Bill Clinton taking the High Holidays off
Why hasn't Bill Clinton started his campaigning for Barack Obama yet? Apparently, he wants to wait until after the High Holidays. Politico has the details, from an interview with Larry King scheduled to air tonight.
"Senator Obama also has a big stake in doing well in the Jewish community in Florida, where Hillary did very well and where I did very well. And I just think respecting the holidays is a good thing to do," he said.
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Dean: Obama is like Sharon
Barack Obama's been getting a lot of of comparisons to Jesus lately – both positive (those buttons saying Jesus was a community organizer and Pontius Pilate was a governor) and derogatory (the Republican nickname for him is Messiah). But Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean came up with a completely original comparison for Obama this morning that no one had likely ever thought about before: Ariel Sharon.
Dean said the Democratic presidential nominee and the former Israeli prime minister share similar leadership qualities.
"Much as the United States needs the strong leadership Barack Obama gives us, Ariel Sharon turned out to be a strong leader," he said, as he recalled a trip he took to the Jewish state just after Israel had pulled out of Gaza.
"In Israel and America, strong leaders make peace," said Dean. "Only leaders who have the confidence to do what's right, to make concessions if necessary" and "only leaders with strong self-confidence can do the things that need to be done."
Dean also criticzed the Republican Jewish Coalition's anti-Obama literature, calling it "despicable stuff" and telling the crowd that "you are the folks that can counteract" such "hate-based propaganda."
Much of Dean's speech was devoted to making the argument that the proper home for Jewish voters is in the Democratic Party. He said the "core of the relationship" between Democrats and Jews goes beyond just support for Israel to shared "humanitarian values."
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Rush Limbaugh is now calling Barack Obama ... an Arab.
Trying to figure out exactly how to describe this smear is like landing in a trash bin. Do the week-old banana peels smell worse? The rotting fired chicken discards? Is this more offensive to African Americans, with its grotesque reduction of their "struggle" to "blood" lines? To Obama? To Kenyans? To Arabs? To his listeners?
To make matters worse (they get worse?) Limbaugh appears to deliberately misrepresent a Philly Daily News article as making the same ludicrous assertion.
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Political tidbits: A new addition to the oneg Shabbat this week in Fla.
- A South Florida synagogue will be watching Friday night's debate together after Shabbat services, according to the Sun-Sentinel.
- Yoav Sivan, in the Jerusalem Post, believes John McCain's choice of Sarah Palin as his running mate makes the Obama-Biden ticket "the natural ticket" for American Jews.
- The St. Petersburg Times finds Jewish voters in South Florida still undecided about Obama.
- The Huffington Post's Sam Stein complains that Joe Biden didn't take any media questions at his National Jewish Democratic Council appearance on Tuesday.
- White supremacists distribute anti-Obama flyers in New Jersey, according to the Newark Star-Ledger.
- The Jerusalem Post reports that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is "ready" to meet Obama and McCain – but the candidates aren't running to clear their schedules.
- CAIR has asked the Federal Election Commission to investigate the distribution of anti-radical Islam DVD Obsession, claiming that Aish HaTorah International is behind it, reports the AP. Aish HaTorah denies involvement, although current and former employees are involved.
Israelis for Obama talk about why they like him in a video distributed by the Jewish Alliance for Change.
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Where's John McCain?
The Arizona U.S. senator and Republican presidential nominee got high marks for his quick as a flash response to the Georgia crisis this summer, leaving Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), his Democratic rival, in the dust.
It's Obama's turn, however, to leave McCain sputtering: the Obama campaign had a statement out within hours of possibly the most anti-Semitic speech ever delivered at the United Nations, and even got a dig in at McCain for not supporting Iran sanctions legislation in the Senate:
"I strongly condemn President Ahmadinejad's outrageous remarks at the United Nations, and am disappointed that he had a platform to air his hateful and anti-Semitic views. The threat from Iran's nuclear program is grave. Now is the time for Americans to unite on behalf of the strong sanctions that are needed to increase pressure on the Iranian regime. Once again, I call upon Senator McCain to join me in supporting a bipartisan bill to increase pressure on the Iranian regime by allowing states and private companies to divest from companies doing business in Iran.The security of our ally Israel is too important to play partisan politics, and it is deeply disappointing that Senator McCain and a few of his allies in Congress feel otherwise."
Obama was referring to last week's Senate tussle over sanctions legislation he helped sponsor. Democrats say they thing the GOP is blocking the legislation to deny Obama an election year score (and pro-Israel insiders agree); Republicans won't fully explain why the legislation is stalled.
Nothing yet from the McCain campaign (although props to them for keeping their press release website absolutely up to date, still, bafflingly, a rarity in 2008.)
On the broader Iran issue, however, McCain has the jump on Obama: He's come about as close as Obama's primaries rival, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) did in threatening a military strike on Iran should it edge to close to the bomb. Here's what he told CBS "60 Minutes" interviewer Scott Pelley this weekend:
Pelley: Would it be your policy in your administration to engage in preemptive war against a country that might pose a threat to the United States a country that hasn't attacked us.McCain: If it's a provable direct threat. Suppose that the Iranians had nuclear weapons. And you had a whole lot of other information about Iranian intentions and you could make the case to the American people and to the world, I think it's obvious that we would have to prevent what we're absolutely certain is a direct threat to the lives of the American people.
