John McCain Throws On His Black Fedora And Peyes

even indulged a preposterous misinterpretation of Obama's remarks to Goldberg before Goldberg cut him off. Etc., yawn.

No, he didn't, but I can't say I'm surprised you projected what you wanted to see onto the reality of their exchange:

JG: Senator Obama told me that the Arab-Israeli dispute is a “constant sore” that infects our foreign policy. Do you think this is true, and do you think that the Arab-Israeli dispute is central to our challenges in the Middle East?

JM: Well, I certainly would not describe it the way Senator Obama did –

JG: He wasn’t referring to Israel as an “open sore,” he was referring to the conflict.

JM: I don’t think the conflict is a sore. I think it’s a national security challenge. I think it’s important to achieve peace in the Middle East on a broad variety of fronts and I think that if the Israeli-Palestinian issue were decided tomorrow, we would still face the enormous threat of radical Islamic extremism.

"I certainly would not describe it the way Senator Obama did... I don't think the conflict is a sore." So McCain's point was consistent with what he said before Goldberg cut him off. You may wish to believe he was about to mischaracterize  Obama's statement -- and Jeff may have suspected as much, too, which is why he did cut him off -- but you have no evidence to support that. 

How odd, though, that in a post in which you clear your throat by pointing out the absence of substantive differences between McCain's and Obama's positions on Israel, you call out the former for -- of all things to do in a presidential contest! -- finding fault with his opponent. Yes, well, he was only repeatedly asked by the interviewer what he thought of his opponent, who of course is practically a Jew himself, a real Portnoy of the handjob and "let my people go" tribal ache.

Sorry for the professional discourtesy, but the silliness is choking already.

I brush discourtesy off my shoulders. McCain's not an idiot and neither are you. Which contracts the universe of possible explanations of this sentence:

You may wish to believe he was about to mischaracterize  Obama's statement -- and Jeff may have suspected as much, too, which is why he did cut him off -- but you have no evidence to support that.

Know what I love about knee-jerk contrarianism? The internal inconsistency. You can claim a hard-nosed understanding of the grimy reality of political tactics (N.B. awareness of the fact that politicians tatically position themselves is compatible with criticism of preposterous instances of such positioning; sounds crazy but it's true, I swear). You can be willfully obtuse about blatant instances of tactical positioning. But not both simultaneously. Likewise, you can claim there is no evidence to support a particular statement, and you can acknowledge one (of many!) obvious examples of the evidence that supports that statement, but doing both without even a sentence break dividing the twain is just silly. Chokingly so, even.

By your reasoning (and surely it's universal) I can impute all sorts of nefarious statements Barack Obama has not made on the basis of the ones he has done,  claiming only that -- let's be serious here, folks -- we all know what he was really going to say. In my defense, I might argue that he's a politician and therefore always "tactically positioning" himself. But given that both Obama and McCain have also acted honorably in the past, might my thinking seem a little presumptuous, cynical or unfair?

Somehow I suspect you'd be the first to snarl at such interpretive parsimony if it were ever employed against the moshiach of the South Side, whose dangling payis and Joycean jesuitical jewiness are all too real by your lights. You were certainly willing to accord his former pastor, who has now been rejected like the entire black church tradition, the benefit of every doubt, and the benefit of quite a few non-doubts as well. Or were you being contrarian in a more optimistic way in those instances? 

Your accusation of my double-bookkeeping is false but also unnecessary. I can be downright machiavellian in my gloss of dirty political tricks (guilty as charged) and still retain a sense of intellectual pride that distinguishes real tricks from supposed ones. I would not have imputed the same motive to Obama -- especially not in print for all to read -- on the same merits because it would have made me look like a hack and an idiot (and you've kindly squashed the latter assessment on my behalf, thanks).

So, then, once more with feeling. How did McCain "[indulge] a preposterous misinterpretation of Obama's remarks" before Goldberg cut him off from indulging in it?  What he said was "Well, I certainly would not describe it the way Senator Obama did," with "it" referring to the "Arab-Israeli dispute" as Jeff cited twice in his question (indicating perhaps a solicitousness about having a scandalously twisted quotation reiterated and confirmed in its correct context). If McCain were about to alter that citation, or pretend it had not been made, he'd surely have called more unfavorable attention to himself than he would have to Obama -- particularly in the wake of having the "sore" myth exploded by, most impressively, Jeffrey Goldberg, his present interviewer. His "tactic," in other words, would have backfired miserably and instantly. And he's no idiot either, right?

Once more with feeling:

"How did McCain '[indulge] a preposterous misinterpretation of Obama's remarks'"?

