When Obama told congressional leaders this week they have to do better than follow Rush. He knew he was shining a flashlight on the usually hidden wires between Limbaugh and Republican leaders to make it harder for them to run for cover whenever he says things that even Republicans can't say in public.
In Obama's interview on Al-Arabiya TV last week he spoke to millions of Arabs about "a new way forward" in peace and with mutual respect. Mutual respect between the Arab world and the US is the mirror image of the Bush foreign policy built on cold war style "axis of evil" fear mongering to grease the skids for unilateral military action.
The NY Post responded by wheeling out Amir Taheri, their in house fringe right bloviator. On January 29, 2009 they gave him an enire "opinion page" with the large print startling headline;
PATHETIC MESSAGE - Obama's odd Islamic outreach
If you don't read the Post, Taheri is not a household name. According to a Wikipedia article Taheri has a documented track record of simply making up incendiary smears. In 5/06 he made a false claim- disavowed by the journal that published it- that the Iranian parliament passed a law requiring color schemed clothing to make Jews, Christians and Zoroastrians identifiable). He made a claim that Iran’s UN Ambassador was one of the 1979 hostage takers when he was in fact a graduate student in San Francisco at the time and in 10/08 he wrote that Jesse Jackson told a World Policy Forum that Obama would change US policy towards Israel. Even though Jesse Jackson was not a speaker at that event. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amir_Taheri
In his Post column Taheri uses the time honored simple technique known as setting up and knocking down a straw man. Taheri shows us how its done;
First you distort the opponent's position into an easily attackable caricature that bears no relationship to reality.
Step two - knock down the straw man and do a victory dance while claiming to have easily won the argument.
Its simple but WARNING - be careful before you use this technique at home - it can be harmful if used in marital and parent/child arguments.
The truth. Here is the terrific thing that Obama actually said;
And my job is to communicate to the American people that the Muslim world is filled with extraordinary people who simply want to live their lives and see their children live better lives. My job to the Muslim world is to communicate that the Americans are not your enemy. We sometimes make mistakes. We have not been perfect. But if you look at the track record, as you say, America was not born as a colonial power, and that the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago, there's no reason why we can't restore that. And that I think is going to be an important task.
Here is Taheri’s straw man distortion
Obama looked to the past rather than the future to give such platitudes a tinge of political vision. He said he wanted a return “to the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently as 20 or 30 years ago”
The problem is that few people in the Muslim world will welcome his back to the future approach. Thirty years ago Obama was a teenager in Indonesia, Vice President Biden, however was already a junior senator and a champion of President Carter’s strategic retreat”
Taheri spends his remaining two columns giving us his list of US- Arab foreign policy failures of the last 30 years, including murder of Americans and hostage taking, which he then scotch tapes to the President using Obama's hopeful reference to better times in US/Arab relations. Somewhat weak if reality is your cup of tea but as arts and crafts - nice job Amir.
Then Taheri wraps it up;
Casting himself in the role of "bridge" and dreaming of a return to an illusionary past, Obama appeared unsure of his own identity and confused about the role that America should play in global politics.
Who said there is no more large scale manufacturing in New York City?
There is no greater threat to world peace and the personal safety of Americans than the anti US hatred on the Arab street. The neo con philosophy of Arab relations has been Defense Department first and State Department maybe later - the UN? - fuggetaboutit. From within this world view you can see why these guys would be horrified that a President would want to build international bridges across today's dangerous divides. That kind of talk undermines everything they stand for. They also get it, that if such "odd" and "pathetic" behavior catches on they could be spending a lot more time over that cliff.