Obama has said he will not take the military option off the table, but has not said so clearly he would strike if the Iranian threat is imminent.
Speaking of the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speech, though: How WRONG did CNN's Christiane Amanpour get it in her analysis? She paid more attention to what he supposedly omitted (past alleged references to wiping Israel off the map) and none at all to how closely he hewed to the vilest anti-Semitic stereotypes, more - I think (I might be proved wrong if someone digs up some Stalin-era U.N. speech) - than anyone else has on the General Assembly podium. Here's Ahmadinejad:
"The dignity, integrity and rights of the American and European people are being played with by a small but deceitful number of people called Zionists. Although they are a minuscule minority, they have been dominating an important portion of the financial and monetary centers, as well as the political decision-making centers of some European countries and the U.S. in a deceitful, complex and furtive manner."It is deeply disastrous to witness that some presidential or premier nominees in some big countries have to visit these people, take part in their gatherings, swear their allegiance in a commitment to their interests in order to attain financial or media support. This means that the great people of America and various nations of Europe need to obey the demands and wishes of a small number of acquisitive and invasive people. These nations are spending their dignity and resources on the crimes and occupations and the threats of the Zionist network against their will.
"Friends and colleagues, all these are due to the manner in which the immoral and the powerful view the world, humankind, freedom, obeisance to God and justice. The thoughts and deeds of those who think they are superior to others and consider others as second class and inferior, who intend to remain out of the divine circle, to be the absolute slaves of their materialistic and selfish desires, who intend to expand their aggressive and domineering natures, constitute the roots of today's problems in human societies. They are hindrances to the actualization of material and spiritual prosperity and to security, peace and brotherhood among nations."
Ahmadinejad has, of course, long used anti-Semitic stereotypes to frame his attacks on Israel's relationship with the Palestinians and with others in the Middle East; but this may be the first time that a world leader has used the U.N. podium to expand that toxic characterization to world control, a trope straight out of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. (Look for more of this as the markets become more precarious.)
And Amanpour thinks Ahmadinejad was moderating his usual rhetoric??? She called this a typical "stump speech:"
"He did, as usual, start with the religious fundamentalist beliefs that he has, and he ended with that as well, a little of the end days philosophy that he has that the world is going to end and needs justice. But he also talked about the U.S. as occupiers in Iraq, as he has many time, and wants them out of Iraq."He talked about, as you said, the Zionist regime. But, this time, you didn't hear him say wiped off the face of the map, as you have heard in the past. He simply talked about illegal occupation and oppression of Palestinians.
"It seems that he's trying to actually pull back from some of that very fiery rhetoric that he's directed towards Israel. Just this week in Iran, he actually said that Iran is friendly to the people of Israel and insisted that Iran has nothing against the Jewish people. He was backing one of his own ministers who had said that."
Look, I'm as susceptible as anyone else in the Monday morning quarterbacking business to overparsing, but this was beyond belief. Wolf Blitzer, who must know better and who usually is quite good at gently tugging his interviewees back into the real world, said nothing.
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DCCC chairman: RJC “shameful”
The chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee called the Republican Jewish Coalition "shameful" for the way the group has tried to use Israel "as a wedge issue."
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said the organziation was breaking with a tradition "that has united Democrats and Republicans since Harry Truman." He spoke at a reception for members of Congress at the National Jewish Democratic Council's Washington Conference.
Van Hollen did come under criticism from pro-Israel constituents in his suburban Washington, D.C. district two years ago after he wrote a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice telling her she should have told Israel to limit its attacks during the Lebanon War – although he also said that Israel was "justified" in defending itself against Hezbollah.
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Franken: “I don’t think Minnesota is ready for a gentile in this seat”
Two Jews running against each other for the U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota? It's not unique, it's tradition, says Democratic candidate Al Franken. After noting to JTA that the three previous elections for the seat have also matched two Jews – Rudy Boschwitz vs. Paul Wellstone twice, then Wellstone (before he died in a plane crash a week before Election Day) vs. current incumbent Norm Coleman. "I don't think Minnesota is ready for a gentile in this seat," he quipped.
Franken, best known for his tenure as a writer and performer on "Saturday Night Live," told the same story a few minutes later to the crowd at the National Jewish Democratic Council's Washington Conference. And it's clear he's not leaving his sense of humor behind while campaigning.
Asked by JTA about the importance of NJDC to his campaign, he replied, "Being Jewish myself, it's a natural constituency. And being a Democrat myself, and liking committees – and national ones at that – it's a perfect fit."
In his remarks to NJDC, Franken criticized Republican Coleman for his "100 percent rating by the Christian Coalition."
"I can't figure out how a Jew is for school prayer," he said. "The only way I'd be for school prayer is if it were the Sh'ma."
Franken said the difference in his race – which is currently a dead heat – would be the question: "Who is your senator going to work for?" Coleman, he said, is the "largest recipient in Minnesota political history" of donations from the pharmaceutical, oil and insurance industries." Is he "working for the special interests," asked Franken, "or the people of Minnesota?"
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