Globe Trot 09.07

It's an afternoon trot, with my focus today on Democrats and the Jewish vote, after this week's flap over platform language on Israel at the Democratic National Convention. Two useful weekend reads would be the Republican and (revised) Democratic platforms. Both are less massaged than the speeches we've been hearing from the Tampa and Charlotte stages.

Here's a full report, too, on what I'll call the flap within the flap, as Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz essentially called a Washington Examiner reporter a liar for misquoting her, but - it turns out - he had audio confirming her statements. When a DNC chair's statements provoke an outcry from an embassy, especially the Israeli Embassy in Washington, and the president has to intervene, you know some serious foreign policy missteps are afoot.

Richard Grenell, former spokesman for the U.S. Mission at the UN, and who served briefly as an advisor to Gov. Mitt Romney, attended both conventions and had this to say about the Israel debacle: "The Democrats' convention is like their policy management - everything is ad hoc, last-minute, and leading from behind." The Washington Post's Jennifer Rubin writes, "On Israel, Grenell echoed precisely the Romney-Ryan view that the 'Obama team struggles to be a consistent and faithful ally to Israel. They respond only when pressured or criticized.'"

Here's my article that was posted this afternoon. Happy weekend.