Damage Control

Biden ally and Democrat US Senator Chris Coons was on ABC’s “This Week” with Martha Raddatz yesterday to spin Joe's acknowledgement Wednesday night that he was pausing military aid to Israel. But this attempt at damage control came between Trump's Saturday rally in New Jersey that was estimated to have drawn 80-100,000, and Michael Cohen's anticipated appearance in Trump's New York trial, which will likely focus all of this week's media attention on Trump as well. Poor Joe's handlers can hardly get a word in edgewise.

The odd part about Coons's defense is that it walks nothing back, despite commentators calling Biden's move a "terrible miscalculation" that threatens the loss of the Jewish vote from the traditional Democrat coalition. Instead,Coons tries to shift the blame onto Netanyahu:

RADDATZ: So, you’re saying he’ll stop offensive weapons? . . . So are you saying offensive weapons should be stopped?

COONS: Look, I think whatever munitions, such as the 2,000-pound bombs that have previously been used in Gaza, that are supplied only by the United States, and that can cause massive civilian casualties may well be paused.

It is tragic that we’re at this point. And, Martha, I want to conclude by saying that I hope Prime Minister Netanyahu is thinking about his legacy. Right now his legacy is the huge, strategic and defensive failure of October 7th and his legacy could be a real gap, a break in the long, strong, bipartisan, strategic relationship between the United States and Israel. I think that would be tragic. His legacy could instead be achieving regional security and peace for Israel.

Whatever happens now, it's Netanyahu's fault. And Democrat US Senator Chris Murphy said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Joe is a centrist on this issue, of all things:

Anchor Dana Bash said, “Do you think that when the president said what he said to Erin Burnett this week that what ended up happening is he tried to, I don’t want to take away from what he tried to do on policy, but just on the politics that it ended up kind of pleasing no one. Is that a potential problem, or do you think that is what he said and did is helpful for his detractors on the left?”

Murphy said, “I think, frankly, when you’re being a good leader, who you are often upsetting people on the right and the left. And so President Biden advertised himself when he ran for office as someone who would often play it down the middle, who would not pay attention to the extremes of the debate and would just do what he thought was right for the country and what the broad middle of the country wants.”

He added, “I actually think that’s where the broad middle of the country is. I think the broad middle of the country wants to support Israel’s ability to destroy Hamas but is very concerned about the fact that there are so many kids dying that, for the last week, there’s been no humanitarian assistance getting into the country. I think the president really is squarely where the middle of this country is on this on this conflict.”

But as of Saturday, even the UN had halved its estimate of Gaza civilian casualties:

On May 8, the UN published data showing 34,844 people had reportedly been killed, including 4,959 women and 7,797 children.

The new figures showed the number of identified deaths as of April 30, which total 24,686 people. The new data also specified that 10,006 men and 1,924 elderly had been killed.

The UN also highlighted that the plurality of identified fatalities were 40% men, while children were 32% and women were 20%.

. . . The Washington Institute for Near East Policy released a report in January that showed major discrepancies in the fatality reports. The research concluded that such discrepancies were most likely caused by manipulation.

In other words, Joe's handlers are claiming to base a highly controversial shift in policy on unreliable and manipulated data. But this leaves aside the generally accepted view that Biden is catering to Muslim voters in Michigan, which is actually part of his overall miscalculation:

Ahead of the 2024 elections, the Marxist-Islamist alliance in Michigan has been insisting that Biden’s re-election is dependent on their votes. And so they used the Democratic primary on Feb. 27 to try and demonstrate their power. Led by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the alliance’s “uncommitted” campaign called for Israel haters to vote “uncommitted” in the primaries to show the White House that U.S. support for Israel will cost Biden the swing state of Michigan.

In the event, the “uncommitted” campaign was a dud. Biden won 81.1% of the vote. The “uncommitted” ballots comprised a mere 13.2% of the ballots. While the media, Tlaib and her cronies presented 13.2% as a major accomplishment, it was a failure. Around 10% of Michigan Democrats habitually vote “uncommitted” in presidential primaries. Ahead of the 2012 elections, 11% of Michigan Democrats voted “uncommitted” against then-President Barack Obama.

Moreover, perhaps buoyed by this week’s Harvard-Harris poll that showed massive majorities of Americans supporting Israel and its war aims, including its planned conquest of Hamas’s final outpost of Rafah, establishment American Jews are beginning to openly criticize the Biden administration’s hostile policies towards Israel.

On Thursday, Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, wrote a long post on X sharply criticizing the Biden administration’s refusal to support Israel’s planned operation in Rafah. The Washington Institute has long been viewed as AIPAC’s think tank, and its views are perceived as representative of the liberal American Jewish establishment. It is hard to think of any instance where its senior leaders have openly rejected a Democratic administration’s positions on Israel.

. . . As one Washington insider quipped, “If Satloff is advocating in public what is subtly but clearly a sharp break from the administration over Hamas and Rafah, then it is a strong sign the political winds have shifted in the Jewish establishment and bodes very ill ultimately for the Democrats.”

The piece makes the final point that other Jews have been making, that the Jewish vote in swing states is larger than the Muslim vote in Michigan:

According to Richard Baehr, co-founder and former political correspondent for American Thinker, not only does the Jewish vote matter, it could easily be decisive. It is true that New York and California have the largest Jewish communities, and they remain firmly in the Democratic column. But four swing states—Pennsylvania, Georgia, Nevada and Arizona—may well be decided by their large Jewish communities.

Baehr explains that the Jewish vote in all four states is larger than the margins of victory in both the 2016 and 2020 presidential races. In 2020, Baehr notes, the final margin of victory in Pennsylvania was 80,000 votes. It was 33,000 in Nevada, 10,000 in Arizona and 12,000 in Georgia. According to the World Population Review, in 2022, Pennsylvania’s Jewish population stood at 434,165. Georgia’s numbered 141,020. There were 123,725 Jewish Americans in Arizona and 79,800 in Nevada.

But this brief discussion on the Sunday talks is likely to be swamped by wall-to-wall coverage all this coming week of Michael Cohen's testimony in Trump's New York trial, in which the focus will inevitably be on Trump, not Joe -- and as the saying goes, there's no such thing as bad publicity. The timing here, if nothing else, is indicative of the general miscalculations that have characterized Biden's reelection campaign.