Well, the Democrats got their unscripted moment

After Clint Eastwood's appearance at the GOP convention, the consensus among the punditry was that the Democrats would be sure to avoid any such improvisational, unscripted moment at their convention. And it was all going fine until the party decided that it was a bad thing to have taken God and Jerusalem out of their platform and they had to reinstate those clauses. What emerged was a clearly unscripted moment as Mayor Villaraigosa, the chair of the convention, had to ask the delegates for a two-thirds voice vote. He had to ask for the voice vote three times before he just muscled through his ruling that the Ayes had a two-thirds majority. See what you think.

How awful is it for the Democrats to be on video booing the inclusion of God and Jerusalem into their platform. The ads will write themselves.

No one seems to know why the language was changed in the first place. Why don't they explain that? They were defending the change yesterday, but now the word has been released that it was Obama's efforts that got it reinstated. But, as Noah Pollak points out that the policy of Obama's administration is against recognition. Allahpundit posts the video of Jay Carney refusing over and over and over again to identify Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Add in Debbie Wassermann Schultz's outright lies about Israel yesterday, Jewish voters who care about Israel's fate have to ask themselves if the Democrats are the friends of Israel that they pretend to be.

Obama claims that he is the one who can bring the country together. He can't even bring his own party activists together to vote in favor of God and Jerusalem.

We've had our unscripted moment an it was a whole lot more revealing of the party than Clint Eastwood's speech was.

UPDATE: The Yid with Lid has taken a look at the passage about Israel that the Democrats just put back into their platform and notices that they still haven't left out the language from 2008 condemning Hamas and declaring that Palestinian refugees should not settle in Israel. They also left out the 2008 language about returning to the 194 armistice lines.

So when they pat themselves on their backs for how much they support Israel, just remember that they somehow don't feel as condemnatory of Hamas as they did four years ago and they have abandoned their opposition to letting Palestinian refugees from flooding into Israel.

Elliot Abrams has more on the Democrats' new policy toward Hamas and Hezbollah.

The second difference relates to Hamas and Hezbollah. The Democrats' 2008 platform noted "the reinvigoration of Hamas and Hezbollah" and said "The United States and its Quartet partners should continue to isolate Hamas" until the group changes its policies and beliefs. This year Democrats don't mention either terrorist group, and their platform's section on terrorism is dedicated to lauding President Obama for the killing of Osama bin Laden.

The Republicans have a different take, worrying that the "Arab Spring" could allow groups like Hamas and Hezbollah to come in from the cold. Thus Republicans "welcome the aspirations of the Arab peoples and others for greater freedom, and we hope that greater liberty—and with it, a greater chance for peace—will result from the recent turmoil. . . . On the other hand, radical elements like Hamas and Hezbollah must be isolated because they do not meet the standards of peace and diplomacy of the international community." So it is now Republicans, not Democrats, who insist on isolating terrorist groups that are attacking Israel.

And notice how no one is taking the credit or blame for the original wording. Abrams reminds us of who was on the platform committee.

Platforms don't dictate policy, of course, but they don't appear out of thin air. They come from committees formed to say what the party and its candidate for president believe. Among the Democratic committee members this year were Newark Mayor Cory Booker, Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank, former Florida Rep. Robert Wexler, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, and former Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland.