Watching Lanny Davis spin desperately for Hillary the other night on MSNBC, hearing Howard Wolfson work the same riff on NPR this morning, I wondered if the Jewish establishment is ending almost before it began. The Clintons were the greatest thing that happened to Jewish success. My people had been outsiders in American life for generations, then they came inside with a giant splash during the Clinton administration, in which 2 of 2 Supreme Court appointments were Jewish and countless political plums too, including even the president’s lover (Monica) and sometime-chaperone (Evelyn Lieberman). Almost everyone was Jewish on the president’s negotiating team at the disastrous Camp David, a team that acted as "Israel’s lawyer" (in the words of Aaron David Miller). A couple of my extended family got to play roles in the administration, too.
Then Bush came along and, look Ma! we got to handle foreign policy.
Some of the desperation around Hillary’s fall seems to me class-based, in the sense that a Jewish meritocratic group shared a sociological identity and interests: succeeding bigtime, and helping Israel while we were at it. Hillary’s former strategist Mark Penn, whose millions became a symbol of the campaign’s entitled feeling, was the son of a man who had sold kosher poultry (as he relates in his smart book on trends) and started out polling for Menachem Begin. That famous letter in March from big donors to Nancy Pelosi warning her not to shut the nomination process on Hillary was signed by a "cadre" of influential Jews (in the words of the Forward), the most notable being Brookings-backer Haim Saban, who supports the Israeli army (and who believes Hillary "is ten times more qualified" than Obama). Harvey Weinstein reportedly offered to help finance a Michigan primary on Hillary’s behalf. The negative campaign against Obama was orchestrated in part by the devilish welterweight Sid Blumenthal. Lately Ed Koch has been working the Rev. Wright story and Lanny Davis has been working Wright and Bill Ayers too. Ann Lewis, Barney Frank’s sister, was Hillary’s mouthpiece at a Jewish event in March, chanting "The role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel." (A dangerous statement, if ever there was one.)
So It isn’t just Hillary who has a lot to lose; establishment Jews do, too.
The Democratic base is changing. Lanny Davis recently insisted that Joe Lieberman is a "progressive Democrat" going back to civil rights days. But what does that say about the Lieberman camp in the former Democratic base; hawkish and Israel-centered, they may all defect to McCain come the general.
And speaking of civil rights, that old coalition united blacks and Jews. So maybe that’s Obama’s promissory note. It’s the blacks’ turn now!
Will Obama be as "good for the Jews" as Hillary? No. But I bet younger Jews aren’t asking that selfish question. They don’t feel themselves to be outsiders, and I imagine that many of them see our tragic Israel/Iraq policy, that deathly double-play combination of Pollack-to-Kristol-to-Perle, as the Jewish establishment at work. I often think of what Michael Walzer said at the Center for Jewish History last year. For 3000 years, "we governed only ourselves, as best we could… Sometimes [we were] semi-autonomous… responsible only for ourselves." Not so good, he added ruefully, at governing others. I’m looking forward to more power-sharing, in a rainbow establishment…
Related posts:
- Do Obama’s Jewish Numbers Demonstrate the Warming Trend Outside the NY/NJ Establishment?
- Like Lewinsky, Rich, and Libby, Madoff Scandal Exposes Jewish Social Cohesion in Establishment
- Hillary Surrogate Bashes Carter, Adores Bush, Before a Jewish Audience in O.
- Hillary Uses the Israel Wedge, and So Will McCain. Can Obama Transcend It?
- ‘Huffington Post’ gives space to yet another Likudnik apologist
{ 15 comments }
The rational principles of decency for Israelis and equality of opportunity for Jews will remain in the Obama presidency.
He is NOT a radical, except in the sense of willingness to think fresh.
If Hillary buries the hatchet, she will play some powerful role relative to the Obama administration, either as a prominent cabinet position, or as a prominent democratic leader in the Senate.
She only has bridges to burn at this point, whether she is a player during the Obama administration or a grumbling outsider.
Only if she has addictive vain lusts for power would she choose to not support his stated objectives and means to them.
Don't worry, we Jews with our long noses will find a way into Obama administration too (Isn't one of Obama's main strategists named Axelrod?) One thing most antisemites don't realize is that Jews get there they get not because of some conspiracy or connections but mostly because of their amazing – and at times really annoying – energy, what is called "pins in the butt" in Yiddish. People may notice a lot of Jews among neocons but fail to notice equal numbers among liberals.
The rational principle of decency for Palestinian arabs may get some airing in a BHO administration.
Shields takes aim at the ‘Clinton Doctrine’ on Israel
By Ami Eden on Mar 31, 2008 in Hillary Clinton, Presidential Race
Mark Shields takes issue with a Clinton adviser’s suggestion that “the role of the president of the United States is to support the decisions that are made by the people of Israel”:
If Israel decides to bomb and invade Lebanon again, or any place else, is it the duty — by this “Clinton Doctrine” — for every American president to uncritically rubber-stamp such a unilateral action? The same United States that fought for its independence some 233 years ago will now surrender that independence without even a whimper of dissent to a foreign country in the combustible Middle East?
