Hurricane Barack Raining on Middle East Peace

Consensus in Israel and Palestine at last, both sides are losing hope and trying to cope with the rain:

Even those who still believe in the process that Obama has championed view his conduct as a deeply unfunny comedy of errors.

“He’s like rain,” said a top Israeli official involved in diplomacy with the U.S., speaking of Obama’s role in negotiations. “You can do all kinds of things to cope with it.”

Some fret that not only has Obama failed to move the process forward, but that he and his Israeli and Palestinian counterparts may have dealt it a setback that will leave it worse off than when they began.

“Each of them has exacerbated the mistakes of the other,” said Michael Herzog, a retired general who still plays an informal role advising Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s negotiators. He worries that the result of the bumbling could be “disastrous: people will lose hope in the possibility of a two-state solution.”

Fuzislippers spots the eye of the hurricane: The problem with Obama’s incompetence is not that Obama has suddenly, magically become incompetent but that he’s been incompetent all along.  Let's not be too harsh, at least the Israelis and Palestinians finally found one thing they can agree upon.

Left Coast Rebel has a roundup of one-liners from this article.  There are many.

H/T: Memeorandum
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Rose O'Donnell: Helen Thomas wasn't saying go back to the ovens or anything

Nothing like a little Rosie O'Donnell insanity to liven up a slow news day.  This short clip taken from Rosie's radio show is naturally loaded with irony particularly at the end when O'Donnell and her producer Shoshana discuss whether Helen Thomas was merely guilty of voicing an opinion that was not considered politically correct.  Rosie and crew jump through some highly-technical mental gymnastics to rationalize Thomas' career ending statement about Israel.  The pièce de résistance was the absolutely absurd rationalization Thomas meant no harm in her statement that Jews in Israel should go home to Germany and Poland because hey the ovens were gone, weren't they?

Jim Treacher has his own unique version of a transcript:

Some dude who isn’t Rosie O’Donnell: The hate speech comes from the fact that Jews left Poland and Germany because they were being killed.

Rosie O’Donnell: Correct.

SDWIRO: And so, hate is inferred when she says, “Go back there.”

Some broad who isn’t Rosie O’Donnell: Oh, that is absurd.

RO: Well, here’s the other thing. Right after World War II, when Jews who did survive the Holocaust went back, they were killed there. Right? Not millions, but thousands of Jews were killed when they tried to go back and reclaim their businesses and their homes. They were killed by, y’know, local people in Poland and in Germany. So, y’know, there’s that historical reference that is in fact true. But now, I think, in the year 2010, y’know, what she was saying was not, “Go back to the ovens.”

SBWIRO: Well, they’re not there anymore.

RO: Correct…