Glenn, you've created a false binary between "even handedness" and "support for Israel's right to exist."

Obviously halfway between "The right to exist" and the "right not to exist" is not "the right to exist" so evenhandedness between the two philosophies is not possible. Just as with Joe Lieberman's nonsense, there is no center -- it is a phantom.

Evenhandedness can mean the two-state solution, which is what Dean meant and what even the moronic Bush understands is the only possible way to go. It's also what most Americans, and most people in the world support.

This is what is meant by "even handedness." Not a philosophical middle point, but a territorial one.

Philosophically, most Americans would not be "even handed" between Israel and Palestine. Israel is democratically structured and allows other religions freedom of expression.

The real issue here has nothing to do with Israel, and everything to do with how our pundit class demonizes and undermines democratic candidates, who are always accused of suspicion of words.

What was done to Howard Dean had nothing to do with Israel specifically and everything to do with the larger program to discredit and cast suspicion on democratic party member's motives (just as with Obama on "fine tuning" his Iraq policy).

The national media works from the following premise -- what democrats say covers up what they really think, which is inherently suspicious, anti-American and communist. What republicans say doesn't matter, because we already know they're patriotic, American and heroic.

It's not loyalty to Israel that's being coded into the debate, it's disloyalty to America (Dean really loves the arab moooslems!! He betrayed himself with a Freudian slip!!). They use Israel as a substitute "America," but only because it's convenient to question democrat's loyalty and patriotism.

You vastly overestimate the actual role of Israel in the neo-con semantics and semiotics manipulation via the mainstream news sources. Israel/Palestine is a coded substitute for America/other. It has nothing to do with actual Israeli policies, and everything to do with casting doubt on democrats. Same thing with Obama's birth certificate, his comments on "typical white women," etc.

Glenn writes:

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Did you read the articles on Dean's comments to which I linked. He was demonized first and foremost by other Democrats -- not just Joe Lieberman, but John Kerry, Nancy Pelsoi and numerous other House Democrats.

Was it their goal to "discredit and cast suspicion on democratic party member's motives" as well?

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Of course not, but you're failing to differentiate between the media storm and the fallout.

The initial media storm is nearly always caused by the confluence between right wing pundits, far right media (the Murdoch/Scaife enterprises) and then mainstream media (which love the game of decoding democratic party members words for "suspicious subtext").

The democratic fallout from the media storm is "Phase 2," when the rest of the democrats weakly scramble for cover, rather than defending Dean's comments.

I'm not defending the spineless of the democratic response that you correctly criticize. I'm merely pointing out that the fire-storm pattern has nothing to do with actual Israeli policy, and everything to do with the notion embedded in our news structures that democrats "code" their words to mean anti-American or America hating dog-whistle statements.

That's what the republicans/media pinned on Dean, using "Israel" as a proxy for "America." This has nothing to do with a two-state solution nor actual Israeli policies (in which most dems and reps are pretty much on the same page on).

This is why when you answer smears and distortions done by the media about Israel with facts about Israel, or public polls about Israel, you're responding literally to something they mean figuratively.

The wingnuts and mainstream media were never talking about Israel to begin with.

The slippages of language is how they fight their smears. They are playing in the liminal land of subtext and smear through inchoate causality and non-linguistic otherness-by-association. Arguing what people think about the actual nation of Israel, the actual place, is irrevelant to the larger operation. What was done to Dean was the same thing McCarthy did to the Hollywood 10. The response to this morons isn't with facts, it's with outrage. The only way to bring down McCarthy is to stop discussing whether or not communists really were in the army, but to start discussing what a reprehensible, discredited liar Joe McCarthy himself was. To turn the mirror/gaze back on the frauds who shout loudly enough to hope you don't look too long at them in the first place. This is why what you do is so important, Glenn, but in this case you're again arguing facts. It was never about Israel. We keep bringing knives (facts) to gunfights (personality smears).