Lots of lawmakers at RJC bash
Every Jewish lawmaker in Congress (OK, that's only three) and a multitude of other members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives turned out Thursday afternoon for the Republican Jewish Coalition's "Salute to Pro-Israel Lawmakers" at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis (see video).
Sens. Arlen Specter (Pa.) and Norm Coleman (Minn.), locked in a tough re-election fight with Al Franken, spoke to the hundreds gathered, as did House Deputy Minority Whip Eric Cantor (Va.) that featured lots of talk about how Barack Obama, and Democrats generally, would be unreliable in protecting Israel.
"If you care about the United States of America, if you care about Israel, this election is absolutely critical," said Sen. John Ensign (Nev.) in a sample of the kind of talking points the GOP will likely use in the next two months.
"We can have a friend of Israel and a pillar of American strength, or have somebody who believes in moral equivalency ... [that] there is no difference between the Israelis and Palestinians, said an excited Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (Fla.), practically screaming into the microphone.
And then there was Senate Minority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (Kent.), who basically said that the Democratic Party isn't "pro-Israel."
"There's an important and fundamental difference between the two parties in Washington, and I know you're not going to be fooled by Democrats claiming that just because they're for foreign assistance to Israel that they're pro-Israel," said McConnell. "Israel's security and U.S. security are inextricably intertwined and they involve ... having an assertive, aggressive pro-active approach to danger."
Of course, AIPAC might disagree about the importance of foreign assistance. The lobbying group calls foreign aid "vital" and a "cornerstone" to U.S. foreign policy in a memo on its Web site. And when McConnell's fellow Republicans in the House voted against the foreign aid bill in 2007 because they objected to an amendment that provided funding for women's overseas health groups that provide abortions, Republicans felt it was important enough to sign a letter to the pro-Israel lobbying group affirming their backing, despite their vote on that bill, for aid to the Jewish state.
Among the other members of Congress who attended Thursday afternoon were Sens. Jim Bunning (Ky.), George Voinovich (Ohio), Orrin Hatch (Utah), John Thune (S.D.), John Kyl (Ariz.) and Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), and Reps. Adam Putnam (Fla.), Chris Shays (Conn.) and Chris Smith (N.J.).
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Iran. Iran. Iran. Iran. And that’s it.
No Israel meat on the last night of the Republican Party's convention in St. Paul. The candidate, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), and three of his senatorial acolytes each devoted a line to Iran's nuclear threat - and that's it. Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor, got in his Israel licks Wednesday night, but overall, not as intensive an Israel pitch as at the Democratic confab in Denver, where candidate Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) touched on both Israel and Iran in his acceptance speech.
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JTA VIDEO: Hanging with GOP lawmakers
Ron Kampeas and Eric Fingerhut file their final report from the Twin Cities:
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From Ak. to Fla., heritage across the USA
Over at Politico, the prodigious Ben Smith wonders if the "Christian Heritage Week" Alaska Gov. (and John McCain's Veep pick) Sarah Palin signed into law will make Jews nervous.
Dunno, but it'd be a hard case for the Democrats to make, considering how one of their top Jewish surrogates, U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), has made passage of the federal act that created Jewish Heritage month (based on a Florida model) a signature of her first term in office.
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Were the kids wearing buttons too?
When will this Buchanan thing die?
This time, blame the Republicans (perhaps unwittingly) for perpetuating the false tale that Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the vice presidential pick of Sen. John McCain (D-Ariz.), once backed Holocaust diminisher Pat Buchanan. (She wore a button as a courtesy when he visited her town.)
In a fundraising letter, Palin slammed "vicious" Democrats for attacks on herself, her family and John McCain.
Clearly, the viciousness of an attack is in the eye of the beholder, and attacks on candidates are par for the course. But attacks on candidates' families is another matter – so Jake Tapper of ABC asked the McCain-Palin campaign to elaborate.
All they had was the Buchanan smear. Tapper wrote:
In other words, they can't name one person affiliated with the Obama-Biden campaign who attacked the Palin family.
