The More Things Change…
NEW YORK--Election nights in the Bagel were always spent at 73 East 73rd Street, in Bill and Pat Buckley’s house, more often than not described as palatial by eager-to-please gossip columnists. In reality it was a fine New York maisonette, better suited for entertainment rather than cosy living, the latter reserved for their tiny and warm Connecticut house. Alas, both Bill and Pat are now gone, so I had to fend for myself, liberal and politically minded New Yorkers not eager to entertain someone who found Palin sexy and appreciated McCain’s service to his country. Actually, it felt strange on election night not to be rubbing elbows with the likes of Norman Podhoretz — watching him squirm at my presence, rather — or listening to the delightfully accented English of Henry Kissinger. But rubbing elbows was fun these past 40 years chez Bill and Pat. People like Tom and Sheila Wolfe, Tom always in his white suit, always impeccably polite with his southern manners, Jay Nordlinger, his expertise of classical music and culture matched only by his friendliness and lack of pomposity, and my old proprietor Conrad Black, a fountain of knowledge about elections past, so much so, in fact, that I once accused him of having read up on them the night before. (He had not.)
In 1968 we watched as Richard Nixon’s southern strategy won him the White House, and in 1980 Reagan’s landslide had us cheering early on. Then came 1988, and the good Bush victory over a Greek, to be followed by the two draft-dodger victories which gave me an excuse to drown my sorrows in public and rather messily. In 2004, having founded the American Conservative, I was asked by Dr K which candidate I had backed. My choice was an obscure professor, who headed an even more obscure party, whose name I had momentarily forgotten. ‘You mean you don’t even know his name?’ said Professor Hank, for once looking very surprised. This year I had a Catholic priest, Father Ramsey, my good friend Willy von Raab, and a few friends around. It was a sombre party and it got more sombre as the night wore on. Going to a friend’s election-night party later on I watched as Noo Yawkers came out in droves, cheering and blasting their horns. They all seemed synchronised and united, and all I can say is I hope they enjoy it while they can. The honeymoon will last — the media are for Obama and the media rule American public opinion — but the gargantuan messes that Bush and his neocon cronies got us into will be around for a very long time. I only hope that those of us who think Obama is an empty suit and an unreconstructed leftist will be proved wrong. But even on the upper east side of Manhattan, Third World nationalities were out in force hooting it up. I was under the weather so I didn’t bother to ask how many of them were over here legally. Black Americans, in the meantime, were celebrating in Harlem and downtown, but where I live it was mostly Hispanics who were tripping the light fantastic. I found that very strange.
Almost as strange as Obama’s selection of Rahm Emanuel to be his chief of staff. Emanuel is known as a foul-mouthed ruffian with sharp elbows who volunteered for the Israeli army during the first Gulf war, and whose father has been linked to a once-militant Jewish nationalist group. His brother is known as one of the most abrasive agents in Hollywood, a rather impressive accomplishment in a place known for the brashness of its denizens. But my problem with this appointment is neither his father nor his sibling. It’s the conflict of loyalty. Dual loyalty in very high and sensitive places is a no-no, and Obama is showing great naivety in this particular appointment.
And speaking of Israel, Einstein’s definition of a madman is somebody who keeps doing the same thing over and over while hoping for different results. Despite repeated pledges to dismantle illegal settlements, the Israeli government is still abetting them. And this is an Olmert government supposedly sympathetic to the Palestinian plight. If the crazed Zionist Netanyahu wins next spring, kiss the West Bank goodbye. Militant settlers have recently announced that any removal by the government of illegal settlements will be matched by the removal by dynamite of Palestinian houses in the vicinity. In other words, what an Israeli government does to me I will do to the Palestinians.
When I was in Gstaad last, I dined with a Palestinian teacher who had been invited by a friend for a fund raiser. Having lived in Arab lands, I am familiar with Arab hyperbole and imagination. What struck me was the lack of exaggeration on his part. The daily humiliation of going to work, the horrors he faces each day as the water and electricity is cut off, the boys he has lost to the call of the militants has taken its toll. He reminded me of some faces I had seen in Hue two years after the 1968 communist takeover. There was no anger there, just sadness. I wish the 44th President all the luck in the world, but naming Emanuel chief of staff is not change, it’s pure and simple ‘plus ça change...’
