The Dish

This was the guy who was on her campaign, remember:

Marc Lynch wants to know what the Obama administration was thinking:

There seems to be little question that Abbas's decision to go along with American pressure will have a significant impact on the popularity and legitimacy of the PA.  He is already backpedaling in the face of the intense public backlash, announcing the formation of a committee to look into the "circumstances surrounding the issue" (gee, wonder what he'll find when he investigates his own decision?), but it's probably too late.

[…]

I can understand the decision to sacrifice the Goldstone inquiry into the Gaza war to tactical or strategic considerations, whether or not I agree with the call.  It wouldn't be the first time.  But I would hope that such a decision would have seriously anticipated the implications for the legitimacy and efficacy of the Palestinian Authority, for Obama's credibility among Arab and Muslim audiences, or for how to leverage it into real gains with the Israeli public. 

It appears at times that Obama does not have the final say over US foreign policy in the Middle East. Israel does. At some point, it is not unreasonable to ask for a little help from our alleged friends.

(My first version of this sentence was intemperate and over-wrought. I apologize. My point is strong enough without stupid exaggerations.)

I try to explain:

Split, Croatia, 12 pm

Doug Holtz-Eakin, former McCain economic adviser and former director of the CBO, wants the the $8,000 first-time homebuyers tax credit ended (it expires in November but there has been talk of extending it):

I’m not sure if it is worse if the policy “works” or if it doesn’t, but it likely won’t.  The $8,000 first-time homebuyers tax credit is straight out of the same pool of bad ideas that gave us the misbegotten “cash for clunkers” program.  The latter produced essentially no environmental or energy-security benefits (not too surprising when you could get $3,500 for simply raising your mileage by only four miles-per-gallon) – just as a homeownership push has no real benefits.

Cash for clunkers was a superficial “success” from a sales point of view; we saw all those cars driven off the dealers’ lots powered by taxpayer subsidies.  Similarly, a check from Uncle Sam has sweetened home sales.  But most of the cash for clunkers sales would likely have taken place anyway, albeit later in 2009 or in 2010.  All the program did was steal sales from the future and provide a midsummer bump that will soon fade.  Similarly, more cash for homeowners will not represent real recovery in the housing market; it will just mean that next year and the year after will see less sales.

Greg Sargent:

The White House is refusing to offer comment or clarification on the suggestion yesterday by Obama national security adviser James Jones that Obama may not be able to repeal the ban on gays and the military in the short term because he “has a lot on his desk” and will deal with repeal “at the right time.”

According to Mark Kleiman, I owe Obama an apology for not trusting that the President will follow through. Aravosis has a good take:

Apparently, General Jones would have us believe that President Obama wasn’t aware that we were fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan when he promised to lift the gay ban during the campaign in exchange for our votes. So, Jones tells us today, Obama can’t get to that particular promise right now because he’s busy fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Uh huh.

So when exactly are both of those wars going to be over? I’m guessing some time after Obama leaves office. And that of course assumes that we don’t have more wars to “distract” the president. Jones just set us back. Again. He just gave the Republicans, and conservative Dems, the perfect talking point.

I think the expression that comes to mind is: don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.

Maybe I spoke too soon in trying to be fair. The Ahmadinejad-Is-Jewish argument is hotly disputed here:

Upon closer inspection, a completely different interpretation of "Sabourjian" emerges. According to Robert Tait, a Guardian correspondent who travelled to Ahmadinejad's native village in 2005, the name "derives from thread painter – sabor in Farsi – a once common and humble occupation in the carpet industry in Semnan province, where Aradan is situated". This is confirmed by Kasra Naji, who also wrote a biography of Ahmadinejad and met his family in his native village. Carpet weaving or colouring carpet threads are not professions associated with Jews in Iran.

According to both Naji and Tait, Ahmadinejad's father Ahmad was in fact a religious Shia, who taught the Quran before and after Ahmadinejad's

birth and their move to Tehran.

So religious was Ahmad Sabourjian that he bought a house near a Hosseinieh, a religious club that he frequented during the holy month of Moharram to mourn the martyrdom of Imam Hossein.

Moreover, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's mother is a Seyyede. This is a title given to women whose family are believed to be direct bloodline descendants of Prophet Muhammad. Male members are given the title of Seyyed, and include prominent figures such as Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei. In Judaism, this is equivalent to the Cohens, who are direct descendants of Aaron, the brother of Moses. One has to be born into a Seyyed family: the title is never given to Muslims by birth, let alone converts. This makes it impossible for Ahmadinejad's mother to have been a Jew. In fact, she was so proud of her lineage that everyone in her native village of Aradan referred to her by her Islamic title, Seyyede.The reason that Ahmadinejad's father changed his surname has more to do with the class struggle in Iran.

Just a friendly reminder that for a British paper, "sources close to the administration," i.e. not in it and with no first-hand knowledge of anything … could be anyone at all. I don't know what the internal discussions are like, but I'm quite sure the Telegraph doesn't either. Maybe Obama has had a personality change overnight and is "furious". Or maybe Alex Spillius is inferring things and calling it reporting.

The Telegraph has realized that if they can use their looser sourcing standards to get links from big right-wing websites in America, they're going to do much better financially and beat their British competitors in traffic. Hence their recent penchant to hype stories based on sources no US paper would begin to credit.That doesn't mean they're wrong. It does mean a grain of salt is necessary.

(Now the Ahmadinajew story really is a scoop.)

A reader writes:

I think the title "The Case for Muddling Through" sums up why you have been blocked from completing this article. This takes nothing away from the piece as a whole, but the title could have easily been "The Case for Hurrying Up to Decide to Wait and See."

 

As someone who has written about such issues on dealine before (on a much smaller scale), that's a tough freaking position to start from. I have seen this blank page before and you know whatever you write will have the same conclusion: "I have no fucking clue and nobody else does either."

 

And to be honest, can that last line title any article written on Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran? I think so.

Who better to parse this than Jeffrey?