In an article titled "Hate Springs Eternal", Krugman accuses the Obama camp of verging on a cult of personality and implies in the process that there is no substance there. Even worse, he compares Obama to President Bush, which in Obamaland (read the article) is probably the worst epithet that he could come up with short of comparing him to Mississippi's civil rights era Governor Wallace:
Why, then, is there so much venom out there?
I won’t try for fake evenhandedness here: most of the venom I see is coming from supporters of Mr. Obama, who want their hero or nobody. I’m not the first to point out that the Obama campaign seems dangerously close to becoming a cult of personality. We’ve already had that from the Bush administration — remember Operation Flight Suit? We really don’t want to go there again.
Cohen, in his article, "No Manchurian Candidate" demonstrates once again that he is not only living in la-la-land, but that he can not help but be patronizing.
I believe Barack Obama is a strong but not uncritical supporter of Israel. That is what the Middle East needs from an American leader: the balance implicit in a two-state solution.
He implies that Israel does not know what's in its own interests and needs armchair intellectuals like Cohen or foreign policy (idealists? novices?) such as Barak Obama to sort it out and put it on the right path. Aside from the fact that this stinks of Marxist notions of "false consciousness" that permeate the "progressive" mindset, Israel has repeatedly demonstrated that if a peace partner emerges it can and will make difficult and painful concessions for the sake of peace. In both the Egyptian and Jordanian peace treaties Israel gave up hard-won territories for the sake of peace - even though it was clear from the start that it would be a cold peace.
What exactly did the Egyptians give up? Their claim to Gaza? Well they are most welcome to it. Israel withdrew over two years ago and Hamas seems interested in such an arrangement. For some reason the Egyptians have not been so keen.
Cohen is not only implying, but also saying that if only Israel were pressured a bit more by the United States to soften its stance and sign a peace with the Palestinians (at all costs) that the conflict could be brought to closure. This is not only naive, it is discriminatory because it holds Israel to a different standard than it holds its neghbor, and it is patently wrong because it is based on the false premise that Israel, by virtue of its unnatural existence, lacks legitimacy and is the root cause of the conflict. Otherwise, why should Israel be the one forced into making concessions? Worse than patronizing, Cohen's article is offensive.
If this is Obama's position and these are the people supporting him, then you can be certain that if he is elected President, there will be rejoicing in the Arab street the likes of which we have not seen since 9/11. Who knows, perhaps someone will even have the perspicacity to put up a sign that says, "Mission Accomplished"?
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