In the ordinary way politicians do when they indulge ideas too absurd to state explicitly, the ordinary way McCain in particular does. [da capo, affetuoso].

His "tactic," in other words, would have backfired miserably and instantly. And he's no idiot either, right? 

See immediately above, see also; it's almost as if live humans can pass the Turing test. But apparently there are deeper roots to this gripe:

the moshiach of the South Side, whose dangling payis and Joycean jesuitical jewiness are all too real by your lights. You were certainly willing to accord his former pastor, who has now been rejected like the entire black church tradition, the benefit of every doubt, and the benefit of quite a few non-doubts as well.

I think I've been admirably patient, indulgent even, but your misreadings (and evident failure to read the second to last graph in the post above) don't excuse malicious inquisitorial nonsense like this, so let's get down to it:  

might my thinking seem a little presumptuous, cynical or unfair?

Yes, extraordinarily so. Spiteful, too.

I would not have imputed the same motive to Obama [see immediately above] -- especially not in print for all to read -- on the same merits because it would have made me look like a hack

See, if I were as inclined to discourtesy as some people, I would have flagged this snarl (that is a good word!) a long time ago:

"[Obama] downplay[ed] his relationship with the domestic terrorist William Ayers to the point of absurdity."

(Full article really worth reading, as is its screen adaptation.)

Well, irony takes a holiday as we're given a poor anecdotal definition of da capo, affetuoso slander by the same person who closes the lesson plan with suggesting -- but not coming right out and saying -- that I'm a racist in the mould of D.W. Griffith. (It'd be nice, Daniel, if you stopped linking furiously to things to make your sensationalist points for you, and just made them in the body of the text, even at the risk of running a surplus.)

Now, it is true, I've called your thinking silly and presumptuous, and I've mocked your fervent support of Obama -- as well as your elisions or rationalizations of some of his more jaw-dropping behavior. But I believe you take the trophy for spitefulness now, and much else besides. Congratulations.

Of course, the crucial difference between McCain's "preposterous misinterpretation" and his prior comments about Hamas is that the latter can be weighed on their own rhetorical terms, whereas the former cannot because there is no rhetoric -- he was not given the chance to complete his sentence. You're fond of allusions to totalitarianism with which to account for venal and nasty behavior in democratic politics and the evil that bloggers do. So you might appreciate that "thought-crime" is the only thing of which you can feasibly accuse McCain in the current instance -- and that determined by your own preternatural ability to read his mind. (Not even the young Turks at TPM Cafe attempt to do that; they rely on his own words to determine his sleaziness.)

I would not have imputed the same motive to Obama [see immediately above] -- especially not in print for all to read -- on the same merits because it would have made me look like a hack

Again, the circumstances are wholly different as are the respective complaints. I said that, judging from the tropes he picked up and worked with in the interview, Obama was trying to impress his interlocutor and his audience. His ability to cite Leon Uris and Philip Roth to someone he knew would appreciate the references -- to someone who employed those very references in the magazine cover story Obama professed to read before sitting down for the interview -- was a sign of his charisma, I wrote, and nothing else. I also contended that Obama may have been sincere in his affinity for Jewish culture (I even allowed that he may be the better candidate with respect to Israeli security; read the whole article indeed), but your claim that he has a "deeper and richer understanding of the American Jewish and Israeli experience [sic] than any previous presidential aspirant" was laughable and also impossible to adjudicate given the problem with defining the American Jewish and Israeli experiences. I'm sorry that I pointed out that you're from Tea Neck, NJ and not from Haifa. That wasn't nice.

As for this:

"[Obama] downplay[ed] his relationship with the domestic terrorist William Ayers to the point of absurdity."

What part do you disprove of, exactly? As you know, Ayers and Obama served on two separate academic panels, and on the board of a non-profit organization. Perhaps I should have written "cyclical but casual working association"? I have a "relationship" with my landlord that I would think is a shade less collegial than the one Obama and Ayers shared on those committees -- at least I should hope it is. I'll concede the semantic point, if you like. But we know that Ayers is more than the English professor from Chicago Obama first described him as in that debate, isn't he? (He's an education professor, in fact). Also, I would call our patient readers' attention to the piece you cite, which was about the candidate's arrogance in thinking that he could ignore certain problems in his self-exculpatory language and his premature heir apparency and not be tasked further about them. Is that such a controversial point to have made?

From this, I'm the moral equivalent of Jim Crow. Swell.

Please continue.

Koffler, it's your turn.

