By Con George-Kotzabasis A response to:

President Obama’s First Foreign Policy Success –and it’s Only Day One

By Amjad Attalah Washington Note January 20, 2009 

Amjad Attalah must be in a cavorting jocular mood. He ludicrously, for him maybe seriously, claims that the “cease-fire” in Gaza is Obama’s “first foreign policy success.” And the latter was achieved, according to Attalah, not by any specific written communication or request by Obama to the Israelis but merely by the fact that Obama was the president-elect and not anybody else.

For the religious votaries of Obama, like Attalah, this will not be an ordinary presidency but an extraordinarily miraculous one. Just the healing presence of Obama, “He didn’t need to” do anything, the long irreconcilable and implacable conflicts of the world will be resolved beyond “bombing or rocketing.”  

It is apparent the TWN is becoming a stage for vaudevillian plays. With captions such as: "A demoralized and frantic Israeli state", "a historic shift in our Middle East posture", "to seek an opening and grand bargain with Iran," written by that master virtuoso in vaudevillian politics Dan Kervick himself, all of them a box office success since they will attract as audience hoi polloi who have an inveterate craving to laugh at serious things. 

Paul Norheim says 

"It is apparent the TWN is becoming a stage for vaudevillian
plays." (kotzabasis)Amusing, coming from someone who once praised Dick Cheney as the Captain Ahab of the global war on terror, and who
certainly was not joking when he, some months ago, had this to
say about Sarah Palin:"Palin’s selection is a political master stroke on the part of
McCain. Moreover this astute move is not merely a brilliant
manoeuvre on the field of American electoral politics, but also
adumbrates what a great president McCain will make.

"HAHAHA, as varanasi would have said if he wasn`t using his
passport right now. To his credit, kotzabasis`opinions, in contrast to TahoeEditor`s,
are based on his own bad instincts, and not merely copied from
the PR office of the GOP. Errare humanum est. But how can you
expect sound political judgement from someone who doesn`t
believe in political means, but only in their continuation, i.e.
bombs and rockets against evil?

Kotzabasis says

Paul Norheim, what a week reed intellectually you must be in the torrential currents of the river of politics when intentionally and malevolently distort and take out of context the statements of your opponent to make your non-case.Whatever you might think about Cheney, the gross errors, and indeed, criminal ones, according to you, he was a strong vice-president fully conscious of his responsibilities in the affairs of statecraft in the aftermath of 9/11. I contrasted him with Captain Ahab, as you well know, precisely because of the latter’s strength of character, which you lack, who would “strike the sun if it insulted him”, to quote a great literary critic.

As for Sarah, isn’t it a fact that she rejuvenated the base of the Republican Party and impacted initially a large part of the American electorate and it was only after the dirty campaign of calumny against her and her family by the liberal media that she was besmirched in the eyes of many Americans? McCain lost as a result of the hate many Americans had for Bush-Cheney and by association for the Republican Party which by trumping even the strong emotion of racism brought Obama to the White House. And as we know from Shakespeare, and indeed, Ibsen, your great compatriot, hate is the ultimate wicked human emotion that trumps all others.

And on the contrary, I do believe in the use of “political means” and in diplomacy and cease only to believe in these when they are proven to be completely ineffective, as they have been with the fanatic holy warriors of Islam.

Your errors of judgment have nothing to do with “Errare humanum est”, they rise from your weak character and shallow political nous.