...the panel of experts that Haaretz convenes monthly to rank the potential candidates for the presidency boycotts him. They note that the supporters of the front-runner are left-wing Democrats and voters whose views on Israel are less positive than those of the average American voter.

Also: Why Obama came last -- By Shmuel Rosner, Haaretz U.S. correspondent

Haaretz convenes a monthly panel about an election in a different country that's two years away? That's insane.

Neither of those mentions his substantive positions.

And asks about "emotional attachment to Israel."

This isn't very substantive, but Obama says the US needs to seize this moment in history to move the process forward and suggests that if both the Israelis and Palestinians bring humility to the table there is always hope for peace.

This isn't very substantive

That's putting it mildly.

And after that works, he can use John McCain's plan to stop the Sunni-Shi'ite violence.

Having read the links in 1 and 2, I come away a little creeped out. Huh. Also, that Abunimah quote doesn't say much about what Obama actually thought when he was attending fundraisers. Is this a case of Obama's failure to live up to the things people project on him?

Barack declined to answer the Israeli fence question, Yes or No--instead, he gave us a vague non-answer. When I pursued a Yes or No, he ignored the request and went to another question. When I asked him for a yes or no after he had stepped away from the podium, Obama declined, saying he had to go.

Also: Does voters whose views on Israel are less positive than those of the average American voter mean black people?

So what you're saying is, Obama isn't very articulate about his solution to the Jewish Problem?

What? What did I say? Those were all totally normal words, used in an inoffensive way.

You guys need to relax; you're way too PC.

Agree with FL on 9.

that Abunimah quote doesn't say much about what Obama actually thought when he was attending fundraisers

I read somewhere, but couldn't find a cite for it, that he no longer attends Arab-American events.

At least this will make it harder to convince people that he's a Muslim.

You're underestimating them again.

13: I heard somewhere that he was given the middle name "Hussein" to honor Saddam.

A bit more seriously, I don't think neil, in 10, is right - I think that there is a vague assumption that Barack's base is pretty liberal, which is conflated with the Left, which is conflated with the 10 people on every college campus who conflate Israel with Nazi Germany.

It's hard to remember, I think, just how poorly politics translate from country to country. Although, I suppose it's true that non-Jewish liberals are less dogmatically pro-Israel than the rest of the electorate. But, like, by tiny shadings.

But since 'voters whose views on Israel...' was mentioned along with 'left-wing Democrats' I'm assuming they don't mean the same thing.

Whenever this topic comes up I'm reminded of this Yglesias post.

Anyone care to speculate what the Mossad would do if a U.S. president announced that all aid to Israel would be ended forthwith?

On second thought, let's not.

OT: The Durham DA just dropped all the rape charges in the Duke lacrosse case.

Nifong: prosecutable?

I get troubled in both directions by the topic. On the one hand, yes, there are inevitably people who claim that simply questioning how comfortably US interests lie next to Israel's interests makes one an anti-semite. OTOH, we're talking about pretty straightforward interest group politics, as gets played by large numbers of groups of people in American politics; we're not talking about some sort of Israeli S.M.E.R.S.H. organization.

Nifong: prosecutable?

He deserves to be prosecuted.

At a meeting with Palestinian students...Obama said the US will never recognize winning Hamas candidates unless the group renounces its fundamental mission to eliminate Israel, and Obama told ABC7 he delivered that message to the Palestinian president.

He's still pressing kidnapping and sexual assault charges, but I don't like his odds on those either.

Man, that was a weird thing. People get railroaded all the time, but generally not after it becomes a story -- I can't imagine why Nifong dragged it out this long, given that the case appears to have been pure crap. (And no, almost certainly not prosecutable.)

Duke looks terrible in this, doesn't it?

Score one for KC Johnson.

One more link. ...I asked him, "You say the US is opposed to theocracy and terrorism, how can you explain to the Palestinian people how the US can be opposed to these things but still supports a state that has racist, oppressive, unjust and apartheid policies. And do you see how this paints an inconsistent picture to the people of the Middle East?" He began his answer by saying he would not accept the assumptions I made and therefor was not going to address that part of my question. He said he could understand the Palestinian view that the policies of the US were one sided but he said the relationship with Israel was not going to change.

I have to say that I really don't have any problem with anything Obama says in the quoted bits?

KC Johnson?

