:: There He Goes Again

Obama's habit of backtracking on bold statements won't cut it in the general.

This is not a post about U.S. foreign policy and Israel. Its a post about the campaign. No ifs ands or buts.

From the New York Times:

The morning after claiming the Democratic nomination, Senator Obama spoke to skeptical members of a pro-Israel lobby and made a pledge that some of them found pleasantly surprising: “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.”

That statement generated a storm of controversy in the Middle East, with one Kuwaiti daily calling it “a slap in the face” to Arabs. And over the last 24 hours, as Mr. Obama and his campaign have sought to explain his initial remarks, and suggested that an undivided Jerusalem would be hard to achieve, they have been accused of backtracking, which has generated a new round of criticism, this one here at home among Jewish groups.

[snip]

Sensing an opportunity, the Republican National Committee and allied groups on Friday accused Mr. Obama of “flip-flopping,” echoing earlier criticism of what they say is his inconsistent position on having talks with the leaders of rogue states like Iran. And Mr. McCain, campaigning in southern Florida, which has a large Jewish population, quickly echoed those attacks.

“I can’t react to every comment that Senator Obama makes, because it probably will change,” he said after an air boat ride through the Everglades, “as it did on sitting down and talking unconditionally with Ahmadinejad and dictators.”

Its a classic "there he goes again" moment. McCain sounds confident, jocular - like he and the reporters are sharing an in-joke. If Hillary Clinton had said this - after an air boat ride through the Everglades, no less - a chorus of media pundits and liberal bloggers would have condemned her in that "just who does she think she is" tone they use so often. Watch for McCain to use this tone to force Obama into a unlucky paradigm - McCain the responsible father who has seen it all, Obama the irresponsible son who can't decide who he is.

How did Obama handle the blowback from the Middle East? More from the same article:

In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Mr. Obama was asked about criticisms from the Arab world, and whether his remarks meant that Palestinians had no claim to Jerusalem.

“Well,” he replied, “obviously it’s going to be up to the parties to negotiate a range of these issues,” including the status of Jerusalem.

While restating his support for an undivided city, he also said, “My belief is that, as a practical matter, it would be very difficult to execute.”

An article on Friday in The Jerusalem Post sought to clarify Mr. Obama’s stance further. In it, an unnamed foreign policy adviser to Mr. Obama was quoted as saying that the candidate’s position is that “Jerusalem remains Israel’s capital and it’s not going to be divided by barbed wire and checkpoints as it was in 1948-1967.”

That formulation does not rule out the city simultaneously serving as the capital of a Palestinian state or Palestinians’ being granted control of some Arab neighborhoods there.

With criticism mounting on Friday from Republicans and some Jewish groups, supporters of Mr. Obama rushed to his defense...

[Rep. Robert] Wexler called Mr. Obama’s position the “most pro-Israel of all” because he has promised to respect whatever agreement Israel and Palestinians reach through negotiations rather than impose an American solution.

How do you like that? His shifted from a bold statement to "I'll go along with whatever they say" in roughly one week. He validated McCain's flippant little observation. It won't take long for reporters to realign their bias.

I told you so.

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:: There's Conservative, and Then There's Just Plain Dumb, and Then There is Evil - and Sometimes All Three"

Zippy’s post below "There’s conservative, and then there’s just plain dumb" describes Mike Huckabees weird-ass answer to a softball question about the Global Fund for AIDS, Malaria and TB.

[And really, who doesn’t support the Global Fund? No one, that’s who. The Global Fund has so much support that they're richer than many countries; hell, they're probably richer than Jesus. Of course you say you support the Global Fund, you nitwit, and then talk about the great work they are doing to prevent malaria and tuberculosis. Or you say you support the Global Fund, and add something about how America needs to use its moral influence to ensure their policies don’t do harm along with good. For the love of Rhoda, is it that hard?]

Not surprisingly, I had what you might call “a reaction” of my own to the news about Huckabee. It seems that not only did he support quarantines back in the day -- he continues to support them now. (Yes. Still. Now. I’m not making this up. To paraphrase the best line in Blair Witch Project– I’m not that fucking creative.) That Huckabee doesn't do the obvious thing and say "yeah, changed my mind about the whole quarantine thing - a bit too Castro, IMHO" is really just so fucking typical of these people. (And by “these people” I mean our homegrown corn-fed proto-fascists).

Huckabee refuses to recant his position, but has indicated he would like to lie about it now.

As a Senate candidate in 1992, Huckabee told the AP in a questionnaire that "we need to take steps that would isolate the carriers of this plague" if the federal government was going to deal with the spread of the disease effectively. "It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents," he said then.

