Hillary’s prayer: Hillary Clinton’s religion and politics
By Kathryn Joyce and Jeff Sharlet, Mother Jones, September 1, 2007

When Clinton first came to Washington in 1993, one of her first steps was to join a Bible study group. For the next eight years, she regularly met with a Christian “cell” whose members included Susan Baker, wife of Bush consigliere James Baker; Joanne Kemp, wife of conservative icon Jack Kemp; Eileen Bakke, wife of Dennis Bakke, a leader in the anti-union Christian management movement; and Grace Nelson, the wife of Senator Bill Nelson, a conservative Florida Democrat.

Clinton’s prayer group was part of the Fellowship (or “the Family”), a network of sex-segregated cells of political, business, and military leaders dedicated to “spiritual war” on behalf of Christ, many of them recruited at the Fellowship’s only public event, the annual National Prayer Breakfast. (Aside from the breakfast, the group has “made a fetish of being invisible,” former Republican Senator William Armstrong has said.) The Fellowship believes that the elite win power by the will of God, who uses them for his purposes. Its mission is to help the powerful understand their role in God’s plan.

Clinton declined our requests for an interview about her faith, but in Living History, she describes her first encounter with Fellowship leader Doug Coe at a 1993 lunch with her prayer cell at the Cedars, the Fellowship’s majestic estate on the Potomac. Coe, she writes, “is a unique presence in Washington: a genuinely loving spiritual mentor and guide to anyone, regardless of party or faith, who wants to deepen his or her relationship with God.” [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — In a 2006 New York Times interview, Hillary Clinton said warmly that “Doug [Coe] was always very supportive of me.” One wonders then what her position might be on Coe’s promotion of the “Hitler concept”?

This is how Coe explained the concept in a conversation recounted in Harper’s:

“Do you know what a difference a friend can make? A friend you can agree with?” He smiled. “Two or three agree, and they pray? They can do anything. Agree. Agreement. What’s that mean?” Doug looked at me. “You’re a writer. What does that mean?”

I remembered Paul’s letter to the Philippians, which we had begun to memorize. Fulfill ye my joy, that ye be likeminded.

“Unity,” I said. “Agreement means unity.”

Doug didn’t smile. “Yes,” he said. “Total unity. Two, or three, become one. Do you know,” he asked, “that there’s another word for that?”

No one spoke.

“It’s called a covenant. Two, or three, agree? They can do anything. A covenant is . . . powerful. Can you think of anyone who made a covenant with his friends?”

We all knew the answer to this, having heard his name invoked numerous times in this context. Andrew from Australia, sitting beside Doug, cleared his throat: “Hitler.”

“Yes,” Doug said. “Yes, Hitler made a covenant. The Mafia makes a covenant. It is such a very powerful thing. Two, or three, agree.”

And Jeff Sharlet, the author of the Harper’s piece, in a subsequent interview went on to explain more about this concept as understood by members of Coe’s secretive organization:

All these guys Hitler, Lenin, Pol Pot and Osama bin Laden is another guy they cite a lot, are guys who understood the power of a political avant garde. That’s what they mean by the Hitler Concept.

If the evidence of disarray inside her campaign is any indication, it doesn’t seem that Hillary is making use of this Family principle. Even so, her association with Coe and his organization does little to burnish her Democratic credentials.

Clinton camp: Obama must pass ‘security threshold’ to be veep
By Sam Youngman, The Hill, March 10, 2008

Senior advisers to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) on Monday sought to reconcile the campaign’s assertion that rival Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) has not passed the “commander-in-chief test” with the Clintons’ hints in recent days that the New York senator would tap Obama as a running mate.

Howard Wolfson, Clinton’s chief spokesman, said during a conference call with reporters that Clinton would reject any running mate who has not met the “national security threshold,” as Clinton’s military advisers and Wolfson put it on the call. But he added that it is possible Obama could meet that threshold by this summer’s Democratic convention.

Wolfson repeated Clinton’s weekend assertion that picking Obama is “not something she would rule out at this point,” but he also reiterated that Obama is not ready to be commander in chief, a key requirement to being Clinton’s running mate.

