The Obama administration says it believes in a two State policy. TO STATE it bluntley, that should mean recognizing successive Prime Ministers and groups claiming to represent the interest of Palistinians have made their politiical bones off of this conflict and have no real interest in seeing it go away.

Knowing Netanyahu is not difficult. An egocentric, power-hungry, AIPACnik who wants to enter the history books as the man who saved Israel and the world. Problem is that he's a lightweight who is no match for Obama who will eat him alive.

The Netanyahus of this world are only brave when they have a mob behind them. Alone, he becomes a quivering boy with a large waistline and an assertive wife.

There's no match. When Omaba says jump, our baby Bibi will jump!

This gives me some confidence. I bet know Obama knows everything Hill does and that Hill knows everything Bill does so if Bill demurred, he did it for a reason. If Big Dog thought the Obama team was doing something wrong, he'd let you, and other people, know about it.

You know, I have been stupid enough to not even reflect on this particular advantage of Hillary at State. If she doesn't herself know inside out some aspect of U.S. foreign policy as between late 1992 and January 19, 2001, she bunks with a guy who does.

I said from the get-go that picking her was shrewd; I just didn't focus on this added bonus. She's been wowing audiences overseas. Talk about star power! When asked about engaging in hate games as to Venezuela, she said we can't base things on ideology, adding "That's so yesterday."

Good line! When did we have a SecState that even talked that way? :) She charmed the fuck out of Raul Castro even! (Bet that pissed off his big brother, though, but again he's so yesterday...)

Hey, MJ, this is really good to hear. The only positive thing about the election of Netanyahu is that maybe he'd have more credibility with the extremists than a more reasonable (sane?) PM, and could therefore push through a peace agreement more easily, were he so inclined, or successfully pressured to do so. Kinda like Nixon and China. Bibi doesn't have Nixon's intelligence, although he may have a similar cagey instinct for political survival; even still it's going to be a pretty hard sell for Obama and Clinton.

Any idea whether Obama's amendment will get through Congress? That might be another hard sell. It's also very cool to find out that you've been rubbing elbows with Bill.

My apologies because the following is entirely OT. I spent a considerable amount of time yesterday trying to get a link to you. It's to an article entitled, "China's Palestine Policy." It seemed to be something you might find interesting. Here's the link: http://www.jamestown.org/programs/chinabrief/single/?tx_ttnews%5Btt_news%5D=34662&tx_ttnews%5BbackPid%5D=25&cHash=4180a17847

Just FYI, the contact form on the IPF site just didn't work for me - captcha kept returning errors. I also sent the article through the talk@talkingpointsmemo.com address, and asked that the article be forwarded to you.

Perhaps you don't really want to have articles such as this one sent to you. I can see how you might be bombarded; although I myself probably find articles worth forwarding only once in every several months or so, you have a lot of readers so it could become unmanageable if everyone was sending articles. Please let me know your preference, and if you'd like to receive them, what method to use to get them to you. Thanks.

I don't see how Hillary is some valuable force for peace just because her husband told M.J. that he "doesn't know the half of it."

This is Hillary's speech at the AIPAC Policy Conference last year:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3874985626240986640&ei=dQ_qSbqLAoKSqQL93pwp&q=hillary+aipac+speech&hl=en

It's a speech Bibi himself would have written for her, though he probably wasn't one of her speech consultants.

The 2009 AIPAC Conference is coming up. Get ready for some fresh nausea and dashed hopes.

"But that didn't keep Clinton from pursuing the peace process despite his disdain (mild word) for Neanyahu."

And Bill was able to outlast Bibi and work near the end of his term with Ehud Barak - laboring tirelessly at Camp David 2000 to forge a monster Land-For-Peace arrangement, which Arafat walked away from. Both sides at various times, have kept it from happening in my estimation.

Nobody can doubt Clinton's resolve to crack the stalemate, nor Bush's indifference to it, nor (should) that Obama and Hillary will actually care about it again on behalf of the United States.

CQ reports:

Harman was recorded saying she would “waddle into” the AIPAC case “if you think it’ll make a difference,” according to two former senior national security officials familiar with the NSA transcript.

In exchange for Harman’s help, the sources said, the suspected Israeli agent pledged to help lobby Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., then-House minority leader, to appoint Harman chair of the Intelligence Committee after the 2006 elections, which the Democrats were heavily favored to win.

Seemingly wary of what she had just agreed to, according to an official who read the NSA transcript, Harman hung up after saying, “This conversation doesn’t exist.”

http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=hsnews-000003098436

Well, now we know why Jane was passed over to head the Intel Committee. I wonder what conversations exist re Iran? Oh, wait, they probably don't exist either.

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