Democracy's Living Saint Is Freed, Netanyahu Derides Obama's Policies, Cantor Becomes New Tokyo Rose

James Traub
Michelle Goldberg
Sefi Rachievsky

"President Obama went to India, South Korea, then Japan. He’s going to keep traveling until he finds his birth certificate." –David Letterman

"Wall Street hands out new bonuses. Poor people, get prepared to be trickled down on." –Stephen Colbert

"I finally read former President Bush's memoir, and I've got to say, the book was way better than the presidency." –Jimmy Fallon

Now that she is free, where can she go? Outside at night to see the stars, or down to the food bazaar. Most important of all, she can have human contact and interaction. Thousands of people were in front of her house as her guards took down the barbed wire that blocked the road to her house, then cheered as she came outside to address them. If she goes right back into political organizing, she may be arrested again, depends on how quickly the old generals die off... She is the closest thing we have to a living saint for democracy, bless you, and breathe deeply...


In a few more years from now, George Bush may decide to take up a few causes on the world stage, maybe even the same causes his wife is championing. Cindy McCain donated her time to be on another ad for gay rights and against bullying children that can lead to their suicide. No comment from her husband's Senate office... Jimmy Carter is in the Middle East, this time taking up the cause of Corporal Gilad Shalit, who had been taken prisoner by Hamas in a cross-border raid a few years ago. Jimmy has been able to open up a dialogue with Shalit's prisoners, and has delivered a letter from Shalit to his parents, the first communication from him in over 2 years. President Carter has been able to do what the whole Israeli government has failed to do. Benjamin Netanyahu was in charge of getting him free, and we have seen how serious he is about making peace with the Palestinians.

Netanyahu spent his whole time last week in New York, deriding the Obama administration. Yeah, that's gonna win you a lot of friends. It's bad enough that you thumb your nose at both us and the Palestinians, just to see how much bad boy behavior you can get away with, but you will end up alienating the only friends you have left in the world. If you drive the US away, and we stop selling you arms and nuclear toys, who will help you when Iran gets trapped into the corner and begins to lash out in all directions? Just because Obama is a nice, friendly guy, suddenly all of the bullies think it's OK to make fun of him? Perhaps it's time to send a few top Republicans, along with Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck to jail for treason... Not only does the US back Israel both economically and militarily, but we sometimes do goodwill actions like this: "A missile fired from an American warship in the Mediterranean killed Muhammad Jamal A-Namnam, 27, in Gaza City Wednesday, Nov. 3, DEBKAfile's exclusive counter-terror sources report. Namnam was an operational commander of the Army of Islam, Al-Qaeda's Palestinian cell in the Gaza Strip. He was on a mission for Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula – AQAP to plan, organize and execute the next wave of terrorist attacks on US targets after the air package bomb plot - in Sinai." Again, Benjamin Netanyahu has never been a friend of the US. He has acted condescending towards every administration for over the last 20 years, dating back to when he was Israel's Ambassador to the US. He is a right wing wacko who has previously stated that Palestine will never have a state while he is in power, and he has sponsored assassination attempts on Arab leaders he has considered his enemies. He is less fanatical than many other factions in Israel's Knesset, but he still is a slithery snake, who would rather lie to you and then laugh at you because you believed him...

But Benji does have friends in Congress, most notably Eric Cantor, who would like to be the Voice of America. In a private meeting that leaked like a garden hose, Mr Cantor promised: "US opposition leaders don't usually tell foreign heads of state that they'll help the foreign leader provide a check on the American president. And they certainly don't announce it to the press.


But that does seem to be what Eric Cantor just did with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu. As Ron Kampeas at the Jewish Telegraph Agency put it, he couldn't "remember an opposition leader telling a foreign leader, in a personal meeting, that he would side, as a policy, with that leader against the president." (Josh Marshall, TPM) Maybe Mr Cantor can be called the New Jerusalem Rose, or the New Jerusalem Artichoke might be more appropriate...