Obama Getting His News from Andrew Sullivan Now

As noted by Ben Shapiro over  at Breitabrt.com, President Obama sat down for an interview with Rolling Stone magazine as part of his outreach toward the youth vote.  Among the nuggets was praise for the work of Andrew Sullivan, the Atlantic columnist who was obsessed with spreading the absurd myth that Trig Palin, Sarah Palin's son, was actually the child of her daughter, Bristol.

Here is what Barack Obama said in the interview:

There are a handful of blogs, Andrew Sullivan's on the Daily Beast being an example, that combine thoughtful analysis with a sampling of lots of essays that are out there.

The New Yorker and The Atlantic still do terrific work. 

Sullivan was recently invited to and attended a White House state dinner -- quite the plumb invite for a conspiracy theorist.

But there is an even more checkered history involving Andrew Sullivan, and that involves Israel and American Jews.

As I wrote last year: 

As for what Obama reads online, his advisers said he looks for offbeat blogs and news stories, tracking down firsthand reporting and seeking out writers with opinions about his policies. Obama was particularly interested in Atlantic Online's Andrew Sullivan's tweeting of the Iranian elections last year, said an aide, who requested anonymity to discuss what influences the president.

David Axelrod also stated that ," "There are some commentators whose views he's interested in, and he'll read blog items."

Andrew Sullivan has garnered quite a reputation in the blogosphere for his obsessive anti-Israel attitudes (as well as his creepy obsession with Trig Palin and the issue of his parentage. He loathes Sarah Palin and everyone connected to her). Why would Obama, who can access the finest minds and the work of numerous federal intelligence agencies, trust the foreign policy views of someone who harbors a bias against America's one firm ally in the Middle East?

The anti-Israel views are too numerous to mention but a simple Google search produces many examples of his bias.

Now it turns out that Sullivan, whose views Barack Obama finds worthy of spending time perusing, also trolls an anti-Semitic website for material. Alana Goodman at Commentary Contentions reports that Sullivan used a fabricated quote to portray former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir as a bigot.

Sullivan pulled the quote from an anti-Semitic website called "The Real History of Israel." In Goodman's words, "the website is a treasure-trove of fake and misrepresented "Zionist-supremacy" quotations from Israeli leaders. It's also a great resource for anti-Semitic cartoons and music videos."

Goodman gives Sullivan the benefit of the doubt regarding his awareness of the website's racist comment but faults him for not double-checking the remark falsely attributed to Shamir (she is more generous to Sullivan that I would be). She also writes, "If he's willing to accept the veracity of that sort of remark without question, what other information is he credulously accepting about Israel?"

Sullivan has derided Israel as "Greater Israel" -- a slam used by Israel-critics who claim that Israel desires to expand its territory at its neighbors' expense (how about Gaza, how about the Sinai, how about the withdrawal from Lebanon?).

He has defended the validity and veracity of the now notorious Goldstone report that accused Israel of war crimes (even Goldstone has renounced the work bearing his name), has  continually downplayed the threat from Iran, and constantly uses the term "neo-cons" in relation to American supporters of Israel, despite of (or perhaps more likely because of) its anti-Semitic connotations.

Even his fellow columnist at The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, has taken Sullivan to task for his anti-Israel obsession.

Yet, Barack Obama would rely on the excellent analysis of world affairs by Andrew Sullivan rather than on broadcast news, various newspapers, and the various and vast resources available to the president of the Unites States.

When the views and wisdom of the likes of Jeremiah Wright are no longer  readily available, I guess Andrew Sullivan will serve in a pinch.