When asked if Obama could do something to cross that “threshold,” Wolfson said, “It’s not something that I’m prepared to rule out at this time.” [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — Let’s see. Are we to suppose that the Clinton campaign is secretly putting together a VP crash course so that Obama can pass the “security threshold” just in time for the convention? For Hillary it took a lifetime of experience, but Obama’s such a quick study he’ll be able to do it in just four months. But hey, if he could do that, maybe that’s why he has the audacity to claim he’s ready now. But then again….

Maybe something else is going on. Maybe the Clinton campaign has pin-pointed a key demographic segment that they’re eager to grab – a chunk of the undecided voters that the analysts are far too polite to name: voters who can easily be hoodwinked. Here’s the pitch: “You know, I’ve said some pretty nasty things about Barak and in the unlikely event that I fail to win the nomination, he probably won’t want me as a running mate. He might even have the nerve to say he wants someone more experienced than me. But I’m big hearted and big minded and I care about what’s best for the Democratic party, so if you vote for me, I’ll bring him along too. He’s a good kid and I could knock him into shape in a few weeks. So, if you’re not a delusional dreamer who’s just a sucker for a good speech but you still like Obama, then vote for me. You know it makes sense. Repeat after me: I support Obama, so I will vote for Hillary. I support Obama, so I will vote for Hillary…. And when you get in the voting booth and you’re thinking, ‘I’m gonna vote for Obama,’ just remember: check the box next to the name ‘Clinton.'”

Confronting the kitchen sink
By Bob Herbert, New York Times, March 8, 2008

Political campaigns are not about fairness, but they can often be about vision. Voters want more from Senator Obama.

He may not be able to close the deal with, say, working-class whites, but he more than anyone else has the eloquence to try and make a compelling case. He should go for it.

We have seen election after election in which candidates have won by fanning the anxieties of voters. Elect me, or something terrible will happen to you!

That is now the Clinton mantra, which is a measure of how grim our politics have become. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — There’s a false dichotomy being created between the Obamian high road and the Clintonian knife fight. Obama does need to fight, but pushing for tax returns isn’t going to work. This is a contest between two visions of the presidency. Hillary presents herself as the champion-solutions-fighter, but it’s a false bill of goods. Sure, she’s demonstrating her willingness to fight, but that’s not the same as being able to win. She fought for health care when she had the privilege of being First Lady, and she lost. She came into the primaries way ahead in the polls yet still suffered a string of defeats. She may right now be enjoying a tactical advantage but when it comes to displaying organizational and strategic mastery, if the Clinton campaign itself foretells the nature of a Clinton presidency – makeshift, discordant, reactive and uninspired – we’re in for trouble.

Obama on the other hand need go no further than present his own campaign as a model for his ability to craft and steer an organization. It’s been knocked off course recently and he needs to do a better job of showing that he can steer it back and do so without kowtowing to the Clinton campaign’s rebukes – dumping Samantha Power was a big mistake – but make the campaign the focus of the campaign by holding it up as a blueprint of the presidency and then go back to that red phone question. Who does America want to take the call? A defensive curmudgeon, a presidential poseur, or someone who’s relative inexperience is amply counterbalanced with sound judgment, a cool temperament, and a passion to lead by raising up the country rather than a passion for trying to destroy his opponents?

Will Clinton or Obama protect your children?
By John Dickerson, Slate, February 29, 2008

If you vote for Barack Obama, your children are going to die in their beds. This is the message of the latest Clinton television ad running in Texas. The spot starts with a moonlit shot of a blond toddler in the warm tangle of her sheets and then cuts to a close-up of an infant also in deep REM sleep. For the next 15 seconds, the images shift from one cherubic sleeping face to another. You’d think you were watching a Baby Ambien ad if the narrator weren’t giving you nightmares: “It’s 3 a.m., and your children are safe and asleep. But there’s a phone in the White House, and it’s ringing. Something’s happening in the world. Your vote will decide who answers that call. Whether it’s someone who already knows the world’s leaders, knows the military—someone tested and ready to lead in a dangerous world.” At this point, we see our first adult, a concerned mother, opening the door and peering into her children’s bedroom. “It’s 3 a.m. and your children are safe and asleep,” the narrator repeats. “Who do you want answering the phone?” [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — Is this Hillary’s last ditch attempt to save her campaign, or has she already thrown the towel in and decided that as a McCain surrogate she has a long shot of being chosen as his VP? I jest of course, but it’s hardly surprising that National Review would say “it is awfully nice of Hillary to test out John McCain’s key theme against Obama,” and that Red State would have come up with a very modestly revised version of the ad.

