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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GST who wrote (2458)	7/30/2007 11:03:31 PM
From: ChinuSFO	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

You are one of the 42% Americans as this report suggests. ============== Public Divided as to Whether New President Should Meet with Heads of Iran, Syria, North Korea Friday, July 27, 2007 Forty-two percent (42%) of Americans say that the next President should meet with the heads of nations such as Iran, Syria, and North Korea without setting any preconditions. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 34% disagree while 24% are not sure. That question came up during last Monday’s Presidential Debate with Illinois Senator Barack Obama saying he would commit to such meetings and New York Senator Hillary Clinton offering a more cautious response. Democrats, by a 55% to 22% margin, agree with Obama. Clinton and Obama continue to dominate the race for the Democratic Presidential nomination. However, just 34% of all Americans (and 34% of Democrats) know that Obama made such a commitment. Eleven percent (11%) of all Americans and 14% of Democrats believe the commitment was made by Clinton. Even that level of recognition is probably due more to news coverage of the topic rather than the debate itself. Only 2.6 million Americans watched the debate. Overall, 15% of adults nationally believe the debates are exciting while 58% say they’re boring. Twenty-four percent (24%) know that Clinton refused to commit to such meetings while 7% believe that Obama was the candidate to do so. Republicans tend to oppose meetings with the leaders of nations such as Iran, North Korea, and Syria. Those not affiliated with either major party are evenly divided. A separate release shows that 28% of Americans trust Clinton more than any other candidate on national security matters. Republican Rudy Giuliani is second at 20%. Overall, the public is divided between Republicans and Democrats generically on national security issues, but Democrats are overwhelmingly preferred on a wide variety of topics. rasmussenreports.com

To: GST who wrote (2458)	11/21/2007 12:59:25 PM
From: ChinuSFO	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

Iowa Democrats shifting from "experience" to "honesty and a new direction" abcnews.go.com youtube.com

To: GST who wrote (2458)	3/15/2010 5:10:13 AM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 149317

Driving Drunk in Jerusalem _____________________________________________________________ By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Op-Ed Columnist The New York Times March 14, 2010 I am a big Joe Biden fan. The vice president is an indefatigable defender of U.S. interests abroad. So it pains me to say that on his recent trip to Israel, when Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s government rubbed his nose in some new housing plans for contested East Jerusalem, the vice president missed a chance to send a powerful public signal: He should have snapped his notebook shut, gotten right back on Air Force Two, flown home and left the following scribbled note behind: “Message from America to the Israeli government: Friends don’t let friends drive drunk. And right now, you’re driving drunk. You think you can embarrass your only true ally in the world, to satisfy some domestic political need, with no consequences? You have lost total contact with reality. Call us when you’re serious. We need to focus on building our country.” I think that — rather than fuming and making up — would have sent a very useful message for two reasons. First, what the Israelis did played right into a question a lot of people are asking about the Obama team: how tough are these guys? The last thing the president needs, at a time when he is facing down Iran and China — not to mention Congress — is to look like America’s most dependent ally can push him around. And second, Israel needs a wake-up call. Continuing to build settlements in the West Bank, and even housing in disputed East Jerusalem, is sheer madness. Yasir Arafat accepted that Jewish suburbs there would be under Israeli sovereignty in any peace deal that would also make Arab parts of East Jerusalem the Palestinian capital. Israel’s planned housing expansion now raises questions about whether Israel will ever be willing to concede a Palestinian capital in Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem — a big problem. Israel has already bitten off plenty of the West Bank. If it wants to remain a Jewish democracy, its only priority now should be striking a deal with the Palestinians that would allow it to swap those settlement blocs in the West Bank occupied by Jews for an equal amount of land from Israel for the Palestinians and then reap the benefits — economic and security — of ending the conflict. Unfortunately, that is not what happened last week. For nine months now, America’s Middle East special envoy, George Mitchell, has been trying to find a way to get any kind of peace talks going between Israelis and Palestinians. The Palestinians don’t trust Netanyahu, and Netanyahu has serious doubts as to whether the divided Palestinian leadership can deliver. Nevertheless, Mitchell was eventually able to persuade the two sides to agree on “proximity talks” — the Palestinians would sit in Ramallah and the Israelis in Jerusalem and Mitchell would shuttle 30 minutes between them. After a decade of direct talks, this is how far things have fallen. Mitchell’s and Netanyahu’s aides struck an informal deal: If America got talks going, there would be no announcements of buildings in East Jerusalem, nothing to embarrass the Palestinians and force them to walk. Netanyahu agreed, U.S. officials say, but made clear he couldn’t commit to anything publicly. So what happened? Biden arrived the day after the proximity talks started and out came an announcement from Israel’s Interior Ministry that Israel had just approved plans for 1,600 new housing units in Arab East Jerusalem. Netanyahu said he was blindsided. It’s probably true in the narrow sense. The move seems to have been part of a competition between two of Netanyahu’s right-wing Sephardi ministers from the religious Shas Party over who can be the greater champion of building homes for Sephardi orthodox Jews in East Jerusalem. It is a measure of how much Israel takes our support for granted and how out of touch the Israeli religious right is with America’s strategic needs. Biden — a real friend of Israel’s — was quoted as telling his Israeli interlocutors: “What you are doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. That endangers us and endangers regional peace.” This whole fracas also distracts us from the potential of this moment: Only a right-wing prime minister, like Netanyahu, can make a deal over the West Bank; Netanyahu’s actual policies on the ground there have helped Palestinians grow their economy and put in place their own rebuilt security force, which is working with the Israeli Army to prevent terrorism; Palestinian leaders Mahmoud Abbas and Salam Fayyad are as genuine and serious about working toward a solution as any Israel can hope to find; Hamas has halted its attacks on Israel from Gaza; with the Sunni Arabs obsessed over the Iran threat, their willingness to work with Israel has never been higher, and the best way to isolate Iran is to take the Palestinian conflict card out of Tehran’s hand. In sum, there may be a real opportunity here — if Netanyahu chooses to seize it. The Israeli leader needs to make up his mind whether he wants to make history or once again be a footnote to it. Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company