Posted by
Andrews on Friday, May 16, 2008 5:55:29 PM
What would you think if you were to say "I think all pedophiles should be jailed" and I replied "I have no interest in young boys! How dare you say that!"?
We have the equivalent in the political realm. President Bush, before the Knesset said:
Some people suggest if the United States would just break ties with
Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away. This is a
tired argument that buys into the propaganda of the enemies of peace,
and America utterly rejects it.
To which Obama replied:
It is sad that President Bush would use a speech to the Knesset on the
60th anniversary of Israel's independence to launch a false political
attack
But, as far as I can tell, Bush never once said "Obama" anywhere in that speech. Instead we have the equivalent of my pedophile example, Obama assuming that a criticism is aimed at himself.
My question is this, if Obama has no plans to abandon Israel to curry favor with militant Islam, then why would he possibly assume that comment was about him? And why does he go even farther and assume that Bush accused him of wanting to negotiate with terrorists, when, again, Bush mentioned no one by name, did not even imply it applied to anyone in particular.
It is a telling response. I hope people are listening.
NOTE
I had planned this much earlier in the day, but was distracted by the FairTax argument. Sadly, that prevents me from doing my usual "Best of the Web Imitates Me" gag post. Since I can't pretend they are stealing from me, I decided to return the favor and mine their article for useful quotes. So, thanks WSJ!
UPDATE
I was talking to my wife and she said something so brilliant neither I nor the WSJ had thought of it. Is it not possible that Bush's talk of cutting loose Israel and negotiating with terrorists could refer to the one man who actually intends to explicitly do so, former president Carter?
(Sadly, as she reads my blog, I cannot claim such insight as my own, much as I want to do so. I have to confess to being merely a reporter of this clever observation.)
UPDATE 05/17/2008
When responding to a comment, I thought of one other possibility. Maybe it is not that Obama wants to negotiate with terrorists that caused him to assume the comment was about him. Perhaps Obama is simply so vain that he thinks every comment is about him.