Finding political strength in the power of words
By Alec MacGillis, Washington Post, February 26, 2008

The 2008 presidential campaign has witnessed the rise of a whole arsenal of new political weapons, including Internet fundraising and sophisticated microtargeting of voters. For Sen. Barack Obama, however, the most powerful weapon has been one of the oldest.

Not since the days of the whistle-stop tour and the radio addresses that Franklin D. Roosevelt used to hone his message while governor of New York has a presidential candidate been propelled so much by the force of words, according to historians and experts on rhetoric.

Obama’s emergence as the front-runner in the race for the Democratic nomination has become nearly as much a story of his speeches as of the candidate himself. He arrived on the national scene with his address to the 2004 Democratic National Convention, his campaign’s key turning points have nearly all involved speeches, and his supporters are eager for his election-night remarks nearly as much as for the vote totals. [complete article]

Obama and the power of words
By Stephen F. Hayes, Wall Street Journal, February 26, 2008

Mr. Obama is simply campaigning for office in the same way he says he would operate if he were elected. “We’re not looking for a chief operating officer when we select a president,” he said during a question and answer session at Google headquarters back in December.

“What we’re looking for is somebody who will chart a course and say: Here is where America needs to go — here is how to solve our energy crisis, here’s how we need to revamp our education system — and then gather the talent together and then mobilize that talent to achieve that goal. And to inspire a sense of hope and possibility.”

Like Ronald Reagan did. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — Language is the thread out of which the human experience is woven. We are not alone because we can speak and understand.

To play down the importance of Obama’s oratory is not only an insult to those who find him inspiring; it also exhibits a stunning blindness to the context. We’re coming to the end of eight years with a president whose communications skills were not simply below average for a president; they were below average, period.

Bush likes to pretend that when he’s giving a press conference, he’s doing it off-the-clock. The hard work of a president happens outside the earshot of those journalists with their pesky questions. But everyone knows this is a charade. Bush tries to make up for his communication deficit with humor and put-downs, but if the president doesn’t embarrass his audience as much as he used to, it’s not because he’s become much more adept; it’s simply that we’ve got used to his clumsiness.

Obama on the other hand, doesn’t merely inspire; he raises the hope that when the president of the United States steps on to the world stage in 2009, he will make Americans proud. He will be capable of being both a president and executive ambassador — never has America more dearly needed one.

As for what makes Obama such a powerful speaker, it seems misleading to me to view this in terms of oratory. It goes beyond rhetoric, cadence, delivery and the technical skills of effective speech-making. It comes, as Obama himself acknowledged when describing his first experience in front of a rally when “I knew that I had them, that the connection had been made.” This ability to connect with his audience — this is what’s driving Obama’s momentum. Those who lack the same ability might want to play down its value but it hardly seems like an optional extra among the assets we would hope to find in a future president.

Clinton camp splits on message
By Peter Nicholas, Los Angeles Times, February, 2008

Before the Iowa caucuses, senior aides to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton fell into a heated argument during a 7:30 a.m. conference call about the basic message their candidate was delivering to voters.

Mark Penn, chief strategist and pollster, liked Clinton’s emphasis on her “strength and experience,” and he defended the idea of her running as a quasi-incumbent best suited for the presidency. Harold Ickes and other advisors said that message was not working. A more promising strategy, they argued, would be to focus on the historic prospect of electing the first woman president.

Today, as Clinton tries to revive her campaign after losing 10 straight primary contests to Sen. Barack Obama, some insiders look back and wish that argument had produced a different outcome. Penn won the debate, say two people aware of the conversation, and Clinton went on to present herself to voters as a steely figure so familiar with the workings of government that she could lead from Day One.

The Clinton campaign now seems in peril, its precarious situation acknowledged on Wednesday even by former President Bill Clinton, who suggested that his wife could not survive a loss in either of the next two major contests, in Texas and Ohio on March 4. [complete article]

See also, As crucial tests loom, Clinton hits harder (WP).

Editor’s Comment — According to in the New York Times:

When Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton meets Senator Barack Obama at a one-on-one debate in Austin on Thursday night, one of her final opportunities to change the course of the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, she will again face the challenge that has repeatedly stymied her: how to discredit her popular opponent without hurting herself.