Comments
It is not that Emanuel is Jewish. It is that he is an Israeli citizen. Not all Israeli citizens are Jewish. And no two countries’ interests ever correspond exactly.
Barack Obama can be President of the United States while black, since he has no slave ancestry, he has no history in the Civil Rights movement, all his American cousins are white, and his blackness derives, complete with a suitably exotic name, from an entirely foreign father.
He is not an African-American in the ordinary sense. Rather, his blackness is utterly unthreatening to anyone to whom “American” means “white”.
Rahm Emanuel is a very similar figure. His Jewishness is bound up with being not just pro-Israel, as most American Jews are, but actually Israeli, as most American Jews are not.
His father was an immigrant from Israel, and I suspect that his name might be slightly unusual for a conventional Jewish-American such his mother, a Civil Rights activist as erased from the official narrative as Obama’s mother, despite being (unless I am very much mistaken) still alive.
Just as Obama’s blackness poses no challenge to those to whom blackness is somehow less than fully American, so at least the approved version of Rahm’s Jewishness poses no challenge to those to whom Jewishness is somehow less than fully American.
Furthermore, note that Emanuel is an Ashkenazi Jew. Well, we can’t have too many tanned people hanging around, can we?
Assuming (as is obviously very likely) that the next President is white, how about a Chief of Staff whose background is Ethiopian Jewish?
Not a convert like Sammy Davis, Junior. Not someone brought up in one of the stranger religious variants of Black Nationalism. But a member of an anciently Jewish, utterly black people in Africa itself.
, http://davidaslindsay.blogspot.com
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I voted for Obama. Where did I hear things change so they will remain the same? With his appointments we are slowly finding out who controls Obama. Is it possible to get your vote back?
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How true, Mr. Theodoracopulos. Sadly, how true.
“..but the gargantuan messes that Bush and his neocon cronies got us into will be around for a very long time. I only hope that those of us who think Obama is an empty suit and an unreconstructed leftist will be proved wrong.”
God help us!
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So we kicked out Bubba 8 years ago, and what is the change we get? All of Bubba’s men- again- who happen to have the same allegiances to some other country as Dubya’s men.
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A white suit in NY in November? Very strange, unless one only has one suit.
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Bush, Cheney and most of the neo-cons were draft dodgers. Emanuel’s father was in the Irgun though maybe he wasn’t one of the murdering terrorist members.
Obama has the same CIA morons who slam dunked false war evidence and wrote Powell’s speech to the UN and are all for secret prisons, torture, government surveillance, and the whole evil apparatus Bush developed so no change there. There is even talk about leaving Gates in charge at the Pentagon.
Paulson and Congress are busily privatizing Treasury to enrich Wall Street bankers and secret contacts are being given out to the Bankers that caused the mess to loot the taxpayers by the Democratic Congress and by the G-20.
Clinton was a Republican-lite. Obama is shaping up to be the same. I didn’t vote for the Warfare or Welfare party and while saddened to see how things are going, I have a clear conscience. I don’t see what the Republicans are complaining about. Nothing at all has changed from the Bush-Clinton-Bush regime.
The American people are going to realize that Obama is not what he claimed to be relatively soon. It will be up to Obama to get rid of the (Secretary of State?)Clinton lice or see the American people burning him in effigy. With the current state of the Republican party the American people may finally start hanging members of both sides and vote in a third party.
When Norquist gets his drowned baby government there may not be anything left to govern but this is a bi-partisan disaster.
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Isn’t that what they always said about the Imperial Seat...."The King is Dead, Long Live the King”?
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To David Lindsay: Nice job dissembling on the Rahm appointment. “No, no,” the spinmeister might well say, “the patient isn’t dying of cancer. He’s merely contracted a relatively common ailment eliciting a systemic immunological response not unlike, well, blah, blah, blah.” Run for office, dude, where obfuscation is a virtue. Dubya would eat it up.
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there are plenty on your side wh were draft dodgers as well, mr T including one you started a magazine with.
“sexy” sarah would have had far worse than mr emmanuel on the payroll thuogh it is indeed a shame and not “change"y.
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To “lester” re:"there are plenty on your side wh were draft dodgers as well, mr T including one you started a magazine with.”
