So, Just How Powerful Is The Israel lobby In The US?

[Purveyor]

As public grovels go, this one was pretty spectacular. Former Senator Chuck Hagel, who may or may not become the next US Secretary of Defense, was back in his old haunts on Capitol Hill for his confirmation hearings, trying to explain a remark he made a few years back, that "the Jewish lobby intimidated Congress" and did some "dumb things".
Name a "dumb thing", he was asked by Lindsey Graham, his Republican colleague for six years until 2009 – though you wouldn't have guessed it from the venom of the exchanges on Thursday. Hagel couldn't. Graham persisted. "Name one person who's intimidated by the Israel lobby in the United States Senate." A taut silence, then Hagel limply responded, "I don't know."

Public hearings, especially confirmation hearings, are one of the great shows of Congress. Hagel's made especially good theatre, largely because the reek of treachery was in the air. Here was a Republican who had abandoned his party and colleagues like Graham and John McCain, his one-time friend and fellow Vietnam war hero, by turning against the Iraq war begun by a Republican president.

Worse still, Hagel had backed Barack Obama, not McCain, in the 2008 election, even accompanying the Democratic candidate on a high-profile campaign visit to Iraq and Israel. And now here he was, back on Capitol Hill as Obama's choice to lead the Pentagon, about to collect his 30 pieces of silver. If anything, McCain's own grilling of his former pal was even more poisonous.

In the end the public drama may make little difference. Hagel did pretty poorly, seeming to be taken aback by the hostility of the Republicans, even though the latter had made no secret of it beforehand. But performances at confirmation hearings rarely change minds – and even more rarely is a President's nominee to an important post actually rejected. The Democrats and their allies hold a 14-12 majority on the Armed Services Committee, and 55 of the 100 Senate seats. That should be enough. The only way Republicans can block Hagel is by using the filibuster to prevent a final vote on the floor.

MORE...

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/so-just-how-powerful-is-the-israel-lobby-in-the-us-8478432.html

[limpyhobbler]

1. It seems to have a lot of influence.

[hrmjustin]

2. Yes they know their way around the DC.

[Bluenorthwest]

3. This author quotes Pat Buchanan as an authority on this subject.

From this piece:
"Not for nothing did Pat Buchanan once describe Congress as "Israeli-occupied territory" – "

Also from Pat in the Guradian, on Hitler:
"an individual of great courage.... Hitler's success was not based on his extraordinary gifts alone. His genius was an intuitive sense of the mushiness, the character flaws, the weakness masquerading as morality that was in the hearts of the statesmen who stood in his path." (Guardian, 1/14/92)

From a speech to the Christian coallition:
"Our culture is superior. Our culture is superior because our religion is Christianity and that is the truth that makes men free."

Here's Pat Buchanan telling Nixon why he should not visit Corretta Scott King after Martin Luther King Jr was shot:
"outrage many, many people who believe Dr. King was a fraud and a demagogue and perhaps worse.... Others consider him the Devil incarnate. Dr. King is one of the most divisive men in contemporary history." (New York Daily News, 10/1/90)
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I'll have to let you all work on this sort of material on your own. I'm a Democrat, and quoting Buchanan to me is like quoting Buchanan.

[bemildred]

4. There is no point in having a public argument with an angry moron.

No matter what, you let them rant if they want to rant. Every kid knows this.