Just in case you missed it during yesterday’s deluge, two trailblazing Jewish women — one Blue, one Red — offer opposite takes on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin…

Sandra Forman, the only Jew and only the second woman to lead the NRA, has a piece out hailing the Republican vice presidential candidate (and noting that Obama is no hunter).

The feminist guru Gloria Steinem, on the other hand, says Palin would be bad for the women.

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.).

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.

Ron Kampeas and Eric Fingerhut file their final report from the Twin Cities:

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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: Read the rest

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. Read the rest

You know you’ve been in this business (Jewish journalism) too long when … the rest of the country is taking in Joe Biden’s tragic/inspiring story of losing his first wife and a baby daughter in a car crash, then managing to press ahead with his political career and raise his other children — but the only family detail you care about is that one of his sons married into a Jewish family.

And if you think that’s bad, here’s what flashed through my head next:

• Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton’s only child is seriously involved with a Jewish guy.
• One of Al Gore’s daughters is married to a Schiff
• One of Nancy Pelosi’s daughters is married to a Jewish guy.
• Harry Reid married a Jewish woman (they both eventually converted to Mormonism — read more here).
• Howard Dean is married to a Jewish woman — and lights the menorah.

For those keeping score, that’s the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, the top Democrat in the Senate, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, the most recent Democratic president and first lady, the most recent Democratic vice president, and the current vice presidential candidate. All we’re missing is the One, but to be fair the Obama children haven’t even reached Bat Mitzvah age — give ‘em time (until then, be happy with the news that Michelle Obama has a cousin who’s a rabbi).

Back to Biden… he played up his Jewish connection Tuesday, during a town hall in South Florida packed with Jewish seniors:

“Look, my son married — and matter of fact, her, uh — my son married into the Berger family,” he said, referring to his son Beau Biden’s marriage to the former Hallie Berger. “We’re going to be mishpokhe before this all is over, I promise you.”

In general, I’m not sure whether that’s the best crowd for boasting about the whole intermarriage thing (though I have a hunch that many in the audience would be more comfortable with a Biden marrying in than, say, an Obama). I’d be especially reticent during this campaign, given the Internet track record of the anti-Obama forces.

Forget the Muslim stuff, I can see the new conspiratorial e-mail: Stop the Democratic plot to destroy the Jews with intermarriage. Every time a Democrat wins, another Jewish family loses. And with those two precious Obama girls, this year it’s likely to cost us two good Jewish boys.

Of course, for Jewish paranoids — I’m sure there are only a few of them out there, but they all seem to have my e-mail address — it’s a tough choice: Do you prefer a party whose goyim want to marry us or convert us?

If you need a corrective after reading the Jewish NRA head’s scorching of Barack Obama for not knowing how to properly skin an animal, here’s Gloria Steinem’s account of why Sarah Palin would be a monumental setback for women.

Read the rest

First Linda Lingle, Hawaii’s Jewish Republican governor, came to the defense of Sarah Palin. And now Sandra Froman — the only Jew and only the second woman to serve as president of the NRA — has the GOP running mate’s back, in an op-ed that she’s sent out via e-mail.

Our favorite line: “In addition, Palin’s an NRA member and hunter. Barack Obama has never hunted wild game or field-dressed an animal. Frankly, Barack Obama should not welcome a comparison with Sarah Palin as to who is more rugged.”

Fine, but how would Palin stack up against Woody Allen?

Here’s Froman’s full piece: Read the rest

A number of Jewish organizations don’t have kosher events, but will eschew non-kosher meat for fish or vegetarian meals. Despite the many yarmulkes in the crowd, that wasn’t the case at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s “Salute to GOP Governors” this week at the Republican National Convention. While there was a kosher table in the back with hummus, pita, desserts and other selections, the Walker Art Center event was catered by Wolfgang Puck’s company and featured lamb, duck and sliders that were being pronounced delicious by a number of the hundreds in attendance — in addition to vegetarian fried rice and chocolate-covered strawberries.

Hotter than the food was emcee Dennis Prager. The conservative radio talk-show host blasted Jews for being liberals, saying that “it will be one of the great services to the Jewish people and to America and the world if we can stop the idea that Jewish and liberal are synonymous. … Jews on the left often mean well but have no wisdom on the issues of the day.”

“Auschwitz was not liberated by peace activists,” said Prager. “They’d still be gassing Jews if we listened to peace activists.”

Later he added, “There is no one as hated by the liberal world as a black conservative or a woman conservative. God forbid women should get the idea that you are more liberated … on this side of the aisle.”

Prager also used the old joke about Republican Jews being able to meet in a phone booth — in order to say that the number of GOP Jews has grown so much that “large stadiums” are now needed for their gatherings.

Utah Gov. John Huntsman Jr., Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue and Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle were among those who stopped by the reception. A number of other Gulf Coast governors, including Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, were scheduled to come but stayed home because of Hurricane Gustav.