The Wall Street Journal’s Bret Stephens wants you to think that Israelis obsessively hate President Obama as much as he and Fox News do.
On Fox News’ Journal Editorial Report today, Stephens chatted with host and Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul Gigot about the Israeli election.
Gigot "asked" Stephens, “Is Netanyahu’s decisive win Tuesday a defeat for President Obama?”
“This was a humiliation for Obama,” Stephens replied.
“That’s a strong word,” Gigot said. “He wasn’t on the ballot.” And yet Gigot’s own question suggested otherwise.
Stephens continued making the Israeli election about Obama:
STEPHENS: Well, in a sense he was. And in a sense, Prime Minister Netanyahu might thank President Obama for the assist he provided in the margin of his victory.
…Because for a lot of Israelis, this came to be seen as a contest, not between Netanyahu and his left-wing rivals, but sort of a question of Netanyahu vs. Obama. Would Obama’s push against the prime minister be vindicated by the results at the polls? And I think a lot of Israelis did not want to give Obama that satisfaction even if they have plenty of misgivings about the prime minister and his style of leadership.
But that’s not how either Israel’s liberal Haaretz or the U.S.’s conservative National Review saw it. They each described a complicated political situation in which Netanyahu essentially poached farther right-wing voters from other parties.
But rather than wade into those technicalities, Gigot moved on to ask Stephens about his recent interview with Egyptian president Gen. Abdel Fata al-Sisi, who, Gigot noted, is “criticized by the left for being a dictator.”
Stephens said, “First of all, he’s not a dictator. He’s wildly popular among Egyptians.”
Well, here’s how former special assistant to Ronald Reagan Doug Bandow described al-Sisi’s reign in a scathing article on Forbes.com:
In fact, the military speedily recreated Egypt’s Deep State, only with Sisi instead of Mubarak in charge. The government appointed military officials as provincial governors, revived the secret and intelligence police, instituted harsh restrictions on dissent, dragged protestors before military tribunals, and deployed private toughs against regime critics.
By its own count the government has arrested 22,000 people, many of whom have been tortured. Mass trials have been conducted based on negligible evidence. Attorneys have been arrested when they went to meet their clients. Family members have been detained as leverage against defendants. Hundreds of protestors have been sentenced to death at a time. Many others, including teenage girls, have received lengthy prison terms for organizing peaceful protests. Independent journalists have been cowed or silenced. Students have been killed, arrested, and expelled. The regime has implemented a comprehensive program to monitor social media.
But Stephens reiterated, “To describe him as a dictator is wrong.”
This, less than two weeks after Stephens was featured on Fox prime time for saying that the “real story” about Ferguson was not the institutional racism uncovered by the DOJ but the “neighborhood thugs” who frightened people into deceitfully championing Michael Brown, the unarmed African American teen who was shot and killed by a white police officer.
So let’s see, Stephens has an obviously deep-seated contempt for African Americans and our democratically elected president but at least tolerates Egypt’s tyrannical, but Muslim Brotherhood-hating president.
Can a job offer from Fox News be far off?
Watch it below, from today's The Journal Editorial Report.
FWIW, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board is just another mouthpiece for Murdoch (despite what Murdoch and the editorial board said when he bought the paper).