Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

In my day, never was longer.

How stupid are these people?

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Nothing worth doing is easy.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Second rate reporter says what?

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Bibi’s Right Hand

Reader Interactions

52Comments

  1. 1.

    burnspbesq

    Well, there were the Hearst reporters who ginned up the Spanish-American War. But currently? Probably not.

    It’s about time we gave Bibi’s nuts a healthy squeeze and twist.

  2. 2.

    C.J.

    Is the U.S. president pressuring Israel to adopt a position that is not its own and diminishes its bargaining position?

    As opposed to Bibi doing that to us? Or what you’re doing with the article?

  3. 3.

    Mike Kay (True Grit)

    O.T.

    Even more photos of Weiner playing with himself emerge.

    http://www.tmz.com/2011/06/12/…..-pictures/

    See, this is why they want him gone. These photographs are never gonna stop. Everyone who received one will be selling them, week after week.

  4. 4.

    kdaug

    Don’t get me started.

    Step one: fuck’em.
    Step two: repeat step one.

    They want to shit in the sandbox, ain’t our fucking problem.

    Piss in our fucking milkshake?? Goodbye.

  5. 5.

    JonF

    I’m Jewish and love Israel, but I’m an American first. If you love a country-not your own and/or have no apparent connection to, move there–then talk. Rubin and all the non-jewish/non-israeli Bibi taint lickers either should shut up or I have a link for them: http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/MFAArchive/2000_2009/2001/8/Acquisition%20of%20Israeli%20Nationality

    I would recommend bringing your own bacon and suntan lotion.

    Rubin reminds me of someone I’ve encountered on message board who’s a militant Likudnik right wing jewish-american who’s never been to Israel and once compared an Israeli-American who actually served in the Israeli military for 5 years to Hitler for disagreeing with him on current Israeli policy. Its amazing and disgusting.

  7. 7.

    Martin

    To survive, state GOP must reinvent itself.

    If the GOP falls any further in CA, they’ll have as much say on legislative matters as the Green party with less than 1/3 of the seats in each chamber in the state and no executive seats. CA has 53 out of 435 seats – 12% of all seats in the House. It’s just a matter of time before they swing as strongly Democratic as the rest of the state.

  8. 8.

    Yutsano

    @Martin: There’s also the great Republican fallback: lie your ass off about what you’ll do in office then show your true colors once you’re in. Worked wonders for Scott Walker and John Kasich.

  9. 9.

    Admiral_Komack

    Bibi’s Right Hand

    …but enough about Weiner…
    (hey, it just came to me…)

  10. 10.

    Admiral_Komack

    Bibi’s Right Hand

    …but enough about Weiner…
    (hey, it just came to me…)

  11. 11.

    French Canadian

    The right has been crying like babies about this for a few weeks now.They all say they have never seen a President act like this before.
    You know what I’ve never seen?
    I’ve never seen Americans throw their President under the bus and side with a foreign leader before.
    Even in the worst wars,Americans may slam the President over policies internally but side against him publicly over foreing relations?Don’t remember that.
    I’m pretty sure that during the Bush years,these people would have been called traitors.

  13. 13.

    cathyx

    I find it even more disgusting when our elected representatives act and talk that way.

  14. 14.

    4jkb4ia

    I thought it was Krauthammer, so yes. I haven’t seen anything else on the substance of the post.

    (And maybe Jeff Jacoby for the Boston Globe.)

  16. 16.

    Whiskey Screams from a Guy With No Short-Term Memory

    @Martin: The end was coming for the California GOP anyway. Now it has arrived.

    They can either tell the teatards to fuck off in this year’s budget, or get wiped out next year. What a choice. But given the magnitude of what will happen to the state if they don’t cave on the tax issue…well, they’re going to cave. And maybe some of them won’t lose their seats because of it.

    Thank you, Pete Wilson. Prop 187 has been the gift that keeps on giving.

  17. 17.

    Martin

    @Yutsano: Nobody is going to buy it. They can pull it off in some of those states because they have legislature majorities every bit as crazy as them, so they can actually deliver on the promises. Problem here is that if the GOP falls below the 1/3 of the legislature, then there’s really no point voting for them – they can’t even help overturn a veto.

  18. 18.

    maya

    At least Lake didn’t call him the Obamacaust. And.. the Washington Times! Wasn’t that the publication that Cheney used to plant the Yellow Cake from Niger story to back up his claim of same on MTP way back when?

  19. 19.

    Mike Kay (True Grit)

    @Admiral_Komack: Weiner is actually to the right of Bibi.

    (here he denies any israeli occupation of the west bank) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0OGBbrHA3M

    The prominent New York Democrat’s far-right Zionism might surprise some of his new liberal fans. Via the liburel Salon.com.

    Within the past five years, Weiner has accused Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and The New York Times of being anti-israeli or anti-semetic.

