-”Former London mayor Ken Livingstone and rights activist Bianca Jagger joined campaigners who have staged a week of rallies, culminating in a demonstration Saturday which will include a symbolic shoe protest outside Downing Street. ‘I would like to make an appeal to president elect Obama to speak up,’ said Jagger. ‘People throughout the world were hopeful when he was elected and we must appeal to him to ask for the immediate cessation of the bombardment of the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.’”
”Obama and his aides should be openly counseling the Bush administration to use every diplomatic avenue to promote a ceasefire and, above all, to urge against an Israeli invasion and occupation of Gaza. Unfortunately, the president-elect is doing nothing of the sort. Some may imagine that this disengaged approach confirms Obama as a true ‘friend of Israel.’”
”Obama has massive political capital, and could have injected himself into the crisis before it happened. He did so during the beginning of the economic meltdown, and could have lent his credibility to a situation that has spiralled dangerously out of control. Obama has stated that ‘There is only one President at a time’, abdicating responsibility and essentially passing the buck.”
Presidential Candidate Obama never went a day in the past 2 years without ranting on and on about one world event or another. Now that he’s President elect…he’s silent. He’s silent at a time where he could actually have some influence (even if it just means supporting the Bush Admin policies and responses), and at a time when he could actually influence the scale of challenges he is responsible for in a few weeks. There is no excuse for ranting as a candidate, and then being silent as an elect, but I’ll let the faux liberal progressives make that case. What I find amazing is that they dare to speak out against The One at all.
ht Hot Air
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“* a symbolic shoe protest outside Downing Street*”
Shoes come in pairs…right ?
When did Barack Obama stand up for anything ?
The other shoe drops as world expectations of President elect Obama taking a stance fall.
.
That photo needs to be a “Caption It” !
Obama: “Now, what was the reason I wanted to be president ?….”
( Bits and pieces of reality begin to sink in…)
Present.
Ya know, I couldn’t find a date on the photo.
Anyone?
Anyone?
Bueller? Bueller?
@PamelaofthePoconos:
I was thinking in this case, “Absent”.
Moving the topic of discussion from a one or a two move chess player…to move#3:
What the rantings from the Progressive left/faux-open-minded-liberals also points to is not just his silence, but that they want him to oppose Israel. Forget the rockets behind him in the picture…these people actually blame the civilian casualties on Israel-who is targeting and going to great effort to avoid civilian casualties-rather than Hamas which (look at the pic again) has been firing rockets at Israeli CIVILIANS for a long LONG time. SO, when he DOES get sworn in, and he DOES condemn Hamas’ rocket attacks…how’re these people gonna react? Will they become partisan lemmings and say, “oh, ok. Barack says go this way, so we go this way” OR will they oppose him with anything close to the vigor they would President Bush. Put another way, will they be partisans or will they become patriots?
I cannot WAIT for the Inauguration!!!
Scott:
The photo is from July 23rd:
http://blogs.reuters.com/frontrow/tag/israel/
I love this loon: ”Obama has massive political capital, and could have injected himself into the crisis before it happened.”
But Obama did speak up regarding this situation, as quoted in the July 23rd report:
“Obama had a similar view. “If somebody was sending rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do everything in my power to stop that,” he said. “And I would expect Israelis to do the same thing.”
Someone please tell these handwringing bleeding heart libs that Obama has given the green light for Israel to attack. That’s what his silence is all about.
I don’t know about Obama’s “green light” to Israel, Mike. Since he has already said this publicly before, it would be nothing for him to pull out the old talking point and repeat it as a public statement to appease the masses awaiting his statements. In fact, he could update it by tempering it with the typical Obama fence straddling… i.e. “both sides must step back and talk…. Hamas must stop the rockets, Israel must stand down”.
This would not be difficult, and relatively safe by not genuinely taking a side between the two. And it would still show a modicum of continuity of his previous campaign words, plus support for the current admin’s public stand and statements.
But why doesn’t he?
It’s obvious Obama is bound and determined to reject calls for a statement and remain silent (unless the pressure gets really heavy…). Now what remains to be seen is *why* he’s bent on sticking to an excuse for his silence.
So I have to disagree with you, Mike. I, for one, am not convinced that it’s because Obama supports Israel in this. The most logical reason for his silence would not be that he agrees with Israel and the Bush-Condi foreign policy… but that he is diametrically opposed to their statement. And he doesn’t want to have two opposing presidential policies out there before he is inaugurated.
I could be wrong… but we won’t know until the end of the month.
He is, first and foremost, a politician.
He’s watching the weather vane.
If Israel achieves a decisive victory, he’ll claim to have supported them all along.
If they lose heart and back away, he’ll pander to the suffering Palestinians.
What is sinking into his head as we write is that Presidents don’t have time for deferring decisions.
Have fun pal.
The left thought obama was an anti-semite like they are. While obama is no friend of Israel, I don’t think he dislikes Israel as much as the Koslims, DUNGites, etc.
Mata: In the abscence of any other statement other than “P.E. Obama is monitoring the situation but is keenly aware we only have one president at a time” his failure to make any mutterins with his usual moral equivalence is indeed a green light.
I think you have been hanging around with Larry for too long.
P.S. Scott: What happened to the photo?
Don’t be silly, Mike. I’m quite sure Larry agrees with *you* on this one – that Obama’s silently supporting Israel.
It is me who is out of the mainstream on this one.
photo is still there when I go to view it
It’s not showing here anymore.
and if Larry agrees with me I will have to reevaluate my position.