"Unified Jerusalem": Obama says some more words - cougarguard.com — unofficial BYU Cougars / LDS sports, football, basketball forum and message board

Oxcoug · 06-12-2008, 11:28 AM

Barack Obama is an outstanding rhetoritician. He's the type of speaker that - esp if it were possible to set aside all political implications - can actually be a pleasure to watch. Huge points for style.

But it's getting to be increasingly standard to have to wonder if he just... says... stuff. Stuff that sounds good. And avoids saying....anything? .... of real substance. Or that he necessarily means.

We already know that he pays lip service on tough union lines like challenging NAFTA (thanks in part to a little round of wink-wink played by Austan Goolsbee with the Canadian consulate in Chicago).

But this line to AIPAC about how Jerusalem must remain "undivided" sets new standards for being either cluelessly glib or shamelessly manipulative. He obviously understood that it's a nice applause line for the AIPAC crew. But is he even aware that a majority of the Israeli public was ready to give up control of East Jerusalem less than a decade ago? Or that among his natural allies in Israel - the Haaretz readership - almost all of them actually support plans for dividing Jerusalem in some form?

Apparently not. Which was why within 24 hours he was backtracking on national TV shows saying things like "as a practical matter it would be very difficult to execute"? Yeah? Then why did you deliver it the day before as your grand fist-clenching stand on principle?

Oh - well of course....you were addressing AIPAC. And you're worried about Jewish voters. And you should be. And your seemingly overwhelming need as a candidate is to stir your audiences with soaring words and nothing would stir those cats like a promise of an undivided Jerusalem. So you just went ahead and broke it out. Got some big applause. And that's a good day.

In the end there are two options and it's difficult to decide which is more disturbing: either (a) Obama just says whatever sounds good for his audience of the given day and this was it, or (b) he really meant it when he said it --which exposes a fundamental cluelessness about the question more at the root of the Arab-Israeli conflict than any other.

06-12-2008, 11:28 AM	#1
Oxcoug Junior Member Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 69	Undivided Jerusalem? Obama says some more words Barack Obama is an outstanding rhetoritician. He's the type of speaker that - esp if it were possible to set aside all political implications - can actually be a pleasure to watch. Huge points for style. But it's getting to be increasingly standard to have to wonder if he just... says... stuff. Stuff that sounds good. And avoids saying....anything? .... of real substance. Or that he necessarily means. We already know that he pays lip service on tough union lines like challenging NAFTA (thanks in part to a little round of wink-wink played by Austan Goolsbee with the Canadian consulate in Chicago). But this line to AIPAC about how Jerusalem must remain "undivided" sets new standards for being either cluelessly glib or shamelessly manipulative. He obviously understood that it's a nice applause line for the AIPAC crew. But is he even aware that a majority of the Israeli public was ready to give up control of East Jerusalem less than a decade ago? Or that among his natural allies in Israel - the Haaretz readership - almost all of them actually support plans for dividing Jerusalem in some form? Apparently not. Which was why within 24 hours he was backtracking on national TV shows saying things like "as a practical matter it would be very difficult to execute"? Yeah? Then why did you deliver it the day before as your grand fist-clenching stand on principle? Oh - well of course....you were addressing AIPAC. And you're worried about Jewish voters. And you should be. And your seemingly overwhelming need as a candidate is to stir your audiences with soaring words and nothing would stir those cats like a promise of an undivided Jerusalem. So you just went ahead and broke it out. Got some big applause. And that's a good day. In the end there are two options and it's difficult to decide which is more disturbing: either (a) Obama just says whatever sounds good for his audience of the given day and this was it, or (b) he really meant it when he said it --which exposes a fundamental cluelessness about the question more at the root of the Arab-Israeli conflict than any other. Last edited by Oxcoug; 06-12-2008 at 11:34 AM.