Note here how the Jewcy author accuses others of making "preposterous misinterpretations" while being guilty of the accusation personally. This is always the style of the Leftist, where spinning the truth is all too obvious. DK also makes the point that both the positions of McCain and Obama are very close to Zionist understandings of Israeli security. This is another false assertion.

Note the following allegation from DK:

McCain conceded in passing that the settlements "keep Israel and the
Palestinians from making peace" (Goldberg's phrase), while Obama merely
observed that "[s]ettlements at this juncture are not helpful.

Here is the text between Goldberg and McCain:

JG: Do you think that settlements keep Israel and the Palestinians from making peace?

JM: There’s a list of issues that separate them,
from water, to the right of return, to settlements. Look at the Oslo
Accords, which basically laid out a roadmap for addressing these major
issues. And settlements is one of them, but certainly one of the issues
right now is the shelling of Sderot, which I visited. As you know,
they’re shelling from across the border. If the United States was being
rocketed across one of our borders, that would probably gain prominence
as an issue.

Resp. Note that McCain does not take the bait and is not ready to blame Israel for the lack of peace because of settlements. Instead, he is willing to list settlements together with other matters in a list of items that "separate" the parties. In answer to the question, John McCain is quick to cite Arab violence against Israel as wrong on its face as his conclusion.

Now, consider what Obama said to the same question from the same questioner.

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.

I want to solve the problem, and so my job in being a friend to
Israel is partly to hold up a mirror and tell the truth and say if
Israel is building settlements without any regard to the effects that
this has on the peace process, then we’re going to be stuck in the same
status quo that we’ve been stuck in for decades now

Resp. This is a very different answer from McCain. Given the same bait, Obama jumps all over it, saying that he wants to hold up a mirror, tell and the truth and tell Israel that what they are doing is having a negative effect in the peace process. He says that the Arabs see settlements as an "excuse" but makes it plain by his other comments that they are absolutely an OBSTACLE to PEACE--the "magic" phrase of the anti-Israel crowd. Further, in describing the effect settlements have on Arab terrorists in Israel and their bombing of Israel, Obama is quick to add that these anti-Israel terrorists are being "anti-American" (this is to link Israeli policy to the creation of anti-Americanism--a real leap and exactly the kind of criticism leveled at Israel by Farrakhan, Jackson, Sharpton, Wright and his crowd of anti-Israel supporters). This, Obama claims, give the Arabs the excuse to perform "inexcusable actions." Obama, very clearly is at the same time all over the lot and also specifically willing to blame Israel first. If not, why would he be so angry about the status quo and so interested to hold up a mirror to Israel for its settlement policy? His rhetoric is vague merely to create the appearance of ambiguity and this is surely a big change from our President Bush who despite being such a poor speaker and a poor leader is superior is his ability to say what he means and mean what he says.

Therefore, any fair reading of the two interviews will see contrasting narratives regarding the two candidates. Koffler has the gall to infer that McCain is a bit more critical of Israel and this really takes the cake. Obama is revealed to be much less likely to stand by Israel and his expressed views are almost the very opposite of a Zionist's expectations--I should know since I am a Zionist and I, alas, wish to see Israel survive instead of being destroyed. McCain references the Oslo Accords--something that makes anyone in the pro-Israel crowd nervous and sees settlements as part of a list of problems between the parties-inferring some potential blame on Israel but not explicitly. In terms of Israel, McCain grades out close to Bush. Obama, on the other hand, grades out poorly by continuing to give Israelis and pro-Israel supporters good reason to fear that given any kind of a push--he would abandon Israel in an instant.

See, I link to things in comments because I don't have the time or inclination to compose thousands of words defending myself from somebody who can't be bothered to read what he's attacking or maintain bare logical consistency in his gripes even on their own terms, but I'll see if I can address the main points.

Now, it is true, I've called your thinking silly and presumptuous, and I've mocked your fervent support of Obama -- as well as your elisions or rationalizations of some of his more jaw-dropping behavior.

This would be more credible if I hadn't written more thorough and substantive criticisms of Obama than every item in your entire corpus of published writing combined, or if the "jaw-dropping behavior" you refer to were anything but the product of inquisitorial paranoia that subsists nowhere but your own mind.

