Attempting to head off a simmering firestorm by neocons and the pro-Israel lobby against Chas. Freeman–who was vetted as National Intelligence Council chair–Adm. Dennis Blair, director of national intelligence, finalized the former’s appointment yesterday.
One of the Republican members of the House or Senate intelligence committees who received Blair’s appointment notice must’ve leaked it to the Weekly Standard’s apoplectic editor, Michael Goldfarb. Just when he was about to take his pound of Obama flesh, the prey was whisked away from him. But Goldfarb got out of it the opportunity to pen a dyspeptic column, Saudi Puppet to Head NIC. Among Freeman’s alleged sins: he’s soft on bin Laden, opposes Chinese democracy, and admires Saudi Arabia’s king.
Considering the high pitched wail of Goldfarb’s typical rantings, not much that he says can be credited with having any truth. Witness this scurrilous attack on J Street, which claims it “collapsed” in the face of the Gaza war. Wishful thinking.
Perhaps most humorous was Goldfarb’s intimation that J Street’s leaders were a bit tetched in the head in believing the Israel lobby and Israeli embassy might be conspiring in the media to besmirch the group:
…Like Hamas, J Street is blaming a Jewish conspiracy for its current troubles, a cabal apparently run out of the Israeli embassy in Washington
Holy Aipac, Batman! You don’t think any such thing is possible do you? Also, quite deft to associate Hamas and J Street twice in two sentences, don’t you think?
The last word on this goes to Steve Clemons who approvingly notes the impotence of one of Freeman’s chief enemies, Steve Rosen, an accused former-Aipac spy:
…If Rosen and the other Israel-hardliners are going to prove anything in the campaign against Freeman, it will be their general impotence in challenging Barack Obama as flagrantly and as crudely as they are doing now.
H/t Phil Weiss
Opposing Chinese democracy and cosying up to Saudi dictators is basic US foreign policy, so Goldberg is really barking up the wrong tree here.
Approval of Freeman for NIC at least redeems Obama a bit after his choice of Dennis Ross to cover Iran policies. But not much. It just seems to this observer that Obama is not his own boss and will do anything his superiors tell him to do. The Lobby is apparently still calling the shots on Middle East policy. Alas.
As a child, I often used to visit my grandfather A”H in California. That was when I got my first glimpse at TV commercials – a then-non-existent phenomenon in Israel. There was one commercial that I can still vividly remember today. It was an ad that lavished praise on a Toyota pick-up and ended with a man jumping up in joy while the chorus sang:
“Oh-ho-ho-ho what a feeling — Toyota!”
(You have to sing it with the tune, otherwise it doesn’t really come across…)
On this appointment (but not on others) we can sing the same, just substitute ‘Obama’ for ‘Toyota’.