Olmert out at last?

Years ago George Will, a writer who most of the time has nothing to convey other than an unbearably stifling and thoroughly undeserved sense of his own superiority, came up with a rare zinger that has remained with me ever since. He referred to former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak—who sought to give away Israel to Yasser Arafat at Camp David in 2000—as “the most calamitous leader any democracy has had.” But five years after Barak left office, having served for only one year, he was succeeded by someone even more calamitous, the hapless miserable appeaser Ehud Olmert, or should we call him Ehud the Second.

Now, at long last, though far too late, the Israeli Labor party, a member of the ruling government coaliton, has decided to oppose Ehud the Second. And whom do they want to replace him? Ehud the First!

However, perhaps all is not lost. I have read encouraging signs that Barak is no longer the liberal dupe he was in 1999 and 2000, and that he has serious intentions to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and crush Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

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Paul K. writes:

I would put George Will in the category of Fred Barnes, Morton Kondracke, and all the others that have nothing to offer but conventional wisdom, but he occasionally comes out with a bon mot. I liked his summing up of Bill Clinton in 2000: “He was not our worst president, but he was the worst man ever to become president.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at June 24, 2008 09:02 AM | Send