Of course, the crucial difference between McCain's "preposterous misinterpretation" and his prior comments about Hamas

Hang on, see if you can keep your story straight one paragraph to the next. The preposterous interpretation was John Boehner's. McCain merely indulged it in the mundane, ordinary way people do such things.

the latter can be weighed on their own rhetorical terms, whereas the former cannot because there is no rhetoric

Good, that's totally non-responsive (also false, of course there's rhetoric.) You previously suggested that it couldn't have been that McCain was dwelling on the "constant sore" rhetoric tactically because "[h]is 'tactic,' in other words, would have backfired miserably and instantly." (N.B. Is that speculation about his motives? Yes, indeed it is.) But McCain's rhetorical presses on Hamas and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad make nonsense of that feint at naivete, hence the subject change towards inanity.

your own preternatural ability to read his mind

First, I read his words and I know how language works; no mind-reading necessary. Make it to step 2 and you'll soon be blushing about all this, I promise. Second, do you read what you write? If so, how to explain your defense of your stunningly nasty, petty, ill-informed TNC offering? You weren't only, risible casuistic denials to the contrary, peering into Obama's soul and finding something unseemly there, you were playing at psychoanalyst to every intellectual supporter of Obama (and John F. Kennedy too).

deeper and richer understanding of the American Jewish and Israeli experience [sic] [sic --- I see them as aspects of a contiguous experience, thanks] than any previous presidential aspirant

1) I was clearly referring to major party candidates; 2) it's only been over the last 30 years or so that presidential aspirants have had to display any such understanding, so the pool of cases to consider is quite small and manageable and most are easily dismissable (let's hear it for Ed Muskie!);

impossible to adjudicate given the problem with defining the American Jewish and Israeli experiences [sic]

3) Talk about laughable; there are intractable problems with defining "bald," yet we manage with it.

I also contended that Obama may have been sincere in his affinity for Jewish culture

Bullshit, no you didn't. You accused him of cleverly faking it to win Goldberg's approval and ignored almost everything he said.

I even allowed that he may be the better candidate with respect to Israeli security

Huzzah!

I'm sorry that I pointed out that you're from Tea Neck [sic], NJ and not from Haifa

Is it laziness or spite that impels you to continue misspelling the name of my hometown? That highlights what's so really outrageously shoddy about the TNC post: you don't actually know anything about my background. The whole performance consisted in nothing but malicious presumption and projection. I'd reiterate my substantive case but you have no substantive criticism for me to rebut.

Now then:

"[Obama] downplay[ed] his relationship with the domestic terrorist William Ayers to the point of absurdity."

No, seriously, when did you stop beating your wife? I'm going to assume despite everything that you do know why that sentence is at least a contender for the most loathsome sentence in a published article this year, and hold out hope you'll be suitably ashamed of the piece some day. Or failing that, change the adjective in the title to the much more fitting "uppity."

Finally, re: the trophy for spitefulness, I've actually written responses to your provocations that treat them with precisely as much respect as they deserve, and didn't pull the trigger because I fucking hate doing this. The reason you still don't see the problem with spending months trying to pick fights with me, nor the Joban patience it took, out of deference to friendship, to respond to 5000 word strings of irrelevant insults and moral blackmail with substantive arguments or else not at all --- you're really not embarrassed about the TNC piece? not a little? --- is the same reason that that prize is staying firmly on your mantle for the foreseeable future.

Now, it is true, I've called your thinking silly and presumptuous, and I've mocked your fervent support of Obama

Yup, it wasn't for my sake that I let it go.

This would be more credible if I hadn't written more thorough and substantive criticisms of Obama than every item in your entire corpus of published writing combined, or if the "jaw-dropping behavior"

Well, I suppose you might have just cited your Yale GPA here again, so I'll count that an improvement on unselfconscious arrogance. (I blushed writing that. Honestly.)

The preposterous interpretation was John Boehner's. McCain merely indulged it in the mundane, ordinary way people do such things.

By indulging in someone else's preposterous interpretation, McCain does not make it his own interpretation, at least provisionally? If you deny the law of gravity and I defend your denial, doesn't it become my own denial?

Good, that's totally non-responsive (also false, of course there's rhetoric.) You previously suggested that it couldn't have been that McCain was dwelling on the "constant sore" rhetoric tactically because "[h]is 'tactic,' in other words, would have backfired miserably and instantly." (N.B. Is that speculation about his motives? Yes, indeed it is.) But McCain's rhetorical presses on Hamas and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad make nonsense of that feint at naivete, hence the subject change towards inanity.

Assuming McCain knew how Boehner twisted Obama's comment, might it also be fair to assume he knew that Boehner was called out on it and would therefore not try his facts with the man who helped call him out, also the man to whom Obama first spoke? Further, if McCain were picking up with the other John left off, couldn't he have opened with something more faux-outraged and pseudo-shocked than "I would not describe it the way Sen. Obama did." (If you want people to think your opponent has called Israel a "sore," you don't stay this phlegmatic. Boehner certainly didn't.)

