Krauthammer: Barack Is Better For America, I'm Voting For McCain
On October 3rd, Chales Krauthammer wrote that Barack Obama was another FDR, only better.
Kraut wrote: "Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously said of Franklin Roosevelt that he had a 'second-class intellect, but a first-class temperament.. Obama has...got both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament. That will likely be enough to make him president." He called the Palin pick "suicidal" and has repeatedly ridiculed her as unfit for high office.
But today Krauthammer endorsed the McCain/Palin ticket, the one he considers inferior to the Democratic ticket.
In my role, the one I share with Jim Sleeper, of resident expert on the neocon mind, let me explain. Krauthammer thinks Obama is better for America but that McCain is more likely to go to war with Iran and prevent Israel from negotiating with the Palestinians and the Syrians. In other words, Krauthammer went with his heart, a heart that does not beat for America.
No, I am not going to repeat my story about how on Yom Kippur 2001 he screamed (bellowed actually) at the rabbi in my congregation for suggesting that Middle East peace is better than endless war. He loves war: war with Iraq, war with Iran, war with Russia (read his columns on Georgia). He especially enjoys Arab-Israeli wars. If you look up the phrase "eager to fight to the last Israel" you'll see his photo.
War is what Chuck is about. Combine that with his conflicted loyalties (actually, they aren't conflicted) and you have his endorsement of McCain. The good news, I have never heard anyone say that they base their vote on the opinion of Herr Doctor Krauthammer.
One more point. In 2004, after Christopher Reeve's death, Kraut excoriated that fine man's memory by saying that by supporting stem cell research, Reeve gave the disabled "false hope." That is the other reason he endorsed McCain over the candidate he considers more qualified. Obama represents hope and, if hope offends you, if you want to have another four years of hopelessness, McCain is your man.
Words fail my incredulity at the lunacy of Krauthammer.
October 24, 2008 2:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
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December 22, 2010 5:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm glad somebody else noticed this too--it truly makes the brain explode. My first thought was "wait a minute, didn't he just recommend Obama a couple of columns ago?? WTH is wrong with him? You know, besides the obvious.
I was hoping you'd go into more detail about him standing up and bellowing at synagogue, that story never gets old!!
October 24, 2008 3:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, just for you.
It was right after 9/11. It was on Yom Kippur. The visiting rabbi from Israel (the real rabbi was up in the main sanctuary). The visiting rabbi is from Israel and quite a hawk. Also pretty racist about Arabs. I can't stand him. Anyway, Kraut is sitting in his wheelchair in the aisle way up front. It's all very quiet and holy day-ish. The rabbi is talking about how, despite 9/11, ultimately, there must be peace between Israel and Arabs, America and the Muslim world, etc.
Standard generic peace stuff of a right-wing minimalist kind.
But Krauthammer starts yelling. "Nooooooooo. There can't be peace between us and those who want us dead." The rabbi backtracks but Kraut keeps yelling. Finally the rabbi retracts his remark and the crazy lunatic quiets down.
It was the best moment I've ever experienced in a synagogue (other than my big family events). It was like "Four Weddings and a Funeral" where the priest gets everything wrong, makes a fool of himself, and one guy in a pew turns to another and says, "EXCELLENT." In other words, the bad priest took a boring service and made it delightful. Same with K's crack-up. It was EXCELLENT. Wish you were there!
October 24, 2008 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ever notice that is the people who believe peace is impossible do their darnest to make that statement come true?
October 24, 2008 6:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Stockholm Syndrome--that's my guess. After eight years defending Bush, Mr. Krauthanger is suffering from hostage disease.
October 24, 2008 3:43 PM | Reply | Permalink
Now and then when I'm out in the car at certain times I tune the radio to Sean Hannity. After less than 5 minutes I switch channels. (my wife always asks me why I constantly do this.)
Anyhow, its the same when I start reading a Krauthammer column, halfway through, I stop reading.
I can only take so much mindless babble before my mind revolts.
October 24, 2008 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
My reaction exactly to his endorsement. Of course he knows Obama is superior. but Kraut is a war monger, obviously hates the idea of a peaceful world, and McCain may be a disaster for the US but he will more likely give us war. Preferably against an enemy of Israel, but any war would do.
October 24, 2008 5:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
When I was a pup, one of my favorite persons was a teacher who had spent eighteen months as a German prisoner of war. He assisted the victims of a Gulag after Patton’s forces overwhelmed his special corner of Germany. In reality, he had to escape from Patton’s people by bribing a GI guard. His descriptions of what he saw left a scar in my mind until this day. Over the years, I’ve wondered about the psychological make-up of those German soldiers who performed such atrocities on their prisoners. What was the man who injected the Zyklon B into the gas chambers thinking? What force would drive any human to carry-out such an act? Over the years I’ve studied every type of personality. Over the years, I think I’ve identified the Zyklon B personality. Hitler, Stalin, and a host of other historically significant tyrants. But, there are lesser players with the same capacities…so many of them are die-hard Republicans!
October 24, 2008 9:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Chuck,
I saw the people you refer to, and what they're capable of, first hand during WWII, and I see some of the same mindset in many of the right wing of the Republican party. You hear it on C-SPAN's call in show every morning, you hear it on talk radio and on some of the right wing blogs, and then there's the egregious e-mails that blanket the country; all wallowing in hate and dehumanization of their political opposites.
Heaven forbid that Karl Rove would ever be successful in creating his permanent republican majority.
