The brouhaha is entirely invented, by the right wing loonies who are looking (as they have been for months) for excuses and justifications for their Obama hatred.

What Obama said isn't contradictory in the least.  His "clarification" yesterday is simply that any final status -- whether it be for Jerusalem or anything else -- is to be negotiated between the parties.  This is obvious.  Don't the right wingers always say they don't want America pressuring Israel, they don't want the administration to "save Israel from itself"?  Well this is exactly the same.  Jerusalem's status will not be decided by America, but by the parties involved.  That's all he was saying.

Thank you for the eloquent post., Mr. Peretz. Barack Obama did not contradict himself. If he is elected, he surely will disappoint the likes of Eric Alterman and Ezra Klein with his Middle Eastern policy. But I predict that he will likely discomfit you, as well. The Republican right (I guess that is pretty much a pleonasm these days) is trying to drive a wedge between Israel and Obama. Time will vouchsafe to us how well this strategy will work.

The first point is that Obama is clueless.  If  any final status -- whether it be for Jerusalem or anything else -- is to be negotiated between the parties why does he need to propose a solution?

The second point is that Obama is clueless and must never be allow to negotiate buying a car,  leave alone flying in his first year in the office all over the word and negotiate with American enemies.

The third point is that Obama must not be a president because his followers will always explain away his stupid mistakes.

Marthy,

", among them those embattled leftists (many Jewish) who want him to appear as anti-Israel as they are" They are not anti-Israel.  American Democrats including Obama and Clinton  who were against the surge were not anti-American. They were just foolish and wrong.

Obama agrees with those embattled leftists  about all issues but Israel. I wonder, why?

Last time around, there were rumors that Kerry was not a friend of Israel. He said the right words, and Jews pulled the lever for him.

This time around the stakes are too high. Kassams are flying over Sderot, Ahmedinejad is talking genocidal annihilation and the world stands by with its finger up its nose. Obama has said the right words, but many Jews will not be so easily lulled. He will need to explain away the anti-Zionists in the company he keeps (Khalidi, Wright, Said, McPeak, Powers), his eagerness to pow-wow with the Jew-hating president of Iran, and the policy contradictions he makes, such as this lastest flip-flop on the status of Jerusalem.

dkrieger: Obama is black, had ties to that church, and there's nothing that freaks out older Jews like a Farrakhan association, no matter how silly or tenuous.  I love Barack, but unfortunately, he's got a hard row to hoe with these my palm Palm Beach brethren.

mollysimon  ,

Who is a fool, you or your palm Palm Beach brethren?

dkrieger,

Edward Said, though living large still at the Spine, is, in the real world, dead. Unless Barack is communicating to the other side, something that will put him in solid with Houdini and Conan Doyle,

thejauntyboulevardier said:  "Edward Said, though living large still at the Spine, is, in the real world, dead."

Said's influence is still in evidence in academia and among leftists.

In fact the recent heated discussions here about the Columbia Professor, Nadia Abu El-Haj, who was up for tenure was also a discussion about Said's influence on her work which was considerable.

In this sense Said is still very much alive.

As noted in the main post, the first proposition was that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided." The next day Obama said “obviously, it’s going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues. And Jerusalem will be a part of these negotiations.” It seems to me a stretch, and at a minimum speculation, to rationalize these two statements by saying the content of first proposition is what is to be negotiated as per the next day’s statement. America has no set policy on Jerusalem other than that the two parties work it out between themselves. American policy considers the status of Jerusalem as a highly sensitive issue.  American diplomats avoid it while trying to get the two parties to talk. It is much more arguable that the second statement contradicted the first: Obama wanting to out McCain McCain at AIPAC went beyond American policy in his first statement and then back pedaled in his second after arousing ire in Palestinian quarters and elsewhere. At a minimum, it was politically inept to leave the (at least apparent) discordance between the two statements hanging out there. One thing interesting to me here is Peretz’s twisting and turning to keep Obama within the boundary of his support: he sounds like a lawyer unconvincingly trying to distinguish a case that sets a bad precedent for him.

Quite right, jacksondyer. Edward Said lives through his writings. Orientalism is still an oft cited work. My gosh, Aristotle is dead as well and he continues to exert influence, though in a more positive manner than the late Professor Said.

jack,

thanks for that clarification. I guess I can now say that I "keep company" with a whole bunch of interesting dead but living people: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Tolstoy, but if I ever run for office, I best keep my relationship with PG Wodehouse from the press...krieger might say that I fraternize with suspected Nazi sympathizers and "in a sense"' he may make it stick...

