Pirate's Cove

And Sam Stein at the Huffington Post doesn’t like it whatsoever!

“I appreciate many of the very good intentions to Israel and Israeli security that Senator Obama expressed today,” said Lieberman. “I thought in the speech there was a disconnect between things Senator Obama said today, particularly in regard to Iran, and things he has said or done earlier either in the campaign or the Senate.”

The crux of Lieberman’s argument, however, was that Obama was putting the blame for Iran’s rise in the Middle East on America’s doorstep, pushing the argument that the Iraq war had strengthened Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s standing in the region and left Israel left secure.

“If Israel is in danger today it is not because of us foreign policy, which has been strongly supportive of Israel in every way,” he said. “It is not because of what we have done in Iraq. It is because Iran is a fanatical, terrorist, expansionist state and has a leader and a leadership that constantly threatens to extinguish the state of Israel.”

The remarks fit into a traditional GOP rallying cry, that the Democrats have a blame-America-first mentality. But there are outstanding factors that could muddle Lieberman’s message. For starters, most objective metrics indicate that Iran has, in fact, been strengthened by America’s involvement in Iraq. The Persian nation, after all, has increasingly meddled in Iraqi affairs.

Funny how the first thing a Liberal thinks of is how the GOP paints Democrats as having a blame America first mentality. I wonder what a psychologist would make of that!

But also, McCain, despite tough rhetoric on Iran, has several advisers with deep connections to the country; perhaps the most embarrassing of which is Charlie Black, the campaign’s chief strategist. Before leaving his perch as a D.C. lobbyist, Black represented a Chinese oil company that did business with the Iranian government. He and his firm also represented Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi exile who helped churn up support for the war in the United States and has subsequently been accused of selling U.S. secrets to Iran.

Now that is an 8 Stages alert. Notice that Sam Stein never refutes the allegations by Lieberman. Instead, he just deflects off to McCain and, despite mentioning several advisors, only cites one. In essense, Sam has written about the story, then goes on to ignore it and deflect like crazy.