How did I survive without my daily crack of stupid politician tricks:
Yesterday, GOP Rep. Joe Walsh raged at Jewish Americans for not being sufficiently pro-Israel. Many Jews simply refuse to buy conservative falsehoods about Obama’s stance on the 1967 lines, and the good Congressman finds this wholly unacceptable.
Today, Dave Weigel has published an interview with Walsh, in which he claims that Obama was only elected president because he is a “black man who was articulate”:
“Why was he elected? Again, it comes back to who he was. He was black, he was historic. And there’s nothing racist about this. It is what it is. If he had been a dynamic, white, state senator elected to Congress he wouldn’t have gotten in the game this fast. This is what made him different. That, combined with the fact that your profession” — another friendly tap of the bumper sticker —”not you, but your profession, was just absolutely compliant. They made up their minds early that they were in love with him. They were in love with him because they thought he was a good liberal guy and they were in love with him because he pushed that magical button: a black man who was articulate, liberal, the whole white guilt, all of that.”
Steve Benen had the quote of the day yesterday regarding the comments on American Jews
It pains me to say this, but Rep. Joe Walsh is not smart. After today’s column, that should be clear. His argument that President Obama wants a peace agreement based on the 1967 borders is demonstrably ridiculous — Obama, like Netanyahu and all modern U.S. presidents, sees the borders with land swaps as a starting point for negotiations — should leave no doubt where Walsh stands. The argument the congressman presents entirely indefensible. Walsh is not pro-reality.
We could, I suppose, explore whether Walsh is deliberately trying to deceive the public or simply doesn’t understand the subject matter he’s writing about, but either way, the column is idiocy.
It doesn’t pain me at all to say Joe Walsh is a moron. He is.
But the Illinois Republican really gets cooking when he goes after Jews who refuse to see the world as he does.
[W]here is the outrage from the American Jewish community? Don’t they understand that the president is not pro-Israel? … The short answer is that most American Jews are liberal, and most American liberals side with the Palestinians and vague notions of “peace” instead of with Israel’s wellbeing and security. Like the president, the U.N., and most of Europe, too many American Jews aren’t as pro-Israel as they should be and too many share his belief that the Palestinians are victims of Israeli occupation.
So, after getting President Obama’s policy position completely wrong, Walsh feels comfortable lecturing Jews about their need to support Israel the way he wants them to.
Walsh, of course, is Catholic.
What’s more, after 10 paragraphs, Walsh never quite gets around to explaining how his approach to foreign policy strengthens U.S. interests, improves Israeli interests, bolsters the peace process, or helps anyone in any way.
It’s almost a parody of what a right-wing reactionary foreign policy looks like, and serves as a reminder of why clowns like Joe Walsh are not to be taken seriously.
The only bad thing about Walsh is that he’ll be going away after 2012 and I’m pretty sure he has years of entertainment in him.