For months it appeared the GOP's strategy to take Florida was to rile up hatred against President Obama from the mostly Democratic-leaning Jewish population and swing that state to Romney. Fox News has spent hours every day claiming Obama hates Israel and trumpeting Netanyahu's claims that Iran is minutes away from going nuclear and that Obama has weakened America overseas. It's another race-baiting move following in the footsteps of the Southern strategy that conservatives employ against African Americans in the South. Crazy Ralph Peters characterized their coverage best when he said this:
Peters: Obama’s dislike for Israel is just visceral.
Netanyahu's profile has been elevated for this election cycle by Republicans who now regard every word he says as sacrosanct. Well, he just knocked their talking points all to hell in his speech to the UN's General Assembly.
In his speech at the annual General Assembly, Mr. Netanyahu dramatically illustrated his intention to shut down Iran’s nuclear programby drawing a red line through a cartoonish diagram of a bomb. But the substance of his speech suggested a softening of what had been a difficult dispute with the Obama administration on how to confront Iran over its nuclear program.
Only two weeks after that dispute broke into the open, Mr. Netanyahu on Thursday praised the warning Mr. Obama gave Iran in his own General Assembly speech on Tuesday.“I very much appreciate the president’s position, as does everyone in my country,” he said. The Israeli leader’s speech also suggested that his deadline for a military strike was well past the American presidential election and into 2013 — perhaps as late as next summer.
His diagram is weird, for sure. Bibi is playing politics too, as he now feels that Obama is going to win. I hope this will put to rest Fox News' and the GOP's disgusting behavior in this matter. Many of us are sick and tired of these tactics. The latest polls are showing that Obama is widening his lead in Florida no matter what Karl Rove or the toe-sucking Dick Morris say.
As to what accounts for Netanyahu having toned down his camp’s recent rhetoric about the urgency of the Iran threat, analysts cited several factors. Key among them, the Israelis reading US polls showing the growing likelihood that Obama will be re-elected to a second term as US president.“All of the above, plus, the Israelis realize that fighting with the Americans is only to the Iranians’ benefit,” Clawson said. “That’s a big part of the dynamic.”Netanyahu’s UN speech “took the Obama dimension out of it,” David Makovsky, an Israel analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Al-Monitor in an interview Thursday.
“He put the focus where it should be: on Iran’s program and not on President Obama…He was able to sharpen the focus on the red line without sharpening focus on the United States.”Netanyahu “said for the first time…that they are now in talks with the United States on this issue, which was accurate,” said Makovsky, who recently co-wrote, with Clawson, a paper on bridging the US-Israeli gap to prevent Iran nuclear breakout.Regarding Netanyahu’s cartoon-ish bomb diagram, “his point is, once you get a full bomb’s worth of 20% enriched uranium, then it is an easy dash to weapons grade,” Makovsky said.But Avner Cohen, an expert on the Israeli nuclear program, told Al-Monitor that Netanyahu “undermined his own argument” about the urgency of the Iranian threat by drawing a red line so close to 90 percent enriched uranium.“Right now, the Iranians have no interest to cross beyond 20 percent,” Cohen said. “So why did he give them leeway to go almost all the way to 90 percent? It’s logically very strange.”
I don't like to write much about Bib because it can get so heated in the comments and Israel can say what they want, as can Iran, but this campaign season the GOP has really got my goat. They've acted so disgracefully. They should give up trying to flame out the country over this issue when America has so many economic problems that have to be dealt with. It's another desperation move that has backfired for Mitt Romney and Co.