But that isn’t just a challenge; it’s a false proposition. The only reason the strategy of cutting down your opponent ever has a chance of working is when support for both candidates is weak. The attacks need to highlight flaws that were already visible and occur in a context where a significant number of voters are struggling to decide between the lesser of two evils.

Clinton’s problem is that her attacks reflect much more on her than they do on her opponent. To the extent that the Clinton campaign becomes focused on what’s wrong with Obama, she looks more and more like a sour loser — someone incapable of showing the grace to acknowledge defeat. On top of that, an attack campaign has a subtext that’s likely to offend the people it’s trying to win over. It’s saying: Vote for me. Don’t be a naive sucker who gets taken in by Obama’s charm and oratory. That’s an insult wrapped up inside an invitation.

Clinton’s other huge problem is that instead of running a presidential campaign, she’s been running a nomination campaign. If she were ever up against McCain, her whole strength-and-experience argument falls flat — unless of course the New York Times is able to intercede on her behalf and torpedo the strong and experienced Republican.

A new face for American diplomacy
By Hooman Majd, Salon, February 21, 2008

When I was in Tehran, Iran, a year ago, I was asked by several senior government officials, including former President Mohammad Khatami, what to make of Barack Obama’s candidacy for president of the United States. The young senator from Illinois was still barely on the international radar then. My response was that I couldn’t see Americans nominating, let alone electing, a black man whose middle name was Hussein. My answer, clearly wrong in hindsight, stirred smiles and raised eyebrows among the Iranian leaders because they’d had no idea that Obama had a Muslim father. Even more surprising to them was that he carried, apparently without shame, a Muslim name. From Khatami this elicited an “Ajab!” — Farsi for, essentially, “You’ve got to be kidding!” There were also many nods of agreement with my conclusion about Obama’s chances.

At this point in the presidential race, although it is deeply heartening that I was so wrong in my judgment of American voters, Obama’s great potential to connect with the Muslim world, and to change how Muslims perceive the United States, is conspicuously absent from our national debate. A crucial question about who should be the next president is whether Obama, Hillary Clinton or John McCain is most likely to be able to heal the rift between the U.S. and much of the rest of the world, a rift not created but dangerously widened by the administration of George W. Bush. What is abundantly clear now — at least to many foreigners and particularly to Muslims in the Third World — is that Barack Obama is the candidate by far the best suited to begin healing that rift and restoring America’s global reputation, and perhaps even to begin reversing decades of anti-Americanism. Obama would begin a presidency with a huge advantage in terms of world perception. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — The promise of an Obama presidency can easily be overstated, but what makes the view of the future much more interesting is to tie it to the present. Already there are very positive indications coming out of the Middle East suggesting that a President Obama would be warmly and enthusiastically received.

Consider this account from Tamara Cofman Wittes, Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy of the Brookings Institution. She’s been attending the 5th Annual U.S.-Islamic World Forum in Doha, which brings together Americans with Muslims from Nigeria to Malaysia and everywhere in between. She notes that this year there has been a tidal shift in attitudes towards America veering away from the hostility of recent times, but then she goes on to provide this unexpected explanation for the change in mood:

Quite honestly, though, I don’t think the relative love-fest at this year’s meeting is all ascribable either to regional shifts or to the conference organizers’ choice of speakers. The most powerful explanation for the change is evident in the overwhelming fact that all anyone at this conference really wants to talk about is Barack Obama. [My emphasis]

A friend from the Gulf tells me her young relative was so excited about the Democratic candidate that he tried to donate money over the Internet, as he’d heard so many young Americans were doing. Then he found out he had to be a U.S. citizen to do so. Another young woman, visiting from next-door Saudi Arabia, said that all her friends in Riyadh are “for Obama.” The symbolism of a major American presidential candidate with the middle name of Hussein, who went to elementary school in Indonesia, certainly speaks to Muslims abroad.

But more important is just the prospect of a refreshing shift in the the breeze off the Potomac. More than the changes in the region, it seems to be anticipated changes in Washington that are drawing the eyes of my Arab counterparts and giving the conference its unusually forward-looking tone. We’ll see how long the honeymoon lasts! [Thanks to Marc Lynch for bringing this to my attention.]