Yeah, I know Said is dead.  But as several  posters note, his memory lives on larger than life. Obama's  friendship with the late Arab-American intellectual who, more than any other, made anti-Zionism fashionable  in the West, requires explaining.

"Obama's  friendship with the late Arab-American intellectual who, more than any other, made anti-Zionism fashionable  in the West, requires explaining."

No, it does not require explanation. He also has among his friends Lee Rosenberg, the Chicago board member of AIPAC. Just because he is friends with Edward Said or Lee Rosenberg does not mean he shares the views of either of them. Judge him on what he's said and done. Point me to anything that would lead you to believe he was under Said's spell. Don't just guilt him by association.

Other than historical is there really a morally justifiable right of Israel to Jerusalem in it's entirety.

I do recognize the right of Israel to exist and I even understand, considering the specific circumstances, some of Israel's very criticized positions.

But I don't understand this absolute unwillingness to negotiate on Jerusalem, considering for instance what happens in East Jerusalem. If Israel gave away some of it's rigidity here, it's existence wouldn't be threatened, the Jewish people still had a homeland, etc.

So is this position acceptable?

"Judge him on what he's said and done."

There's precious little in the "done" department, and the "said" department is, er, debatable (as  this thread indicates).

"Point me to anything that would lead you to believe he was under Said's spell. Don't just guilt him by association."

This has been documented  fairly extensively.  Chicago-based activist Ali Abunimah  claims he  met Obama half a dozen times at various Palestinian and Arab-American events, including a May 1998 fundraiser for  the Arab American Action Network, at which the late Edward Said was the keynote speaker. Photos from the event show Said and Obama seated at the same table, engrossed in conversation.

And I'm sorry, but I and every other American voter has a perfect right to "guilt  him by association." This isn't a jury trial, with strict evidentiary rules. This is a campaign for the leadership of the free world,  and the burden of proof is on Obama, not ordinary voters. If we have reasonable doubts about beliefs, we may convict.

dkrieger,

So what exactly do you want from Obama? You say he needs to "explain" his associations with an array of people, but is there any explanation that would satisfy you?  He has said on numerous occasions that he doesn't share the beliefs of everyone he associates with, and he's explicitly stated a different view of Israel than that of the people you mentioned.  Yet you say his words are suspect, and therefore preemptively reject any explanation he might give.  So what *would* convince you of his sincerity?

Barak Obama is a contradiction.  His campaign is a celebration of Barak Obama and doesn't really have room for anyone else in it.  He talks about himself mostly and his extreme statements have a celebratory quality.  He announces to AIPAC that they can trust he isnt a Moslem because his father left when he was two, so they can assume he has hard feelings about this abandonment.  He supports this with the next statement that a camp counselor gave him a place he could identify with because he had a feeling of rootlessness like the Jews.  He says he owes the Jews alot for being where he is.  Its al about him.  But is a personal history and explanation of negative feelings amount to suppoirt for something else?  Israel in this case.  Not at all .  It only indicates a very confused and unstable person who has no real beliefs except that he deserves something.  Will his election be a catharsis that will get him beyond his childhood and feels of unease.  Only if we belief the world revolves around Barak Obama like he appears to do.

There are no reasons to vote for Barak Obama.  He is a dange to everyone unles he is the Messiah having arrived and I seriously doubt this, though he has disciples around him who may have anointed him so.  On the one hand Obama seeks us to belive that his 20 years with radicals and his Syrian friend in Chicago mean nothing but a camp counselr when he was eleven had a life changing influence  He is a pathological liar and anyone who believes him is suicidal.

dkrieger,

Of course you have every right to judge Obama based on his "associations."  

And others have every right to point out the flimsiness of the approach and the selective way that only certain "associations," are highlighted.  It seems that no matter how tenuous those associations were, they are portrayed the ones that are the most formative and influential.   And of course, we have the right  to point out  the disconnect between Obama's record (and yes, he does have a record) and the anti-Israel views that political opponents hope to attribute to him.  

It is the same game that was attempted with Kerry, Gore and Bill Clinton. How soon we forget that Bill Clinton, even as he was embraced by AIPAC, was derided by the Pro-Israel Right for his pro-Palestinian rhetoric and ultimately, for his "appeasement" of Arafat.

