Obama, His Chief of Staff, and Palestine: The 2002 Interview

Juan Cole offers an incisive analysis of the appointment of Rahm Emanuel as Chief of Staff to Barack Obama. I share his view of Emanuel's family and political background:

Emanuel is not responsible for his father's activities or views. Rahm Emanuel was the one in the Clinton White House who arranged the logistics of the handshake between then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 1993. He supported the Oslo Peace Process and the Camp David negotiations, which the Israeli Right absolutely hated.

That said, I'm not as sanguine as Cole about Emanuel's views on the Middle East, as least as they emerge in the 2002 interview on MSNBC that Cole has reprinted. It's not just a case of Emanuel being firmly against any pronouncement of a Palestinian state before an "end to terrorism". Emanuel's closing line, in the context of the last seven years of US foreign policy, is disturbing:

People believe we're in a real battle here. That is defined in people's minds. And you'll see people either with us or against us.

More on the 2002 interview and Cole's analysis....

The Tinkling of Kristol: Turning an Election into Dogs (and Palin)

In a column which I have been eagerly anticipating since last Tuesday night, William Kristol picks over the debris of the election for the Republicans.

Mr Bill does not disappoint. Far from throwing in or crying into his towel, he explains that the returns didn't worry him at first --- they "had been bad but they weren't devastating". America, he assures us (or himself) is "still a center-right country".

But, he admits, that changed when Obama gave his victory speech.

Was this because Kristol suddenly realised the scale of the economic mismanagement that had cost the GOP victory? Did he finally see the light from Baghdad as well as Damascus and Tehran that using terrorism and 9-11 as an excuse to knock off enemy regimes isn't necessarily the wisest of foreign policies? Could Mr Bill be admitting that promoting an inexperienced and ill-qualified Governor for Vice President --- no matter how nice the halibut cheeks were on that Alaskan cruise he took --- was wrong, so very wrong?

No, Mr Bill's belated angst occurs because Obama mentioned the puppy that he was buying for his daughters to take to the White House: "He deepened his bond with every dog lover in America. He identified with every household that’s tried to figure out what kind of dog to get. He touched every parent with a kid allergic to pets. He showed compassion by preferring a dog from a shelter. And he demonstrated a dry and slightly politically incorrect wit by commenting that 'a lot of shelter dogs are mutts like me'.”

So, apparently, the issue is not that Republican Party is going to the dogs but it should go to the right dogs to win over those center-right Americans.

That's only Kristol's introduction, however. Who should be the 2012 Republican Party standard-bearer to take back the White House and Congress?

Kristol mentions Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and Lousiana Governor Bobby Jindal. However, who is his first candidate "to begin bringing some puppies home for [the] kids"?

"Sarah Palin".

You have to hand it to Mr Bill. He's not a patch on his father, Irving, for thought and analysis, but he has no equal in determination and chutzpah.

Why We Love Conservapedia: Melchester

We have always been fans of Conservapedia, created in 2006 as an alternative to the "liberal bias" of extremist sites like Wikipedia.  

Why? Possibly because in its service to "those seeking the truth", it is able to dismiss those truths that are inconvenient, stigmatise any views that are not suitably conservative, and never flag in its belief that any alternative to its definitions must be "corruption by liberal untruths".

In particular, however, we admired Conservapedia in its early days because it was possible to place quite creative entries. One of the best, perhaps second only to the exposition on the exploding koala. was the detailed description of Melchester, a flourishing town in central England.

We are honoured to reprint the entry. Readers who are unfamiliar with British culture can refer to “footnotes” (which, of course, were not part of the original) at the bottom of the item.

Melchester

Melchester[1] (population 185,000) is an industrial city in the east Midlands of England. It is noted for the manufacture of motor vehicles, bicycles and prophylactics. Natives of Melchester are known as Melcastrians. The city has a traditional rivalry with Yorkshire town Trumpton[2].

Topography

The city lies 15 miles to the north west of Leicester, 20 miles east of Derby and 10 miles south of Nottingham on the River Mel, an important tributary of the Trent.

History

A Roman encampment (Melcastrum) was established on the site in the first century AD. By the 11th century Melchester had become an important market town and the seat of the Prince-Bishops of Melchester. The 13th century Melchester Cathedral, built in the Gothic style, has the longest transept of any English church. The cathedral had many of its fine stained glass windows and statuary destroyed by the army of Oliver Cromwell during the English Civil War. The Cathedral Library holds the Codex Melcastrensis dating from the early twelfth century and one of the oldest collections of canon law extant in England if not the world.

Lord Melchett[3], principal advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, took his title from the town (though his principal residence was in Buckinghamshire).

During the Industrial Revolution the town's population grew rapidly as workers left the surrounding countryside to seek employment in the many factories and mills which had been established on the banks of the Mel. This development of its industrial base was aided by the canalisation of part of the River Mel in the 1780s (linking it to the central England canal system), and confirmed by the opening of a connection to the Midland Railway trunk line in 1843.