Labs, it doesn't take much to make the Cameron crazies look bad, but other than their wagon-circling in the first couple of weeks (and of course the creepy-ass racists bad-mouthing anyone who could dream that a bunch of fine Duke athletes would ever behave unchivalrously towards a lady of color), I'm not sure what they should have done differently. OTOH, I haven't been following the case closely, since most of my ill-will is reserved for their basketball team.

KC Johnson.

I don't think he's the only one who had doubts about the case, ogged.

I was actually holding on longer than I probably should have on giving Nifong the benefit of the doubt, on the theory that most of the stuff that made the case sound like nonsense was being released by the defense, and he wouldn't be continuing to go forward with it if there wasn't some basis for it after all the media fuss that's been made. This appears to have been an error.

Will people please stop using the ideas "Israeli interests" and "Likud's political agenda" interchangeably? The Israeli right and AIPAC aren't really promoting the interests of anyone in the region. They are pushing a militarist ideology which is ultimately bad for the people of Israel.

(I don't actually think anyone on this thread has done this yet. I just wanted to complain.)

I don't think he's the only one who had doubts about the case, ogged.

What's your problem this morning, cyborg?

What did Duke do to make themselves look bad? The university dithered for a while, then they suspended a bunch of players, then what? Did they draw a bunch of ticky-tacky fouls against the district judge or something?

Snarkout, I'm writing this without googling anything, because I don't want to get that serious about it, but I was thinking of the group of faculty signing the public letter and then not doing anything apologetic after it became clear that the case was rife with irregularities.

Crap, I'm going to have to do some research, aren't I?

30: Indeed; it seems that Obama's position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is that he's running for President.

OK, I give way to the subject change

Fair enough -- no research required. I took malicious delight in something bad befalling Duke athletes, saw some crypto-racists crawl out of the woodwork, eventually realized that the crypto-racists were probably right in this instance, and stopped paying attention in order to poke more pins in my Dick Vitale voodoo doll. I was wondering if Duke fired people or something similar.

KC Johnson has an entire blog dedicated to the case. He would have looked incredibly bad if the Duke students were guilty.

Snarkout, thanks for remaining in the territory of the talking-out-of-our-asses. I also recall KC J going after the President for something, but I can't recall the specifics.

joeo, I'm not sure. I mean, you can think they're guilty and still think the prosecutor is doing a horrible job, that the right response is "let's have due process and then see what happens," and so on. Also, didn't he get going when the DNA tests came back?

Johnson's first post about it.

One need only read the comments of KCJ's blog to realize why it is that nuking Duke from orbit really would be best for everyone concerned. "Anyone says that blacks as a whole aren't way back on the evolution scale is not telling the truth." This is why J.J. Redick is the greatest athlete in America.

I sure am glad that Nifong is white.

46: oh yes.

If anyone needs to feel worse about humanity, follow Snarkout's link in 45 and search for "black," then just keep finding next.

Interesting use of the word progressive in the quoted text.

Yeah, that is depressing, but it's not a Duke thing: in any comment thread I've seen outside the big political blogs, when race comes up, it gets very ugly very fast.

The death of PC is one of the only positive things to come out of this mess.

The Duke Lacrosse team was indicted for your sins.

we're talking about pretty straightforward interest group politics

The problem is it can't be criticized and analyzed the way other straightforward interest group politics are, and when you try to persuade people that the interest group does not actually represent their (total) interests (as you might, say, with a lobby of insurance employees or rifle owners), you start moving into some very dicey and sensitive identity-territory. I'm all for it--we muck about in the world, and it's great if the world has more of a voice in our system. I just wish it was more equal opportunity.

If the TimesOfIndia (or more respectably, The Hindu) started doing a similar exercise, and Indian-Americans were seen as being extremely influenced by such exercises, they would be far more handicapped in their attempt to participate in American politics than pro-Israeli Jews are in the current system. Sure, there aren't anywhere nearly as many countries lined up for the destruction of India (though it's got the nukes of two nations fatted by America trained upon it). But Anti-Semitic Nixon showed how much brown genocide America is willing to aid and abet, so it's a real pity that all Americans with some attachment to and information about the parts of the world America mucks about it in don't feel as free and empowered to tenaciously represent some aspect of global welfare as pro-Israel lobbyists do. I pick the example of India's lobbying not just because I'm particularly familiar with it, but because as a secular democracy it proved the fakery of the usual excuses.

One need only read the comments of KCJ's blog to realize why it is that nuking Duke from orbit really would be best for everyone concerned.

What, are we borrowing rhetorical tropes from Michelle Malkin now? Since when does it make sense to condemn an entire school for comments from the blog of someone wholly unaffiliated with the university?