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Rubin smells Rove
Jamie Rubin, a Clinton administration assistant secretary of state, smells Bush strategist Karl Rove tactics all over efforts (led by the Republican Jewish Coalition) to tar Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.) as unfriendly to Israel. Rove's strategy is to beat at an opponents perceived strength until it crumbles (witness the Swift Boat smears targeting the 2004 Democratic candidate, Sen. John Kerry, a decorated war hero). Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) picked Biden as a running mate in part because Biden's close ties to Israel and the pro-Israel community help make up for Obama's relative greenness in that area.
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“Thank God for Joe Lieberman”
Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-S.C.) just finished up his speech at the convention, which was mostly a paen to John McCain's support of the surge. But he added that "one Democrat broke from his party and supported the surge. Thank God for Joe Lieberman."
If the Democrats end up one senator short of a 60-vote majority in the Senate after Election Day, will Graham still be saying that – or will it be the Democrats?
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Gymnast carries Jewish torch on RNC final night
Republican Jewish Coalition chairman David Flaum was originally scheduled to speak on the final night of the Republican National Convention, but apparently the loss of Monday's program and the subsequent rescheduling of much of the convention meant Flaum was bumped from the schedule Thursday evening. Or maybe it was because Flaum wasn't strong enough on the parallel bars, because there was a Jew on Thursday night's program.
Mitch Gaylord, a 2005 inductee in the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame, was one of eight Olympic athletes tapped to recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of the night. Gaylord was a member of the 1984 gold medal winning U.S. gymnastics team, and won three other medals during those Olympics.
And then there's Joe Gibbs, who was a late addition to the Thursday night schedule. He sort of qualifies. While the retired Washington Redskins coach is an evangelical Christian, Jewish Redskins fans (as well as Redskins fans of every other faith) treat him like a god.
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Rosen to the defense of Biden
Jack Rosen, the former president of the American Jewish Congress, and maybe the only person in the country to have backed Bill Clinton, then George W. Bush and now Barack Obama, sent along the following e-mail in defense of Joe Biden:
The smear campaign against Joe Biden on the internet, spread by viral emails, attributes to him all kinds of beliefs that he has never held. This is a man with a clear public record over many years, and it is a record of friendship and support. I think it is outrageous when some in the Jewish community unthinkingly or with malice pass on these scurrilous lies. Jews should know better than anyone how a small lie endlessly repeated becomes a big one, and how innocent people can be harmed by such falsehoods.The Jewish community ought to take particular comfort in Obama's choice of my friend Joe Biden as his running mate. I've known Joe for many years and we have discussed Israel and the Middle East privately many times. I can tell you, he is in private as he is in public: Joe Biden cares about Israel.
Nobody has a longer record on the issue, spanning nearly four decades. Joe's relationships with Israeli leaders go back to Golda Meir and Moshe Dayan, and include virtually every top Israel figure ever since. He has been to Israel dozens of times.
Joe is the kind of friend who will be there on a rainy day. He supported Israel at times when it was not popular – like defending Israel's right to use cluster bombs in the 1980s. He delivered multiple speeches in 2002 denouncing the false portrayal of Israeli military operations against terrorists in Jenin as a "massacre." He voiced strong support for Israel during its 2006 war with Hezbollah. He has consistently defended Israel's right to target terrorists who intend to strike at Israel. He said a few days ago, "Israel has an absolute right to defend itself. It doesn't have to ask us."
He is an outspoken supporter of the search for peace, but he also has a consistent record as a realist. For example, he was the original co-sponsor of the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act of 2006 which banned direct U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority as long as it is led by Hamas. He is a fierce critic of Arab extremism, and constantly reminds his many friends in the Arab world that they need to do more to end their state of belligerency with Israel and to end the economic boycott against Israel.
