Mamet on Obama
“The question is, can he run on his record in 2012, and the answer is no, because it’s abysmal,” Mamet said. “He took a trillion dollars and where it went, nobody knows. He dismantled healthcare, he weakened America around the world, he sold out the State of Israel. All he’s got to run on is being a Democrat and indicting the other fellow.”
The playwright also accused the British of being inherently anti-Semitic, citing stereotypes in the works of George Eliot and Anthony Trollope. “There is a profound and ineradicable taint of anti- Semitism in the British,” he told the Financial Times. “The paradigmatic Brit as far as the Middle East goes is [T.E.] Lawrence. That’s just the fact. Even before the oil was there, you loved the desert. It had all these wacky characters…
“But there is a Jewish state there ratified by the United Nations and you want to give it away to some people whose claim is rather dubious.”
Greetings:
I was reading some of Michael Oren’s “Six Days of War” when I came across (p.39) some of his prose with which I have, as is my wont, taken certain liberties. To begin:
1) “He knows how to start things fine…but he doesn’t know how to finish.”
2) “The irrational element was always present in his decision-making; what once had passed for pluck
now predominated.”
3) “His rule of government was that of a man who was not secure unless he acts through a secret
apparatus.”
4) “The law under the regime went on holiday.”
5) “What remained was his pride which, in inverse process to his fortunes, expanded monumentally.”
6) “It has to do again with a loss of face, with a sort of Messianic complex.”
7) “He doesn’t like to be proved wrong and can never admit to these wrongs.”
Although the author was referring to Egypt’s Nasser in 1967, I very much thought I had fallen into a reading time warp.
Silly me, I thought those comments were about Obama.
Here’s a brilliant book that recently came out -
Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England, Anthony Julius, Oxford University Press, 2010
I can’t find the Mamet article at the link.
Yeah, clumsy linking in the article. Here’s the real Mamet link:
http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=224821
Thank you!
Good to know that there is at least one distinguished intellectual who admires Sarah Palin.
He didn’t run on his record, history or intentions in 2008 and was elected. Why should we think this election will be any different.
Good point, but now his “record” is much more in the spotlight and pertinent to voters. Still, your observation is part and parcel to this bad phenomenon.
In 2008 he didn’t really have a record. He ran as a blank slate, where people could write what they wanted on it, and then assume that was the real Obama. Now he has a real record, and people know who the real Obama is, and dont like what they see.
This demonstrates the hazard of voting for prez candidates that dont have any real record or experience to scrutinize. Having political experisnce, and a long political record, doesn’t necessarily make somebody a better president, but it does give us something real to judge what kind of president they will be, vs the kind of president their campaign and the MSM is attempting to tell us they would be.
This also explains why dems tend to run political newcomers for prez, because most dems that people actually know, they don’t like. Repubs tend to run old hands, because repub positions and values wear better with time.
The Chosen Ones will see to it that Baruch Obaba shall prevail.
Do not believe me?
http://vimeo.com/1808434
George Eliot anti-Semitic? Surely “Daniel Deronda” is strongly philo-Semitic. You could say, I suppose, that Eliot produces too many Jewish characters that are over-the-top kind, noble, and self-sacrificing, as opposed to the unsympathetic Gewndolen Harleth and her cruel husband Grandcourt. That, you might say, unfortunately provoked the Brits into their ancestral anti-Semitism.
Mamet should be the keynote speaker at the 2012 Republican convention.
“All he’s got to run on is being a Democrat and indicting the other fellow.”
That’s pretty much all ANY member of the Weiner party ever runs on.
He ran as a feel-good Rorschach test, that only works when you’re unknown.
Now he has a history that the MSM can’t hide, and it isn’t to his benefit.
I hope so. Unfortunately, we’re going to see a campaign says its racist to vote against him – and it will work with far too many people.
Barry, Barry, Barry. One and done. Sure, there are still enough people on the right and left coasts who sing you praises. They write favorable stories about you. They want you to win so their party stays in power. But they don’t like you. They don’t really think you have a clue. They know if you get voted out the money flow stops. They know once you leave and the economy turns around, it is going to be really hard for another Democrat to win the White House anytime soon.
There are still a lot of people in this country who want to work. They don’t want government support, they want a job. They want to be able to take care of themselves and their families. They have kind hearts and are willing to help people in need. Help them get a hand up, not get a hand out.