If you support a two-state solution or acknowledge the suffering of Palestinians, then clearly you are anti-Israel - that's how the tactic goes.  But it's a loser of a tactic as this is the majority view among Americans and Israelis alike.  The new tactic?  Let's instead move on to "associations" and see how many Palestinian sympathizers  and angry brown skinned folks  (let's face it) we can dig up and portray as whispering into the ear of the hope-filled Junior Senator.  

Citizenhost proves with his comment that identification with Obama is by those who feel abused in the idealism they hold onto while under constant attack, misunderstanding and hypocrisy.  This is the danger of fanatics who feel oppresed and misunderstood.  This turns a political movement into one of sour grapes and feelings of alienation becoming a form of revenge against some inhuman and alien force.  This is the danger of Obama and the people he attracts.

Reason of a doubt is the standard that justice in our legal system is based on and should be the minimum basis of choosing a President.  Will the real Barak Obama please stand up or is there one at all?  I think Obama has a need to be accepted and will say whatever he expects his audience wants to hear to acheive it but the real Obama is a collection of negative feelings, a sense of injustice and bitterness all rolled up into one.  When someone appears too good to be true, he ususually is.

The only injustice against the Palestinians is their injustice in refusing to give up their dream of destroying Israel.  Screwing Israel shouldnt be the cause of anyone  in choosing a presidential candidate and then trying to convince others to do the same thing.

There was a time when Americans were problem solvers instead of "true believers."  Now America is in a critical crisis over energy and the perfect storm of a weak dolar driving up energy prices.  The country is stuck in its ideological obsessions so one side talks about global warming and the other on increasing production of energy domestically.  Both sides ideologues who are wasting time.  This economic crisis is the equivalent of a war because the billions pouring into enemy states that support terrorism.  An emergency program of forcing Americans to drive motorcycles and scooters to work, for those who can, with government help, would have the immediate effect of driving down oil prices to a sustainalbe level.  Real, practical solutions are desperately needed instead ot the ideological arguments that only increase hate, distrust and misery to one and all.

Jerusalem Flap-Schmap. The bigger picture is that Obama was the last best hope of ending American-created mayhem in the Middle East and the only reason that I, a fiscal conservative was supporting him. Now he's shown himself to be just another AIPAC shill. Will he be less likely to do to Iran what the U.S. has done to Iraq-under similiarly baseless pretexts of non existent WMDs, which is to kill tens of thousands of civilians(and thousands more GIs) by starting or facilitating a war with Iran? This will also have the effect of sending oil to $300, destroying the American economy, having more paraplegics at Walter Reed, and making us even more villified in the world. Bush in Israel calls Iran "the world's leading sponsor of terror" and who is he-Ghandi?! Now Obama says I will do "everything in my power....everything.....everything"(to prevent an Iran nuke). Why? Iran isn't suicidal and Israel can take care of itself.

thejauntyboulevardier said:

“jack, thanks for that clarification. I guess I can now say that I "keep company" with a whole bunch of interesting dead but living people: Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Tolstoy, but if I ever run for office, I best keep my relationship with PG Wodehouse from the press...krieger might say that I fraternize with suspected Nazi sympathizers and "in a sense"' he may make it stick.”

You are (deliberately?) confusing fiction with non fiction. Yes, we all commune with the dead when we read their work, however, in political works you are also asked to follow   (or consider following) a certain course, either mentally or actually, of action.  

Reading Wodehouse, if he is to your taste is fine, but it’s not the same as reading Mein Kampf uncritically.

In any case, to many people for good or ill Edward Said is not “dead” and they still insist on thinking about the world in his terms. I don’t think that Obama is one of those people and as I keep saying his views about Israel are not a reason not to vote for him. There are other more compelling ones right now but I could see myself voting for him in four or eight years from now if he proves himself as a Senator or in some other capacity.

Its a shame that one of the few people to hit a dry hole in Texas and drive an oil company to bankruptcy was elected two terms as President and is driving the United States in bankruptsy for the same reason.  How could Bush ever have become President, such an idiot?

luis

I think your post is fair in raising fair questions.

But on a samller point in defending Obama did you read Peretz to be "spinning" and Obama as contradicting himself in his two consecutive statements?

I'm curious if others think that Peretz is spinning Obama's comments in his post or whether Obama contradicted himself in his to me float like a butterfly political way.

