Buerger Bites

The Big O’s No-No’s

It didn’t take long for President-Elect Barack Obama and his team to make their first mistakes. During his much anticipated introductory news conference, Mr. Obama joked that he spoke with most of the living president—but didn’t pull a Nancy Reagan. He tried and failed to be funny in recalling how Mrs. Reagan reportedly held séances in the White House in the early 1980s. He later called and, appropriately, apologized to the former First Lady.

The next gaff came from the father Mr. Obama’s newly minted Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel. Dr. Benjamin Emanuel, Rahm’s Israeli-born father, last week told the Ma’ariv daily, “Obviously he’ll influence the president to be pro-Israel. Why wouldn’t he? What is he, an Arab? He’s not going to be mopping floors at the White House.”

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee called the remarks “an unacceptable smear.”

The son then the father apologized to the group for the disparaging comments.

“From the fullness of my heart, I personally apologize on behalf of my family and me,” Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), said in a telephone call Thursday to Mary Rose Oakar, the president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. “These are not the values upon which I was raised or those of my family.”

According the JTA Wire Service, a spokeswoman for Rahm Emanuel said the Illinois congressman offered to meet with representatives of the Arab-American community “at an appropriate time in the future.”

I’m sure many more mistakes are to come. As Jews, we are quick to point out when others blow it. It’s critical that we are equally diligent about righting our own wrongs as well.

Obama Day One

Tony Blair, the former British prime minister, remarked about the importance of a two state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian issue earlier this week, “The single most important thing is that the new administration in the United States grips this issue from Day One.”

As an American Jew, I can emphasis how important that is, and I’m sure the 47 million Americans without health insurance, the 6.5 percent of out-of-work Americans and the million employees who depend on the Big Three all think their problems should be addressed on Day One.

Some people believe that energy independence trumps everything else. I think they have a real point. What if President Barack Obama made that his big, hairy, audacious goal of becoming energy independent by 2016 starting with the Big Three?

Already he’s talking about providing loans to the car makers to help them retool for more energy efficient cars. That would help propel America to the leading producer of green technology, harnessing a rusting workforce to once again export American ingenuity.

What might happen were the United States to find alternatives to the combustion engine?

The rest of the developing world would buy green technology from American companies; naturally the price of oil would drop. That would have cascading effects — as we’ve seen in the last few weeks.

Iran is so reliant on oil revenue that it might beg for a meeting with President Obama on our terms; Tehran cannot survive with oil below $75 per barrel. They would be forced to halt their nuclear weapon program, which threatens Israeli’s existence. If Iran cannot take care of its people, it surely cannot fund Hezbollah and Hamas.

Without that funding, Hezbollah and Hamas would have no missiles to launch at Israel, or money to train and pay suicide bombers. They, too, would want to be on President Obama’s agenda, just as Yasser Arafat ran to the United States when his old Soviet/Russian friends’ money dried up as the Cold War ended. A safe, solid two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict would be achievable, quickly.

Speaking of Russia, when oil drops back to $40, when we have an alternative to the combustion engine, Vladimir Putin won’t be rearing his head in Alaska or in Georgia. (That’s the country, not the state.) He’d be too busy trying to feed his own people to threaten someone else’s.

Oil below $40 per barrel in eight years. Hugo Chavez who?

I’m oversimplifying the solutions. It’s a monumental task to move from a petroleum-based society to other alternatives, such as plug-in hybrids, natural gas, or electric cars. We don’t have the infrastructure… Yet.

But what better time is there to create an FDR-like public works project that can retrofit our nation to take advantage of our wind and solar capabilities?

Last week I met with David Houle, a futurist and author of “The Shift Age.” He believes we are leaving the Information Age into a time defined by three factors: accelerating electronic connectedness; the flow to global; and lastly, the flow to the individual. An example of this is how the power has gone from Media TV titans who told you what to watch and when, to the person controlling the Tivo remote.

He says that our lifestyle based around commuting from the exurbs in our combustion engine cars is not sustainable. However, if we can turn the automobile factory workers in Detroit into people who assemble green technology, we can again be the dominant global force.

David predicted the current crisis, and sees this as a great opportunity for the United States, the world, and this new U.S. administration. “We should be the parents of our future rather than the offspring of our past,” he told me. “It is this state of mind that ushers in new opportunities and prepares one for fundamental change.”

If we can leverage our power to shift from the past of a petroleum-based society to creating a new one from alternative energy sources, we can fix our economic problems, solve the Middle East crisis, and save GM, Ford, and Chrystler.

