Here's an on-video representation of how 'objective' the U.S. mainstream media is on Israel/Palestine (and Israel vs. the Muslim Middle East in general) matters. The Washington Post's David Ignatius defending the pillagers of Gaza and cutting off the outrage of the Muslim world (and Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan), at the world rich people's forum, Davos. BBC has a good video and describes what Israel President Shimon Peres had said -- just prior to Erdogan's attempted rebuttal -- to general applause:
Mr Peres had told the audience Israel was forced on to the offensive against Hamas by thousands of rockets and mortars fired into Israel.
"The tragedy of Gaza is not Israel, it is Hamas," the Israeli leader said.
"Why did they fire rockets? There was no siege against Gaza. Why did they fight us, what did they want? There was never a day of starvation in Gaza."
He argued that Mr Erdogan would have reacted in the same way if rockets had hit Istanbul.
What, there wasn't a siege? Yeah, right. And this lame excuse-making evokes widespread applause? Did the fine establishment ladies rattle their jewelry too? Homemade rockets that killed nobody versus an onslaught that razed and bulldozed Gaza's entire physical plant and killed 1,330 of its citizens, including roughly 500 children? Yeah, maybe Prime Minister Erdogan would be a bit irritated, and anxious for equal time. But no, Mr. Turkish prime minister, David Ignatius, gatekeeper/reporter at an American ruling elite newspaper, had the mike:
On the main page of the website supporting the book, Schaller puts his case succinctly:
The South is no longer the "swing" region in American politics -- it has swung to the Republicans. Most of the South is beyond the Democrats' reach, and what remains is moving steadily into the Republican column. The twin effects of race and religion produce a socially conservative, electorally hostile environment for most Democratic candidates.
Spending valuable resources in Southern states is a dangerously self-destructive strategy that could serve to relegate Democrats to minority-party status for a generation. Political attitudes and demographic changes in other parts of the country are far more favorable to Democratic messages and messengers. The Midwest and Southwest are the nation's most competitive regions. There are opportunities to expand Democratic margins in the Mountain red states while consolidating control over the reliably blue northeastern and Pacific coast states. Before dreaming of forty nine state presidential landslides, the Democrats ought to first figure out how to win twenty-nine states. And that means capturing Arizona -- or even Alaska -- before targeting Alabama.
McCain may put Arizona out of reach for this electoral cycle, the maps show that neighboring states Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado are not. Obama's strength in the West is particularly embarrasing-not to mention debilitating-to McCain.
But it's also embarrasing to Obama, since it belies his earlier rationale in reaching out to religious conservatives, and his claims to be a mapchanger by drawing unprecedented numbers of blacks to the polls, and contesting Southern states Democrats otherwise would lose. It is not the religious conservatives dominating the South who have responded most to his calls, nor does he put more pressure on McCain there than Clinton does. His "unique" contribution is to do what Schaller mapped out as the natural thing for the Democratic Party to do, regardless of their nominee.
As I put it in a recent comment in the discussion of that diary:
When you have a rhetoric that says one thing, but a material reality that says another, it's always best to trust the material reality first, and seek to understand why that rhetoric works within that reality.
In this particular case, my explanation of why is simple...
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