I think Obama is someone whose ego runs rampant and is someone who follows his own rhetoric.  He is so full of himself that he believes whatever he says is true but not necessarily a policy to follow because his goal is promoting himself.  He is the anti-Bush, equal but opposite, exactly what America doesn't need after 8 years of pure stupidity.  America doesnt need another post-modern poster child, discovering himself, in the playground known as Washington, given a job that is a form of entertainment and personal discovery and fulfillment.

Yes Basman. Obama contradicted himself. And Peretz is just too much in love with his golden boy to see anything.

Anyway, these incidents only confirm what I always suspected. Obama has no substance whatsoever. And if has any, he hasn't showned it yet.

ponty, might I suggest valium. assertion is not argument, venting is not rhetorical brilliance. Really, who are you and what things have you done, your jealousy of Obama practically screams off the page.

luis, no substance whatsoever? good lord, people don't get to such a level having no substance. Some hyperbole is just too weak around here.

As bad as I have thought Bush has been, I have at least the decency to praise him when he has done well, as he has belatedly done in North Korea. Spare us from pontifications from ponty please. The poster is a veritable schleprock of gloom.

I agree Obama overstepped himself with saying Jerusalem should be undivided, it wasn't his call to say it but it is understandable in his desire to show how much he supports Israel he could make that slip. Big deal, Marty is basically right in his posting.

basman,

My understanding of what Obama meant is that a) Jerusalem should remain an undivided city and b) it's ultimately up to the Israelis.  To use an admittedly imperfect analogy, it's sort of like saying "I support Barack Obama for President, but it's ultimately up to the voters."  That was my interpretation anyway.  I think that the alternative interpretation of the original statement (i.e. that Obama was saying he would oppose any division, even if it was reached as part of an agreement that was acceptable to the Israelis) seems a bit far-fetched.

jack,

Of course Said's ideas still live but the man is dead and thus, not available to "keep company" with Obama,  in the corporeal sense that is, and to insinuate that this is happening is just plain wrong and krieger should be honest enough to admit that...

...good lord, people don't get to such a level having no substance...

Blackton I agree with this and think it  must apply to W. as well for it to be a valid proposition.

Whether his overstepping himself in his comment is a big deal remains, I suggest, to be seen. I say this admiringly: he is one of the greatest political pivoters ever. The danger is that he will  be characterized as elusive and slippery while sounding aspirational. That certainly is the Republican attack. If you check out the righter wing blogs you can see the concretization of the coming attack. It's gonna' be interesting and as your friends the Chinese say in one of their (apocraphyl?) curses: "May you live in interesting times".

Alansp:  I take a different viiew of his comments. Day one: "Jerusalem will be the capital and will be undivided. That is my committment." Day 2: Whether Jersualem will be undivided or divided, whether it will also be a Palestinian capital is a matter of negotiation between the parties in the final phase of that." Those are different coloured horses.

You would think that it would be a default truth that whoever sleepavl loathed would be loved by the Marxist, luispc. But no. He sounds like sleepy.

Critical times are dangerous times and demand serious and thoughtful approaches to weather the storm.  Does Obama seem like someone who can cope with a crisis?  He is way too full of himself and his place in history to lead, he has no policies only opinions and viewpoints.  He hasnt the maturity of time to have thought out how to implement policies.  One doesnt vote for change, one votes for someone who knows what the hell hes doing and Obama is a radical and not a leader.

As probably the only Israeli (at least currently resident Israeli) in the herd, I have learned to become skeptical and wary of seemingly pro-Israel statements made by ANY (vice) presidential candidate before an AIPAC forum in the run up to the election.  And that includes promises of moving the US embassy to Jerusalem (and that is western Jerusalem), which has to be the most universally made and universally broken political promise on record.

A far better metric (IMHO) is who a candidate hung out with and with whose ideas he or she seemingly identifies with before he or she became a candidate.  As such, I am most leery about Obama, and that is compounded by his choice of Danny Kurtzer as his main middle east advisor, assisted and endorsed by a coterie of foreign policy "experts", whose collective and individual judgment on the Israeli-Arab conflict has proven to be wanting.

Obama, Kurtzer & Co. may star in the wet dreams of old Oslo Accordians like Yossi Beilin and the J Street Jesters, but they worry most main stream Israelis (for a good discussion of this, see here: www.jpost.com/.../Satellite

Another point.

