Pirate's Cove

It’s the new way of doing things. Playing nice with enemies and ditching allies. An art form Barack Obama has perfected in his short time as Agitator In Chief, as he drives his big bus right over Israel

In declaring that it is time for Middle East peace “without preconditions,” President Obama used his speech to the U.N. General Assembly Wednesday to fire a warning at Israel that “America does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements.”

Obama’s stark declaration, which drew applause, was coupled with a call for Palestinians to end their “incitement of Israel.”

But it was the use of the U.N. forum to carry the settlement message to Israel that drew the most enthusiastic response on the floor — and incredulous reaction outside its walls.

Obama just put Israel “on the chopping block,” said former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton.

This surely thrilled his liberal/progressive base, which see’s Israel as one of the two roots of all problems in the Middle East. The other being America, of course.

Did CNN, MSNBC, ABC, the NY Times, or any of the other Usual Suspects have an issue with what Obama did to Israel? Of course not. They had little to say other than loving words for Obama’s rejoiner. For other real analysis, we have to read the international papers

It’s always a bad sign when a US president gets several rounds of heavy applause at the UN General Assembly, as Barack Obama did this morning in New York. Needless to say, the loudest cheers from the gathering of world leaders came when he condemned the actions of a close US ally, Israel, in continuing to build settlements in the West Bank. You can always rely on attacks on the Israelis to generate the biggest roars of approval at any meeting of the United Nations, and Obama dutifully obliged.

The tale of the tape for Obama at the UN goes something like this:

• Threw Israel under the bus
• Threw America under the bus
• Continued to whine about Booooooooooosh
• Made nice nice with scumbag dictators
• Threw other allies under the bus
• Made empty promises to get tough on nuclear proliferation while symbolically disarming America
• Told the world that this is a new America, one which will grovel at the world’s feet
• And more campaign style rhetoric

All in all, a day later, this speech was even more pathetic than at first blush.