Wednesday, March 17, 2010
I've been getting quite a few emails on this little confrontation, as Chris Matthews pulls out the race card...no, that's not quite right, he hints, and the New York Times' Ethan Bronner gives him what he wants... CAMERA's Andrea Levin has an excellent post on the subject, with video of Bronner's appearance. Honestly, these guys really need a new storyline, the whole "racism" thing is getting so old: NYT's Bronner Smears Israel as Racist on MSNBC
BRONNER: I would say that there is some level of prejudice about the fact that he had some Islamic background through his stepfather. But I think it has to do more with the fact that when he came into office a year ago, he wanted to recalibrate the relationship between the United States and the Muslim world. And the easiest and clearest way of doing that was to put some distance between the United States and Israel, and he did that. And that made people nervous. I think there's also some sense here that--some degree of racism, to be perfectly honest.
The problem here is that the left is still worshiping Obama to such an extent, and is so ill-informed as to what his critics are saying -- that, or they tend to write it off so quickly that is never registers -- that they look for the irrational where the rational does just fine. In fact, as Levin notes, Israelis were fine with Obama...up until he got into office and they experienced him in actions:
...On what does Bronner's "honest" allegation of racism rest? Are there polls to show Israelis are less favorable toward the president because he's African-American?
There are polls - but they reveal something very different. Multiple polls in Israel before Obama's election showed him the favorite over John McCain. In July 2008 a Maagar Mohot Survey found 37% preferred seeing Obama elected, compared to 28% for McCain. In November, just after the election a Shvakim Panorama poll found 63% said they were not concerned about the election of Barack Obama.
In May 2009 a poll by the Begin-Sadat Center found Israelis remained positive about the U.S. president, with 38% perceiving he had a friendly attitude toward Israel and just 7% an unfriendly view. Similarly, despite expressing uncertainty about his possible policies, a full 60% expressed favorable opinion about the president.
A Smith Research poll found a similar number of 31% in May perceiving Obama being friendly toward Israel. These attitudes plummeted though in June, by which time only 6% of Israelis considered Obama friendly. That dropped even further by August 28 when 4% found him favorable to Israel.
What happened between May and August? On May 18, at a joint White House press conference with Prime Minister Netanyahu, President Obama appeared to sidestep the Oslo Accords saying: "Settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward." Responding later to questions about this, Netanyahu spokesman Mark Regev said: "The issue of settlements is a final status issue, and until there are final status arrangements, it would not be fair to kill normal life inside existing communities."...
You know, Matthews is the one who keeps bringing up Obama's race.
For example after the State of the Union Speech, he actually said, "The speech was so good I forgot that he is black..."
Honestly.
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2010/01/28/obama-s-speech-was-so-good-i-forgot-he-was-black.aspx
So, who's the racist?
PS, I'm sure that Chris Matthews isn't racist. But that comment is worrisome considering these attacks on Israelis.
Chris Mathews loves to call the American Tea Partiers racists as well.
Now the Israeli Jews, the same.
I think Chris Mathews has a race problem.
And people were so worried Bronner would be biased toward Israel because his son is in the IDF... those of us who read Richard Landes know all about Bronner.
Kick the NYT out of Israel for 90 days. What are they going to do? Complain?