The city is now an important junction on the London to Scotland East coast line. It continues to be supported by numerous productive villages in the Mel Valley, including Melby and Melsea[4], both part of the burgeoning British music industry in the 1990s (the two became one[5] town in 1999), and the rapidly-expanding Melsmyth[6]. The area, with its substantial sheep-farming community, is also renowned for the plaintive bark of the Melland Collie[7] dog.

Melchester was granted city status in 1911 by King George V.[8]

As a result of its industrial importance Melchester was heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe during World War II. Miraculously, despite the heavy bombing and the destruction of many surrounding buildings, the Cathedral remained unscathed apart from some damage to the roof of the 14th century Chapter House. At the time many Melcastrians, including the Dean of the Cathedral, attributed this deliverance to the intervention of St Osric, the first Bishop of Melchester and patron saint of the city and diocese of Melchester.

Population and Politics

The populace is mainly indigenous English although there are significant Irish, Polish, Pakistani, Indian and Afro-Caribbean communities. The city has long been held up as a model of integration and multi-culturalism. Nick Griffin socialist Member of Parliament for Melchester North was awarded the freedom of the city in recognition of his tireless efforts in the cause of integration and racial equality[9].

The city returns three MPs to the British Parliament at Westminster - two Labour and one Liberal Democrat. The city council has currently an overall Labour majority.

Education

Melchester is home to a university (the University of Melchester) and a college of art and design (the Rolf Harris School of Art[10]). The Theological College[11] (established 1598) merged with the University in 1992 and is now part of its Faculty of Divinity.

Sport

The city is proud to be the base of Melchester Rovers FC who have won the European Cup four times - a record for any English club. The manager is former player Roy Race who has held the position for twenty five years - currently (2007) the longest serving manager in English football[12].

Every June the Melchester Guild Hall hosts the World Pocket billiards[13] Championship.

Famous Melcastrians  

Professor Stephen Hawking (mathematician and astrophysicist)
Tommy Cooper (comedian and conjurer)
Saint Osric the Noble (first Bishop of Melchester)
Roy Race (footballer)[14]
Alf Tupper (athlete)[15]
Reg Varney (actor and comedian)
Peter Glaze (actor)
Norah Batty (actress)[16]
Keith Harris and Orville (ventriloquist)
Bonnie Langford (dancer and actress)
Natasha Kaplinsky (TV presenter and journalist)
Sir Oswald Mosley (founder of the British Union of Fascists)
Bishop William Turnbull (founder of Glasgow University)
Sir Denis Thatcher (husband of Margaret Thatcher)
Sir John Betjeman (Poet Laureate)

Twin Towns

Horst Wessel[17], Germany
Rennes-le-Château[18], France
Fulchester[19], New Zealand
Czezny-Oks[20], Poland
San Ipad[21], Bolivia

Trivia

One night in 1965, after a concert at the city's Guild Hall, the singer songwriter and member of the Beatles John Lennon wrote the song Hey Jude in his suite at the Grand Hotel, Melchester. The Guild Hall was also the last venue at which Peter Glaze appeared (as 'Buttons' in Cinderella) before his death in 1983.

"Footnotes"

1. Melchester is a fictional town first featuring in Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy but also the name of a town in a boys' comic strip called Roy of the Rovers about a footballing hero who plays for Melchester Rovers


2. Trumpton is a fictional town featured in a claymation children's TV series


3. In the televison series Blackadder II set in Elizabethan England, Lord Melchett the Lord Chamberlain is Blackadder's arch rival


4. Mel B. and Mel C. - two of the Spice Girls


5. 2 Become 1 - Spice Girls hit from 1996


6. Mel Smith is a portly British comedian


7. Melland Collie - Pun on melancholy


8. If it had a cathedral, it would have been a city since medieval times


9. Nick Griffin is chairman of the British Nationalist Party a right-wing, anti-immigration party


10. Rolf Harris is a television personality known for his rapid paintings and humorous songs, often with Australian themes


11. In Thomas Hardy's Novel Jude the Obscure, Jude studies at Melchester Theological College


12. All references to the Roy of the Rovers comic strip and the fictional record of Melchester Rovers F.C. However, in reality Liverpool F.C actually has won the European Cup five times.


13. Pocket billiards is a euphemism for masturbation


14. The fictional eponymous hero of Roy of the Rovers


15. Another character from 1950s-1990s boys comics


16. A fictional wrinkle-stockinged housewife in TV sitcom Last Of The Summer Wine


17. Horst Wessel was a Nazi activist who wrote the Nazi Party anthem


18. A small village in southern France notable for its part in The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail books


19. Fulchester is a fictional town first used in the TV series Crown Court but later adopted by the adult-humour comic Viz as the place where many of its cartoon strips are situated.


20. Chesney Hawkes, English singer songwriter


21. Sanipad, sanitary hospital bed linen also shorthand for sanitary pads

(Thanks to The Information Warrior's Handbook)

The Inside Story of the Palin Nomination: Follow-up

Just before the election, Enduring America passed on some inside information about John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as his Vice-Presidential nominee. Apparently, it was a last-minute choice when McCain advisors blocked the selection of Joe Lieberman. The somewhat bizarre twist was that Palin came to attention in part because of Republican Party activists, notably those behind the aggressive foreign policy of the Bush years, who met her while on cruises in the Alaskan fjords.