You use Goldberg's intervention -- which, again, can be more plausibly explained as Jeff's sensitivity to make sure he and his interlocutor were clear on the specifics of an aggravated and falsely scandalized point -- as proof of McCain's sordidness, where any honest reader of the actual exchange can see how this wants for forensic legitimacy.

Make it to step 2 and you'll soon be blushing about all this, I promise. Second, do you read what you write? If so, how to explain your defense of your stunningly nasty, petty, ill-informed TNC offering? You weren't only, risible casuistic denials to the contrary, peering into Obama's soul and finding something unseemly there, you were playing at psychoanalyst to every intellectual supporter of Obama (and John F. Kennedy too).

Now I know I hit the mark with that post. (The misspelling of Teaneck was only laziness, I assure you. I was not suggesting that your neck in any way resembles tea. Though for some reason I feel the need to spell this out for you.) Yes, I was pointing out a tendency among intellectual supporters of Obama and Kennedy to see what they wish to see, and using your helpfully provided fatuity as a case in point. I may have been sarcastic, but is this really a vice you wish to deplore in others? I used what you excerpted from the interview and found so impressive, and wrote that I thought Obama needed to be rescued from people like you, who lend his otherwise unremarkable or banal comments -- like those found in the excerpt -- the added aura of being the most fantastic words ever to be loosed on that particular topic.

Did I earnestly maintain, now or in this thread, that you thought Obama was suddenly a Jew after reading his interview? Not any more than you maintain McCain is by the way you titled this post. Or did you mean only to suggest by your choice of language that he was acting in a histrionic and pandering manner that gave license to satire? Obama told Jeff that a Jewish camp counselor convinced him of the necessity of Zionism. Yes, I suppose that's technically possible. But it's still laughable, the way Howell Raines was laughable -- albeit possibly, frighteningly, sincere -- when he said he learned all he ever really needed to know about civil rights from his black maid.

2) it's only been over the last 30 years or so that presidential aspirants have had to display any such understanding, so the pool of cases to consider is quite small and manageable and most are easily dismissable (let's hear it for Ed Muskie!);

Are you not moving the goalpost now? You had meant to say presidential aspirants of the last 30 years or so, and not in the entire history of the United States? OK. It's still a wince-making observation. Or I found it be, and so I told you to your face in one of our many debates in the office. But I also wrote it down. Treachery defined! Though I wonder: given the hostility -- much of it scurrilous and unfounded -- of roughly 30% of the American Jewish community to Obama, doesn't this disrupt your unified field theory of how to define that community? Ah, but --

3) Talk about laughable; there are intractable problems with defining "bald," yet we manage with it.

Actually, my father's pretty clearly bald and any attempt to quibble with that assertion would earn his and my unrestrained chuckles. How fascinating. You only write for a magazine that exhausts itself daily trying to pin down those Jewish and Israeli experiences, or encompass their limitless variety, but you have managed to crack the Key to All Mosaic Mythologies, the way you've written the most comprehensive and searing indictments of Barack Obama.

No, seriously, when did you stop beating your wife? I'm going to assume despite everything that you do know why that sentence is at least a contender for the most loathsome sentence in a published article this year, and hold out hope you'll be suitably ashamed of the piece some day. Or failing that, change the adjective in the title to the much more fitting "uppity." But for now, let's hear more about the incredible arrogance Obama displayed by, wait for it, not attacking Hillary Clinton.

Which adjective should I change to "uppity"? Sorry, I've lost my inquistorial edge to presume to know what paranoid fantasy you've concocted about that piece or how you see those simple words as euphemism for racism. If they were, I should think I'd have heard about it before now, or -- better yet -- that you might have felt obliged by your sense of friendship and your 'Joban patience'* to point it out to me in private. Obviously, it wasn't that TNC post that angered you into passivity because the Ayers line ran a while before.

It's equally true that Hillary Clinton downplayed her relationship to the domestic terrorist William Ayers, isn't it? Or is that the polite way of saying girls can't be president?

* I think you mean that sincerely, too. But I'm still laughing.

We're going to need extra typesets now.

This would be more credible if I hadn't written more thorough and substantive criticisms of Obama than every item in your entire corpus of published writing combined, or if the "jaw-dropping behavior"

Well, I suppose you might have just cited your Yale GPA here again, so I'll count that an improvement on unselfconscious arrogance. (I blushed writing that. Honestly.)

You see, your total output of writing on Obama doesn't present a very high bar to clear. My claim doesn't rest on any particularly high regard for my own work.

Assuming McCain knew how Boehner twisted Obama's comment, might it also be fair to assume he knew that Boehner was called out on it and would therefore not try his facts with the man who helped call him out, also the man to whom Obama first spoke?

