Martin Eisenstadt’s Blog

Anderson Cooper, son to Gloria Vanderbilt and heir to the fortune I presume, showed last night that rich people with good jobs wield power. A “metrosexual” himself, Cooper managed to guide the Republican debate into a gay and lively discussion about same sex love. Should that be allowed? What if Wolf Blitzer had turned the Democratic debate into a discussion of Zionism and bar mitzvah ritual? Maybe journalists should be forced to take non-loyalty oaths, like Kennedy had to do regarding his Catholicism.

And what was the great Grover Norquist thinking submitting a youtube question to politicians who clearly hate him? And with such stiff competition. My favorite was the retired gay general (the Hillary plant), or how about the black father and son at the gym, or the kid who had the gun tossed to him. No wonder McCain was so mad. Seven years in a POW camp for this? How humiliating!

How pissed off did McCain look last night? His absolute hatred for and disgust with Romney couldn’t have been more obviously pronounced. Watching his exchange with Romney over torture was positively Shakespearean.

But that’s why McCain has no shot. He carries around with him too much rage, righteous indignation. And as the Bushes crossed McCain big time back in South Carolina, they know McCain’s not capable of forgiving and forgetting, and if he ever gets the chance…so they’re doing everything they can to make sure he never gets that chance.

The Bushes and their allies’ biggest fear is not a Hillary victory in ‘08. The Clintons and Bushes have long standing understandings and arrangements between them. The Bushes and their allies’ biggest fear is a McCain victory because then you might actually see investigations and trials. The level of resentment and contempt McCain feels for conservatives from his generation who didn’t serve never ceases to amaze.

Can somebody speak honestly here for a moment? With the exception of Rudy, everyone on that stage last night is a clown. Huckabee looks and sounds like Gomer Pyle. Romney is straight out of central casting, as president of the uptight fraternity in Animal House. McCain, I must admit, possesses life gravitas, but he comes across terribly unstable and impatient, not the sort of man you want with a finger on the nuclear trigger. Duncan Hunter was also occasionally intriguing but his close ties with fellow veteran and San Diegoan Randy “Duke” Cunningham and those wild alcohol, prostitutes and contractors parties, could prove damaging down the road.

Which brings us to Rudy, brought up in the rough and tumble of New York ethnic life where he defeats his enemies and rises to the top. A lawyer who actually understands the law and the processes of government, Giuliani sounds human, a rarity in modern politics. (You don’t believe me? Go listen to David Chapelle imitate a white person, then close your eyes and listen to Barak Obama. They’re the same person.)

But for our purposes, listen to Rudy explain a position, and what do you hear? Nuance, intellectual competence. Listen to the other guys answer a question, and it’s like drifting into an episode of the Mouskateers.

My mind is made up. I hope yours is as well.

Michael’s on the road back, but wanted me to post some more links wrapping up Annapolis:

Carl in Israel has this disappointing, but perhaps not unexpected, news.

Links to: Debka - post Annapolis interviews.

Disapointment in Bush from the Right.

RedState Update analysis, likewise.

National Review…

Disappointment in Bush from the Left.

Disappointment…from the Vatican?

Disappointment…from Iowa?

And more disappointment from the Left

One thing this Annapolis gathering has taught me: America’s next president needs to be tough, a “gangsta” as my twelve year old son would say. These sheikhs play hardball, forever lying and maneuvering. I shutter to think how they would laugh at Romney and his Mormon can do, golly gee ways. But Giuliani, he would fit right in. He would be respected, feared.

With dwindling oil supplies and the rise of China and India, we need a New Yorker, a boss, a throwback to the Luciano/Lansky days, someone so strong that he was able to put away the heads of New York’s known Mafia families and live and prosper and go on. Rudy was also there on 9/11. And in this game, knowledge is power.