October 25, 2008 9:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
Kraut wrote: "Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. famously said of Franklin Roosevelt that he had a 'second-class intellect, but a first-class temperament.. Obama has...got both a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament. That will likely be enough to make him president." He called the Palin pick "suicidal" and has repeatedly ridiculed her as unfit for high office.
The devil is in the ellipses, Mr. Rosenberg.
Let's see what is in these ellipses:
Obama has shown that he is a man of limited experience, questionable convictions, deeply troubling associations (Jeremiah Wright, William Ayers, Tony Rezko) and an alarming lack of self-definition — do you really know who he is and what he believes?
So in short, Krauthammer believes Obama to have a first-class intellect and a first-class temperament, and on those issues perhaps he sees him as superior to McCain.
But in terms of policy, philosophy, and trustworthiness, he has grave misgivings and probably sees McCain as superior.
Not that I have any respect for Krauthammer or McCain, but let's be honest about what Krauthammer was saying.
October 24, 2008 10:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
You folks have it all wrong. Krauthammer knows Obama is going to be our next president. He is endorsing McCain in order to placate his base in the Israeli-first community. That is all that is going on here. Relax, OK?
By the way, poll show that Jewish-Americans will be voting for Obama in overwhelming numbers, like 3 to 1.
October 24, 2008 11:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
I am a Zionist, farther right than most (maybe all?) of the Jewish posters here. I don't think we'll see a peaceful Israel/Palestine for at least a generation. I had real problems with some of Obama's associations, and although a lifetime Democrat, early on I gave some thought to voting for McCain. In other words, I wasn't that far from Krauthammer.
That was before I learned more about McCain and saw his recklessness in choosing Sarah Palin. McCain's choosing someone that ignorant and inexperienced, with only minimal research into her record and character, proved he is unfit to be President. Palin, who would have something like a one in six chance of succeeding to the office, would be a disaster. Since then, McCain has not let his ignorance of economics interfere with his grandstanding intervention in Congressional bailout deliberations, nor has he let his once-respected decency interfere with sleazy campaigning.
Anyone this bad for America can't be good for Israel, and Palin would be worse. If it comes to war in the Mideast, the last thing Israel needs is an American President who thinks God put her in the White House to fight Armageddon. I thought Krauthammer got that. Now I don't get Krauthammer.
Obama may be hiding some things. He probably went through a leftist period he doesn't want to have to explain. But he's not, God forbid, a jihad sympathizer or an antisemite. He's a thinker, not a fanatic, and we can talk with him. How Obama became and remains a veritable bogeyman to some people, with so much unconfirmed suspicion outweighing so much demonstrated fact on the other side, I don't know, and I don't think I want to.
October 25, 2008 5:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Krauthammer is nuts, but I don't like your line of argument, Mr. Rosenberg. An "immigrant" who left his "loyalties" elsewhere? Come on.
October 25, 2008 6:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Will someone please explain to me what is meant by Obama's "associations" with certain people?
Did he "associate" by helping set bombs someplace?
Did he "associate" by helping to plan bank robberies?
Did he "associate" by taking part in assassination plots?
Did he "associate" by going out on double dates with them?
How is the following statement any different than the "Obama associates with..." charge?
'John McCain associated with the communists in North Vietnam.'
October 25, 2008 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Obama may be hiding some things. He probably went through a leftist period he doesn't want to have to explain. But he's not, God forbid, a jihad sympathizer or an antisemite.
Some day, a grad student will do a paper, or maybe even a thesis, on the physiological effects of Zionism on many American Jews. It seems to produce the exact same symptoms as cocaine abuse, an out sized inaproppriate ego, an real problem with acting-out and impulse control, and there is nothing better for producing sociopathy.
You never know, it may be possible to ease people off of Zionism by giving them a less destructive drug for a while. Maybe cocaine will be strong enough, but maybe it'll take meth.
October 25, 2008 8:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
The amazing presumption of American Zionists never fails to amaze me. The sheer chutzpah of simply assuming that America was born to expend it treasure, and it's blood, if necessary, to make sure Israel prevails in all of its expansionist aims and war crimes. And the announcement in advance that any deviation from that line will be labeled anti-semitism! As a Jew this is deeply shaming.
Tell me, my friend, what can God do for the Jews in Israel, that he can't do for them anywhere else. And more importantly, what can the Jews do for God in Israel, that they could not do for Him anywhere else?
I am sorry to use such a harsh analogy as drug abuse for Zionism, but I am at a loss to explain, any other way except the chemical, the changes in Zionists when the rush hits them. Is it the power of being able to screech "anti-semite" at anyone who dares refuse your demands. Is it the wonderful way you are released from all the usual constraints of ethics and humanism when it comes to the imperatives of statehood.
Tying our religion to the exigencies of a colonial project is the worst decision ever made for the Jewish religion.
October 25, 2008 10:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
My dear Mr. Rosenberg,
As a descendant of both Jewish and Gentile Germans, I do NOT appreciate the comment "Herr Doktor Krauthammer". Why that insinuation?
As a people, we Americans need to transcend these historic animosities: Jew / Gentile, Black / White, etc. We need to be sensitive to what we are implying in what we say. We need to be aware of what stereotypes we perpetrate in our statements.
As far as loyalties go, our first loyalty should be to peace: we are Jew, German, Black & White ALL equal in God's sight. The well-being of the entire earth and all its people is our first loyalty.
October 26, 2008 10:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
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