I finally caught Tim Russert’s question in the Cleveland debate Tuesday night about whether Obama would reject Louis Farrakhan’s support, a man who once called Judaism “a gutter religion.” Russert’s follow up was, ” What do you do to assure…
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Monthly Archives: February 2008
The Most Important Obama Question (What Does His Movement Want?)
I’m headed into the woods. Annual Adirondacks trip for a few days. But here’s my question. Obama is leading a popular movement. This is the first real progressive political movement of my lifetime, excepting the McCarthy spasm when I was…
Obama Reminds Jews of a Time When Israel Was Wrong
Obama’s meeting with 100 Cleveland Jews is taking on the same kind of resonance as Kennedy’s talk about the Pope to the Protestant ministers in Houston in 1960. Except Obama came to kiss a ring, not unkiss it! Now the…
McCain Gains Sanctificaton for Jews Fleeing Obama
Rosner, in Haaretz, agrees with me that the general election will at last bring a robust debate of our Israel policy: Israeli experts on American politics said in recent weeks that a campaign between Obama and McCain will place Israel…
Reagan Revolution, Meet Obama Revolution
The Asia Times is attacking Obama in a vicious way by using his anthropologist mother and pro-“blackness” wife against him. Anthropologists…proceed from resentment against the devouring culture of America and sympathy with the endangered cultures of the primitive world. Obama…
Chelsea Clinton’s Lack of Accomplishment (and Mom’s Lack of Success) Signals the End of the Elite That Gave Us Iraq
I read the New York magazine profile of Chelsea Clinton hungering for any evidence of something idealistic she believes in. No, she seems insipid, a pale copy of her parents, with a New York lifestyle. She’s on the board of…
‘Nothing Has Changed.’ A Dialogue With Saif Ammous Over the ‘Peace Process’
I’ve learned a lot about Israel/Palestine from Saifedean Ammous, a Palestinian grad student at Columbia U. and a leader of the Arab Students Association there. He’s introduced me to lots of Arab students, I’ve heard him lecture at the 92d…
Hot-Damn! Obama’s Secretly a Leftist
Yesterday Obama spoke to 100 Jews in Cleveland. The Obama campaign released this transcript, now published in the NY Sun. A few key passages: 1. Strongly hinting that he is likely to shift U.S. policy and calling on the diversity…
Jews Are Richer, Older and Better Educated Than Other Americans
I always say that Jews are privileged. Well, the Pew Forum’s study of the American religious landscape shows that my people are richer, older, and more educated than other Americans by a significant factor. Consider income. According to Pew, 46…
How Matt Drudge Runs the Political Conversation ‘Tween Hillary and Obama
Matt Drudge is an amazing journalist, with faultless tabloid news judgment. This morning he circulated the “Dressed” photo of Obama, in which he looks like a Muslim, the picture taken in Kenya when he dressed in local costume, as a…
Is the Peace Process a Delusion?
Nearly two months ago, Saif Ammous attacked the peace process as a delusion here. Part of his analysis: Israel has absolutely no intention of giving away anything meaningful in the West Bank—certainly nothing on which anyone could establish a viable…
Cokie Roberts Smears Nader on Public Radio
The meritocracy hates Ralph Nader. He’s getting trashed all over Huffington today. That’s because Ralph is a true revolutionary. He changed the auto industry, despises capitalism, has always worked outside the system, is Lebanese and understands the plight of the…
The Internationalist Academy Awards
The country is sick of unilateralism, unipolarism (to use the neocons’ arrogant word). The Oscars this year were a bath of internationalism. Javier Bardem won Best Actor and spoke in exalted Spanish, a nonverbal French chick won Best Actress, surprising…
In ’85 Michelle Obama Assailed Assimilation, Saying It Kept Her ‘on the Periphery of Society’
Politico has posted Michelle Obama’s thesis in sociology from 1985: “Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community.” The work is an at-times agonized treatise on the racial divide. Going to Princeton, the woman then named Michelle Robinson wrote, will “likely lead…
When Invoking the American Interest, Better Not Spell ‘Harbors’ ‘Harbours’
With appropriate scorn, Dan Fleshler has picked up a memo in which the Obama campaign distances itself from any critical statement ever made about Israel by anyone who ever shook hands with Obama or sent him his resume. Obsequious and…
In Philadelphia, the Crisis of the Jewish Soul
As you might know, an exhibit of horrifying photographs of the Occupation taken by Israeli soldiers (and sponsored by a host of progs including Brit Tzedek, APN, Jewschool) is touring the U.S. The Ivies anyway–Penn and on to Harvard. One…
(At Last!) Hillary’s People Make Obama’s Israel Policy the Issue
Just as I said they should do, Hillary’s people have attacked Obama’s position re Israel, reports Newsweek. Alas it is a whispering campaign, with sly hints about the fact that Brzezinski, who is on Obama’s team, endorsed the Walt-Mearsheimer paper…
Finkelstein, a Victim of the Israel Lobby, Denies That It Has Power
Last fall, Norman Finkelstein lost his job at DePaul because of the Israel lobby. As he put it in his only statement on the matter: [M]y department voted overwhelmingly to tenure me as did the college-level tenure committee, which voted…
Yes, There Is a Guerrilla War Against Zionism in the U.S. What Should Jewish Institutions Do?
I just looked at the comment section of the youtube speech by Congressman Howard Berman the other night in Sherman Oaks. It’s stunning how much rage there is toward Berman: Portrait of a hypnotized zionist tool. He can’t even see…
Further Evidence that the Natives Are Getting Restless Over U.S. Israel Policy
The Harvard Independent has a fine piece in on two Palestinian freshmen, titled “Citizens of Nowhere.” One of the students grew up in a refugee camp in Tyre, Lebanon. The other lives on the West Bank. His village is bisected…
Brilliant Obama Will Get Us Past the Affirmative Action Era
All I ever needed to know about how smart Obama is comes from a friend of my wife’s who was in law school with him. The friend didn’t read the books for administrative law, didn’t go to class. He borrowed…
Berman, Congressional Foreign Affairs Boss, Cites Israel as a Prime Motivator in His Politics, Then Calls Israel Lobby a ‘Total Canard’
This is an astonishing video. Two nights ago, on February 20, Congressman Howard Berman, the soon-to-be-chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, visited the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association in his Los Angeles district. During the Q-and-A, a couple of audience…
Hillary’s Costly Braintrust, the New Jewish Establishment
Did you see the Times article about the staggering fees commanded by Hillary’s genius strategists as the campaign lost its way? The three are pollster Mark Penn, whose team collected over $10 million in January, ad maven Mandy Grunwald, who…
Lindsay Lohan Defines Privacy
Here’s something about celebrity. In the latest New York Magazine, there’s a good piece about Heath Ledger’s last several months. Depending on the narrative you believe–official or subversive–he was either a rudderless wreck indulging himself in drugs, women and song,…
The Only Two Questions Now in The Hillary Story
Will she–can she–exit graciously? How long before she leaves Bill?