On Iran, Joe supports tough and urgent diplomacy and economic pressure to prevent an Iranian nuclear threat. He regards the danger of Iranian nuclearization as one of the central challenges of our era. According to the Washington reporter for Ha'aretz, Joe Biden believes "options should not be taken of the table – that is, he isn't willing to swear off the use of force as a last resort to prevent the nuclearization of iran "
Joe Biden has been steadfast in opposing the transfer of arms to Arab nations that might erode Israel's qualitative edge. With Congressman Mel Levine, Biden spearheaded legislation in 1988 to modify the Arms Export Control Act so that American arms sales to Arab countries would be severely constrained in the absence of their reaching peace agreements with Israel. Levine recently said, "Joe Biden has been as consistently supportive of preserving Israel's security as any Member of Congress."
Joe has many, many ties to the American Jewish community. His daughter-in-law is Jewish, and he is close to his Jewish relatives. Many years ago, he was the one who discovered Tom Lantos, who he hired as an adviser early in his Senate career. Their relationship over the last thirty years was close, and Lantos, the only Holocaust survivor to serve in Congress, continued to be a mentor to Biden on the issues of Israel, genocide-prevention, and human rights.
Joe Biden is a man we can count on. His record speaks for itself.
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The roots of “cosmopolitan”
I was chatting with a RWSNBN (Republican who shall not be named) earlier today (Thursday) about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's strong showing last night at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul and how the Democrats have to tiptoe around criticizing her, lest they slide into sexist stereotypes. (It's a minefield: Her experience or lack of it is certainly fair game, but slams on experience have a way of slipping into "what does a woman know?" territory, or at least can come off sounding that way.)
I pointed out that this was a tetchy season for Republicans as well: A lot of the "elitist" cracks at Obama last night suggested to me a trope that could easily creep into "uppity" territory, and sure enough, a day later, that's exactly the word a southern congressman used to describe the Democratic candidate and his wife.
In my conversation with the RWSNBN, I cited the constant battering of community work as touchy-feely, somehow irrelevant (Palin made much of this; so did former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani). Sure enough, community organizers are duly outraged. To boot, over at CNN, Roland Martin said jibes at community organizers "degrade the women who fought for their rights."
And that's not all.
They disrespect the labor activists and immigrant worker activists like Cesar Chavez. They dismiss those in the civil rights movement – folks from small town America who were sick and tired of being sick and tired. They thumb their noses at the Nelson Mandelas of the world who want a better life for their children.
The weirdest riff of all, though, was Giuliani's improvised dig at Obama as a "cosmopolitan":
She's been a mayor. I love that. I'm sorry – I'm sorry that Barack Obama feels that her hometown isn't cosmopolitan enough. (Switching to deeper, haughty voice) I'm sorry, Barack that it's not flashy enough. Maybe they cling to religion there. Ooh.
Obama has cited Palin's experience as a "small town" mayor and he notoriously slipped during the primaries by describing rural voters in Pennsylvania and Ohio as "bitter" and "clinging to religion."
Tone deaf, sure, reductive too, and it offers ample material for portraying Obama as out of touch. But I'm not sure how that gets to the "cosmopolitan" slag, launched by Karl Rove not long ago.
They went to good universities, yes, but don't Rove – or Giuliani – want that for their own kids? They live in a nice house – don't Rove and Giuliani? Isn't that what we all want? The thing is, even the usual underpinnings to this fatuous class warfare cliche about "elites" (a love of ballet, classical music, fine food, etc.) are missing, as far as I know, from the Obamas' biography, so what the hell are Rove/Giuliani talking about? Even if the Obamas appreciated these things, so what? But, as far as we know, they don't. They're middle class, their song is "Signed, Sealed, Delivered," Michelle's favorite show is "The Brady Bunch." What gives?
What especially discomfits me about "cosmopolitan," then is... how it's been used against Jews. As in, rootless. Unbelonging. Not of us.
Look, I know Giuliani doesn't have an anti-Semitic bone in his body. But you can borrow a trope from a bigotry you reject to thrust forward one you uphold. And that's when it becomes viral. (See under: Balkans.)
I'm just saying. There are a lot of ways for this election to slip into ugly territory. Depicting the Obamas as "cosmopolitan" is among the slipperiest.
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