That will make Tony Blair happy and give President Obama plenty of time to tackle our battered healthcare system.

Rahm Emanuel

The 2008 presidential election wasn’t even a week ago, and it’s way too early to judge President-elect Barack Obama—although pundits on the left and right were impressed with his poise and demeanor in his first news conference.  He has a large task in front of him and the nation is counting on him to deliver.

From a Jewish perspective, Mr. Obama’s first steps were certainly newsworthy.  During the campaign, his opponents tagged him as anti-Israel and anti-Semitic because of his association with the fiery Rev Jeremiah Wright for 20 years (and Wright’s praise of the Rev. Louis Farrakhan).  That was a cause for concern, and Mr. Obama had to confront it head on. Still, I don’t think that the relationship made Mr. Obama anti-Semitic. 
It’s actions that count. So look at are Obama’s first two major decisions.

1. His choice for Vice President – Sen. Joe Biden.  Israelis and Jewish Americans can rest assured knowing Mr. Biden is a long-time friend of Israel.
2. The first White House staff member picked is Rahm Emanuel for Chief of Staff.  The very active Jewish Chicagoan is a product of Jewish day school and spent his summers growing up in Israel where he visited his father’s family.  His entire extended family has strong Jewish affiliation; it’s rumored that his wife and two children may remain in Chicago so the kids can remain with their friends in their Jewish day school.

I can understand that Mr. Emanuel concerns some in that he’s very partisan and – as a Clinton White House veteran and a U.S. Congressman – he’s not exactly the change Mr. Obama was speaking about during the campaign. However, I would think his choice would allay Jewish fears that the new president will be either anti-Semitic or would not stand with Israel in her time of need because Rahm Emanuel literally did 1991 when he was a civilian volunteer in the IDF during the Persian Gulf War.

After The Historic Election

Back in 2004 when George Bush was fresh off a victory over John Kerry, my friend Andy Colyer predicted that Bush’s incompetence would heavily damaged the Republican party, damaging our country which relies on a two party system. 

Part one of his prediction came true. Tuesday night was a huge referendum on Bush’s Republican Party. This is only two years after the GOP suffered terribly in the mid-term elections. Time will shortly tell if a Pelosi-Reid- Obama trio will damage the United States – as happened at other times when there was one party control such as from 1992-1994 and 2000-2006 (despite the Senate tipping to the Democrats for a while in 2002 thanks to an Independent Senator from Vermont).

The post-mortem on the 2008 election reminded me of former Maryland Lt. Governor’s recent book “Failing America’s Faithful: How today’s churches are mixing god with politics and losing their way.” Kathleen Kennedy Townsend’s premise is that the Catholic Church once stood for issues such as helping the less fortunate, but has now become an organization that is “anti” everything – anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage….

The same thing can now be said about the GOP. The party, which once stood for fiscal responsibility and less government has created the largest government in our nation’s history and racked up debt with too many zeros to run in this blog.

They got stomped in 2008 because they had no defensible platform. They aren’t trusted to make government or our budget smaller. More importantly, they have no workable solutions to our country’s biggest problems: health care, the environment, the economy, and energy independence. Instead they remain the “anti” party. Anti-abortion, anti-gay rights, anti-healthcare solutions, as well as against solutions for global warming and energy conservation. 

People don’t necessarily want more government, but they expect the government to enact solutions to our nation’s problems. Market based solutions haven’t worked on energy, the environment or healthcare. We’re falling behind the rest of the world in education and life expectancy while we consume 25 percent of the planet’s energy.

The Democrats have an opportunity and a responsibility now to deliver on those issues without negative consequences. It’s a huge challenge, and as a country they need to be successful. In the meantime, the GOP will be in Diaspora, hopefully gathering their own ideas on how to fix these problems. 

Joe The Middle East Expert

It all started innocently enough. Joe Wurzelbacher, now affectionately known internationally as Joe the Plumber, approached a campaigning Barack Obama to question him about his tax policy.

John McCain quickly picked up on his remarks and used him as an example of how Obama’s tax plan would stifle small business. Joe said he didn’t want to be in the spot light after his 15 minutes faded.

Well…he wasn’t in rush to fade away. He seems to have a fascination with microphones. He then accused Obama of being a socialist. The problem is that he got the facts wrong about Obama’s economic plan, which lowers taxes on individuals making less than $250,000 a year. Even Joe admitted that he makes less than that.

Nonetheless, Obama The Socialist seems to be making its rounds. Forget the fact that George The Fiscal Conservative has implemented the largest socialist program in American history – the nationalization of our banking systems, insurance industry, and now possibly the auto industry. If that’s not socialism, than I’m Joe the Plumber.