So you're doubling down on pretend-incomprehension, except that:

Further, if McCain were picking up with the other John left off, couldn't he have opened with something more faux-outraged and pseudo-shocked than "I would not describe it the way Sen. Obama did."

In fact, you're completely in favor of applying pragmatic considerations to decide what people really mean --- which is the basis of communication, so far so good --- provided the result is consistent with your biases. (The answer to the question is, "yes, he could have," but that's irrelevant.)

Now I know I hit the mark with that post.

You think you hit the mark? It was a heap of falsehoods and illogic, but you're proud of yourself for acting like an asshole? Might as well pat yourself on the back, because no one else will.

I may have been sarcastic, but is this really a vice you wish to deplore in others?

We're getting to the heart of the problem: You can't tell the difference between sarcasm and witless sneering. Hence

(The misspelling of Teaneck was only laziness, I assure you. I was not suggesting that your neck in any way resembles tea. Though for some reason I feel the need to spell this out for you.)

That's just the thing; any confusion here is your fault. A little verbal onanism with the name of my hometown wouldn't be any less successful as a joke --- and I doubt it would have been even as well thought through as a comment about my neck or tea --- than your other efforts. But let's go with the laziness explanation, since it covers a lot of other ground.

Yes, I was pointing out a tendency among intellectual supporters of Obama and Kennedy to see what they wish to see, and using your helpfully provided fatuity as a case in point.

Except that your post was non-responsive to what I'd written and consisted in nothing but your own projections (hence you tried and failed to point out a tendency among intellectual supporters of Obama), speaking of which:

I used what you excerpted from the interview and found so impressive

No, you didn't. I excerpted four paragraphs. You responded to three points from the interview, one of which --- the anecdote about the camp counselor --- I didn't excerpt, and which was straightforward enough you probably could have managed not to misread it if you had tried not to. The other two points you responded to were his citations of Uris and Roth, who figure into one sentence in the four paragraphs I excerpted; your "response" in each case is to accuse Obama of faking it without --- what's the phrase --- the slightest forensic legitimacy. What impressed me was the impressive stuff I excerpted, which is neither banal nor unremarkable. Here's the link. Read what I picked out. No, seriously, read it. It's apparently not your MO, but give it a shot: If your post was just lazy writing, here's your chance to do the minimal work you declined previously.

Just one example:

Obama told Jeff that a Jewish camp counselor convinced him of the necessity of Zionism.

Which, again, I didn't excerpt, because that was clearly just an introductory remark inessential to his point --- by the way, he didn't tell anybody that a Jewish camp counselor convinced him of the necessity of Zionism; he said that a camp counselor introduced him to Zionism and Zionism, not the counselor, was compelling to him given his background; which of course, it would have been. Are you consciously distorting the line, or is it unconscious bias that leads you to distort it? Either way, it's a revealing distortion; you're even incapable of reading Obama recalling how he was first exposed to Zionism without fabricating something to attack. But here's what I excerpted:

I think that the idea of a secure Jewish state is a fundamentally just idea, and a necessary idea, given not only world history but the active existence of anti-Semitism, the potential vulnerability that the Jewish people could still experience. I know that that there are those who would argue that in some ways America has become a safe refuge for the Jewish people, but if you’ve gone through the Holocaust, then that does not offer the same sense of confidence and security as the idea that the Jewish people can take care of themselves no matter what happens. That makes it a fundamentally just idea...[snip]...

I think the idea of Israel and the reality of Israel is one that I find important to me personally. Because it speaks to my history of being uprooted, it speaks to the African-American story of exodus, it describes the history of overcoming great odds and a courage and a commitment to carving out a democracy and prosperity in the midst of hardscrabble land. One of the things I loved about Israel when I went there is that the land itself is a metaphor for rebirth, for what’s been accomplished.

More succinctly, you're completely full of shit. Not a goddamn word for what I did excerpt, just empty sneering at a misreading of what I didn't. Yet you risibly accuse me of partisanship, Weiss of Brook Lyn, NY --- a sentiment that would be too silly to countenance, especially given the slavish, uncritical devotion to prejudices your writing about Obama expresses, were it not for the presumptuousness behind it. (How do you inspire yourself to write this way?)

You had meant to say presidential aspirants of the last 30 years or so, and not in the entire history of the United States?

Is it possible your logic is this woeful? I said that the presidential candidate with the deepest understanding of Jewish experience in the last 30 years = the presidential candidate with the deepest understanding of Jewish experience in American history for reasons that are obvious (there wasn't even such a thing as Israeli experience until 1948, for example). "than any previous presidential aspirants" is the key qualifier; it instantly restricts the set of individuals under consideration to a small group. The grandiosity you believe yourself to be railing against is your invention.

