Obama and Israel - a response

To Chicago Sun Times Letters Editor

It is disappointing that a fine public servant like Ira Silverstein (IL Senate-8th), would put the interests of the extremist Israeli Likud Party, seeking to draw us into supporting their upcoming, pre-emptive war against Iran, over America's national interests (Obama and Israel; Letters, September 13).

It is equally disappointing that Sen. Silverstein spins his support for these un American policies in terms of his concern that the President's failure to bow down to every demand of these war hungry Israeli leaders jeopardizes his chances of being re-elected.

President Obama is pushing back hard against supporting an Israeli pre-emptive strike because he understands it represents, morally, a monstrous war crime against humanity; and on a practical level, may quickly escalate into a region wide war causing enormous casualties on all sides, devastate Israel's long term security and likely destroy any chance of a worldwide economic recovery.

Inexplicably, there is more serious, prudent dissent to the Likud Party's rush to war among responsible members and former members of the Israeli government than there can ever be in the US. This is because the Israel Lobby so dominates all levels of Congress and the media, that few dare utter a word of sanity or restraint.

 Sen. Silverstein and other political leaders need to look at their passports and comprehend whose country's national interests they need to support. There is an existential treat in all this: America committing suicide from not knowing when to say no to any country or group who pleads and threatens and intimidates and demands that we fight their rivals for them.

Romney locks up war lover vote

While Mitt Romney has managed to offend virtually every important voting block in America: women, Latinos, blacks, gays, the poor, and students, he has pretty much locked up the war lover vote.

Speaking in northern Virginia Wednesday, Romney lamented the automatic defense spending cuts that kick in as part of the debt limit deal. He blamed them entirely on President Obama, conveniently omitting that they result from a bi-partisan agreement supported by his hawkish Vice Presidential running mate Rep. Paul Ryan, and are are essentially a small chunk of our gargantuan defense kitty. But in a bizarre, preposterous spin on the deal, Romney claimed it means that for the first time since before FDR, America will lose its capacity "to engage in two conflicts at once".

Gov. Romney should roll out a new campaign theme:
            ROMNEY - WHEN ONE CRIMINAL WAR IS NOT ENOUGH"

Shallow pundit Kass dives deep into Tea Party brew to bash Obama, convention

At first reading, John Kass's September 9th column "Rhetoric fails to mask unemployment numbers", appears to be a satire of a serious, reality based analysis. It is so devoid of facts and sound reasoning in its simplistic assessment of President Obama's convention acceptance speech and his economic record, that it can't possibly be serious. Yet, John Kass is not one to pen satire and this column is consistent with virtually every piece he's written on Obama, whom he dismisses as a corrupt product of the Chicago machine not possessing of a single laudable attribute.
His beginning alleging Obama was so "flat and desperate in his...convention speech" is a hoot. Not only did the speech receive virtually unanimous praise from all but Romney partisans, it helped give Obama a sizeable bump in the polls that eluded Romney after his wooden, remedy free dud uttered a week earlier; a speech that, unlike Obama's, has disappeared from public consciousness.

Kass's entire column revolves around the GOP talking point that we're still at 8% unemployment so Obama's economic record is a failure. Why wouldn't a responsible journalist that Kass postures to be mention that we were hemorrhaging 700,000 jobs monthly at the end of the Bush administration, and after seven months of slower job losses, Obama has presided over 29 straight months of private sector job growth, adding 4.5 million jobs. Why wouldn't a responsible journalist that Kass purports to be mention that Romney's GOP has vehemently opposed every Obama job creation measure including the $800 billion dollar pump priming that created or saved over 3 million public and private sector jobs. Why isn't there any mention in Kass's column of Obama's virtually single handed effort to save Chrysler and GM from a GOP proposed liquidation that would have shed over a million jobs in the auto industry and disrupted the entire supply chain for the remaining auto makers?

Interestingly, there wasn't a single mention among the hundreds of words in 28 paragraphs about the Romney-Ryan plan which, get this, promotes job creation by giving more tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans, firing as many public workers not in the Military-Industrial Complex as possible, and abolishing Obamacare, which, contrary to GOP scare mongers, has seen over a million private sector jobs added since it became effective.

Maybe Kass put on his tri-cornered Tea Party hat when he composed this ditty which would be more appropriate in the Tea Party Times than Section 1, Page 2 of the Chicago Tribune. Substitute the work "Kass" for "President" in the last paragraph and he would have one accurate statement in the column: "No, Mr. Kass, it's not good enough. It's not good enough at all".