Now, Joe The Plumber seems to be a Middle East expert. He doesn’t seem to mind the spotlight anymore because he’s stumping for McCain and answering questions on Israel.

In Ohio, a self-identified Jewish person said to Joe that he was “concerned” with Barack Obama’s associations and “It’s my belief that a vote for Obama is a vote for the death to Israel.”

Wurzelbacher answered: “I do know that.” He went to say, “Well, you know what, I’ll actually go ahead and agree with you on that one,” Wurzelbacher said. “You know ... no, I agree with ya.”

(Is it me is the McCain/Palin ticket trying to legally change the word “you” to simply “ya?”)

I confess that I can barely fix a clogged drain, so I’m no plumber. But, I have visited Israel several times and have done a great deal of reading on the subject. It seems to me that Democratic administrations have done a better job of protecting Israel. Even the inept Carter team managed a very successful peace with Egypt. I hated that Arafat slept in the Clinton White House, but Israel is better off with its peace treaty with Jordan. Obama will employ the same people Clinton used to bring the prosperous Jordanian treaty. Bush never talked with terrorist, but we got nowhere with Israeli/Palestinian peace.

From where I sit, I think an Obama administration would benefit Israel and the Middle East. The Bush name, synonymous in the Arab world with three wars, is the best recruiting tool al-Qaeda has. That’s why they’re pulling for McCain. Obama literally means “He is with us” and will make it hard to find people to enlist against him.

Obama’s energy policy is far superior to McCain which is what the U.S./Israel needs to get Iran in line. Look what happened since oil prices fell 50 percent—suddenly Ahmadinejad goes from wanting to wipe Israel off the map to wanting a nap.

I’m sure Joe’s a great plumber, but not so good on Middle East issues. Even if McCain wins, I hope Joe sticks with his day job.

Arab States Win Again

Within several days of each other, Tesla Motors, makers of the hottest car to hit Hollywood, announced it was scaling back on production and oil prices dipped 50 percent below their recent high.

While the latter sounds like good news, it’s not. Just as is the news that Tesla is floundering.

You see, Tesla makes a great little car that goes from zero to 60 in four seconds and runs 100 percent on electricity, just the product we need to wean ourselves off of Middle Eastern oil. But the tight credit markets are making it tough to grow.

OPEC, which is mostly comprised of Arab nations unfriendly to Israel, saw global movement to conserve energy… permanently. That’s bad for their illegal cartel. So they increased production, causing oil prices to fall. Fall they did to $75 a barrel, down from $150 per barrel a few months ago. That reduces the financial benefits for people using public transportation or buying more expensive hybrid cars.

Now we’ll see consumption go back up, lining the pockets of Saudi Arabia and Iran. Now we’ll see the fattening of the pocket books of terrorist organization who want to annihilate Israel.

Without any comprehensive energy policy that would have benefited Tesla, alternative energy investments won’t pay off. That’s exactly what OPEC wants – just when the U.S. begins to look at replacing oil, they lure us away with cheap gas, making wind, solar and hybrid too expensive. Even U.S.-based oil supplies won’t be viable at lower prices.

Once again OPEC and the Arab world outsmart America.

A Winning Debate

Upon entering the hall at Chizik Amuno Synagogue last Monday for the debate involving surrogates Gov. Bob Ehrlich and Sen. Ben Cardin as stand-ins for presidential candidates John McCain and Barak Obama, I asked if there was separate seating.  Not for men and women but for Democrats and Republicans.  After scouting things out, the answer was no.  Myrna Cardin sat next to a gentleman proudly wearing a McCain sticker.

I sat next to Rob Frier and his son Ethan. Unfortunately for the Beth Tfiloh student, he won’t be 18 until shortly after the election, so he can’t vote yet. It says a lot about the young man who took the time to hear about the candidates.

When I tell people that I attended the Jewish community event, the first question they ask is who won?

After pondering that question for a quick second, I started to reply that the Jewish community won.

It was a great opportunity for two guys who know and respect each other to debate the issues that are crucial to Israel and to Jewish values in America.  There were no low blows. Gone were the lies and untruths about the candidates. 

Early on it appeared that Cardin’s position was winning over the 800-plus person audience. Than Ehrlich changed the discussion to focus on each specific issue and explained that it’s up to the Jewish community to decide which candidate’s platform would deliver results on Israel/Arab relations, healthcare, and church/state issues. 

