Jul
16th
2006
Meet the Press: Newt Gingrich and Joe Biden
Probable presidential candidates, and foreign policy “experts,” Newt Gingrich and Joe Biden were on Meet the Press today. Here are what they said at the top of the show about the current situation in the Middle East:
Gingrich
Biden
Despite many deep differences on foreign policy, they basically agree on this: Israel has every right to do what they’re doing.
6 Responses to “Meet the Press: Newt Gingrich and Joe Biden”
Leave a Reply
note: by commenting, you indicate that you have read and accept all-encompassingly's comment policy. please print it and keep a copy of the document in your wall safe along with your living will or advance directive.
Which just goes to show that the powerful Israel lobby is on both sides of the aisle.
Curtis, could you expand? (I mean…I am actually being serious here!)
A while ago I called Alberto Gonzales an idiot for his comments linking music piracy to terrorism. I honestly believe that many policymakers, like Gonzales, are drones on lots of issues for big corporations. They don’t have the foggiest idea of how piracy works or what the Internet is (yeah…I know…we still have to do a Ted Stevens “tubes” post).
But when I listen to Biden and Gingrich, both seem incredibly well read and intelligent, especially Gingrich. Read or listen to his other stuff and it is obvious Newt has an amazing grasp of history. I am not quite as bellicose as he is, not that bellicose is always bad I suppose…but in any case, neither of these two guys strike me as drone-like on this issue.
In the end, I just don’t buy that the “Israel lobby” is all-powerful or anywhere near it. Of course, there are competing opinions on this.
c’mon, doug. everyone knows jews rule the world.
but seriously, curtis, look at the democrat party. they consistenly side with palestinian extremists and islamic terrorists on every major issue from israel building a wall, to terrorist interrogation methods, to gleefully exposing secret terrorist monitoring programs. republicans, of course, take the exact opposite positions on those issues. yet jews in the US overwhelmingly (and inexplicably) vote for democrats. they obviously do not give a flying fetch about which party has a pro-israel policy and which has a pro-intifada policy.
there may be some other explanation for biden’s remarks, but one thing should be clear. biden shouldn’t be feeling any pressure to cave to the democrats’ israel lobby. the jewish vote is in already in the bag for him.
The problem? Iran. So says Mark Steyn. Great article.
Sorry, just had my whole comment deleted somehow. In short, I’m not so sure the Israel lobby is even needed to influence US politician decision making. We have pretty similar goals in the middle east lately and as you pointed out with the article on Iran, if the current conflict came to confrontation with Iran, that would suit the US and Israel just fine. It would get pretty ugly for sure, but it’s not so hard to imagine with the changes of the last few days.
I’ve not really studied too much about the Israel lobby since it gets pretty detailed and I like my facts to be short and to the point with a lot of bite per ounce. I’d have to do a lot more research to find out exactly what sort of influence the lobby has on US policy.
By the way, I found an article discussing the Israel Lobby and it’s power.
http://www.counterpunch.org/hayden07202006.html