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 John Boehner, the leader of the House Republicans and all-around tool, has gone above and beyond his usual toolness this week. This mannequin wannabe is pathetic. We knew that. Now he's issuing press releases to prove it.
Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic magazine published an interview with Barack Obama this week. It's a great interview (CLICK HERE) in which he clarifies his positions on Hamas, Israel, and the Middle East in general. His comments are thoughtful and intelligent as usual. For example:
JG: What do you make of Jimmy Carter’s suggestion that Israel resembles an apartheid state?
BO: I strongly reject the characterization. Israel is a vibrant democracy, the only one in the Middle East, and there’s no doubt that Israel and the Palestinians have tough issues to work out to get to the goal of two states living side by side in peace and security, but injecting a term like apartheid into the discussion doesn’t advance that goal. It’s emotionally loaded, historically inaccurate, and it’s not what I believe.
JG: If you become President, will you denounce settlements publicly?
BO: What I will say is what I’ve said previously. Settlements at this juncture are not helpful. Look, my interest is in solving this problem not only for Israel but for the United States.
JG: Do you think that Israel is a drag on America’s reputation overseas?
BO: 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. I am absolutely convinced of that, and some of the tensions that might arise between me and some of the more hawkish elements in the Jewish community in the United States might stem from the fact that I’m not going to blindly adhere to whatever the most hawkish position is just because that’s the safest ground politically. |
Yesterday, Boehner the Tool released a statement in which he said this:
| "Israel is a critical American ally and a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, not a ‘constant sore’ as Barack Obama claims. Obama’s latest remark, and his commitment to ‘opening a dialogue’ with sponsors of terrorism, echoes past statements by Jimmy Carter who once called Israel an ‘apartheid state.’" |
Notice how he threw in the Carter reference even though Obama had actually rejected that characterization in the interview???!
Really, though, anybody with two brain cells to bang together KNOWS that the "constant sore" he was talking about is the conflict between Israel and Palestine. But, of course, that doesn't stop a partisan fool like Boehner from twisting words and comments in epic fashion to shape his own ridiculous spin.
Another Republican tool got in on the action, too. Rep. Eric Cantor, R-Virginia, said "It is truly disappointing that Senator Obama called Israel a ‘constant wound,’ ‘constant sore,’ and that it ‘infect[s] all of our foreign policy.’ These sorts of words and characterizations are the words of a politician with a deep misunderstanding of the Middle East and an innate distrust of Israel."
What a couple of complete douchebags. Is it contagious in that party or what?
Anyway, the funny ending to this story is the comment on Boehner's comments that Jefferey Goldberg put on his website under the title "The Honorable Mr. Boehner":
A press release from House Republican leader John Boehner asserts that Barack Obama told me that Israel is a "constant sore" that infects American foreign policy. "Israel is a critical American ally and a beacon of democracy in the Middle East, not a `constant sore' as Barack Obama claims," Boehner's statement reads.
Mr. Boehner, I'm sure, is a terribly busy man, with many burdensome responsibilities, so I have to assume that he simply didn't have time to read the entire Obama interview, or even the entire paragraph, or even a single clause. If he had, of course, he would have seen that Obama was clearly calling the Middle East conflict, and not Israel, a sore. Why, there's no one who would disagree that the Middle East conflict is a "sore," is there?
I have no doubt that Mr. Boehner will issue a correction to his press release in which he states the obvious, which is that Obama expressed -- in twelve different ways -- his support for Israel to me.
If he doesn't, however, I would, sadly, have to agree with my colleague, the less-forgiving Andrew Sullivan, who called Boehner's statement a "flat-out lie." In fact, I would add to Andrew's post, by calling Boehner's statement mendacious, duplicitous, gross, and comically refutable. So Mr. Boehner, do the right thing, and correct the record. I'll be happy to post the correction right here. |
Owned! "Mendacious, duplicitous, gross, and omically refutable". Love that!
I'm just sayin'...
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