On TPM, the main approach that commenters have to Mukasey’s approval is to talk about AIPAC: Mukasey’s Jewishness, and the Jewishness of Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, the NY and Cal senators who gave him the votes he needed. Meantime, the Wall Street Journal has been running op-eds–by Norman Pearlstine and Gabriel Schoenfeld, I’m told–calling on Mukasey to drop the case against AIPAC’s Weissman and Rosen, which is scheduled soon to go to trial.
Again, I think, this is a miasma. Something’s going on. Too many politicians and Jews in public life care too much about Israel for the good of this country. I don’t buy all the conspiracy talk–Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, Wisconsin’s two Jewish senators, voted against Mukasey. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t networks and affinities. And though I know nothing about the AIPAC case, I sure hope they have the trial, just so we get to hear Feith, Wolfowitz, and Condi Rice talk about the power of the lobby and how it does its business.
When oh when will the mainstream media talk about the religious left? Leave the conversation on the blogosphere, and the blogosphere grows more relevant by the day, and the mainstream media more irrelevant and corporate. When I was a kid, we used to throw around the word "decadent." Back then decadent meant hedonistic and indulgent, in this sort-of-cool way. Now I know what decadent really means. It means so fattened by wealth and success that institutions lose all connection with their original purpose. The exciting energy goes elsewhere. It’s on the blogosphere now. We have a bifurcated discourse. Dangerous.
