Obama left-winginess

So President Obama has two meetings at the White House last week, one with Jewish leaders and one with Jewish Democratic fundraisers. See, according to polls, Jewish American support for the president has been dropping even among the left.  (Gee, I wonder why.)  That has to be the case because in March, Obama was only at 50% approval among American Jews and 61% of Jews are Democrats or lean Democrat as opposed to 29% who identify as Republicans or lean Republican.  Obama was at 61% approval among American Jews in January.  (Gallup had him at 44% approval among all Americans on its Sunday’s 3-day rolling average number.)

In both meetings, Obama said he understood the traumatic history of the Jewish people and he acted anguished at how he has been perceived by many Jews and Israel supporters. That’s the latest thing after the “Bibi bashing” tour. It is part of the new “I am hurt” tour that began with his New York Times’ Thomas Friedman interview a couple weeks back. “It has been personally difficult for me, blah, blah blah…”

Now not all Jewish leftists have left Obama. The J Street types, many Hollywooders and the other usual apologists will never abandon Obama no matter what, as they always put their very liberal views ahead of anything else, even so far as some of them telling the president they would support his turning the screws on Israel.

Republicans can also do the same when it comes to political views, but not as much as Democrats.  Republicans and conservatives are quicker to condemn their own than Democrats and liberals who almost always seem to go into circle-the-wagon mode.  I mean, Obama could even give the green light to a crazy America-hating, Israel-hating country like Iran to build nuclear weapons and many would still stick with him.  Oh, right.

But hey, that’s OK. Free country and politics is politics, and all that.  We are free to express our opinions.  Unlike in Iran.

Obama is the great miscalculator, in so many ways with so many things.  Leaving aside the messes his naiveté has caused in different regions of the world, when it comes to politics alone, he doesn’t understand that some on the left no longer buy into his brand of left-winginess.

Sure, super left-wing Jews still think the man can do no wrong, but Obama left-winginess is so far detached from logic and reality, it’s way too nutty for many of those who would normally think in lockstep.  (And as a caveat, as I have said in the past, I believe that many on the left, just like on the right, are decent, thoughtful people, and there can be common ground for the common good.)

Obama figured the left in Israel would support his appeasement of Iran.  Nope.  Even Yitzchak “Buji” Herzog, the leader of the left-wing Labor party part of the Zionist Union expressed his displeasure with the framework agreement that was announced a couple weeks back.  The Zionist Union’s recent policy document called for changes to the agreement including, get this, adding a provision that would legitimize Israeli military action against Iran if [me: when] it violates the agreement.  As if Obama would ever consider that.  Take that, Obama left-winginess.

And the president very much wanted the Zionist Union to win the recent Israeli election. Go figure.

Up until a few days ago, it looked as if the president could count on enough Democrats to support his threatened veto of the Corker-Menendez (Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act of 2015 ) Senate bill. When Republicans and Democrats made minor modifications that would insure easy bi-partisan passage through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to the floor of the Senate, although the White House still lobbied very hard against the bill almost to the last moment, it announced its support.  The bill made it through 19-0.

It doesn’t mean Obama won’t ultimately be able to sustain a coming veto should the full Senate vote not to lift sanctions at some point, but yikes, even ultra-liberal Barbara Boxer voted to move the bill along!  Take that too, Obama left-winginess.

Who says Obama can’t unite Democrats and Republicans?  (And look how his Iran folly has united Israel and the Arab Gulf states!)

By the way, one of changes to the bill that made the White House happy was the removal of a provision requiring the president to certify every 90 days that Iran was not supporting terrorism against Americans.  Only in the upside-down world of Obama is refusing to report Iranian terrorism against US citizens a good thing.

And speaking of the wonderful, trustworthy Iranians, contrary to what is clearly written in the framework agreement and what Secretary of State John Kerry and Obama have said about gradual lifting of sanctions as Iran shows its compliance over time, Iran’s supreme leader (just that title alone for a country’s leader should give people pause) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei insisted the framework agreement meant all sanctions against Iran were to be lifted as soon as the deal is completed and signed at the end of June.  Oh, and by the way, Death to America and Death to Israel.

The ink of the framework was barely dry and Obama was presented with a conundrum.  What to do, what to do.

So what does the great miscalculator say? When asked about sanctions lifting during a press conference, Obama didn’t say he would stick with the framework, and demand Iran do the same, but that sanctions, in effect, would be re-negotiated. Huh? Now he backs away from that?

Finally, to make matters worse, encouraged by unabated Obama weakness, along with the nuclear talks not including anything other than Iran’s nuclear program, heaven forbid it should, last Monday, the Russians announced it would lift its ban on delivering advanced surface-to-air missiles – the kind that could shoot down planes seeking to attack nuclear facilities – to the Iranians.

In the big bucks boychiks meeting last week Obama said, “I feel like I’m a member of the tribe.” You know what, Barack? Can I call you Barack? After all, you feel so close to the Jewish people. Do me a favor. Find another tribe.