Listen to Philip Weiss, one of the smartest writers around, on the Israel lobby and Obama: the Lobby, he says, considered Obama “a green no-account,” and they all jumped on Hillary’s bandwagon without realizing that the wheels were about to come off, while the neocons went first to Rudy and now are attaching themselves to the McCain campaign. The Lobby never saw what was coming straight at them:
“Barack Hussein Obama was always low on the Haaretz Who-loves-Israel ratings. Which is to say, Obama rose without the active support of the lobby. Much as Ned Lamont did in Connecticut. Now the lobby is freaking out and trying to claim him after all. Marty Peretz is writing articles saying he is good for the Jews, because Marty hates to feel left out of the Democratic Party party, and Obama himself is making a good show of it. But Marty is a romantic and an enthusiast not a shrewdy, while Malcolm Hoenlein, a very shrewd man, knows better, and sees the writing on the wall. These guys really don’t know whether to shit or shine their shoes right now. It’s too late to embrace Obama and really make a difference (he’s already won, per the theory). And if they follow Joe to McCain, they could get swamped in the fall…”
Weiss goes on to say that progressives of his sort “aren’t worried about Obama’s lip service re Israel. They know in their hearts that a man with a Muslim parent who grew up in, among other places, the largest Muslim country on the planet, Indonesia, cares about Palestinian human rights. And what’s most important– he will owe the lobby nothing….”
Which is precisely why the Obama campaign had better get ready for the Barack Hussein Obama business — that is, if the Clintonites haven’t already started it before this gets posted. Yet this much-anticipated low blow is likely to boomerang if anyone, of either party, dares say it out loud: the backlash will help Obama, or, at least, blow away his enemies, who will finally discover that change is not a platitude.
