‘Politico’ Carries Water for Attackers of Walt and Mearsheimer

What a pity that politico, in covering Obama’s campaign, tries to shame him for having Zbig Brzezinski as a foreign policy adviser when Brzezinski has "controversial" "baggage"– he endorsed Walt and Mearsheimer’s groundbreaking book on the Israel lobby. Reporter Ben Smith goes on to quote several Jews who are critical of Walt and Mearsheimer, including Alan Dershowitz and Steve Rabinowitz, and left the reader with the impression that these brave political scientists are guilty of "bigotry." Without offering any of their substantive arguments, say, about the suffering of the Palestinians. Let alone calling Jews who think W&M’s ideas are important, say Tony Judt, or Robert Art, or Mary-Kay Wilmers.

This is thought control, and once again demonstrates the sad fact that the only experts the big media accredit are the sort of experts who got us into Iraq in the first place. Do the people really think those ideas worked? Why isn’t politico focused on the fact that Giuliani has Norman Podhoretz as a foreign policy expert–Podhoretz who thinks we’re in World War IV and wants to torch the Muslim world and doesn’t believe there’s an Israeli occupation of Arab lands…

For that matter, has politico ever addressed the issue of Jewish money in the political process? Earlier this year Rabinowitz, a former Clinton adviser, told me, when I called him for the Nation, that he didn’t want to say how much of the Democratic presidential money was Jewish:

There is an enormous amount of Jewish money in the Democratic party giving. If it was ever decoded empirically it would be
scandalous, and not good for anyone except for a few antisemites who think Jews
control everything…For a broad range of Jews, Israel is an issue, but for most of them Israel is not the most important
issue. You have to be acceptably
good [on Israel]. If you’re not acceptably good, you’re disqualified. Acceptability is not
a low bar, but you don’t have to be the best.