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THE INSIDE HISTORY OF THE ISRAEL
LOBBY
Former top
CIA analysts Kathleen and Bill Christison give CounterPunchers
the real scoop on the Israel lobby and precisely how powerful
it is. Read
how US presidents from Wilson, through FDR to Truman were manipulated
by the Zionist lobby; how Israel bent LBJ, Reagan and Clinton
to its purpose; how Bush's White House has been the West Wing
of the Israeli government; how Washington's revolving doors send
full-time Israel lobbyists from think-tanks to the National Security
Council and the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans. For all who want a
true measure of the Lobby's power, the Christisons' 8-page dossier,
exclusive to CounterPunch newsletter subscribers, is a MUST read. CounterPunch
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Now!
Two years from now, Hillary Clinton
might be pleased to hear the kind of boos and antiwar chants
that greeted her days ago when she spoke at the annual Take Back
America conference of Democratic activists and argued against
a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. But so much of politics
is about timing. And right now, Clinton is facing a serious problem
of premature triangulation.
As long as she needs support
from Democratic primary voters, Hillary Clinton will want to
defer the media rewards of an all-out "Sister Souljah moment."
Let's recall that in 1992, when Bill Clinton went out of his
way to denounce the then-little-known rap singer Sister Souljah
at a Rainbow Coalition conference, he'd already clinched the
Democratic presidential nomination and was looking toward the
general election.
Bill Clinton's triangulation
gambit, using Sister Souljah as a prop for his calculated move
to ingratiate himself with establishment pundits, had been foreshadowed
by a Washington Post article that reported the day before: "Some
top advisers to Clinton argue that ... he must become involved
in highly publicized confrontations with one or more Democratic
constituencies." The constituency that Clinton chose to
polarize with was African-American activists.
These days, and from here to
the horizon, there's no larger or more adamant Democratic constituency
than the antiwar voters who want the U.S. military out of Iraq
pronto. At this point, Hillary Clinton's pro-war position is
far afield from the views of most grassroots Democrats.
Clinton's foreseeable game
plan is to eventually confront antiwar activists head-on as she
portrays herself as a strong-on-defense Newer-Than-New Democrat.
Two years from now, if she has the nomination cinched, she'll
be eager to ratchet up her strategy of playing to the gallery
of corporate-media journalists by presenting herself as a centrist
alternative to both the Republican Party's right wing and the
Democratic Party's "special interests" (a.k.a., the
party's base).
But first Hillary Clinton would
need to win enough delegates to become the party's presidential
nominee. To that end, she'll try to finesse and blur the war
issue in hopes that her hawkish position won't rub too many Democratic
primary voters the wrong way.
It's not going to be easy.
What happened at the Take Back America conference the other day
was mild compared to what Hillary Clinton has coming in primary
and caucus battleground states once the presidential campaign
begins in earnest. And she may encounter unexpected difficulties
as her pro-war reputation grows.
If Hillary Clinton thinks she
can postpone an all-out confrontation with the antiwar movement
until a time and place of her tactical choosing, she's going
to be very disappointed. And at the end of her 2008 quest, Clinton
may discover that she has triangulated herself right out of the
nomination.
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.