It's still a wince-making observation. Or I found it be, and so I told you to your face in one of our many debates in the office. But I also wrote it down. Treachery defined!

1) The 'it' doesn't refer to the same thing in the first two sentences; the first referent is my observation; the second referent is whatever the hell you were writing about, connected to my post, if at all, through purest coincidence. 2) You found it to be so because of basic errors reading and processing what you read, which isn't my fault or problem. 3) Treachery isn't the issue; the issue, again, is acting like an asshole. (But if you're claiming the timeline follows the order of your report --- telling me to my face, then writing it down --- you're just lying. That "debate" happened a day or two after I read the TNC post.)

Though I wonder: given the hostility -- much of it scurrilous and unfounded -- of roughly 30% of the American Jewish community to Obama, doesn't this disrupt your unified field theory of how to define that community?

First, quick question: Do you know what unified field theory is? (Do you know what a field is?) No checking wikipedia. I suspect not --- the metaphor supports my point, not yours. If not, it would be wise to drop the concept from your rhetorical repertoire. Second, do you mean to tell me that Jews disagree about some things? Well, if I knew that, clearly, I'd never have suggested that there are common themes in Jewish experience.

you have managed to crack the Key to All Mosaic Mythologies

Is this one of those unearnest bits of rhetorical lard you're so fond of? When do you get around to responding to any claim I actually did make?

the way you've written the most comprehensive and searing indictments of Barack Obama

Aha, here's a very illustrative example of the slovenliness of your writing about me and the slovenliness of the thought that informed it. Do you know the difference between comparative and superlative terms? I think you do, and that you're not confusing comparatives and superlatives but, as before, sarcasm with witless sneering. But anyway, what I've written is "more thorough and substantive" criticisms of Obama than everything you've written about him. Now I happen to think my criticisms are fairly perspicuous on their own terms, but I succeeded in writing more thorough and substantive criticisms of Obama than everything you've written about him not because of any great accomplishment on my part, but because your writing about him, again, is so relentlessly terrible that it's very, very easy to outdo.

Which adjective should I change to "uppity"?

'Arrogant'. For the record, I don't think you're like D.W. Griffith; as far as I know, Griffith believed in his message and had the courage of his convictions, you're just hacking away.

Obviously, it wasn't that TNC post that angered you into passivity because the Ayers line ran a while before.

Not really a shocker, but you're confusing separate issues. I noticed the "I'm happy to pimp all 'scurrilous and unfounded' rumors about the uppity negro" column when it first ran, but it didn't piss me off personally. I didn't bring it up because there's no productive conversation to be had about it, except for you to express shame about having written it --- not just the Ayers line (though it's the most egregious) but the whole thing; the parts that aren't outrageously offensive are just dumb and misinformed. (Link here. Any reader who's made it this far doesn't need me to narrate it; he or she can see for him or herself, and, I assume, come away appalled --- though I'll note the very first sentence is utter bullshit and it only gets worse from there.) What pissed me off personally was your persistent, repeated efforts to pick a fight. "Why would any grownup behave that way?" I wondered. But I don't really care anymore.

3) Talk about laughable; there are intractable problems with defining "bald," yet we manage with it.

Actually, my father's pretty clearly bald and any attempt to quibble with that assertion would earn his and my unrestrained chuckles.

Uh-huh. Dad's irrelevant. Some people are clearly bald. Some people are clearly not bald. Some people are neither clearly bald nor clearly not bald. Precise definition eludes them all. Waving your hands at your father isn't a definition and doesn't solve the problems involved in defining 'bald' --- or any other term at all. Consider restraining those chuckles; there are some people who'd crack a smile at your taking smug satisfaction in misunderstanding basic features of language, but you probably shouldn't be one of them.

Hey, Daniel and Michael-when are you two free for lunch? Naftali and I would like to join you.

Okay, I've had a day to think about this. I'm not any less pissed, but I'll be more reflective and judicious in my word choice. Here's how this might have gone if I had an interlocutor arguing in good faith.

MW: I have to disagree with your interpretation of McCain's point about the "constant sore" line. Maybe he meant to indulge the Boehner/RJC distortion, but I strongly doubt it given that he was sitting down with Goldberg himself.

DK: Hmm, I suppose that's possible, but considering McCain's slimy recent double-talk about Hamas, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Jeremiah Wright, his incessant, tic-like repetition of "naive" and "inexperienced," the evident fact that he's detested Obama for years (really, he acts like a bigger prick than Kid Blast, and that's saying something) I think my interpretation is by far the likeliest.

