Waxman on good turns deserving others
When it comes to Barack Obama and the Jews, U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) has some advice as old as Hillel, and it sounds a lot like "Do unto others."
Waxman, the powerful chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Oversight Committee adds a twist to familiar appeals to Jewish Democrats attending the party convention this week in Denver not to pay attention to smear rumors targeting Sen. Obama (D-Ill.), the party's presumptive nominee.
Waxman notes that U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) was similarly targeted by anti-Semitic smears propagated by allies of an African American rival in the majority black district.
Cohen won the primary earlier this month with an overwhelming majority that included three quarters of the black vote.
It's an example Jews can use, Waxman told JTA.
"There's a very cynical effort by Republicans to raise a lot of anxieties in the American Jewish community about Barack Obama," he said, and listed false rumors of an association with Louis Farrakhan, the anti-Semitic black nationalist; false rumors about Obama being a Muslim; and smearing Obama as having a secret antipathy to Israel that he will unleash only after his election.
"We have to reject these smears just as people in the African American community rejected smears against Steve Cohen because he's Jewish," Waxman said.
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I was in Memphis for the Cohen landslide. The anti-semitic flyers sent out early in the race were reprehensible. They were of the the “Jews Hate Jesus” variety and, I would guess, backfired, big time, Then race & religion continued to play a role, with TV ads referring to prayer in school and the KKK. That is why it was so disappointing to see Steve Cohen sponsor a bill apologizing for slavery (kudos), followed by unapologetic Hate Speech against Armenian-Americans. There is video of Cohen’s Hate Speech available online. The video does not lie. He essentially suggested that Armenian-Americans are terrorists. It was an ethnic slur of the highest order and everyone seems to have missed it. Cohen should apologize to the Armenian-American community...ASAP...and to his two female, Democratic colleagues in the House of Reps, who are of Armenian descent (Eshoo & Speier).
Then he should be reprimanded by the House Ethics Committee.
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Bill Levinson
08/28/08 03:53 AM
Re: “false rumors of an association with Louis Farrakhan”
It is a matter of record that Obama refused to “reject” Farrakhan’s endorsement until Hillary Clinton and Tim Russert backed him into a corner during a televised debate. In addition, Obama knew that Jeremiah Wright was consorting with Farrakhan before he joined his church.
“false rumors about Obama being a Muslim”
That is indeed false; Obama is a member of a racist, America-hating, and Israel-hating, albeit nominally Christian, church.
“a secret antipathy to Israel that he will unleash only after his election.”
This is not a smear. Official bulletins from Obama’s church challenge Israel’s right to exist, noting that Jeremiah Wright wrote “state” of Israel, as in “so-called state of Israel.” Another TUCC official bulletin included a guest piece from a Hamas terrorst named Marzook, and yet another contained a blood libel that accused Israel of developing an “ethnic bomb” to kill Negroes and Arabs. I downloaded these from tucc.org, so I know they are not fabrications.
Yid with Lid reports that Joe Biden, Obama’s running mate, threatened to cut off aid to Israel over the settlements issue.
My.barackobama.com, over which Obama exercises editorial control, was overflowing not only with Israel-has-no-right-to-exist-as-a-Jewish-state material but outright anti-Semitic material as well, at least until I and others re-posted it all over the Internet. Once it became a widening scandal, the moderators whose job is to remove “offensive” and “disrespectful” material from MyBO admittedly threw it under the bus, or swept it under the rug. Phrases like “Jewish Lobby” were used routinely, and an Obama staffer named Emily is on record as telling people to use “Israel Lobby” instead.