Change might be coming, but I seriously doubt it can come fast enough that Obama could turn his global popularity into an electoral advantage. Even so, there’s no question that herein lies a major part of his promise.

And Obama wept
By Jake Tapper, ABC News, February 7, 2008

Inspiration is nice. But some folks seem to be getting out of hand.

It’s as if Tom Daschle descended from on high saying, “Be not afraid; for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all the people: for there is born to you this day in the city of Chicago a Savior, who is Barack the Democrat.”

Obama supporter Kathleen Geier writes that she’s “getting increasingly weirded out by some of Obama’s supporters. On listservs I’m on, some people who should know better – hard-bitten, not-so-young cynics, even – are gushing about Barack…

Describing various encounters with Obama supporters, she writes, “Excuse me, but this sounds more like a cult than a political campaign. The language used here is the language of evangelical Christianity – the Obama volunteers speak of ‘coming to Obama’ in the same way born-again Christians talk about ‘coming to Jesus.’…So I say, we should all get a grip, stop all this unseemly mooning over Barack, see him and the political landscape he is a part of in a cooler, clearer, and more realistic light, and get to work.” [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — Among independently minded people there’s a natural tendency when meeting the force of a crowd, to want to move the opposite way — or at least stand in place and not get swept along in the flow. Popularity so rarely seems to be an index of good judgment. Thus it’s easy to see why the Obama current provokes a measure of skepticism. Sure, I can see his charisma and I can hear his eloquence, says the skeptic, but give me the hard facts. I need some specifics. I need to know what this man will do if we put him in the White House.

It’s a curious form of realism this. It seems to say, I attach more significance to what a politician promises, than I do to what I can assess of his or her character. It seems to imply that a checklist of the correct policy positions is a reliable indicator of what might happen.

I’m inclined to believe that Obama is realistic enough to know that the time to make the boldest declarations and the time to act as a progressive leader comes after receiving a mandate. Seeking and receiving a mandate for change opens up a whole lot of possibilities.

Ask not! Why Obama is no JFK
By Ted Widmer, The Washington Monthly, January, 2008

In an editorial supporting Obama, the Boston Globe called attention to his “intuitive sense of the wider world.” But “intuition” would have seemed a silly quality to JFK, a realist even among the realists of his day. He and the other veterans he had served with were tired of inflated promises and wanted a world that would live up to the sacrifice they had already made for it. Like Kennedy, Obama certainly has a capacity to learn, and learn quickly. But there are qualities that cannot be gleaned from briefing books, even by the quickest study—independence of judgment, calm determination, and the deep knowledge of all possibilities that comes from years of experience in the trenches. To his credit, Obama has not personally cited intuition as a reason to vote for him, but the campaign profited enormously from the Globe endorsement, and has tolerated a certain vagueness about his background and intentions that now needs to be clarified.

In fact, no modern politician has trafficked more in “intuition” than President Bush, who trumpeted his “instincts” to an incredulous Joe Biden as his justification for invading Iraq, and famously claimed to see into the soul of Vladimir Putin. To run entirely on intuition and the negation of experience can work, and did in 2000. But to do so while wearing the deeply realist mantle of John F. Kennedy is to spin a garment of such fine cloth that it is completely invisible. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — By Ted Widmer’s measure, Barak Obama does not have the foreign policy knowledge or depth of experience that John F. Kennedy brought into the White House, but the JFK-Obama comparison should not be taken too literally. What is needed from the next American president is much more profound than the kind of foreign policy experience that might impress those who view the world from the cloistered vantage point of a think tank in Washington. What is needed is someone who can be the catalyst for a kind of Copernican revolution through which America discovers that it is not the center of the world. But if Obama was to widely tout his ability to bring about such a shift, I doubt that it would enhance his electability.

That the editorial board of the Boston Globe would ascribe to Obama an “intuitive sense of the wider world,” says more about the lack of substance in so much editorial writing than it says about Obama. It sounds like a line from ET – we sense there’s life out there, somewhere. If Obama has an intuitive sense, it’s not simply of the wider world; it’s of what it means to not be American.

The U.S. Constitution made the short-sighted assumption that America’s interests would always best be served by a president born in America. It was a natural response to the experience of being controlled by a foreign government. But America’s future presidents will need much more than strong foreign policy credentials. A global perspective is not a bonus; it is necessity for our survival.