Well, well: looks like we were on the mark. The investigative journalist Jane Mayer has now laid out more of the story on Democracy Now!.

There's an additional postscript that Mayer doesn't note. Apparently Randy Scheunemann, one of McCain's foreign policy advisors, was fired from the campaign. The allegation is that he was leaking information to Palin about some of the opposition to her amongst other McCain staffers.

Significance? Scheunemann is a long-time foreign policy pal of the activists --- loosely, sometimes inaccurate known as "neo-conservatives" --- who were gung-ho for the Iraq War. Indeed, Scheunemann was at the head of the Committee to Liberate Iraq, formed in 2002. Before that, he had been part of the Project for a New American Century, signing their letter on 20 September 2001 to President Bush calling for swift action against terrorism, including regime change in Iraq.

Scheunemann has thus been in the same circles and shared the same outlook as William Kristol. Far from coincidentially --- at least in my book --- it is Kristol who has been Palin's biggest public cheerleader via his columns at the New York Times. And it is Kristol who was the channel for Palin's charge that McCain wasn't being negative enough on Obama, for example, bringing out the Illinois Senator's connections with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

The Real Story Behind How McCain Chose Sarah Palin

Amy Goodman: No matter who wins the White House November 4th, a group of prominent conservatives are planning to meet the next day in Virginia to discuss the way forward for the movement. And regardless of the outcome, Governor Sarah Palin will be high on the agenda. The New York Times reports if John McCain loses the election, Palin could emerge as a standard bearer for the conservative movement and a potential presidential candidate in 2012, albeit one who will need to address her considerable political damage.

Most Americans had never heard of Sarah Palin when McCain first announced her as his running mate back in August. Her national debut came at the Republican Party's convention in St. Paul, where she sought to cast herself as an antidote to the elitist culture inside the Beltway.

Gov. Sarah Palin: I'm not a member of the permanent political establishment, and I've learned quickly these last few days that if you're not a member in good standing of the Washington elite, then some in the media consider a candidate unqualified for that reason alone.

AG: Governor Palin's sudden rise to prominence, however, owes more to members of the Washington elite than her rhetoric suggests. That's according to an article in The New Yorker magazine by investigative reporter Jane Mayer. It's called "The Insiders: How John McCain Came to Pick Sarah Palin." Jane Mayer now joins us in Washington, D.C.

Welcome to Democracy Now!, Jane.

Jane Mayer: Hi, thanks. Good to be with you.

AG: It's good to have you with us. Why don't you tell us the story of the cruises to Alaska?

JM: The cruises. Well, Juneau, Alaska turns out to be a major stop for cruise ships that come through Alaska, and there are political cruises, in particular, that are run by the conservative political magazines that stop there. And so, when Sarah Palin was elected governor, she learned that a number of those Washington insider elite members of the media would be trooping through Juneau. And despite the rhetoric that she's got that is about, you know, sort of deriding them and saying she doesn't, you know, seek their approval, in fact, she invited most of them to lunch and to other receptions that she threw. She even brought some up on a helicopter ride to go see a couple sites in Alaska.

So, she was courting some of those Washington insiders. In particular, they were the pundits that work for the Weekly Standard magazine, which is Rupert Murdoch's conservative political magazine, and the National Review, the old conservative magazine founded by William F. Buckley. So she made a great impression on some of these pundits when they came through. They enjoyed their lunches and receptions and went back and wrote fabulous stories about her, and this was one of the things that really got the ball rolling for her.

More on Democracy Now!

Russia to Obama: The Follow-Up

The Associated Press reports that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called Barack Obama on Saturday to offer his congratulations on the President-elect's victory. Apparently, Medvedev
"expressed [his] determination to create constructive and positive interaction for the good of global stability and development", as the US and Russia shared responsibility to address "serious problems of a global nature."

So, three days after laying down a challenge with the declaration that Russia would put missiles on its western borders if the US proceeded with missile defence bases in Poland, Medvedev extends an olive branch. Significance?

First of all, the AP's information came from the Kremlin. So the Russian President's call was part of a calculated public strategy. Having talked tough in the 24 hours after the election, Moscow now offers partnership. Not, however, from a position of weakness or following an American lead but from a stance of equality.

Second, not a word from the Obama camp. Nothing.

That's not surprising. After all, Obama doesn't take office for more than two months, so he's not supposed to be making US foreign policy. He has also shown the trait of playing it cool when under pressure, inside and outside the Presidential campaign.

That, however, leads us to third: there is no reference to the current US President in the story. The Bush Administration is now in the past as far as US-Russian relations are concerned. Sure, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov --- in Egypt, of all places --- for 80 minutes yesterday. As the short report --- so short that it only merited a place in "World in Brief" in the Washington Post --- noted, "Despite the length of the private meeting, there was no sign either side had budged on its position on the most contentious issues."

So, if you following the US-Russian dynamic, hold your breath. Hold it for a long time, because Washington is effectively stalled until January.