Since Bush made his no-names named comparison between 1930's Europe and the West's present policy toward Iran & its nuclear ambitions, it has become un-de rigueur to make such comparisons.  However, since I publicly made such comparisons in this august forum I claim to be grandfathered in.  Therefore, at the risk of being pummeled with assorted rotten vegetables, I would like to call attention to a well stated exposition of why many of us  (notably those of us here in Mad Mahmod & the Ayatollah's bull's eye; and I might add from across the Israeli political spectrum) beg to differ with the conventional progressobabbelian wisdom.  You will note that the names Obama, McCain, etc. do not appear in this piece.

The URL please (drum roll): online.wsj.com/.../SB121279291616353311.html

Hershel Ginsburg

Jerusalem / Efrata

P.S.  חג שמח  to those for whom it is relevant.

Thanks for your fine post, ginzy. Your dispatches are always well-reasoned and eloquent. I too have grave misgivings about Barack Obama. You are right about advisors being a better metric than throwaway statements.

good post ginzy as well, I am more confident in McCain on Israel than Obama as well. I am, however, a little more sanguine about Iran than you, of course it is far easier for me to be so. The messianic mass movement in Iran is fast approaching 30 years old and the only thing that keeps it alive is oil. I simply don't believe the movement there can long survive its demographic dangers. I foresee a Chinese type revamping of the economy. As to the rhetoric, the Chinese themselves get all lathered up about Taiwan but never actually do anything really concrete about it. I hope and pray it will be the same with Iran.

Blackton: Nice post. The Chinese are definitely more pragmatic than the Iranians, though the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini seems to be somewhat less messianic than that daffy duck of a president, Achmenijad. I long to see a modernist revolution in Iran but I don't know if I shall live to see it.

There may be no good reasons to vote for Obama.  There are many good reasons not to vote for Mc Cain.  An angry old man who is trying to get even for the Vietnam war is very dangerous in this very unstable world which has been badly shaken by Bush and his people.  If it is not possible to impeach Bush for the Iraq war, then, at least, the republican party has to suffer a huge defeat in 2008.  We should allow the Iraqis to run their own country and to work their way out of the mess we have made.  If they sue the US in the world court for assult and battery, it would be poetic justice.

exheadone:  That is the problem with liberals like yourself who think mistakes must be corrected by punishing ourselves.  They think we have to show that we were wrong by prostrating ourselves.  Iraq was wrong because Iran was always a bigger danger, but trying to bring democracy to the middle east is not a bad or exploitative idea.  It is ahead of its time with the arab masses who have no conception of democracy or the stages and struggles that inevitably lead to it.  But there is no other way to organize a government.  Bush has put our soldiers in harms way to be attaked by Iran in a political struggle.  But maybe having troops on the border of a country seeking nuclear wars and domination of the area, as well as having a Messianic deathwish, is not such a bad place to be.  Maybe war is inevitable sometimes.  History doesnt treat war as an anomilie, more a rule than an exception to one.  The rise of oil prices by OPEC is a declaration of war against the west.  It is a form of reverse colonialism and cant be tolerated.  But just like globelization turned out to be a disaster reinforcing the worst nationalist qualities of slave-labor countries like China, America was insane to believe oil was infinite and driving SUV gas guzzlers for prestige and esteem was pure insanity.  The worst sin Bush committed was to think government was bad and a privatized army could win a war and be even profitable.  The retreat from government and all the progress of the country economically since WWII has been an issue of America not being American enough, that anyone but the Protestant elite were untrustworthy and suspect and only by concentrating power into their hands was essential, which has turned America into an economic basketcase.  One cannot run a country and not believe in its people, instead creating an artificial economy based on slave labor and concentration of wealth and power into the hands of the few.  America is paying the price for its self-doubt and the rise to power of countries with worse social problems than America had.  Obama will not be a solution though and cannot solve Americas problems of identity and independence.  He has his own list of priorities and correcting the problmes of the Bush administration and all the economic voodoo economics since Reagan demands not losing faith in America or seeking revenge but broadening the economy for the middle class and McCain knows its now or never and he may just be the right man to save America from its folly, greed and negligence.  He is a great American patriot and the right man for the job because he never fell for the voodoo medicine that has poisoned Americas economy and brought the torpor of stupidity since Reagan turned America into a Hollywood version of reality.  McCain knows reality, has lived it and never turned away from it.

