Apologies to all if this is unacceptably OT, but since RMP cited the subject article, I thought I may as well post a slightly revised comment I posted elsewhere earlier.

It flies in the face of Glenn's unwillingness to prognosticate Obama's actions before Obama takes office this month. And, as usual, it is caustically and exasperatedly devoid of optimism or other constructive redeeming virtues.

C'est moi!

But I enjoyed writing it, and it would be a shame to let it go to waste:

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Yes, Obama's "there's only one President at a time" rationale for not taking a stand on Israel's horrific and reprehensible destruction of the Palestinian people is a rather small and worm-eaten fig leaf.

Given this dubious formal silence, what else can one do but extrapolate from circumstantial evidence? As Thoreau famously noted, circumstantial evidence can be very strong indeed-- one may reasonably conclude that the milkman has been watering his product if one finds a trout in one's milk.

Obama's own statements and actions prior to his current discreet demurral reveal an egregious favorable bias vis-à-vis the State of Israel and its policies and practices toward the Palestinian people and land-- although such policies and practices are those of a terrorist rogue state.

It seems to me overly idealistic to urge that one keep "an open mind" and credit Obama with such keen intelligence and vision that he will reject the settled Amerikan government knee-jerk support for all things Israeli in favor of a (radically) new and improved enlightened policy condemning the State of Israel's brutally disproportionate destruction of Palestine's people and land, and withdrawing the traditional obscene Amerikan support for the State of Israel and its military.

(There seems to be an entrenched bipartisan consensus that how ever many other entitlements must be reduced or eliminated lest the Republic bankrupt itself, and damn the consequences, that Israel's perennial copious subsidy is a sacred cow. Or should that be a Golden Calf? As Glenn has asked, how comes it that the State of Israel is held as lovingly and tenderly to the bosom of the Amerikan government as if it were our own Wall Street?)

And, alas! I can't share the hopeful, but improbably farfetched, homage to Lincoln's "Team of Rivals" proposed by supporters. That Obama identifies strongly with Lincoln is no secret; in fact, I fear that such identification may well be a symptom of incipient megalomania or narcissism-- his campaign and zealous supporters have not been shy about promoting Obama as a unique Great Man poised to lead a long-overdue, bottom-up common effort to push Amerika out of the ditch of decadent and destructive politics, domestic and foreign. (And back to its rightful place at the head of the procession of nations, as Amerika's also-settled policy of exceptionalism mandates.)

So there are those who propose a "half-full" explanation for Obama's surrounding himself exclusively with socially conservative, neoliberal, exceptionalist, militaristic, Establishment reactionaries: Obama has brilliantly created a dialectic process whereby his reactionary cabinet will presumably serve as perpetual "devil's advocates", and a catalyst for novel policies and programs that will transcend and shatter the status quo of intractable partisan wrangling and make true enlightened, progressive reform possible. It sounds too clever by half. [Editor's note: this comment would do with half as many "half" references.]

This glass may be half-full, all right-- but of what? Whatever it is, the smell is making my eyes water.

I've been blogging on Daily Kos since 2003, have never voted for a republican in my life, and attended the first Yearly Kos event in Las Vegas in 2006. I am not a "troll." I'd wager a significant amount of the liberals in this country understand that Israel must protect itself from missiles and reprehensible terrorist organizations like Hamas.

On this board, you'd think Hamas didn't exist. Even Glenn acknowledges (at least superficially) that Hamas is a terrorist threat that operates at Al Qaeda level vileness.

The cartoon Israel=invader nonsense on this board is every bit as disgraceful and cartoonish as anything out of the mouths of the Neo-Conservatives. Reducing the accomplishments of Israel to simply that of 60 year "terrorists"? Comparing the country to the Nazis? Pathetic. It is a deep injustice to history, accuracy and accomplishes nothing.

The pretend love on this board directed at the Palestinians is nothing more than the excuse to hide the pathology. Jean-Paul Sartre has written on this. George Orwell. Hannah Arendt. For hundreds of years people have tried to figure out why when Jewish people assert their distinctness, their refusal to play by the rules you want to impose on them, when they refuse to acquiesce to a Christian framework of normativity, passivity and meekness, they enrage the Christians who claim to "love" them. As Benjamin Disraeli famously said, Jews are right to be a skittish, insecure people, because 2000 years of Christian love has made them that way.

His notion that because blood-thursty neo-con cowards cheer the murder of Palestinians that this therefore invalidates the morality of the attack itself is inane logic.

Why must you label yourself as a bloodthirsty neocon coward? I thought you were a bloodthirsty liberal coward?

Yeah, the new Gulag Archipelago will have a brand name: Halliburton.

"One Day in the Life of Steele the First" will be translated into Chinese, then I can gain politcial asylum and move to a nice house in Manchuria, and make money speaking and publishing about the fascist government in America. When I get older, I will begin a new work on how the Jews took over my country and made it fascist, and the then Jewish-controlled press in China will say in my obituaries that I turned "anti-semitic."

Sound like a familiar story?

Why would Bush want to become editor of The Weekly Standard when there are millions of dollars to made eating steak dinners and giving speeches?

"with a concentration in war, revolution and the state."

I would like to see a list of qualifications for becoming editor of the Weekly Standard. I mean, a high level of education isn't required (just a senior paper, not a thesis or god forbid a dissertation), nor is life experience (though being a Princeton frat boy probably helps, and Nintendo skills), nor even a degree in journalism (to be an editor yet!).

Given the apparent lack of Weekly Standard standards, I think George Bush could become editor there.