    He famously said:

    “[T]he Palestinian position seems to be perfect for the Internet world of pithy back-and-forth and 30-second You Tube tapes, where the Zionist position is more at home in a seven-page New York Review of Books article,”

    To weiner, the peasant blogopshere isn’t smart enough to understand the middle east.

  21. 21.

    Linda Featheringill

    @4jkb4ia:

    I thought it was Krauthammer

    I also expected Krauthammer and was all prepared to ask John why he still reads what this guy writes. Maybe a couple of times I’ve read an entire Right Turn column. Both times, I became quite depressed because the logic was so different from mine that it would do no good to argue.

    Both times, I was about to fall into “Resistance is futile” before I shook myself free from her spell.

    John, maybe you shouldn’t read her columns.

  22. 22.

    Linda Featheringill

    Let me add, the idea that Obama is mean to anybody is funny. I mean, the guy is So Moderate and Reasonable that it drives me nuts at times. And they think he’s mean? Hmmph!

  23. 23.

    General Stuck

    Rubin and her ilk are true believers, and they catapult their propaganda faithfully and regimented, and with few questions. The true believers on the left are annoying and scattershot, but mostly harmless, since the liberals with a soap box like Rubin, spend their days ruminating on what they didn’t get and whose to blame, and how to form a more perfectly round firing squad.

    The wingers have the advantage because they want very little, mostly cash and for liberals to step aside so they can waste their enemies, real or imagined. It allows them to focus like the lizard on a grasshopper.

    The left’s true believers are clumsy and often self absorbed, but they mean well as to helping their fellow human beings . The wingers like to help in their own way, for those with a death wish, or that just get caught in the cross fire.

    At home, the GOP will let you into the emergency room if you are sick or injured, but you better get well quick, cause after that, you are on your own.

  24. 24.

    4jkb4ia

    OK, I read the post again. Now I see why it is propaganda or at least why our host would think it was. First of all the Bush-Sharon letters are just an understanding. Second of all you want to start over with swaps because the Jerusalem suburbs are not the only thing at issue. Ariel is not a Jerusalem suburb. If you want to tear Israel apart by abandoning large settlements like that you want to get something for them or stare down the Palestinian side into letting you keep them. You don’t say that the swaps are fixed.

  25. 25.

    Villago Delenda Est

    The thing about this entire issue is, you have to start talking from some mutually agreed baseline.

    The 1967 boundaries are the place to start talking. This doesn’t mean that the US position is “1967 boundaries or bust!”, it means “here’s the line in 1967. Where do you see, Israel, it moving to? Where do you see, Palestine, it moving to? Let’s chat about this”.

    Like I said, you have to start somewhere. Unless the objective is to never get started.

  27. 27.

    James E. Powell

    There was a phrase in the linked article that caught my eye. The writer asked

    Is the U.S. president pressuring Israel to adopt a position that is not its own and diminishes its bargaining position?

    Does Israel have a bargaining position? What is it? I don’t recall any. With whom is Israel bargaining? Isn’t any suggestion that Israel bargain either rejected for lack of a suitable partner in negotiations or deemed a betrayal?

  28. 28.

    MAJeff

    Unless the objective is to never get started.

    Well, we are talking about Bibi and the Likudniks.

  30. 30.

    robertdsc-PowerBook

    It’s about time we gave Bibi’s nuts a healthy squeeze and twist.

    I’d rather chop them off. Fuck that guy and his fucking government.

  32. 32.

    Suffern ACE

    OK. Are we supposed to be the referee in this issue or are we just supposed to be on Israel’s side all the time? Just wondering. What do we get out of this again? I suppose the people with manufacturing jobs tied to aid to Israel. All I know is that what went on in Congress during Bibi’s speech, when everyone needed to jump to their feet because they didn’t know which of the soundbites would be on the TV, was a very shameless display. I guess when you’re treated like that by 435 elected officials, you are correct to expect number 436 to behave the same way.

  33. 33.

    Shoemaker-Levy 9

    @Suffern ACE:

    Just wondering. What do we get out of this again?

    Israel is the regional Don, a heavily militarized, west-leaning base right in the middle of the Islamic world. Syria and Lebanon get smacked around every now and then, Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia make nice because they can’t defeat Israel militarily (plus they get bribes from the U.S.). The U.S. has also let Israel take the lead in the rhetorical cold war with Iran. Despite the occasional furrowed brow from an American President, the U.S. more or less gets what it desires out of the relationship. Would the U.S. like a peace agreement with the Palestinians? Sure, so long as they are in a vastly inferior strategic position with Israel.

  34. 34.

    lawguy

    We now to be fair there is a pretty stiff (mandatory Weiner pun) competition for the title so she really had to go all out to even place.

  35. 35.

    bjacques

    Like when Stalin addressed the Praesidium, nobody wanted to be the first to stop clapping and sit down, for fear of AIPAC’s flying monkeys catching them on tape.

  36. 36.

    rob!

    I love the cutesy jus’ folks caricature of Jennifer Rubin, when she herself is a horrible sack of malevolent crap.