The Eastwood Spike Lee controversy is relevant.  Wars are times where the populace adjusts itself socially.  Vietnam eased the social transition to civil rights and social progress, paid for by the sacrifice of Black drafted soldiers.  Spike Lee is trying to push bakc the social movement further back to include WWII where blacks participated but in a limited and discriminatory role.  McCain is a veteran of this by being a front line player in this drama and is a veteran of these times, though he opposed the MLK birthday memorial, which he has apologized over since then.  Barak Obama is not a veteran of the civil rights movement or been part of the era of struggle and war that ushered in the social progress made.  He is a receipient of the benefits of these times, but he isnt made of the same material, he is a product of our post-modernist times which is an artificial creation based on capitalist utopianism.  These artificial times have produced people without a clear outlook, outside of time and hsitorical progress and change, covering up grave inadequacies and confusion, but based on the me generation of seeking social power and attention and little else.  Post-modernism has created an era of social irresponsibility and historical amnesia leading to the Obama delusion.

The Eastwood Spike Lee controversy is relevant? Relevant to whom? Who the frig cares about a piss match between two Hollywood directors? And the notion that it is illustrative of some kind of societal problem is laughable to the extreme. Spike Lee is and has always been a bit of a nutter, but so have many Hollywood directors.

"He is a product of our post-modernist times which is an artificial creation based on capitalist utopianism."

I must say this is brilliant gobbledygook. The words are all English but the meaning is beyond vapid. Congratulations Ponty, you have created a sentence so bad it is beyond my ability to express it in a single word, it takes me two. Maybe I will make up my own word: Bevapid.

Obama, Edward Said, Abu Mazen are equally afraid to openly state to the Palestinian nation to digest the past, and live a new future.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

They do not want to live the Syrian nightmare under Assads, or the Saud nightmares under the House of Saud.

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Iran's mullahs are also a bad alternative.

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A decent rehabilitation of the Palestinians can lead to a federation with Israel, but the Ali Abunimah, Mazen Qumsiyah, Haniyah etc bunch must concentrate on an enlightened rehabilitation, and we need an apology for the hostile activities, financed and instigated by the Nazis, Soviets, Iranians...carried our by some misguided Palestinians,,,

Blackie,

You beat me to it. Never take anyone seriously who, on a blog, raises the "postmodernist" strawman. What a load of airy crap. Don't get me wrong: postmodernism is a valid social theory but all too often, it is used by right wingers to add a desparately needed intellectual patina to their basically anti liberal bias. Bah...

Blackton: Hear hear. Ponty isn't luispc under a different moniker, is he?

I'm being stalked by an obsessive-compulsive nerd! Get over me, LR!

On Ponty's post, and disregarding the deficiencies of the form (and Blackton has a point), the substance is quite interesting.

I say it is time all good folks stopped all personal recriminations.

I am trying to do as a reformed recriminator of recent vintage.

Life is too short and we get further ahead by sticking to the merits of things.

Marty, your blog sure does draw flies.

Amen Basman. Seriously.

luis:

Deal!

why must certain individuals always ruin a potentially interesting thread with their vapid demagoguing?!

GSpinks, right. I agree with basmans and luispc's reservations regarding Obama and Israel. I tend to trust McCain far more internationally than Obama (but recognize the election of Obama would be a propoganda coup for the US) but think the Obama is better suited domestically. This will be the strangest election for me. The only thing that would have topped it would have been McCain-Gore in 2000.

Blackton: My sentiments very closely parallel yours.

Anyone notice that ever since Hillary dropped out of the race, Marty doesn't write so much?  Five days and counting since the last post...

You don't know what love is

Until you've learned the meaning of the blues

lymon1,,,

not to worry...Jimmy Carter is still breathing and as long as the peanut farmer walks this earth, marty will always find some time to vent his rancid spleen...

Carter is an anti-Semitic nutter who loves dictators. I still remember Jimmy Carter hugging and kissing Ceausescu, a monster who was the Communist dictator of Romania. Since then, Carter has continued by endorsing Arafat, making a deal with Nothj Korea that North Koreas shat upon and got a nuclear bomb, labeling Israel an partheid country and cozying to Hamas, a genocidal Islamic organization if there ever was one.

Get real jaunty. Just because Marty hates Carter doesn't mean hes' wrong. I  consider Peretz a jerk, but he is absolutely right on Mr. Jimmy  Carter. If anything, he's too mild - I still remember Carter and Ceausescu.