As soon as President Obama made his Middle East speech nearly two weeks ago, a single line stating that borders of an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal “should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps” drew the condemnation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. While the “1967 lines” notion reflected the policies of the Bush and Clinton administrations (not to mention Israeli and Palestinian public opinion), the line brought harsh denunciations from Republicans trying to make Israel a partisan wedge issue. Mitt Romney accused Obama of “throwing Israel under the bus.” Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) said Obama “betrayed” Israel. Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus said of the “1967 lines” comment: “That’s what we’re gonna be singing from the mountaintops for the next 17 months.”

The partisan press — particularly neoconservatives who have long sought to peel away Jewish support from Democrats — attempted to turn the GOP talking point into a larger story by writing that Obama was losing a key bloc of Jewish financial support for his 2012 re-election campaign. As ThinkProgress reported, Alana Goodman at Commentary sought to make hay of Democratic donor Haim Saban’s “break” with the president — conveniently omitting the fact that Saban had never given to Obama in the first place. Nonetheless, the Republican Jewish Coalition, as Priebus promised, launched a campaign of robocalls to 20,000 American Jews, replete with leading questions misrepresenting Obama’s positions.

But has the ploy worked to peel away Obama’s Jewish supporters into the Republicans’ corner?

“I doubt it. Maybe a few people, but will it be substantial? Will it be a factor in the race? I doubt it,” one Jewish Republican operative — that’s right: a Republican – told the Washington Jewish Week’s Adam Kredo. The operative described a “fantasy of Republicans for decades that eventually the Jews will come around to them.”

Indeed, though the stories started to pile up, not a single major Jewish Obama supporter has gone on record saying he or she was backing away because of Israel. However, many of Obama’s Jewish fundraisers are going on record with their plans for continued support:

[Texas Obama donor Marc] Stanley, who serves as chair of the National Jewish Democratic Council, will mobilize the troops to counter the belief that the president has it in for Israel.

“[...T]his perception that Jews aren’t going to Obama is a falsehood,” said Stanley, who plans to hold the first of several large fundraisers for team Obama on June 20 in D.C. “He’s already raising a lot of money, and a lot of money from Jews.”

The New York Observer also gave a write up to the Jewish donors that aren’t leaving Obama:

[C]onversations with nearly a dozen of the top Jewish fund-raisers in New York reveal a much different reality, as rainmakers say they continue to back the president they overwhelmingly supported three years ago.

The Washington Post’s Greg Sargent added that “it’s important to recall that the claim that Jews are on the verge of breaking with Obama has been a frequent refrain for literally years now,” citing the whisper campaign during the 2008 race. “In the end, according to exit polls, Obama won around 78 percent of the Jewish vote,” Sargent wrote.

So, as Sargent asked, what exactly are those partisans doing pushing their “comically transparent effort to drive Jewish support away from the President?” It seems they’re trying to create a sort of snowball effect, albeit one with a hollow core. Kredo reports:

Negative media attention… could push nervous voters and donors over the edge.

“They write about it long enough, and yeah, people believe it,” said Ira Forman, a veteran Democratic political operative and former head of the NJDC.

Neocons playing fast and loose with the facts in order establish false narratives that suit their political agenda? Whodathunkit?

News from the New York Times yesterday that U.S.-based military contractor Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI) is training Equatorial Guinea’s security forces has put the small, but oil-rich, West African nation back in the spotlight. And whenever a news story breaks about Equatorial Guinea, reports about its strongman leader, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, his rampant human rights violations, and his close relationship to power-circles in Washington, DC are quick to follow.

While the Times’s article focused on MPRI, a Virginia based company headed up by former Donald Rumsfeld aide Bantz Craddock, MPRI is just the latest in the long line of beltway consultancies and companies with lobbying interests in Washington to defend the interests of Obiang’s government.

An examination of Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) forms reveals some interesting insights into the influence which Obiang and his family are able to buy in Washington.

Former Democratic lobbyist and Clinton administration official Lanny Davis was a recipient of a $1 million per year contract (PDF) with Equatorial Guinea until earlier this year. Davis ended his contract with Obiang’s government after Salon’s Justin Elliott and other journalists cast scrutiny on his work. Obiang also got some bad publicity last year when the United Nations decided to suspend plans to award a life sciences prize sponsored by Equatorial Guinea.

