The Other McCain

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Red-Pilled at Last? ‘Reliably Anti-Trump People … Have Had It With Biden’

Posted on | May 9, 2024 | Comments Off on Red-Pilled at Last? ‘Reliably Anti-Trump People … Have Had It With Biden’

Jonah Goldberg is not the worst of the #NeverTrump crowd. Bad, yes, but not as bad as Rick Wilson or David French. Trump Derangement Syndrome wrecked the minds of a lot of Respectable Republican types, and a lot of it had to do with Trump’s de facto repudiation of the Bush “Global War on Terror” (GWOT) legacy. Whether it’s fair to describe Trump’s policy as “isolationist,” his administration definitely sought to limit the “Permanent War for Permanent Peace” interventionist posture that prevailed when the arch-neocons were riding high in the saddle.

So there is a deep irony in the fact that the straw which seems to have broken the camel’s back for the #NeverTrump crowd was Biden’s threat to halt arms sales to Israel:

We reported earlier how Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin confirmed earlier reports of a a ‘pause’ in almost $1 billion in weapons shipments to Israel over its plans to invade Rafah, Hamas’ last stronghold where it’s remaining leadership and battalians are located, along with the hostages. Hamas has been firing rockets from Rafah, and killed four Israeli soldiers at a border crossing used to ship humanitarian aid.
In a CNN interview today, Biden went even further. He threatened that if Israel entered Rafah, the U.S. will halt all offensive weapons supplies to Israel . . .

Biden is pandering to the extreme left — the college “camp-out for Hamas” crowd — and in the process alienating more moderate voters, including ex-Republican neocons like Goldberg, some of whom hated Trump because of the perception that his coalition harbored anti-Semites. Well, that shoe is now on the other (Democratic) foot, and Goldberg’s like the once-reputable sorority girl doing the “walk of shame” after pulling a train with the varsity basketball squad.

Permit me to remark that not a few neocons advocated the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that Saddam was an existential threat to Israel, a claim that did not seem very credible to me at the time. The details of the basis for my skepticism are irrelevant, for this discussion; what is relevant is that so many of the Iraq super-hawks had a bad habit of assuming that any conservative criticism was motivated by anti-Semitism. Because I am the exact opposite — a philo-Semite and an ardent Zionist — I was offended by this assumption. You could be pro-Israel and hate Saddam and still have serious doubts about the wisdom behind the neocons’ Iraq project, i.e., occupying Mesopotamia with the professed goal of turning it into a “democracy.” But some of our neocon friends just couldn’t tolerate such nuances, and while it is true that some “isolationist” conservatives were (and are) actual anti-Semites, such questions of motive ought not distract reasonable people from a discussion of the valid policy issues involved. I won’t call you a “dual citizen” if you don’t call me a crypto-Nazi sympathizer, OK?

My basic feeling is that Israel is tough enough to handle its regional enemies, if the U.S. State Department will just stop meddling around in the Mideast trying to arrange a “peace” deal based on the belief that the Palestinians want peace, a belief for which there is no evidence.

If Trump wins in November, he could fire the entire staff of the State Department, replace them all with the children of Republican campaign donors, and nothing of value would be lost in the transaction. Not saying it would make the State Department better — because GOP donors have a lot of stupid kids — but I’m just saying it couldn’t make things worse. The State Department is decadent and depraved, and no random group of amateurs could do worse than the current “experts” at Foggy Bottom.

Well, I find I’ve digressed a long way, but I owe a hat tip to Ace of Spades, and you can go there to read his scornful mockery of the “NeverTrump Fatsos and Softcocks” who’ve been betrayed by Biden.



 

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Category: Israel, Joe Biden, Jonah Goldberg

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