Replies

Source? What source? The original Middle East Newsline article is only partially available without subscription, but seems to be saying their source was “aides” of Barack Obama’s, while the Bulletin story is explicitly attributing the same info to aides of Malley’s. Neither mentions who these unnamed aides to somebody-or-other were talking to when they made these claims — the Middle East Newsline article carries no byline. The MEN article (published the day after the election) also puts a mighty vague “over the last few weeks” timeline on the reported Malley mission, while the Bulletin story implies that this was a post-election action by Obama as President-elect (headline begins “In First Mideast Policy Initiative . . . “). The Newsbusters article and its linked source, Israel Today, specify that Malley was dispatched on this mission last week, yet Israel Today cites MEN as its source for the story.

Given that President-elect Obama is a current Senator who has been a Presidential candidate for many months, I imagine that quite a few people having some current or past association with him have had occasion to meet with someone of political significance somewhere in the vast Mideast over the “last few weeks”, to gather/collect information and mumble platitudes about lots of things, perhaps including how Senator-hoping-to-be-President Obama respects the someone in question. They may well have been doing this on their own initiative, with an eye to boosting perception of themselves as having “ties” to the likely (now definite) next US President.

It’s a huge leap from the information in these articles, to the assumption that President-elect Obama “dispatched” anyone, much less Malley, on a “first Mideast policy initiative” mission. What the published information reveals is that somebody claiming to be an aide to either Malley or Obama told some unnamed journalist that Malley was sent by Obama sometime to meet with Mubarak and Assad. Who the heck are these loose-lipped aides? And if they really exist, whose aides are they? And what journalist were they yapping to?