But Qorvis Communications continues to represent Obiang in Washington and receives a lucrative $60,000 per month retainer in a contract (PDF) which runs through August 2011. Interestingly, the address of the “foreign principal” in the FARA registration isn’t an embassy or government building in Equatorial Guinea. The contract (PDF) is with Obiang’s playboy son, Teodoro Nguema Obiang Mangue, and the contact address is listed as “3620 Sweetwater Mesa Road, Malibu, CA 90265.” That’s the address of Teodoro’s $35 million Malibu mansion.

Obiang and his son don’t even need to cut checks from Malibu for some of their lobbying work. According to lobbying disclosure forms, some of the largest oil companies devote considerable resources to lobbying for their business interests in Equatorial Guinea.

Hess Oil paid over $1.3 million to lobby on “education and dissemination of information regarding registrant’s assets in Equatorial Guinea and Libya” in 2009.

Marathon Oil spent $1.08 million (PDF) in the first quarter of 2011 lobbying on a number of foreign policy issues including “investment by Marathon Oil Corporation in developing energy resources in Equatorial Guinea” and “Equatorial Guinea – U.S. Engagement.” In 2010, they spent over $5 million lobbying on similar foreign policy concerns.

In the first quarter of 2008, Exxon paid $6.6 million (PDF) lobbying for, among other issues of concern, “discussions regarding background on business in Equatorial Guinea.”

While MPRI’s training of Obiang’s security forces is just the latest story to emerge from the U.S.-Equatorial Guinea relationship, it’s clear that a lot of money and resources are being invested in keeping the U.S. in a close relationship with one of the world’s most corrupt governments.

The Washington Post reported Monday that Obama administration officials said the cost of the war in Afghanistan is likely to be a major consideration in the White House’s upcoming deliberations on the future of U.S. involvement there. “Money is the new 800-pound gorilla,” said one anonymous official, who added that the internal debate is shifting “from ‘Is the strategy working?’ to ‘Can we afford this?’”

But last night on Fox News, leading neocon Bill Kristol suggested that worrying about the war’s cost isn’t patriotic:

KRISTOL: Well I’m hoping, I am assuming and a lot of that assumption is hope, that these two senior anonymous administration officials who were quoted in the Washington Post story are trying to lobby through the media that the President is intelligent enough and honestly patriotic enough that having committed to this war he knows we have to win it and he is not going to nickel and dime the commanders for a few billion dollars.

Watch:

The U.S. has spent more than $400 billion in Afghanistan so far, and that price tag will likely double by 2014. The war there currently costs the American tax payer nearly $6 billion per month and it costs $1 million for one servicemember to deploy to Afghanistan for one year.

All told, by 2021, the United States will have spent somewhere between $2 and $3 trillion on fighting wars since 9/11, and the American taxpayer will continue to pay on these debts for some time.

Yet Kristol said just four months ago that “this debt and deficit will destroy us as a country.” Apparently it’s popular social safety net programs like Medicare and Social Security that fall into that debt category, not waging wars.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned the torture and murder of children by the Syrian regime, saying it demonstrates a “total collapse” of the government’s willingness to listen to its people.

Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd called on the U.N. to refer Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to the International Criminal Court.

Marc Grossman, the U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, is reportedly looking to make contact with Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar as part of a push to reopen talks with the Taliban before the planned drawdown of U.S. troops in July.

Amnesty International yesterday demanded that Egyptian authorities bring to justice those responsible for ordering or conducting forced “virginity tests” on female protesters.

The Egyptian military is receiving criticism for pressing the news media to censor its coverage of alleged human rights abuses. Human rights groups have expressed concern that such media censorship will make it more difficult for politicians to scrutinize the military and bring it under civilian control.

House Republicans unveiled a $650 billion defense spending package yesterday that would increase core Pentagon spending by $17 billion. The legislation would withhold 75 percent of the $1.1 billion in counter-terrorism aid to Pakistan unless DOD and State provide an explanation of how the money is being used.

Yesterday, Gen. Carter F. Ham, commander of the U.S. military’s Africa Command, said the U.S. has real concerns about weapons from Libya ending up in the hands of al Qaeda.

Iran’s parliament voted to take Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to court over charges that he violated the country’s constitution when he declared himself caretaker oil minister.