PrintFebruary 1, 2008
NY Sun worries about Obama and Israel
The New York Sun editorially defended Barack Obama's stance toward Israel on January 9th. Since then, a number of Obama supporters have used that editorial to counter the effects the growing controversy (see Noah Pollak and and Eric Trager at Commentary as well as Ed Lasky's work on Obama and Israel, an article that continues to circulate widely in the pro-Israel community.
But today, the Sun, a newspaper we greatly admire, takes another, more skeptical look at Obama and Israel , given some new evidence:
...in the February 4 number of Newsweek... [Jonathan Alter] asked [Barack Obama] "Would you have Republicans in your cabinet?" the presidential candidate replied, "No decisions, but Dick Lugar embodies the best tradition in foreign policy. Chuck Hagel is a smart guy who has shows some courage, even though we disagree on domestic policy."
The Sun editorial explains, for those unfamiliar with the two men, exactly why they are so troubling when it comes to revealing Obama's real thinking. The paper cuts him every break:
It may be that Mr. Obama and many others like him aren't familiar with the details of [Hagel and Lugar]'s record.
But the Sun is somewhat pessimistic:
But if the senator ends up aligning himself with the Lugar-Hagel tradition in the Republican Party, his actions will start to belie his words.
We think his actions long ago started to belie his words. The real discussion centers around how many troubling signs there are, not whether or not they exist.
The Sun has never buried its heads in the sand, and has carried op-ed columns critical of Obama that question his stance on Israel. For example, Hillel Halkin's "Obama gets Israel Wrong". These columns are never noted by Obaam defenders when they tout the Sun as somehow providing an endorsement of Obama.
