In May, Obama gave a talk at Temple B’nai Torah in Boca Raton. According to this (adulatory) account, he told the congregants: “……

Jeffrey Goldberg’s interview of Barack Obama at Atlantic.com yesterday addressed Obama’s stance on the nation of Israel and on Jews in particular. Obama knows that he can’t win the presidency while taking a strong anti-Israel stand, s…

BO: I find that really interesting. I think the idea of Israel and the reality of Israel is one that I find important to me personally. Because it speaks to my history of being uprooted, it speaks to the African-American story of exodus, it describes the history of overcoming great odds and a courage and a commitment to carving out a democracy and prosperity in the midst of hardscrabble land. One of the things I loved about Israel when I went there is that the land itself is a metaphor for rebirth, for what’s been accomplished. What I also love about Israel is the fact that people argue about these issues, and that they’re asking themselves moral questions.
Sometimes I’m attacked in the press for maybe being too deliberative. My staff teases me sometimes about anguishing over moral questions. I think I learned that partly from Jewish thought, that your actions have consequences and that they matter and that we have moral imperatives. The point is, if you look at my writings and my history, my commitment to Israel and the Jewish people is more than skin-deep and it’s more than political expediency. When it comes to the gut issue, I have such ardent defenders among my Jewish friends in Chicago. I don’t think people have noticed how fiercely they defend me, and how central they are to my success, because they’ve interacted with me long enough to know that I’ve got it in my gut. During the Wright episode, they didn’t flinch for a minute, because they know me and trust me, and they’ve seen me operate in difficult political situations.
The other irony in this whole process is that in my early political life in Chicago, one of the raps against me in the black community is that I was too close to the Jews. When I ran against Bobby Rush [for Congress], the perception was that I was Hyde Park, I’m University of Chicago, I’ve got all these Jewish friends. When I started organizing, the two fellow organizers in Chicago were Jews, and I was attacked for associating with them. So I’ve been in the foxhole with my Jewish friends, so when I find on the national level my commitment being questioned, it’s curious.

Yup, they’re all there.

This is the most thorough (and alarming) expose’ I have read of Alinsky.

Typhonsentra on May 12, 2008 at 6:55 PM

The implication in Goldberg’s question is that Jewish voters vote soley on a candidate’s position on Israel. Your stats suggest they don’t (or perhaps they don’t know his position). If that 60% percent wasn’t voting for a socialist, I’d commend their American-first-ism. Since they’re voting for a socialist, they should vote solely based on his position on Israel.

That’s because he doesn’t have an answer. And who wants Hamlet in the White House!

Wasn’t Saul Alinsky the father of “community organizing”?

Beto Ochoa on May 12, 2008 at 6:55 PM

Yes, if I remember the tactic correctly, it was something about creating discontent and poking it until it produced open sores, sorta like, wounds, you know?

This man is 100% dangerous, and the scary thing is how many people can’t see it, or worse, are fully aware and sharing his “hope.”

Worm, as in What Obama Really Means? W.O.R.M., looks like Obama has an excuse for everything.

right2bright on May 12, 2008 at 8:03 PM

Good

BHO said he would talk to the little iran worm and the little iran worm want’s to kill every Jew alive, and all the citizens in the USA. I would like a list of bho Jewish best friends.
L

letget on May 12, 2008 at 6:53 PM

Worm, as in What Obama Really Means? W.O.R.M., looks like Obama has an excuse for everything.

Too bad you couldn’t photoshop a yarmulke onto Obama for that front pic.

baldilocks on May 12, 2008 at 7:01 PM

You mean the Obamulke?

And yet he still has over 60% of the Jewish vote according to Gallup.
Perhaps they wouldn’t be if they got some of their news in the blogs instead of exclusively the MSM.
Alalazoo on May 12, 2008 at 7:01 PM

O/T
Bust seriously, some of the above mentioned “The Jewish Vote” might be from my husband’s family wing of {not him though} Judiasm which = “The Anti-Semitic WASP-Wannabe Limo-Liberal Wing of ‘Reformed Judiasm.’” LOL b/c, “BHO just makes most of them ‘feel so important to vote for a minority”" – directly from their yammers.

This guy is always making the most outrageous claims about himself!!

He has stated “Nobody has spoken out more fiercely on the issue of anti- Semitism than I have.”

“So I actually have been much more vocal on gay issues to general audiences than any other presidential candidate probably in history.”

Yeah, he’s the best in his and his wife’s eyes.

If he was so close to the Jews, why were his friends for years, anti-Semites? Someone call him on this.

Nothing sticks to this guy. It’s so absurd.

Fine. Taking this at face value, Obama says that his political and personal associations must be taken into account when determining how Obama would put policy in place.

You nail it, Barry. You too, Capt. Ed.

For the life of me, I cannot understand how any Jew could vote for Obama.

That does not mean that I would agree with every action of the state of Israel, because it’s a government and it has politicians, and as a politician myself I am deeply mindful that we are imperfect creatures and don’t always act with justice uppermost on our minds. But the fundamental premise of Israel and the need to preserve a Jewish state that is secure is, I think, a just idea and one that should be supported here in the United States and around the world.

Very interesting admission….

Because it speaks to my history of being uprooted, it speaks to the African-American story of exodus,

His history of being uprooted? To a condo in Hawaii? Or is he referring to his African father’s being “uprooted” from Africa when he was flown on a plane from Kenya and sent to Harvard, at the expense of some American benefactors? Or is he trying to claim that the African-American story of exodus is somehow part of his personal story — when we know it is not?

Oh my, our dear Obama has suffered so. No wonder he identifies so closely with the Jews.

We aren’t stupid.