E.J. Dionne Jr.; Egad

a major award

A Rude Reminder E.J. Dionne Jr. lives, and is still, somehow,  employed [...] But far more disturbing than Netanyahu’s electoral miracle (at his victory party, his supporters proclaimed him a “magician”) was the way he brought it about. Seen abstractly as a matter of pure politics, his moves were brilliant. Viewed in light of Israel’s long-term survival, they were reckless, or worse. Netanyahu’s only path to survival was to boost Likud’s vote and seat-share at the expense of smaller right-wing parties. And so he tacked hard to the right. He abandoned his publicly stated support for a Palestinian state and engaged in what the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg saw as a version of the old Republican “Southern strategy” that had been aimed at consolidating white votes. On Election Day itself, Netanyahu made reference to the relatively high turnout among Israel’s Arab voters and declared: “Right-wing rule is in danger. Arab voters are streaming in huge quantities to the polling stations.” Goldberg translated this as: “The Arabs are coming!” That Arab citizens can vote in Israel reflects its commitment to democracy. A “Joint List” that aligned various Arab parties in a single bloc emerged as Israel’s third-largest party. Yet as Goldberg noted, the Joint List was not the real threat Netanyahu faced. It was just an excuse for incendiary words to rally the right. [More Boo-Hoo We Lost] Liberals lose, ergo disaster awaits.  Twice in recent history American presidents interfered with Israeli elections.  In June 1996, after their first meeting, Clinton, frustrated by Bibi’s brashness, exploded: “Who’s the fucking superpower here?” He later sent his campaign strategists James Carville and Stanley Greenberg to successfully guide the  Israeli Labor Party to victory over Bibi.  Obama, ever the bumbling martinet, did the same this year; but like everything else he's done it failed.  What a putz. Dionne too has an unbroken history of being wrong about everything.