Audacity we can do without
Barack Obama seems to have some good qualities, and it's easy to sympathize with him now that he's under attack by the Clinton machine. However, Caroline Glick finds serious fault with Obama over his association with the enemies of Israel and his support for Islamists seeking to take control of a state allied with the U.S.
Building on the work of Ed Lasky of the American Thinker, Glick identifies three instances of Obama’s connection with forces hostile to Israel. First, his spiritual adviser, Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., has called for divestment from Israel and refers to Israel as "racist." Indeed, there’s reason to believe that Wright is hostile to Jews. He is a friend of Louis Farrakhan, upon whom he has conferred a "Lifetime Achievement" award. According to Glick, although Obama recently condemned Farrakhan for his anti-Semitism, he did not disavow Wright, who married him and baptized his daughters, and he has taken no steps to moderate his church's anti-Israel invective.
In addition, some of Obama’s key financial backers and foreign policy advisers are anti-Israel. They include George Soros, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Susan Rice, and Robert Malley. Rice served as an adviser to the Kerry campaign and, according to Glick, persuaded Kerry to announce that he would appoint Jimmy Carter and James Baker as his envoys for Middle East peace talks. Malley has claimed that the 2000 Camp David summit failed because Israel wasn't serious about giving the Palestinians a state, a view that Bill Clinton disputes.
With advisers like this, it’s not surprising that Obama himself voted against defining Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist group and supports opening negotiations with Iran even if the Iranians continue to enrich uranium.
But for Glick, what makes Obama stand out even in a party hell-bent on appeasement is his active advancement of the interests of Islamists in Kenya. Specifically, Obama has sided with Raila Odinga, leader of the so-called Orange Democratic Movement, in his battle against the government of President Mwai Kibaki, an ally of the U.S. in the war on terrorism. Odinga, Glick says, is an ally of Islamic extremists who has pledged to establish Sharia courts throughout Kenya, enact Islamic dress codes for women; ban alcohol and pork; indoctrinate schoolchildren in the tenets of Islam; ban Christian missionary activities, and dismiss the police commissioner, "who has allowed himself to be used by heathens and Zionists."
All of this apparently is fine with Obama:
Obama strongly supports Odinga who claims to be his cousin. As Daniel Johnson reported recently in the New York Sun, during his 2006 visit to Kenya, Obama was so outspoken in his support for Odinga that the Kenyan government complained to the State Department that Obama was interfering with the internal politics of the country. After the Dec. 27 elections Obama interrupted a campaign appearance in New Hampshire to take a call from Odinga.
Like Mike Huckabee, whose foreign policy views Glick also criticizes in her column, it’s clear that Obama isn’t ready for prime time. But in both cases, and especially Obama’s, the problem when it comes to foreign affairs seems to be bad instincts rather than inexperience. In all likelihood, neither will be elected president in 2008, so both will have at least four years to overcome this distinct impression.
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