Clarity of Rescue

Israeli security forces have reportedly been on the scene in Nairobi, possibly because some of the businesses at the targeted mall may have been Israeli-owned. Thus we get this story:

Two Kenyans who survived and escaped the terror attack at the partially Israeli-owned Westgate Mall, in Nairobi, told the Guardian they were rescued by “a man they believed was an Israeli security officer,” according to live postings on the Guardian website.

The extent of Israeli involvement in the rescue operation remained unclear on Sunday, as official sources in Jerusalem declined to comment beyond saying that Israel is advising the Kenyan government on rescue initiatives.

If you're feeling a bit of cognitive dissonance, just chant "this proves it was a Zionist plot all along!" over and over until it goes away.

The Green Peril

Obama celebrates St. Patrick's Day. Obama's got Irish roots: his great-great-great grandfather reportedly left Ireland for New York in 1850.

And Adam Serwer proceeds to knock it out of the park with a post entitled "Obama's Irish Anti-Colonialism":

I would love to know more. What I know is troubling enough. And one thing that I do know is his having grown up raised by his Irish-American mother, his view of the Brits, for example, is very different than the average American. When he gave the bust back to the Brits--the bust of Winston Churchill--it was a great insult to the British. But then if you think about it, his perspective as growing up in Dublin with an Irish mother and grandfather, their view of the Irish Republican Army is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British were a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.

I have said many times, publicly, that I do think Obama has a different worldview and I think it is, in part, molded out of a very different experience. Most of us grew up going to Boy Scout meetings and, you know, our communities were filled with Rotary Clubs, not pubs serving cream stout. Again, I am not saying he's not a citizen, I've never said that, I've said the opposite. I've never said he's a Catholic. I wish people would ask, though, does this president have a different worldview than any other president in the history of the United States?

Ta-Nehisi Coates has a good post up where he was taken to task by his readers for being insufficiently harsh on Governor Huckabee. As absurd as the whole "Kenyan anti-Colonialism" meme is even on its face, it only gets more so when one digs in. Aside from the basic point that America was founded on anti-British anti-colonialism, the folks involved in the Mau Mau rebellion were of a different (and rival) tribe to that belonged to by Obama's grandfather. It's difficult to figure out how Obama -- raised by his White mother in (mostly) Hawaii, was supposed to have inherited a worldview from the African father he barely met on a conflict his family was never involved in on a continent he had scarcely even seen except via some uncritical lumping together of all things dark.

And Serwer's parody is so brilliant precisely because it lays the racial qualities of this whole discourse out so starkly. In modern America (in admittedly some shift from the 1960 election), it is patently absurd to think that just because someone is of Irish descent, they have some radical anti-colonial worldview. And, to the extent we think about Ireland's struggles throwing off anti-colonialism, we're generally positive towards it, whereas when Kenyans do it it's symbolic of the collapse of civilization as we know it.

Huckabee Plays Footsie with the Birthers

Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee (R) (in what a spokesperson now is claiming was simply a misstatement) claimed that President Obama grew up in Kenya and expressed, at the very least, ambivalence regarding his place of birth.

The only reason I'm not as confident that there's something about the birth certificate, Steve, is because I know the Clintons [inaudible] and believe me, they have lots of investigators out on him, and I'm convinced if there was anything that they could have found on that, they would have found it, and I promise they would have used it.

Kevin Drum gives Huckabee credit for the best birther-dodge he's seen -- playing off the image of the Clinton's as ruthless smear-merchants as a reason why he's "not as confident" about the birth certificate being a legitimate issue. Unfortunately, the interviewer's follow-up managed to destroy that, as he plays off the emergent-theme of the Obama campaign as Chicago-style mafiosos as well: "The Clintons probably - there was probably a lot on the Clintons that the Obamas could have said, 'yeah, you do that, we'll come back with this.'" In any event, "I'm not as confident" is hardly the resounding rejection of birtherism that we ought to expect from any serious political figure.

Meanwhile, Jon Chait wonders why Obama's supposed "Kenyan anti-colonialism" is supposed to be a bad thing, given that the Tea Party is metaphorically inspired by ... resistance to British colonialism.

North to the Future Roundup

Flying to Minnesota tomorrow -- I may or may not be posting tomorrow and Thursday. I also may or may not give an election update with the primary results tonight.

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The Tea Party begins its Jewish outreach project as part of a broader diversification campaign. Why Jews first? "I think that there is a more open debate to be had (in the Jewish community), but there is no genius behind that. I had to start somewhere." Don't tell Karol de Gucht.

A few days old, but James Fallows regrets the harsh things he didn't say to Marty Peretz.

Like Ta-Nehisi Coates and Matt Yglesias, I find it strange that resisting British colonialism is now a slur. If you're African (if you're White, it's a Tea Party!).

Meanwhile, Adam Serwer's post on how this whole "Kenyan anticolonialism" thing is a blatant racial dog-whistle is excellent.

No link, but a conservative friend of just cried out over Facebook: "Why don't Delaware Republicans want to win the Senate?"

American support for Israel is up following the relaunch of peace talks.

Engage lists its greatest hits.

Is Donna Edwards really threatened in her primary race (I voted today, but she's not my Congresswoman).