  37. 37.

    kindness

    I think Fred Hiatt hired Jennifer Rubin just to stomp on my very last nerve. She does nothing for me. Her arguments suck and honestly, she spends all her time kvetching.

    If she ever suggested a better recourse I would fall over. No, she likes bitching too much for that. I think what annoys me most is she slanders others in a mean girl inside game kinda vibe. It effects me viscerally and not in a good way.

  38. 38.

    Kyle

    @Suffern ACE:

    Supporting Israel gives us a foothold in the hostile Middle East, which is hostile because we support Israel.

    AIPAC and arms makers’ money (our recycled tax dollars) talks loudly, and with the invisible-sky-daddy rightards there’s the whole “Jesus lived there” angle.

    The spectacle in Congress was disgusting. I’ve never before seen such applause from Repukes for a US government welfare recipient.

  39. 39.

    kth

    “Bibi’s right hand” actually undercounts how rotten Jennifer Rubin is. To say that she is Israel-first doesn’t account for how invariably right-wing she is on non-Israeli affairs. Rubin is as much the right hand of Grover Norquist or John Hagee as of Netanyahu, and represents in her person the devil’s bargain those various groups have made with each other.

  42. 42.

    Dude in Princeton

    @Kyle: Nonsense. We have plenty of footholds in the Middle East…Jordan, Iraq, Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia…. Our Senators and Congressmen/women get bribes. That’s what we get out of this.

  44. 44.

    El Cid

    __

    Is the U.S. president pressuring Israel to adopt a position that is not its own…

    Exactly.

    The US role in (supposedly, but for the moment) working toward an Israel-Palestinian final settlement is…

    …to pressure Israel to adopt its own position?

    …to not pressure Israel to adopt its own position?

    …to pressure non-Israelis to adopt the Israeli position?

    …to not pressure anyone to take any positions?

    …to pressure everyone to take every position?

    If what’s being implied is that the US role in negotiations is to (a) in no way attempt to change whatever the government of Israel says that it wants, or (b) pressure others (Palestinians, as well as regional powers) to accept Israeli positions, well come right out and say it.

    (Again, the notion that there are ‘negotiations’ or some intent by the Israeli political establishment, including the leadership of both major political parties and the cloud of other parties surrounding them, leading figures, so on and so forth to have final settlement negotiations until the Israeli government and settlers have captured every single iota of land and resources they want and left Palestine as disabled as possible is a very silly notion. But for the sake of argument here…)

    Be clear.

    “The US role in I/P negotiations is to adopt whatever Israel’s position is and make everyone else comply with it.”

    Or

    “The US has no role in I/P negotiations. Get out and stop pretending, this is up to Israel.”

    It would be a lot clearer for the reader and more intellectually honest if, um, right, okay, yeah, that would be the problem right there.

  46. 46.

    Pancake

    Yeah. To name but one such propagandist, one need look no further than the flatulent columns of faux-economist, Paul Krugman in the NYT.

  47. 47.

    Captain Goto

    @Pancake:

    Ah, a substance-free smear from an idiot asshole troll…

    Up next: water is wet, sky is blue, things don’t fall up. Film at 11!

  48. 48.

    Pancake

    Captain Goto tries to make a funny and messes his pants instead. Better go get changed before your mother finds you hanging out in the basement again with those strange life-size plastic dolls.

  50. 50.

    Pococurante

    @kth:

    “Bibi’s right hand” actually undercounts how rotten Jennifer Rubin is. To say that she is Israel-first doesn’t account for how invariably right-wing she is on non-Israeli affairs.

    Agreed. She’s part of the noise machine and only the right-wing choir hears her.

    However, she is right when she observes:

    After all Hamas has not yet agreed to the Quartet principles (recognize Israel, renounce terrorism and abide by past agreements), nor has Mahmoud Abbas separated himself from the unity government. To the contrary now he is renouncing past agreements including the Oslo Accords, which call for mutually negotiated final borders and prohibit the parties from taking unilateral steps that would impair negotiations.

    That there won’t be a sustainable Arab Palestinian state is due to the intransigence of both sides.

  51. 51.

    kindness

    @Pococurante: Really? I mean, I get that the Palestinians have never missed an opportunity to shoot themselves in both feet but you are suggesting BOTH sides are responsible.

    Responsibility implies the power to effect outcomes. The power to change a dynamic or situation. I sincerely don’t believe the Palestinians hold ANY power with respect to how Israel treats the residents of the West Bank. Israel certainly has never given the residents of the West Bank (or Gaza) any reason to act as if they are on equal footing with the people and government of Israel. No, contrarily Israel never misses an opportunity to show Palestinians how powerless they are and Bibi in particular seems to glory that dynamic.

    The power to create peace needs to be driven by the party that holds the power. While I would prefer Palestinians were more like Martin Luther King Jr., it is the Israeli’s who are going to have to be willing to give up power to the Palestinians for a working peace to occur. I don’t see that coming from the Israeli right at all….ever if they had their way.

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