The election of Barack Obama had the effect of prying open a window in a stale room. You can breathe again.
Not everybody, of course. The neoconservatives are in shock. Suddenly they have no administration in Washington. The White House is enemy territory, soon to be staffed by people who do not see the world in black and white.
I've died and gone to heaven. The chief-of-staff of America's next President has apologized for something his father -- not him, mind you -- said about Arabs.
""From the fullness of my heart, I personally apologize on behalf of my family and me. These are not the values upon which I was raised or those of my family," Rahm said.
I fear that I might have bought into the story that Israelis favored the other guy
It turns out that the Israelis who preferred McCain were Americans who emigrated to Israel. They speak decent English so they get interviewed a lot.
But they are as representative of Israel as Israelis in Los Angeles are of America. The newspaper headlines depicted here are from Israel's largest circulation newspapers last Wednesday. I love the headlines "Obama: The Hope, "He Has a Dream." Etc.
It's Veterans Day and I'm not thinking about the relatives who died in WW2 or served In Vietnam. I'm letting one young Vermonter, who I never met, stand in for the more than 4000 who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He wasn't from my family. Just everybody's.
They had a long run. Rush and Malkin and Lucianne and Drudge and Free Republic and those Littlle Green Footballs.
But it's over. The Obama Presidency will produce untold millions for these guys because frustration and hate is something you can take to the bank -- but with no branch of government under their control, they have been rendered powerless. Who will pay attention when some irrelevant rightist hack like Eric Cantor (R-VA) or Michelle Bachmann (R-MN) rushes to the House floor to cite a Michael Savage diatribe? Nobody.
In theory I should not be posting a tribute to J Street's Election Day triumph. I work for Israel Policy Forum and, on paper, J Street is the competition.
But only on paper. Israel Policy Forum works to change US Middle East policy through our publications and advocacy work. (My IPF Friday, for instance, is the most widely circulated English language publication on the Middle East in the world). Click to subscribe for FREE). We regularly meet with Senators, House Members and White House and State Department officials to inform them about what is really happening in the Israeli-Palestinian arena. In private, I'd say 90-95% of legislators agree with us. Our goal is to turn private support (and resentment of the lobby's unrelenting pressure) into public support and major policy change.