Americans overseas are generally very easy to spot — they have a habit of bringing America with themselves as a kind of psychological security blanket. In the perplexing maelstrom of an utterly foreign culture, a beacon of familiarity, such as a McDonalds, will bring a palpable sense of relief. To become well-traveled does not necessarily lead to a better understanding of the world. Witness George Bush’s four-hour visit to Mongolia which led him to remark that it was “kind of like Texas.”

A president who has traveled far and wide and who understands the strategic significance of Uzbekistan or the issues surrounding Turkish membership of the EU, is one thing. But to know what it means for home to be somewhere else; to really get that there are 6.6 billion people living at the center of the world — if we were to have the opportunity to have a president with that breadth of experience, perhaps we should be less concerned about whether he’s the incarnation of JFK.

The Kennedy mystique
By David Brooks, New York Times, January 29, 2008

“With Barack Obama, we will turn the page on the old politics of misrepresentation and distortion,” Senator Kennedy declared. “With Barack Obama, there is a new national leader who has given America a different kind of campaign — a campaign not just about himself, but about all of us,” he said.

The Clintons started this fight, and in his grand and graceful way, Kennedy returned the volley with added speed.

Kennedy went on to talk about the 1960s. But he didn’t talk much about the late-60s, when Bill and Hillary came to political activism. He talked about the early-60s, and the idealism of the generation that had seen World War II, the idealism of the generation that marched in jacket and ties, the idealism of a generation whose activism was relatively unmarked by drug use and self-indulgence. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — As Jefferson Airplane’s Paul Kantner (or was it Timothy Leary?) said, “If you remember the sixties, you weren’t there,” but it takes a New York Times columnist to wax nostalgically about the days when marchers were respectable enough to wear jackets and ties. David Brooks, acutely conscious of the conservative view of the sixties, wants to split the decade into its respectable, idealist, JFK phase, distinct from a later debauched phase (during which of course the Clintons went through their psychological formation). But in spite of its hedonistic proclivities, the sixities as a whole was an era where there was a genuine appreciation of collectivism and the need for mutual reliance.

Brooks might think that a “respect for institutions that was prevalent during the early ’60s is prevalent with the young again today,” but I don’t think this is what drives anyone to want change. On the contrary, it is a reaction against change-averse institutions that cling on to their entrenched power; it springs from a belief that hypocrisy, deceit, and self-interest are endemic in the political establishment. The desire for change is, by definition, not conservative.

Just one more year! Good riddance to George W Bush
By Rupert Cornwell, The Independent, January 20, 2008

Arabia is the land of illusion and desert mirages. And as he jetted last week from kingdom to sheikdom, to be regaled with feasts and falcons, jewels and ornamental swords, George Bush might have imagined that all was well with his presidency. But this, his longest and most ambitious trip to the Middle East, will surely be remembered – if it is remembered at all – as a gaudy, irrelevant footnote to a presidency that has long since failed.

Today is a sombre milestone, marking the start of the last of Mr Bush’s eight years in the White House. This being a leap year, exactly 366 days remain until 20 January 2009, when his successor will be sworn into office. It is a time when incumbents look to their legacies. And for this President the view could scarcely be bleaker.

Is he the worst President in US history? Mr Bush faces stiff competition from the likes of James Buchanan, who watched as America slipped towards civil war, or Warren Harding with his corrupt administration, or Herbert Hoover, who failed to halt the slide into the Great Depression, or, more recently, Richard Nixon, the only President to be forced to resign. But in terms of dogmatism, incompetence, ignorance and divisiveness, Mr Bush surely compares with any of the above. [complete article]

Internal memo takes on Obama’s approach to Middle East
By Jennifer Siegel, The Forward, January 20, 2008

A confidential memo questioning Senator Barack Obama’s potential approach to Middle East policy was circulated earlier this month among staffers at a major American Jewish organization.

“The Senator’s interpretation of the NIE raises questions,” wrote Debra Feuer, a counsel for the American Jewish Committee, one day after the Illinois Democrat surged to victory in the Iowa caucus.

Referring to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, she added that Obama “appears to believe the Israelis bear the burden of taking the risky steps for peace, and that the violence Israel has received in return does not shift that burden.” [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — God forbid the possibility that an American president might have the audacity to attempt an even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict!

