There's also the argument that Ross just wasn't very good at being Special Coordinator: too disorganized, too quick to take offense, too willing to adapt to the political line of the Presidency he was serving (which rarely involved expending real political capital on the problems "over there").

I'm not worried about Ross' pro-Israeli tilt; I think it'd be hard to find anyone fit for WH duty who isn't at least strongly pro-Israel (though Ross' personal animus may have since hardened to a degree into an anti-Palestinian stance). But I do worry about his competency. He wasn't a stunning success in the 1990s, and the negotiating environment is even worse today.

It is quite hilarious when the left keeps claiming Muslims hate us simply because we point out Muslim extremists kill people.

I tend to think Muslims hate us more because Bill Clinton sent a couple million of them to their graves.

Its as if someone critizes Timothy McVeigh the left believes all Christians will get puissed off and start exploding themselves in the streets.

Or say someone critizes Yigal Amir for murdering Yitzhak Rabin, that all Jews would be pissed for someone daring to critize a murderer who happens to be Jewish.

So why does the left think that Muslims would go to war over Islamic radicals being called Islamic radicals and their crimes being pointed out and not over say denying their children food and medicine until they slowly die, ala Bill Clinton and Barack Obamas genocidal sanctions policy.....

THIS JUST IN:

Its been reported that Jessie jackson ALSO said in that Fox News tape was:

that Barack was "telling
n-ggers how to behave."

So Jackson called black people N-ggers, 'so what'.. you may say. As Ezra so keenly reminded us, Jackson was just talking the way liberals talk in private.

Clinton, too, blamed Arafat for the collapse of the talks. He and Ross were there, Scott wasn't. In these matters there's probably enough blame to go around, but calling Ross a middle-east "conservative" is ridiculous.

It seems to me that Ross is simply caught in the "anti-nineties" crossover: that's the logic that's showed up since 2000, wherein anything with a Clinton attached to it becomes de facto a bad thing (or a good thing that had nothing to do with said Clinton). Blaming Ross for the failures in Middle East negotiations seems as useful as blaming Arafat - that situation was a complex one, not helped by the pressure Clinton put on doing a deal before leaving office, nor by Israeli refusals to look at the really hard stuff (settlements and Jerusalem, just to name two). Arafat was probably short-sighted in terms of accepting something that could be a starting point for further discussions... but one can also see how, after years of process, he also saw little real change, and no hope while Israelis refused to negotiate other key points. That Ross, an experienced hand, is there to work with Obama hardly seems like a bad thing. It's a reminder of the depth of the left-field bench, if nothing else, and he is but one of many. But whether he can survive the anti-Clinton fever... I'm not so sure.

The takedown by Scott McLeod is as absurdly one-sided as a he charges Ross's position is.

Macleod's first point is just a reworded versions of accepting Israel's existence, which the Palestinian Authority has acknowledged in at least 7 year before Camp David.

Was the existence of the State of Israel actually on the table at Camp David? Because apparently Macleod thinks it was.

Clinton, too, blamed Arafat for the collapse of the talks. He and Ross were there, Scott wasn't.

Oh, please. It's not as though either Clinton nor Ross can be seen as a neutral observer in this. They both have their own reputations to defend, and blaming Arafat is the easiest way to do that. Arafat might nonetheless be to blame, but "Clinton and Ross said so," isn't a very good basis for such a claim.

If Ross will be Obama's leading point person for Israel/Palestine, you can kiss any hope of US leadership in a peace deal good bye. More of the same. Disappointing.

Count me in as saying Ross is an advocate against Palestinian interests more than in favor of Israeli interests.

The "Scott wasn't there" argument misses the point that Robert Malley was also there with Ross, and the two differ about where the failures lay. Ironically, it is Malley who is more objective in recognizing that all sides failed for various reasons. Yet, although he is himself Jewish, Malley has been read out of polite company in official Washington and certainly in the eyes of AIPAC.

Fortunately, most voters don't pay attention to this sort of thing. I wonder if most voting Americans even car about detailed Middle Eastern policy.