Barry, you have demonized business leaders for years and suddenly, miraculously, they have let you know they are not going to pay “protection money” to fund your campaign for more of the same. You took advantage of “white guilt” too much and too often. There are other political leaders of color who earn wide support and respect from both sides of the aisle. You have almost ruined the economy. You have bowed to other countries and apologized for our greatness. You have sold out our allies and encouraged our enemies.
People have kept their powder dry and waited to tell you what they really think of you. Mamet’s comments are a signal the time for niceties are over. The Obama elevator only has a down button. Enjoy the ride.
Mamet is wrong about George Eliot. Her last novel, Daniel Deronda, is not only one of the greatest novels ever written, it is a paean to the Jews and to the founding of Israel,written and published in England in 1876. She suffered the slings and arrows of the anti-Semitic literati for it, too. The novel has several major themes running through it, and the ode to the Jews and their maintenance of their identity and essential justness and probity, and the refounding of their national home in Palestine (as the area was called then) is basic to the book.
Wouldn’t the original Financial Times link have worked better? The J-Post link doesn’t go to the story, and the site is a pain to navigate (unlike, say, PJTV. . . )
Here’s the FT link, for your convenience: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/14ee3cda-92d5-11e0-bd88-00144feab49a.html
I was reading an early short story by GK Chesterton – who I ordinarily admire – and came across two paragraphs of pretty overt anti-semitism. The subject was the greedy financiers who were draining off money which belonged to the the English yeoman, the characters were intentionally allegorical, and the financier was Goldstein. I haven’t found it elsewhere in GKC, but it was so offhand as to be even more distressing.
Sometimes it’s hard for the sub-cultures of nations to win; the more they take pride in self the more it can be seen as a disdain for others.
The more such cultures occupy certain niches in a given structure the more people start feeling resentment if it is looked at in the wrong way.
It is important to remember that sub-cultures within nations don’t have each other’s phone numbers and that over representation within a niche is not a conspiracy but a usually accidental commingling of values of a certain group at a certain time. Irish and Mexican boxers did not conspire to occupy that niche when they did – it just happened that way.
We should look at marked and pointed remarks of disdain as a litmus test and not aloofness. People who have no interest in comic books don’t dislike comic books. It is people who complain about comic books who don’t like them. A people who have been forced into collecting comic books shouldn’t be taken to task for huddling around them by those who forced them to do so in the first place.
People who created Israel didn’t necessarily do so cuz they thought it was a great idea; it looked like a great idea compared to the inside of a barbed wire enclosure.
Sorry, but I find your reasoning kind of squirrely, Moose. Comic books? Boxers?
FYI, the modern push to found the nation of Israel began in the 19th century, long before the “barbed-wire” death camps (ever hear of Zionism?). In fact, it was a dream alive in the Jewish Diaspora for a couple of thousand years: “To next year in Jerusalem.” I think wanting and working for a homeland for one’s people is, actually, a great idea.
I think Obama’s biggest problem is you cannot be the first black President twice. So now the question is what was done with his first four years in office. If the Vinson decision is upheld the answer would be “Nothing that Bush wasn’t already doing….”
But please, take the history of the Near East since 1896 when Herzl began Zionism and it is one where the Jewish population went from less than 50,000 to 6,000,000, the essential immigration being illegal immigration. In cooperation with the West the Zionists took over half of that territory in 1947-48 while still being the overwhelming minority of the population. This began several wars the Arabs lost again and again until we have this situation. Simply, the Zionists claims are based on the force of arms, as dubious or not as anyone else with a gun and a willingness to use it. Why should Arabs surrender in 2011 when the Zionists did not in 1927?
This began several wars the Arabs lost again and again until we have this situation.
Um, let’s see. Might there be anything inaccurate in the above statement?
Anything missing, perhaps?
Or can one indeed claim that the above contention is a true and accurate description of events?
Simply, the Zionists claims are based on the force of arms, as dubious or not as anyone else with a gun and a willingness to use it.
Again, might there be anything inaccurate in the above statement?
Anything missing, perhaps?
Or can one indeed claim that the above contention is a true and accurate description of events?
Why should Arabs surrender in 2011 when the Zionists did not in 1927?
1927? Curious selection of dates, but OK, it may be the crux of the “problem,” since indeed, the Palestinians will not quit until Israel is erased. Five questions, though:
1. Did the Arabs want to throw the Jews into the sea?
2. Did the Zionists want to throw the Arabs into the sea?
3. Do the Arabs want to throw the Jews into the sea?
4. Do the Zionists want to throw the Arabs into the sea?
5. Does it matter?