The Israel lobby has to tread a fine line in going after Obama. Of course, AIPAC-friendly Clinton is the Democratic candidate of choice, but the lobby needs to hedge its bets. Candidate Obama, who is not AIPAC-unfriendly, could become an unfriendly president to a lobby he saw as being intent on keeping him out of the White House. There’s a stunning irony in the AJC referencing Ali Abunimah’s comments about Obama when Ali himself regards Obama as having shifted to the AIPAC camp. I guess in the eyes of the lobby, it is unforgivable that anyone should ever express any degree of sympathy with the Palestinians.

Hillary, Barack, experience
By Nicholas D. Kristof, New York Times, January 20, 2008

The Democrats with the greatest Washington expertise — Joe Biden, Chris Dodd and Bill Richardson — have already been driven from the race. And the presidential candidate left standing with the greatest experience by far is Mr. McCain; if Mrs. Clinton believes that’s the criterion for selecting the next president, she might consider backing him. [complete article]

Obama’s age gap: is it race?
By Dick Meyer, CBS, January 19, 2008

Now that Democrats have voted or caucused in three states in three different parts of the country, it appears there is one crucial voting bloc that will not support Barack Obama: older Americans.

Obama was able to overcome a consistent age gap in Iowa because of an unusually high turnout by young voters who supported him overwhelmingly. And he may be able to carry South Carolina, where roughly half the Democratic primary voters are expected to be African-American.

But Obama’s weak performance so far among older voters substantially increases the odds against him scoring big victories in the slew of states voting on February 5th, “Super Duper Tuesday.” [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — If old America isn’t ready for Obama, what’s young America supposed to do? Wait long enough until it too becomes set in its ways?

War, meet the 2008 campaign
By Michael R. Gordon, New York Times, January 20, 2008

The American officers I met were hardly of one mind on how to proceed in Iraq, but they were grappling with decisions on how to try to stabilize a traumatized country with a hard-headed sense that although there have been significant gains, a long and difficult job still lies ahead — a core assumption that has frequently been missing on the campaign trail.

The politicians, on the other hand, seemed more intent on addressing public impatience with an open-ended commitment in Iraq, either by promising prompt withdrawal (the Democrats) or by suggesting that victory may be near (the Republicans).

Anthony Cordesman, a military specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who regularly visits Iraq, put it this way: “You have to grade all the candidates between a D-minus and an F-plus. The Republicans are talking about this as if we have won and as if Iraq is the center of the war on terrorism, rather than Afghanistan and Pakistan and a host of movements in 50 other countries.

“The Democrats talk about this as if the only problem is to withdraw and the difference is over how quickly to do it.” [complete article]

Winning ugly
By Michael Tomasky, The Guardian, January 19, 2008

Well, it wasn’t big and it sure wasn’t pretty – in fact it was downright ugly – but Hillary Clinton’s win in Nevada gives her an advantage now over Barack Obama in the Democratic contest.

The effect of the result is perhaps most easily grasped by envisioning the counterfactual. Let’s say Obama had won. In that case, the media would have been full of reports about how the underdog (which he assuredly is) had regained momentum, had knocked the powerful Clinton machine back on its heels a second time, and seemed primed to win next Saturday’s match-up in South Carolina. In that state, and in the 22 states voting on February 5, sit hundreds or thousands of political operatives who, if Obama had won, would be on the phone with one another right now asking if they should go ahead and get with Obama, emboldening one another to buck the mighty Clintons. But now Clinton has held that effect off – at least for a week, perhaps for more, perhaps for good. [complete article]

Leading Democrats to Bill Clinton: pipe down
By Jonathan Alter, Newsweek, January 28, 2008

Prominent Democrats are upset with the aggressive role that Bill Clinton is playing in the 2008 campaign, a role they believe is inappropriate for a former president and the titular head of the Democratic Party. In recent weeks, Sen. Edward Kennedy and Rep. Rahm Emanuel, both currently neutral in the Democratic contest, have told their old friend heatedly on the phone that he needs to change his tone and stop attacking Sen. Barack Obama, according to two sources familiar with the conversations who asked for anonymity because of their sensitive nature. Clinton, Kennedy and Emanuel all declined to comment. [complete article]

Editor’s Comment — At what point does loyal support for one’s spouse turn into a passion for a vicarious (and maybe not so vicarious) third term?