In his new book None of the Above, columnist and WorldNetDaily founder Joseph Farah says that contrary to what many of his conservative constituents believe, electing Barack Obama now will serve America’s-and Israel’s-interest in the long run. Meanwhile, Caroline Glick, celebrated Jerusalem columnist and now managing editor of The Jerusalem Post, strongly supports McCain in his presidential bid and called Farah’s statements “ridiculous.”
“John McCain, if he is elected as the next president of the United States… will be worse
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“When I tell people, don’t vote for either one of the major party candidates in the election, people say to me, ‘Farah, what are you doing!? You’re helping to elect Obama!’” Farah acknowledged.
Farah explains his reasoning by making parallels between the current election race and the one in 1976, when Jimmy Carter faced off with Gerald Ford. The columnist characterized the race as one between a “bumbling president” of a Republican and a Democrat who ended up being “much more of a radical” than Americans originally thought.
In fact, argued Farah, it was precisely that radicalism that brought about the subsequent election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, whose eight-year presidency brought more good for America and Israel than any setbacks created in Carter’s regime.
Despite the exhortation of the Right in America to “just prevent Jimmy Carter from becoming President,” echoing the sentiments of many people today at the prospect of a President Obama, Farah says, “thank goodness that not enough Republicans did vote for Gerald Ford, that Jimmy Carter got elected.”
Farah says this was a good thing, despite the fact that Carter was “a terrible president” and “terrible for Israel.” After Carter’s first failed term, Reagan was elected in a landslide, bringing prosperity and, at least on the level of presidential declarations, a much more pro-Israel president.
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“Every generation, I believe, has to learn the lessons” of a left-wing government and to 'unlearn' the false lessons taught to them in schools…."
“Every generation, I believe, has to learn the lessons” of a left-wing government and to “unlearn the false lessons taught to them in schools in the political arena at some point in their lives,” Farah asserted.
“This is that election for young people in America and throughout the world,” he said, referring to this year’s election.
As for John McCain, Farah warned that the Republican candidate is no Reagan-esque hero. In fact, Farah argued, McCain is not to be trusted, that he would “remake the Republican party into his own image,” which is, in fact, a Democratic image. Farah referred to an article in the neo-conservative New Republic magazine that called McCain “the most effective member of the U.S. Senate in promoting the Democratic agenda.”
“We have to go through these periods. Politics is a cyclical business.” We have to see it in action. We have to see Barack Obama presiding… with a Democratic Congress. It’s going to be painful, it’s going to hurt,” but in the end, he says, “it’s going to lead to something much, much better” than what even John McCain has to offer.
Glick: 'You can't win by losing.'
Caroline Glick, on the other hand, believes that Obama is far from the better candidate, and responded with harsh words to Farah’s thesis.
Obama repeated statements of “moral equivalence between the United States and Al-Qaeda, the United States and Russia” and other unmistakable signs of a “real antipathy” toward the U.S. and its allies.“You can’t win by losing. Nobody ever has, nobody ever will,” said Glick. “This is ridiculous,” she added.
Commenting on Obama’s recent statements about getting tough on Iran, the Glick said that Obama “has no credibility whatsoever to be making pronouncements of that tough diplomacy, because from the beginning he’s said that he’d be willing to meet with Ahmadinejad and any other genocidal tyrant that comes into power while he’s serving as president.”
“He wouldn’t do anything that the Bush administration hasn’t done” to promote global security, Glick said.
Obama's Alarming Antipathy to US and Allies
In fact, she noted, Obama’s voting record shows a reluctance to condemn Iran’s extremist elements, and points to the fact that the Democrat has ties with the virulently anti-American Weather Underground terrorist group. Among other red flags that Glick could not overlook in the candidate were repeated statements of “moral equivalence between the United States and Al-Qaeda, the United States and Russia” and other unmistakable signs of a “real antipathy” toward the U.S. and its allies.
Glick contends that because of his “devastating associations” with anti-American elements and hate groups it doesn’t matter in the end whether Obama presents himself as pro-Israel or not. More worrying to Glick than the “silly” statements Obama makes about Israel and its enemies is the sense that he “really seems to not like the United States very much.”
Obama “really seems to not like the United States very much.” “I don’t see how he could possibly be pro-Israel,” she says, because unless you’re an Israeli Jew, “you have to be pro-American before you can be pro-Israel.”
Debunking Farah's Hypothesis
People who look at Carter as an enabler of Reagan belittle Reagan and also downplay the enduring legacy of Carter, which was to bring anti-Americanism into the mainstream American Left.”
Glick insisted that the damage caused by Carter in the international sphere could not be undone in Reagan’s administration. “In the geo-political perspective, he enabled Khomeini’s rise to power. He didn’t support the shah, he supported Khomeini.
“Reagan didn’t undo Khomeini’s revolution in Iran. This is a general lesson that it really behooves conservatives in Israel and America to learn: There is no silver lining to losing elections, because you’ve lost them.”
She added that Carter “also legitimized animosity towards Israel in mainline Democratic thinking in the U.S. He was extremely hostile towards Israel.
'The Damage Would Be Done'
“When you have somebody who is hostile to your interest in power, they are able to advance their agenda” no matter how long they are in power, and “in the end, it doesn’t matter who comes in to save the day-they are unable to repair the damage that was already done.”
Therefore, says Glick, the cathartic hindsight of a Carter-esque Obama presidency that Farah espouses is far outweighed by the glaring flaws of Obama’s worldview.
“The enemies of America aren’t going to stop fighting” because we elected a President Obama that is sympathetic to them.“If Obama wins the election, he will turn his back to the fact that America is at war” with global fundamentalist Islam. “The enemies of America aren’t going to stop fighting” because we elected a President Obama that is sympathetic to them, she asserts.
“The damage that such a president would do in the White House will be long term as well as short. When Iran is talking about destroying Israel and the United States,
Obama refuses to differentiate between the friends of America and Israel and their foes, said Glick, who concluded: “Obama is not a friend of Israel, any more than he is a friend of the United States.”