The American Spectator

In addressing Obama’s position on the Mideast, Philip Klein speaks of Israel as if it is an American state and deserving of unequivocal support from a U.S. president. In light of this, the assertion that Obama has a mixed message on Israel’s fundamental security is valid only if seeking the type of bluster that Senator Clinton offered up by threatening to “obliterate” Iran.

If Israel wants perpetual war, then the Jewish community should support American and Israeli leaders that bluster in their sleep. If not, I suggest that such utterances are rather counterproductive and ignore the sometimes nightmarish reality of the present, and certainly the less homogeneous future of Israel.

Rather than bluster, Senator Obama offers the insight of his own interaction between the Jewish and Palestinian communities in Chicago. I suggest that Senator Obama is a very discerning judge of character and history, a leader of high personal integrity, and an individual that is empathetic to the oppressed — a history that blacks, Jews, and Palestinians share.

p>If international combatants could both believe the American president is on their side, it may just well be the impetus needed for progress. Obama is doing well to maintain his status as a champion of peace, and neither the Jewish nor Palestinian or Arab communities of America should try to paint him into their corner. The ref must stand in the center of the ring. br> — Doug Mytty /p>

Concerning Phillip Klein’s article on Mr. Obama’s waffling, we can never know ahead of time whether or not a candidate has that capacity to grow to meet the awful demands and crises that hem the President of the United States. We’ve not always been lucky in the past, and we will probably not be lucky enough in 2009 to get a man guided by principle to same degree or with as much backbone as George W. Bush. But if we cannot say in advance who possesses the needed strengths for the office, we can sometimes see clearly who is without them, and, despite his and his handlers’ coy efforts, Mr. Obama’s song and dance has shown him to be a reed in the wind.

Besides following the common leftist anti-American view of the world, and proposing not-so-clandestine socialist solutions for what he would like to convince us are America’s great failings, Mr. Obama also would have us believe he is a perfectly rational and largely unaffected man with whom any of us would enjoy conversing and with whom we could, every one of us, find common ground. None of this is true. Any person who does not now suspect Mr. Obama of hiding his actual views, values, and beliefs in order to facilitate his election to the presidency is either a party-line Democrat or a fool — if one cares to make the distinction. The unhappy truth is that even if reporters could solidly demonstrate Mr. Obama’s perfidy, those with the greatest access to the public ear would avoid it, and the others would find themselves shouting in the wilderness. It will be our good luck if Mr. Obama were to accidentally expose his real mind to the public’s view.

p>If the public could then grasp what they were seeing, they might reject his candidacy. For the rest of us the indirect evidence uncovered so far is sufficient, despite it having been belittled and spun unmercifully by the left and the major media, but we must wait and hope. br> — Don Carlson /p> p> BETTER THAN CASH