I Don't Mean to Nitpick
This is blatantly misleading:
Kerry's assistants vouch for his ongoing support for Israel. "If anyone is a Johnny come lately, it is president Bush, who visited Israel for the first time when he was running for office..." contends [senior adviser on Middle East and Jewish affairs in the Kerry campaign Jay] Footlik.
As is well known (and by well-known I mean 5000+ Google hits), Sharon took Bush on a helicopter tour of Israel way back in 1998. I guess you could say Bush was already planning to run for President at the time, but it seems that Kerry's people are implying a little more than that. Other fun things I learned from Kerry's advisers:
Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry held consultations... about the Middle East...[with] Dennis Ross, the veteran peace negotiator...
The message Kerry wants to send is that his commitment to the state of Israel is in no way inferior to the president's.
I'm not a Kerry adviser, but it seems to me that if I was trying to convey my commitment to Israel's security, I'd shy away from the person responsible for Oslo. Of course, I'd also stay away from the peace process in general:
Kerry promises that, if elected, the U.S. will be more involved in the Israel-Palestinian dispute. He has suggested that he would appoint a special envoy to help jump start the peace process (in this connection, Kerry has stopped mentioning the names of Jimmy Carter and James Baker, partly due to the Jewish community's perception that they are overly sympathetic to Arab positions).
Don't get me wrong - I sympathize with Kerry's people. They're already starting way behind. But throwing around Carter's name as the guy who'll be running the peace process under a Kerry administration is not the best way to dig Kerry out of the hole he created.
Kerry's assistants vouch for his ongoing support for Israel. "If anyone is a Johnny come lately, it is president Bush, who visited Israel for the first time when he was running for office..." contends [senior adviser on Middle East and Jewish affairs in the Kerry campaign Jay] Footlik.
As is well known (and by well-known I mean 5000+ Google hits), Sharon took Bush on a helicopter tour of Israel way back in 1998. I guess you could say Bush was already planning to run for President at the time, but it seems that Kerry's people are implying a little more than that. Other fun things I learned from Kerry's advisers:
Democratic presidential front-runner John Kerry held consultations... about the Middle East...[with] Dennis Ross, the veteran peace negotiator...
The message Kerry wants to send is that his commitment to the state of Israel is in no way inferior to the president's.
I'm not a Kerry adviser, but it seems to me that if I was trying to convey my commitment to Israel's security, I'd shy away from the person responsible for Oslo. Of course, I'd also stay away from the peace process in general:
Kerry promises that, if elected, the U.S. will be more involved in the Israel-Palestinian dispute. He has suggested that he would appoint a special envoy to help jump start the peace process (in this connection, Kerry has stopped mentioning the names of Jimmy Carter and James Baker, partly due to the Jewish community's perception that they are overly sympathetic to Arab positions).
Don't get me wrong - I sympathize with Kerry's people. They're already starting way behind. But throwing around Carter's name as the guy who'll be running the peace process under a Kerry administration is not the best way to dig Kerry out of the hole he created.
