Words Do Matter

Aaron Keyak — January 26, 2009 – 11:10 am | Barack Obama | Election 2008 | Foreign Policy | Israel | Republicans | Stop the Smears Comments (1) Add a comment

Over the weekend, I was honored with a blog post dedicated to how much of a tool I am. It was titled, “NJDC Tool Aaron Keyak Helpfully Illustrates How Liberal Activists Sneeringly Cocoon Themselves In Asinine Arguments And Dishonest Smears.”

The long-winded title does an excellent job at foretelling the content of the post. As you might expect, the piece included important observations such as, “Aaron Keyak is either illiterate or dishonest. Could go either way I suppose” and concludes succinctly, “What. A. Tool.”

The author of this post is a PhD student studying Rhetoric at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication. Using this kind of rhetoric, I am sure that he’s making USC proud. (As a California native, I’ve always been more of a Cal fan anyway.)

Most of the blog post is dedicated to attacking yours truly and “I’m hesitant to go paragraph by paragraph because it might convey the impression that the diatribe had arguments. Obviously it didn’t… [But this attack] is [nearly] just too perfect to pass up. It’s almost what philosophers used to call an ideal case: the combination of dishonesty, smugness, and indignation - adding up to an obnoxious air of self-satisfaction - is quite simply exemplary.” I could go “paragraph by paragraph,” but unlike the USC PhD student studying Rhetoric I don’t have the time.

The USC student does take a breath from his personal attack to address NJDC’s approach to the ‘08 elections. I’d like to take a minute for a quick response.

The attack:

The National Jewish Democratic Council and their ilk have a different approach. Their goal is to provide thinly-veiled excuses so liberal American Jews can vote the way they’ve always voted. Since those excuses kind of suck as arguments, these tools have to insulate their propaganda with sneering condescension and faux sophistication…Because why should pesky things like “what words actually mean” matter?

Words do matter. Here are the words.

But more important than releasing pro-Israel statements are words that actually matter. That’s why on the morning of the President’s first day in the oval office he “placed calls to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and three other Middle Eastern leaders and stressed his determination, among other things, to stop Hamas from smuggling arms.”

Stopping Hamas from smuggling arms? Sound pro-Israel?

President Barack Obama said that his Middle East policy “begins with a clear and strong commitment to the security of Israel: our strongest ally in the region and its only established democracy. That will always be my starting point.”

Obama supports Israel: Words. That. Matter.

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