It struck me this week that while our adversaries abroad resemble warlords, American politicians seem to prefer cheerleading and toe tapping. If I wasn’t sure before, I am now. The barbarians are frothing at the mouth, pounding at the gate. Rudy comes from a tradition with experience keeping its neighborhoods safe from minority troublemakers. His experience in the micro will surely benefit us in the macro.

Let’s see tonight how Rudy counters Plastic Romney when he brings up Kerik. “A strong Don needs a strong consigliere, especially in war time, you grinning Bible salesman.” That’s what I would say.

So ahead of me on line at Chick and Ruth’s is the foreign minister of Mauritania. Real impressed with himself. He’s with a young overweight woman, college age, naive, horny, American Jewish would be my guess, waiting for a table. She asks him something that I couldn’t make out, something along the lines of why Mauritinia was invited to an Israel-”Palestine” summit. He answers and I quote “In the Middle East we all love your Thanskgiving, the changing colors, the crisp fresh air, the turkey, pumpkin in all the foods. It’s nice for us.”

There you have it. Even dictators and tyrants with multiple wives and real torture chambers (not the joke waterboarding we do) can’t help but see the superiority of Western holidays and seasons. That’s why in the end, we always win, like the British before us. Christianity versus Islam, I’ll take trees and gifts over jihad and sexual repression any day.

A roundup of Annapolis links:

Blog responses from the Middle East (no one has much faith in it, suffice it to say)

h/t to Debbie Schlussel for alerting us to these interesting letters to the WSJ

Syria’s view of Annapolis

Stark statement from Boker Tov, Boulder

The German view from Der Spiegel

Frustration with Bush

my friends at the Council on Foreign Relations have their take on Annapolis

Commentary from Commentary

Traffic on the Beltway being what it is, I couldn’t make it back to the District for the Brookings event, but here’s a great excerpt: from Foreign Policy

Saeb Erekat, the veteran and colorful Palestinian negotiator, told a good joke at today’s Brookings event on Annapolis. It was his way of explaining why we need new negotiations after nearly two decades of failed diplomacy. I’m going to paraphrase it here:

An Israeli and a Palestinian are watching a Western. In the movie, a cowboy is riding bareback on a particularly wild horse. The Israeli, being aggressive, says to the Palestinian, “I’ll bet you 10 shekels he falls.” The Palestinian, being impulsive, replies immediately, “I’ll bet you he doesn’t.”

The cowboy falls, and the Palestinian forks over 10 shekels. The Israeli, feeling that famous Israeli guilt, refuses them. Then he admits, “I’ve seen this movie before.”

The Palestinian replies, “So have I. But I thought he would learn from his mistake.”

And more from “Palestine”

Nicely put.

A funny take from Israel

How grateful I am to be visiting a city as magical and quaint as Annapolis. Personal disclaimer: I was recently diagnosed with high blood pressure and cholesterol. I am now thankfully under medication. A reporter from India, my drinking buddy last night, told me that in his country, my ailments are treated as mental problems. That my cure is to be more grateful to the universe. LOL. I was worried about the dollar falling against the rupee but not anymore. What a quack.

Anyhow, this morning, a bit hungover I must confess, we visited the docks where almost every African slave passed through on his way to employment in the Americas. Here you had the country’s largest and most boisterous markets, a port city with all its connotations and implications. I just read that in early Annapolis, 40% of womenfolk worked as prostitutes. So when I hear from people that the sky is falling, that aliens are taking away America’s jobs, that we’re too engaged with the world, I am reminded of Solomon’s wise words in Ecclesiastes, “There is nothing new under the sun.”

We’ve been through this many times, and lo and behold, we keep coming out okay.

Shared a walk with a close adviser to Abu Mazen. Told me in confidence that Olmert gets a lot of money from a Russian businessman who holds far right, white supremacist views. So this is the propaganda we should be expecting from the left, that Olmert is corrupt, that obscenely rich Russian criminals have taken an interest in Israeli politics. Thank you for that old information. What matters is Olmert is a pragmatist. And he knows that starving Palestinians is good for no one. So expect a compromise from Olmert. Maybe even on the refugee issue. Which is a shame but not consequential as this conference is nothing more than an autumn Maryland vacation for tired Semites.