I’m not sure any minds were changed during the process. But, as Baltimore Jewish Council president Jon Laria said in his opening remarks to the standing room only crowd of Jews, “It’s great to live in a democracy. I cant’ tell you how proud I am of the Baltimore Jewish community for the level of interest and involvement in this election.”

Democracy and Jewish Baltimore won the debate.

News from Denver

I caught up with my friend Alan H. Fleischmann from Denver where he was attending the Democratic National Convention. He was Lt. Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend’s chief of staff from 1996 to 2002. 

He reported to me: “I am with Tony Lake and Tony Blinken. Lake is Obama’s chief foreign policy advisor. Tony Blinken is an old friend and Biden’s closest foreign policy advisor. I am stunned to learn that Tony Lake converted to Judaism two years ago. He took to Judaism on a very spiritual journey.”

As I save been saying all along, judge Obama’s Middle East policy, not from his middle name, but from the advisors he’s listening to.

Drilling for Sanity

In April 2006, I attended a Thomas Friedman keynote speech at Hillel’s annual D.C. conference. As usual, he didn’t disappoint. Friedman is the three-time Pulitzer-prize winning columnist for the New York Times and author of timeless books, including “From Beirut to Jerusalem” and “The World is Flat.”

His theme was that when countries can drill for oil, they never drill their people to do better – via education, invention and production.  And it corrupts. He repeated the mantra over and over of how much oil producing nations changed when the price of oil went from $40 to $70.

He cited a few examples such as Venezuela, Iran, and Russia.  He reminded the young audience that when oil was at $40 a barrel, President George W. Bush looked into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s eyes and, in Bush’s words, saw a good soul. When the price of oil doubled, Friedman said, “You have Gazprom,” referring to the country’s take over of the oil producing company. 

Well two years later, with the price of oil now exceeding $110 per barrel, you have an invasion of the Democratic Republic of Georgia with Russian troops refusing to stop advancing—after they promised to do so—and the continued reported burning of cities, just like during World War II.

The high price of oil also forces China to protect “the evil doers” in Sudan who are committing genocide.

Now you can’t read a bi-weekly column without Friedman (rightfully) screaming for our federal government to support alternative energy investments. So, on Wednesday he railed on John McCain for running pretty TV ads during the Olympics featuring spinning windmills promoting alternative energy. 

Yet, Friedman points out, McCain failed to vote on any (not one) of eight votes to extend the important tax credit for alternative energy. This is an essential bill to help level the playing field for wind and solar power against anti-democracy, environmental unfriendly, and possibly global heating fossil fuels. But McCain refused to vote to extend the credits for companies to install solar panels—even though he was in his office that day.

When we’re fighting a two front war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq, one would think we wouldn’t have the ability to stop the advancing Russian army, stop the genocide in Darfur, and stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. But we do: You can vote for the candidate who will do honestly do a better job of lowering the price of oil.

Olympic Sized Jewish Pride

In the good old days when the Former Soviet Union existed, it gave Americans someone to root against. (Who can forget that amazing 1980 hockey game?) Now that East Germany and Soviet sports machines are gone, the Olympics can seem slightly less fun.

But for Jewish Americans, the 2008 Beijing Olympics have given us a little extra to cheer about. 

In last week’s BALTIMORE JEWISH TIMES  , we previewed several Jewish athletes competing for the U.S. And, unlike the being on the cover of Sports Illustrated, it didn’t jinx them. On the contrary, they did quite well. We featured:

• Dara Torres: She led the women’s 4x100-meter freestyle relay to a silver medal finish.

• Sada Jacobson: Lost out to a fellow American, giving her the silver in fencing as part of an American sweep.

• Ben Wildman-Tobriner : made Olympic history. He was one of two Jews on the preliminary heat of the 4x100 freestyle relay which eventually won gold using Baltimore phenom Michael Phelps Swimming.  Wildman-Tobriner swam the third leg. The other Jew was Jason Lezak.

• Jason Lezak: He will forever be linked to Michael Phelps, his mega-star swimming colleague, but he is a star in his own right. Mr. Lezak’s Herculean effort to make up a half a body length in only 200 meters in the 4x100 freestyle relay may be the key to Phelps breaking the record of Mark Spitz – the all-time great Jewish Olympian to date—record seven gold medals from the 1972 Munich Games.

As I write, here were other American Jewish stars we reported on who yet to enter competition:

• Rami Zur, Canoe/kayaking
• Kara Goucher, 10,000 meters

There were, of course, a number of Israelis doing well, too. Let’s hope they’re all part of Olympic history, too. And don’t forget to check http://www.jewishtimes.com for more Olympics and other stories.