only the wrong one, but entirely premature. We encourage you to retract your endorsement and - at the very least - wait until the Democratic nominee is clear. It is imperative we have a pro-choice President in the White House again. To do that, we need party unity. Your endorsement choice and timing do not further that cause.’” /
