The GOP: Celebrating Ignorance

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upAD8EsLEVI]

Here’s a quick reminder of why we voted the Republicans out of office. In the video above Pat Buchanan defends Sarah Palin. Lawrence O’Donnell blasted Pat Buchanan for the Republican Party’s celebrating ignorance, including not being able to even think of evolution. O’Donnell then asked Buchanan if he believes in evolution. Buchanan showed that he both believes in creationism and doesn’t understand evolution by telling O’Donnell that if he believes he’s descended from a monkey he would understand it.

Vote for Change and Surf to Change.gov

Barack Obama developed support by using the internet and with the election over it appears that this will be continued. The Office of the President-Elect now has a web site up which is appropriately named Change.gov.

Obama, Emanuel, and Israel

There have been a variety of attempts to determine the direction of an Obama administration from the limited information we have so far. While we wait for the naming of the next First Puppy (and its confirmation by the Senate?) the key appointment so far is Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff. Yesterday Megan McArdle pointed out how difficult it is to tell anything so far considering how the same appointment has led to totally contradictory interpretations:

One:  that Barack Obama is taking his administration in a more pragmatic, less ideological direction.  Two:  that Barack Obama is looking for a hatchet man to beat the snot out of the Republicans.  Which is true?  I’m not enough of an insider to even hazard a guess.  But it’s interesting how the same piece of information can plausibly tell two utterly different stories.

I’d go with the first, but this is based more on my view of Obama than of Emanuel. I’d also be cautious about attributing much to any given appointee considering Obama’s interest in a Team of Rivals approach to governing. Jeffry Goldberg does seem to know more about Rahm Emanuel and does have some observations as to what the appointment might mean with respect to Israel.

The constant barrage of smears claiming that Obama is both anti-Israel and anti-Semitic failed to convince many Jewish voters, and the appointment of Emanuel seems to support the choice of most Jewish voters to back Obama. He writes that Rahm Emanuel “is deeply and emotionally committed to Israel and its safety. We’ve talked about the issue a dozen times; it’s something he thinks about constantly, and his appointment gives me further reason to believe that the Obama Administration will not wait seven years to address the Israeli-Arab crisis.”

While supportive of Israel, he also gives encouragement to supporters of a peace process which requires placing some pressure on Israel:

Peace-processors take heart: Rahm, precisely because he’s a lover of Israel, will not have much patience with Israeli excuse-making, so when the next Prime Minister tells President Obama that as much as he’d love to, he can’t dismantle the Neve Manyak settlement outpost, or whichever outpost needs dismantling, because of a) domestic politics; b) security concerns, or c) the Bible, Rahm will call out such nonsense, and it will be very hard for right-wing Israelis to come back and accuse him of being a self-hating Jew. This is not to say that he’s unaware of Palestinian dysfunction, or Iranian extremism, but that he has a good grasp of some of Israel’s foibles as well. All in all, it’s a very heartening choice.