Stick a Fork Into Edwards

You know I'm an Edwards supporter. Not a fervent one, but he's still my favored candidate: he's the pre-1968 Democrat that we've needed for a while. But we've got two big enemies to defeat: first Hillary and second the GOP. Edwards has been building up a support/election team in Iowa since December 2004. And yeah, he came in second, and 30% is very respectable. But, Obama has exploded. Edwards is an unnecessary spoiler, and I want to win.

He won't leave the race, as I said last night, until either: (1) every dollar is spent, (2) his wife dies, or (3) Obama offers him a good job, (4) all of the above. But I don't want his presence to confuse the anti-Hillary voters. Edwards had his chance to win in a low-speed state that he's spent a lot of time in... it's time to pack it in.

Mind you, Obama is - of all the major candidates - the worst for Israel. But, even then, he can't be all that bad. While he talks up the internationalism rhetoric, the Clinton posture and the Bush posture hasn't been all that great either. Ironically, what's best for Israel comes from when Israel itself has a good leader. Clintons failures came from Rabin, Peres, Barak. Bush's failures from Olmert (and his, if you want to call it, successes from Sharon). Carter's success came from the best prime minister in Israel's history, the heilige Begin.

The next US president's success in Israel will come from the next prime minister (and we can only hope it's not Barak or Bibi).