ANTIGONOS' BRAIN

Your Brain is Green
Of all the brain types, yours has the most balance. You are able to see all sides to most problems and are a good problem solver. You need time to work out your thoughts, but you don't get stuck in bad thinking patterns. You tend to spend a lot of time thinking about the future, philosophy, and relationships (both personal and intellectual).

Sunday, February 17, 2013

The Ship of State is Rudderless [Surprise!]

In about 4 more days Israel will have been one month without a government, which is about the worst situation -- even worse than having a coalition -- it can be in.  I'm very glum.  The Israeli system is really bankrupt.

This time around, the negotiations between the parties have not made a lot of headlines, so it is very difficult to determine just what is happening [if indeed anything is].  Bibi will continue as Prime Minister.  Whether he will be able to govern in any meaningful way or be held hostage by competing interests is unclear.

And apart from the coalition infighting, Lieberman is going on trial: the joker in the pack.  Whatever agreements are carved out now between the parties with the largest electoral blocs, it will all be moot when the verdict on Lieberman comes in.  Watch his party bolt the coalition if he doesn't get his job as FM back; watch Yesh Atid or Bayit HaYehudi bolt if he does.

My Problem with Hagel

To be honest, I'd never heard of him until Obama put his name forward, so I don't have any premeditated feelings one way or the other about him.  Maybe he's an anti-Semite, or anti-Israel [points of view which often overlap].  Maybe he doesn't like homosexuals. He is apparently on record as being willing to believe anything the ayatollahs say, and completely unwilling to force confrontation with them.   Maybe he steals ice cream from children.  I don't know.

But what is obvious to me is that he is currently tailoring his opinions to suit whatever Congress wants him to say, just in order to get confirmation.  He apparently will take ANY position which will get him into the Cabinet.  What's to say that tomorrow, as Secretary of Defense, he changes like a weathercock with every twist and turn Obama wants him to perform?  This does not seem to be a person anyone can trust, and THAT makes him unsuitable to be in the Cabinet.  IMO, it's not a partisan issue at all.