Is this look-tough posturing, or does he mean what he says?
I suspect mainly the former. A lot of the press since Bush's speech has centered on Obama and Jewish voters, and so it's probably a lot of needless bullshitting.
The problem, as I see it, is that he hasn't been very consistent on Israel, though, which is what the Reps are trying to capitalize on. (It's not going to pay off for them, because most people don't have strong feelings about Israel. And Obama's winning 2-to-1 among Jews anyway.) As I understand it, Obama and most of his political allies back in Chicago are not wild about Israeli policy, along the lines of Carter (recall Wright and the Hamas/Hezbollah stuff).
The part that I think you're talking about, where he goes into how Bush policy led Hamas ruling Palestine, strikes me as being potentially a worrying bit, but also as probably being just bad writing on his speech-writer's part. I think he was trying to point out the irony of the Bushies hating Hamas but having brought them to power.
Not slamming the "Iran is developing nukes" meme is what I found worrying. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
Good coverage this evening, thanks! Barak Obama at a certain point morphed into Tony Blair in my head, and I thought, "Yes, but Tony Blair needed George Bush to push him into a war. Who's Barak Obama's George Bush?"
But England is smaller than the U.S. The U.S. is equal biggest, at least, with China and Russia and India and the EU.
So I thought, "Would Tony Blair have gone to war if he had been president of the United States?"
The U.S. had it's 2004, so I'll make the analogy: as Bush's second term is to John Major's....no no. But a healthy rate of say and do, about 50/50 is good--but keeping the doing to 50, but the doing is winning the election...I remember the Bill Hick's sketch.
Don't fight forces, use them R. Buckminster Fuller.
