One Of Obama’s Earliest Supporters Breaks With Him Over Israel
BY BUDDY NEVINS
One of President Barack Obama’s earliest supporters in Florida has broken with him over Israel.
“I am done with this president,” Broward County Commissioner Stacy Ritter told Browardbeat.com in a text message.
Ritter made her feeling public in another way. She wrote on Facebook this week that she “made a mistake supporting in supporting Obama in 2007” because of his “indifference towards Israel.”
An outspoken self-styled Progressive Democrat, Ritter was one of the few Democratic activists or office holders in the Broward County who backed Obama over Hillary Clinton in the beginning rounds of the 2008 Democratic race. Her endorsement was important because Broward has more registered Democrats than any other county in Florida.
She hosted fund raisers for the future president and helped organize local campaign rallies.
President Obama and Stacy Ritter in happier times
Now, Ritter says, she is sorry.
“Squandered political capital, squandered his mandate, appoints ivory tower academics. I could go on. This Iran deal was the last straw for me,” she wrote Browardbeat.com.
Ritter was a state House member 1996-2004 and has been a Broward County Commissioner since 2006. An attorney who is Jewish, Ritter has served as a section president of the National Council of Jewish Women in the past.
On Facebook, she wrote that she overlooked Obama’s shortcomings during his first campaign for president:
“There were many signs pointing to an indifference toward Israel which I ignored or rebuffed. I thought Obama would be transformational and transcend politics. He isn’t and hasn’t. He refused to use his power in the beginning and now it’s too late. He appointed academics to high positions, not those with real life experience. He rewarded those who vigorously opposed him in 2008 and ignored those who helped him. War should only be waged as a final answer. Obama, however, either chooses not to or refuses to see the dangers ahead. In 2016, I’m with Hillary, where I should have been in 2007.”
She also expanded on the thought about Israel on Facebook:
“Bush/Cheney and their crew got us into war with Iraq by lying to us about the threat but no one can claim Saddam was a good guy. I would rather have Netanyahu looking out for my safety than Obama. As for peace, both sides have to want it. It’s hard to believe the Islamic nation of Iran, led by religious extremists who don’t even formally recognize the State of Israel, actually want peace….Netanyahu may be too hawkish for my taste, but I would rather have that than appeasement, in this case.
March 4th, 2015 at 3:25 pm
Is her pal Nick, er…I mean…Fake Anthony Man going to abandon the President too?
March 4th, 2015 at 4:47 pm
I never thought I would defend a member of the Broward County Board of Commissioners, but Commissioner Ritter is right-on! The Administration and its academic and media allies ignore both the “facts of life in Iran today” the “record of tyranny in Iran since 1979” but MORE IMPORTANTLY the history of Iran, then Persia, between 1794 when Aga Mohammed established the Kajar dynasty of Shahs that lasted until 1925, and the later Pahlavi Dynasty of Shahs that ended in 1979. During the Kajar Era Russia from the North and the Engliah from their Indian Empire on the East attempted to control and grab pieces of the Persian Empire. The Shahs of both dynasties were military families battling the religious establishment of Shia leaders claiming descendent from the Prophet Mohammed (doubtful at best, as his family was Arabic not non-Arabic Persian), and the rich merchants of the bazaars. A cDinomplication came during the 1905 Persian Revolution with the introduction of the Pan-Islamic ideas of Jamal ud-Din el Afghani whose later followers could be partially found in both the “Moslem Brotherhood” of religious anti-Western based in Egypt and the non-religious “B’aath” Movement of national socialists in Syria and Iraq.
The overthrow of the Shah was masterminded by survivors of the old Kajar Dynasty and their European non-American oil company allies, and the bazaar merchants, who were rich, European educated, but few in number and overwhelmed by the French-based operations of the Mullahs that created the Islamic Republic we have now. Their “second revolution” was based on blood, the blood of wealthy merchant-backed politicians, Jews, B’aahis, anyone not in support of a Medieval Islam that literally calls for “Holy War” on non-Moslems not practicing the Shia revision of Islam. The rational basis of not trusting Iran is that the “government” under the present constitution does NOT control the country or its government, but an isolated, old, bigoted “Supreme Religious Leader” and his small clique of relitious extremists and a Stalin NKVD secret religious police with large army units that practice terrorism world wide – from Moslem Iranian exilie assinated in Paris or Jews butchered in Rio de Janeiro and Paris going to supermarkets or sitting in cafes in Tel Aviv. Commissioner Ritter on the basis of the historical evidence of over a century of extreme Shia religious bloodshed in Iran from stoning women, throwing gays from tall buildings to their deaths or death squads murdering military officials is right NOT to trust the Obama Administration and its Secretary of State who lied to his constituents in Massachusetts for decades that the Kerrys were Irish Catholics and not converted Czech German-speaking Jews named Kohn! Anybody remember Madeleine Albright – “I never knew my grandmother who died in Auschwitz was Jewish”… !!!!!
March 4th, 2015 at 5:06 pm
She’s just mad that Obama didn’t give her a gig in Washington. She wants out of Broward so bad.
March 4th, 2015 at 8:16 pm
Stacy Ritter should be thanked for making her views known about Obama. She can see this world is a more dangerous place after 6 years of him. I am not a fan of Israel or their right wing president. He is right on this one.
March 4th, 2015 at 8:16 pm
The condo voters who keep her in office are divided on this question so she had little to lose by speaking her mind.
March 4th, 2015 at 9:53 pm
What Stacy Ritter thinks is really inconsequential. Whatever she is doing by making her statement is purely to fulfill the answer to “What’s in it for Stacy?”.
March 5th, 2015 at 8:02 am
“I would rather have Netanyahu looking out for my safety than Obama.”
With Israel’s right of return, that’s her option.
March 5th, 2015 at 9:10 am
Let me get this straight.
Ms. Ritter is upset with President Obama’s foreign policy.
She is now going to support the Presidential campaign of the woman who has been Obama’s point person for foreign policy.
This makes a lot of sense.
March 5th, 2015 at 12:57 pm
Although I frankly could care less about what Stacy thinks about anything, I thought I would be nice enough to remind her of the old adage “fool me once, fool me twice” before she aligns herself with Hillary who used to pal around with the wife of the late Palestinian terrorist Yasser Arafat.
March 5th, 2015 at 1:47 pm
Broward Voter you are right on!
Clinton supported his foreign policy in the beginning and in speeches since! I do not know when the voters will wake up but I hope it is soon. I would rather hang my hat on a Warren than a Clinton again!
March 5th, 2015 at 3:44 pm
@10 – Warren is far better than Clinton, but Warren’s not running for President in 2016. Unless somebody else comes along (remember the way Obama snatched the nomination away from Clinton in 2008?), Democrats will have to give Hilary the keys to the White House.
March 8th, 2015 at 1:09 am
You’re missing a big point. Ritter was expecting a plum appointment in the Obama administration, but due to her husband’s business dealings and her erratic behavior (remember the press coverage about her excessive shoe collection), the Obama administration was right to cut her lose. She’s never forgiven them, and now she’s getting her payback. Just sad on her part!
March 8th, 2015 at 4:39 pm
Regarding Obama & Iran, some excellent articles here:
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentary/564933-exporting-the-islamic-revolution
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/564905-the-russo-iranian-struggle-for-syria
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/564904-good-islamic-republic-perverted-islamic-state
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/10questions/564821-inside-isis
http://dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Columnist/2015/Mar-05/289652-on-iran-arabs-deeply-mistrust-obama.ashx
https://now.mmedia.me/lb/en/commentaryanalysis/564899-extraordinary-concessions