You obviously are referring to Pat Buchanan’s non-service. Oh, but you are wrong. PJB was in the ROTC program at Georgetown when he contracted a disease which brought him low. I believe it affected his academic year, and eventually caused Walter Reade Army Hospital to declare him physically unable to serve. This was all before the Vietnam War. Refer to his autobiographical “Right From the Beginning.”
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Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff in Waiting, served in the Israeli Defense Forces--a foreign army--which should have resulted in his forfeiture of American citizenship.
Barack Obama has yet to produce an authentic birth certificate, and was likely born in Kenya.
Hence, the sorry spectacle of two ineligible imposters running things.
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(Quote) - “or listening to the delightfully accented English of Henry Kissinger.” – quote from my beloved Tak’san. (end quote).
Did ol’Black glasses, black-rimmed glasses say he appreciated my prayer – ‘the gift of the loss of memory.’ Since I posted that on your site, if he did not say he appreciated it – it’s a slurr to me. I’ll give him *time. Running out…
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stephen....haven’t you hear the term “winter whites”. it is an extreme form of elegance.
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Just for the record: Rahm Emmanuel needs to be read the other way around. It has clearly German roots (Emmanuel like Kant). Rahm means cream, like the one you have with a slice of chocolate cake.
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“With his appointments we are slowly finding out who controls Obama”
Given that his political career since the early 90s has been guided and financed by powerful Zionists, it wasn’t too difficult to figure out which way his presidency might head. Notably, Axelrod and Emmanuel wrote his speeches, advised on handling the media, and guided him through the Democratic Party and a (now dead) powerful Chicago AIPAC figure (can’t remember his name- Saltzman?) funded him (Soros was also to become a financial backer).
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“how about a Chief of Staff whose background is Ethiopian Jewish”
David Lindsay, you are not quite on the right track. Now that the mould has been broken, expect a flood of female candidates in future presidential races.
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When running for president, Bubba promised to assemble a cabinet that “looked like America”. What he didn’t say is that to someone running for president, America looks like a B’nei Mitzveh.
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Bravo, Taki! Bringing discomfort to Norman Podhoretz on election night was a real service to humanity.
If the US is unable to act fairly in the Middle East, due in part to the packing of the think tanks with supporters of Israeli right-wingers, etc etc etc, I share your concern that a citizen of Israel acting as chief of staff in the White House could pose problems.
Tens of thousands of Ethipian Christians were brought to Israel in recent decades, on condition they conformed to Orthodox Jewish norms. These Ethiopian blacks have superiour rights to Israeli Christians who have been in Palestine for millenia.
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Although I hope that Barack Obama is proved to be an empty suit over the next four years as the nation deserves a great chastisement, it is vital that the blame over the Bush debacle be nailed to the foreheads of the neo-conservatives. It is paramount that the neo-conservatives are not allowed to slink off as innocent bystanders, as they are trying to do. J’ accuse!
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Although I hope that Barack Obama is proved to be an empty suit over the next four years as the nation deserves a great chastisement...
As an alternative to fervent hopes the country plummets straight to dog-sh*t, I prefer the more mature approach of stamping my feet and hurling toys against the wall.
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A nation in a state of moral collapse as the USA is in must hit rock bottom before it can be reborn. If I could point to an event in the past, Christendom emerged from the 250 year decline of Rome. I certainly do not want Obama’s America- multicultural, anti-Christian, anti-moral, anti-white- to succeed.
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Not only are the neocons getting away with their actions, they are being rewarded with major positions in Baruch Obama’s administration. So much for Hope and Change.
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This quote is from steve Sailer’s America’s Half-Blood Prince: Barack Obama’s Story of Race and Inheritance.
“In 2001, Obama gerrymandered his state senate district to make it, as Ryan Lizza wrote in The New Yorker, ‘wealthier, whiter, more Jewish, less blue-collar, and better educated,’snaking it all the way up from his base in Hyde Park to include the affluent whites of Chicago’s North Side Gold Coast.”
What he was after here was access to Jewish money. Ever since, he’s become a creation of Jewish advisors, Jewish money, and Jewish media.
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Obama is not an empty suit.
He is your american Gorbachov.
I heard this comparison on several occasions (btw mostly made by russians).
P.S:
Gorbachov is making ads for Luis-Vuitton-Handbags nowadays. Empty ones of course.
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Sarah Palin sexy? My god, you’re weirder than I thought.
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