In an interview on "Fox News Sunday," Huckabee denied that those words were a call to quarantine the AIDS population, although he did not explain how else isolation would be achieved. "I didn't say we should quarantine," he said. The idea was not to "lock people up."

Huckabee acknowledged the prevailing scientific view then, and since, that the virus that causes AIDS is not spread through casual contact, but said that was not certain.

"I still believe this today," Huckabee said Sunday, that "we were acting more out of political correctness" in responding to the AIDS crisis. "I don't run from it, I don't recant it," he said of his position in 1992. Yet he said he would state his view differently in retrospect.

Huckabee also stated in 1992 that HIV/AIDS research was receiving too much federal funding.

Now, even the most obtuse moral relativist – someone who would just as soon see male hairdressers and florists burnt at the stake so long as it was approved by a local majority vote - could see how Huckabee’s ideological take on this issue ran counter to our interest in public health. If a quarantine were justified because AIDS, like “plague,” could be spread by casual contact, thereby causing mass fatalities – wouldn’t you want to spend more on research, not less? I mean, who says “we have an epidemic of deadly plague sweeping through America’s cities, and we’re spending way too much on stopping it”? That is not a rhetorical question, by the way. For real – you only say that if you have no problem with the impact of the plague on the afflicted population. Or if you are a moron. Or if you are a complete sociopath.

From the sound of things, Huckabee may well be all three. So I guess that’s my answer to your question, Zippy.

The Washington Post has a good editorial about Huck and the plague, thereby illustrating the “broken clock is right twice a day” principle. Shockingly, its worth a read.

My prediction – which I shared with Scientist-at-Large before I saw this article, thank you very much –is Huckabee will meet with Ryan White's mom for a mushy photo op and it will be "no harm, no foul" according to the MSM. (And if Mom White says something negative about Huck, or refuses to meet with him at all, watch for the obligatory “Cindy Sheehan” hatchet job). Meanwhile the base will get the message, sub rosa, that should the opportunity arise he’ll be first in line to stick it to the homos.

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:: There's conservative, and then there's just plain dumb

This is priceless. In a house stop in New Hampshire, Mike Huckabee is asked whether is "Christian beliefs" would keep him from supporting prevention programs advocated by the Global AIDS Fund. While he never actually says no, he does spend a great deal of time talking about how asking someone who is HIV+ to have safer sex is like asking someone to drive not as drunk as they would otherwise. Or to please not be quite so violent with their partners.

Well, gosh, that sure cleared it up for me.

Our friends at Pandagon and Pam's House Blend had fun with Huckabee's '92 statement that AIDS patients should be quarantined. I was willing to knock that up to being an ignorant redneck -- I mean, we were already well into the epidemic, but frankly, a lot of poor Southern states were totally behind the ball then and now.

And it's not like I was cheering for Huckabee either -- sure, he's a charming, rock-music-loving Baptist preacher man, but I'm pretty sure he's well convinced that I'm going to hell for any number of factors of my lifestyle (the drinking, the sex, the belief in a woman's autonomy).

But now I'm quite quite he's truly evil. Let's sum up, shall we?

• AIDS patients should be quarantined (watch him defend it here)
• Marriage equality will destroy civilization
• Being HIV+ and using a condom is like beating your wife a little less
  

Oh, and he's willing to admit evolution into the classroom as "the prevailing scientific theory" but he thinks students should be exposed to others.

Wow.

So tell me, do any of the other Republican candidates rival this one for the Ignorant Redneck award? Read more!

:: Sending my donation today!

Mondays are hard. Getting out of bed at an ungodly hour after a lovely weekend. Dashing your recycling to the curb before the truck goes by. And then there is just no decent news in the newspaper.

But this morning, buried in the front section of the Times, I found this tidbit:

Alarmed at the possibility that the Republican Party might pick Rudolph W. Giuliani as its presidential nominee despite his support for abortion rights, a coalition of influential Christian conservatives is threatening to back a third-party candidate.

Oh, please don't tease me! Really? You Promise?? I will send Rudy my $20 today if it will help split that vote! It's as if the Wingnuts were truly trying to prove that they are out of touch and out of step with the real world. Even yahoo Gary L Bauer thinks this is stupid:

“I can’t think of a bigger disaster for social conservatives, defense conservatives and economic conservatives than Hillary Clinton in the White House,” Mr. Bauer said.

Please, my sisters, send your donation to Giuliani today! It will piss off Dobson and Perkins (frankly, worth it in its own right) and you could help split the GOP! Read more!

:: Classy Move

Mayor Jerry Sanders (R) of San Diego announced that he's changed his position. It's a repetitive, rambling announcement, yes, but moving too. On a catty side note, what's up with his wife's plastic posture?

Thanks, Peter, for pointing this out.

P.S. I learned how to post video! I'm so proud...

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