That's how you speak if you're not trying to poison the well. Incidentally:

We'll be halfway through President Obama's goodwill hoops game with Ayatollah "No Mahdi, no foul" Khamenei before a glassy-eyed Hillary, her lipstick applied like Diane Ladd's in Wild at Heart, stands before her ten remaining supporters in a fortified compound in Michigan and simply mouthes the word, "nigger."

---Michael Weiss, May 23.

And another thing: This whole thing got started with Michael reading a sinister motive into a single sentence fragment. Know what? That's alright --- it's the smug, condescending, hectoring on behalf of flagrant logical inconsistency that pisses me off. But feel free to interpret anything I write. The only way actual humans communicate is by interpreting the pragmatic implicatures of speech beyond its literal semantic meaning. Michael, being human, does precisely the unforgivable thing he accuses me of every day of his life and in (virtually?) every piece he's ever written. The complaint is laughable on its face.

That's why it became clear so quickly that the real beef is about Barack Obama. But as his mindless, venal sneer at me in TNC, let alone the disgusting uppity-terror-lovin'-negro column make clear, he's beyond incapable of writing anything about Obama that isn't cynical to the point of fabulism. Why is that? I have some guesses, but fuck it, it's not my problem, it's just dirt on my shoulder, and this is a great night to be an American, I'm going out.

Did I earnestly maintain, now or in this thread, that you thought Obama
was suddenly a Jew after reading his interview?

Do you even have to ask at this point?

Not any more than you
maintain McCain is by the way you titled this post. Or did you mean
only to suggest by your choice of language that he was acting in a
histrionic and pandering manner that gave license to satire? Obama told
Jeff that a Jewish camp counselor convinced him of the necessity of
Zionism. Yes, I suppose that's technically possible. But it's still
laughable, the way Howell Raines was laughable -- albeit possibly,
frighteningly, sincere -- when he said he learned all he ever really
needed to know about civil rights from his black maid.

Or white Obamatons who earnestly believe that they can better cope with their guilty feelings about benefiting from white privilege by heaping absurd, hyperbolic praise on anything Barack Obama says or does. If it sounds ludicrous, you're probably just a mean cynic, and missing the deeper spiritual truth about the transformational power of cheap flattery.

In other words: you suck, Michael. How dare you?

Dunno R-Dub, let's see:

1) Michael erroneously attributes any commentary on Obama's comments about his camp counselor to me, thoroughly ignores what I excerpted from the interview; you're as woeful a reader

2) What did I say about McCain? Did I say "he was acting in a histrionic and pandering manner that gave license to satire"? Or did I say "McCain does have ample material to connect his own experiences to the historical experiences of the Jews, but they are so emotionally raw that it was both wise and tactful of McCain to decline the opportunity. Instead, the lesson he took from reading Frankl is that even in the Hanoi Hilton, things could still get vastly worse. Which is an awfully Jewish thought."

3) Let's hear more about my white guilt.

It's just too easy. You're the biggest non-conformist there is.

First of all, Dan, I'm "R Dub" to my friends. We're clearly not friends.

Secondly, I was responding to Michael, not you. As hard as it is for Yalies to fathom, they are not (necessarily) the constant center of every conversation

Thirdly,  when someone can post  "is it laziness or spite that impels you to continue misspelling the name of my hometown?" without so much as a trace of good natured irony, they're about four or five posts away from going completely batshit crazy. Think of it as an occupational risk for rude, humorless liberal Ivy leaguers who regurgitate HuffPo/Kos talking points online.

Know what R-Dub, I confess that I was asserting my white privilege and intruding on your shout at kids to get off your lawn private conversation, but not because I'm rude and humorless. Rather, I'm so beset with liberal guilt for those who didn't have the advantages I did that I can't help but be embarrassed on their behalf when they show no capacity to be embarrassed. Especially when they decide to publicly entertain themselves confusing, say, this (try sounding out the words this time, maybe make flashcards) with Huffington Post or Daily Kos talking points. Let alone entertaining themselves with the notion that reflexive, hackneyed, spiteful cocooning to the outside world is anywhere near as original, interesting, or independent-minded as the worst of what pops on HuffPo or Kos.

One other thing R-Dub --- and I mean this as rudely and humorlessly as possible --- that's two name-checks and one link to Yale and the Ivy League that have nothing to do with anything. It's kinda creepy, kinda crazy, kinda obsessive. Sounds like time to schedule some therapy sessions. If your friends weren't such assholes, they'd have let you know already.