M. Thomas is wrapped up in Annapolis today, but texted me to post some links about the ongoing conference:
Saeb Erakat with Condoleeza Rice (if you look closely, we think that’s M. Thomas in the background)

Who’s Who in Annapolis (h/t: Boker Tov, Boulder)

National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley explains:

The … main event is on Tuesday. The President will have a trilateral meeting with Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas. They will then go into the conference, and the three of them will speak. The conference will then adjourn into lunch and Secretary Rice will then pick up the program from there. They’re finalizing the agenda on the issues that will be discussed. It will probably be a fairly open forum of conversation, expressions of opinion. This is not a negotiating forum; this is an opportunity, if you will, to showcase what is an opportunity to move into a negotiating phase between Palestinians and Israelis.

And there will be a variety of reports, one by the parties, themselves, about the activities they’ve been undertaking. There will be considerable discussion about the efforts that Salam Fayyad has been undertaking to build Palestinian institutions, Tony Blair’s contribution to that, looking forward to the Paris Donors Conference in December. So it will be an opportunity for the parties to indicate their intentions in terms of the work they’ve done together and what their intentions are going forward in terms of negotiations, and for the international community to show their support for that process and for the construction of institution for a Palestinian state.

Biggest news could be about Iraq

With the eyes of the world focused on the Middle East peace talks in Annapolis, Md., President Bush’s war tsar, Lieutenant General Douglas Lute, quietly announced that the American and Iraqi governments will start talks early next year to bring about an end to the allied occupation by the close of Mr. Bush’s presidency.

The negotiations will bring to a formal conclusion the U.N. Chapter 7 Security Council involvement in the occupation and administration of Iraq, and are expected to reduce the number of American troops to about 50,000 troops permanently stationed there but largely confined to barracks, from the current 164,000 forces on active duty.

“The basic message here should be clear. Iraq is increasingly able to stand on its own. That’s very good news. But it won’t have to stand alone,” General Lute yesterday told reporters in the White House.

Daniel Pipes’ piece on Annapolis

Surprisingly, something useful has emerged from the combination of the misconceived Annapolis meeting and a weak Israeli prime minister, Ehud (”Peace is achieved through concessions”) Olmert. Breaking with his predecessors, Olmert has boldly demanded that his Palestinian bargaining partners accept Israel’s permanent existence as a Jewish state, thereby evoking a revealing response.
Unless the Palestinians recognize Israel as “a Jewish state,” Olmert announced on November 11, the Annapolis-related talks would not proceed. “I do not intend to compromise in any way over the issue of the Jewish state. This will be a condition for our recognition of a Palestinian state.”

He confirmed these points a day later, describing the “recognition of Israel as a state for the Jewish people” as the “launching point for all negotiations. We won’t have an argument with anyone in the world over the fact that Israel is a state of the Jewish people.” The Palestinian leadership, he noted, must “want to make peace with Israel as a Jewish state.”

Raising this topic has the virtue of finally focusing attention on what is the central topic in the Arab-Israeli conflict – Zionism, the Jewish nationalist movement, a topic that typically gets ignored in the hubbub of negotiations. Since nearly the birth of the state, these have focused on the intricacies of such subsidiary issues as borders, troop placements, armaments and arms control, sanctities, natural resources, residential rights, diplomatic representation, and foreign relations.

RedState’s analysis on Annapolis

Despite Bush’s lofty rhetoric, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had still not managed to broker an agreement on the conference centerpiece, a joint document or “workplan” on new talks—what the two sides must do going forward.

Rice has been meeting with the chief negotiators for two days to try and bridge the gaps.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Ahmed Qureia said Monday after an afternoon meeting with Rice, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and others that details of the document had not been finalized. “Our efforts are still going on to reach this document,” he said.