Pressed repeatedly by Council of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations Chairman Alan Solow and others, Abbas didn’t directly answer the question of why he wouldn’t simply accede to Netanyahu’s demand for direct talks.
Abbas blamed the hold-up in talks on the White House, noting that they had raised the issue of settlements: “They are the ones who requested for the Israelis to stop settlements, what do you expect of me? Less than them?” he was quoted saying in paraphrase.
Come to think of it, they’re the ones that compared the Arizona law to Chinese human rights violations with the Chinese, too.
Just brilliant.
[Update a couple minutes later]
More smart diplomacy, with the UK:
[London] Mayor Boris Johnson demanded an end to “anti-British rhetoric, buck-passing and name-calling” after days of scathing criticism directed at BP by the President and other US politicians.
Former Conservative Party chairman Lord Tebbit branded Mr Obama’s conduct “despicable”. And with the dispute threatening to escalate into a diplomatic row, Mr Johnson also appeared to suggest that David Cameron should step in to defend BP.
He spoke as the US onslaught against the firm became a “matter of national concern” — especially given its importance to British pensions, which lost much of their value today as BP shares plunged to a 13-year low.
Will someone wake me when it’s 2012? Some time in the fall?
The UK, responding to the invitation, seems to be suggesting an ass that needs to be kicked.
No one with a brain expected differently. Team Obama doesn’t give a damn about foreign policy. Strangely enough, neither did George Bush, initially. His success in the area is probably attributable to the fact that he was very conscientious and to the fact that his conservative statist mindset always works well in foreign policy.
Clowns like Obama and LBJ can certainly make foreign issues worse, as LBJ did in Vietnam and Obama is doing in Iran and Afghanistan, but there not quite as dangerous as the crusaders — FDR, Kennedy, Wilson.
Parenthetically, though, I am reminded by your headline, Rand, of the very strange fact that for the Modern Left the worst thing you can say about an opponent is that he’s stupid. For some reason, that sin tops the list. You can be a immoral bastard, but if you’re smart you’re A-OK, and you can be a man or woman of impeccable character, but if you’re not so smart (or can be made to seem so) then you’re no good.
It’s very strange. Smart is nice, to be sure, but you’d think anyone with…er…a brain would understand that failures of character are the source of almost all the world’s woes. Hitler and Stalin were not bad men because they were stupid. The gulag, the killing fields, the Holocaust, the Armenian genocide, and on and on were not failures of intelligence.
Another curious thing about this behaviour is that these are often the very same people who champion the concept of “multiple intelligences,” meaning you can be brilliant at calculus but right stupid at understanding people and leadership, or vice versa. You’d think from this perspective, too, that they’d appreciate the fact that you can be clumsy in your public speech and nevertheless a gifted leader of men.
Or, as in the case of Barack Obama, the other way around.
But Carl, you don’t agree with their ideology… so yer just stupid.
Or like my ex-wife… you’re only a genius if your rich and if you’re rich by any means, you’re a genius.
Wisdom is far more important than intelligence. Some people talk about how smart Obama is and offer precious little in the way of evidence to back up the claim. He graduated from the Ivy League so we’re just supposed to automatically believe he is intelligent.
Whether or not Obama is intelligent, he certainly is not wise.
This is a new one on me:
WTF does that mean?