Tapper Gets It Right

Good for Jake Tapper of ABC News, for handling the fake controversy over Obama’s recent comments on Israel in exactly the right way.

Here’s what happened. In an interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, Obama was asked whether “Israel is a drag on America’s reputation overseas.” He responded:

No, no, no. But what I think is that this constant wound, that this constant sore, does infect all of our foreign policy. The lack of a resolution to this problem provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest in solving this, and I also believe that Israel has a security interest in solving this because I believe that the status quo is unsustainable.

It should be clear to anyone with basic reading comprehension skills that the “constant sore” Obama refers to is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, not Israel itself.

Nonetheless, House Republican Leader John Boehner put out a statement saying:

Israel is a critical American ally and a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, not a ‘constant sore’ as Barack Obama claims.

Given the mainstream media’s tendency toward false even-handedness, we might have expected this to be reported neutrally, under a headline like: “Boehner Attacks Obama Over Israel Comments.”

Instead, Tapper posted an item on his ABC News blog last night under the admirably straightforward headline: “House Republican Leader Twists Obama Statement on Israel.” His post begins:

In an interview with The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., talked a great deal about Israel. He was rather effusive in his support for the Jewish state. Apparently given nothing of substance to criticize, House Republican leaders then took a statement Obama made and twisted it to act as if the Democrat had insulted the Jewish state. Which he had not.

Tapper then went on to lay out the facts of the case, concluding:

When Obama twisted Sen. John McCain’s “100 Years” comment, it was pretty dishonest as well. [We agree.] But this may be worse, because Boehner et al are falsely accusing Obama of besmirching a nation and a people. They are accusing him of being anti-Israel, even anti-Semitic. It is false.

Tapper’s post serves as a model for how the media should handle these efforts by both parties to generate phony controversies. Here’s hoping it starts a trend.

– By Zachary Roth

Popularity: 1% [?]

If the mainstream media organizations were the least bit objective about U.S. politics, instead of constantly protecting the GOP, the following would have happened.

Bush would never have been elected president (perhaps not even gov. of Texas).
Al Gore would have been president.

There would be no Iraq war.

Dick Cheney would probably be in jail.

We would still have been narrowing the fed deficit as we were doing under Bill Clinton.

John McCain would not be the GOP candidate for pres.

Etc., etc., etc.

You can’t expect them to give Barack Obama a fair shake in this election. They’re going to distort and exaggerate every chance they get in order to destroy him.

What else is new? The government and the media is controlled by greedy and stupid crooks who can’t see beyond the next election or the next stockholders’ meeting.

The previous post somehow omitted half of what I wrote, so here’s the rest:
As for John Boehner, if his term hasn’t expired or the voters of Ohio don’t boot him out in November and he’s still hanging around the Capitol dome, he may face a House Ethics Committee revived by an overwhelming Democratic majority in the U S House after January 2009, and end up paying the piper for his part in fraudulent election tampering in Ohio and his cozy secret deal making with Abramoff. In a couple of years he may just join his former Ohio House colleague and Abramoff buddy in prison, or maybe that clever, criminal coin dealer and Republican fund raiser from Toledo who also is in prison. Interesting “coincidence” isn’t it ? Prominent Republicans occupying cells the U S penal system. It has become a habit and there will probably be more of the boys heading off to the pokey if the new administration in DC cleans house, especially the U S House. And I’ll bet Boehner thinks we all forgot !