We wait in vain for McCain or Obama — two men whose campaigns remind us regularly that they reject “politics as usual” — to publicly repudiate “the Clinton Doctrine” that the United States president’s role is to give every Israeli government a green light, carte blanche and this nation’s proxy. Where is the leadership?
Probably.
The difficult questions will be what does that look like, and how will it get implemented in fact.
These shifts should be seen against the background of a far more momentous realignment of American politics. If American Jews — or at least the large Israel-first faction among them — should desert the Democratic Party it would be a repeat of the party's experience with Southern whites (who left for race-related reasons and not because of foreign policy of course). Mondoweiss thinks this will be mitigated by demographic factors but I am not so sure.
I am however convinced that in the long run the Democrats will go back to their populist and nationalist (Jacksonian) base and the Republicans to their Whiggish and internationalist roots. Jews will be happier in the second group not just because the renewed Democrats will harbor anti-Semitic tendencies but also because the Republicans will promise the vision of an elitist, merit-based society, which the Jews will find most attractive. Having tasted power recently Jews are not likely to have much appetite for a fairer, egalitarian society.
Hey Richard Witty!
I am just waiting for the same laws to be enforced for Jews as are for non-Jews.
How would Obama be treated if he were to meet with al-Walid bin Talal?
Would the FEC spring into action if the Saudi Prince had injected his money into the campaign?
Guess what! I can trace the pattern of external Zionist manipulation of US elections back to the 40s while Jewish subversion (mostly for Soviet Communism) goes back to the 20s.
The IDF is by any criterion much more of a terrorist organization than the IRG.
All American Jews (like Haim Saban) that have served in the IDF should be arrested under the anti-terrorism laws. All their assets should be seized just as we treat American Muslims that give material aid to Kashmiri freedom fighers.
Guess what.
We Americans don't really have a dog in the Kashmir race, but the State of Israel has been attacking US assets since the 1950s and undermines our foreign policy position.
Isn't it time for equality between Jews and non-Jews in the USA?
And Richard, I can't wait until you start doing your time in Guantanamo or some similar facility.
Whem the reckoning comes, I wonder what will will be the proper sentence an ex-President that served as Quisling to Sharon's Judeo-Hitler?
Here is Wikipedia on Quisling:
In the course of the treason trials following the war, Quisling, along with two other Nasjonal Samling leaders, Albert Viljam Hagelin and Ragnar Skancke, was convicted of high treason and executed by firing squad at Akershus Fortress on October 24, 1945.
Here is Wikipedia on Petain:
In 1945, Pétain was tried for collaboration (or treason), convicted and sentenced to death by firing squad. Charles de Gaulle, who was briefly Prime Minister at the end of the war, commuted the sentence to life imprisonment on the grounds of his age and his Great War (World War I) contributions.
—–
Please note that Zionist punditry has no problem with flinging baseless accusations of treason and demanding imprisonment or deportation.
As far as I am concerned, turnabout is fair play.
Some years ago, the late Israel Shahak
translated from the Israeli newspaper Maariv
an article entitled "The Jews Who Run
Clinton's Court"; a similar piece could
just as well have been written about the
Bush administration.
michael walzer? THE m. walzer who never came across an israeli slaughter he couldnt defend as just. why is this mediocrity world famous?
"In a recently posted piece that has drawn significant attention as one of the best defenses yet penned of Israel's actions in Lebanon, world-renown Princeton University Philosopher Michael Walzer argued that Israel's overall strategy fit the criterion for a Just War, despite the disproportionate civilian toll its attacks have taken and the wholesale destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure that came with it. (See http://www.tnr.com/ for the posting.)
Walzer's article, and the logic and argumentation it contains, reflect the thinking of the liberal, or Democratic establishment about the current war in Lebanon. His ideas are crucial because his reputation attaches to them a legitimacy that allows the liberal/Democratic establishment to continue with its policy of supporting Israel regardless of its actions" – mark levine, re leb assault, 2006
a repost from an earlier posting. if any one has a clue?
"how much of the billions made by milchan, saban, arison, and other israeli-"americans" (or maybe to jews in america to support israel) come via israel? an economic policy of sorts. money from american taxpayers to israel returned to start businesses to influence policy to take power
The US President's job is to rubber stamp Israel's actions.
How did we Americans get reduced to this slave status? Some of you might find interesting this article about the distortion of US foreign policy, written before M& W exposure of the Israel Lobby and distinguishing the Israel Lobby from other lobbies: http://www.wrmea.com/archives/may2002/0205026.html
Peter wrote:
"One thing most antisemites don't realize is that Jews get there they get not because of some conspiracy or connections but mostly because of their amazing – and at times really annoying – energy."
Couldn't the same be said of, for example, the English, or the Germans, or their descendents in America? But of course, no racial consciousness is allowed by Europeans–that would make them "Nazis" and "anti-Semites." But it's okay for Jews to have a racial consciousness, and crow about it widely, or at least it was. I suppose it is not so popular today to brag about being Jewish as it was in the Clinton years, given that the world increasingly recognizes the Israeli Zionists as a gaggle of Jewish Nazis.
"People may notice a lot of Jews among neocons but fail to notice equal numbers among liberals."
Who fails to notice that? Isn't that the point of Phil's post? Tons of Jews are liberal Nazis, aka Bolsheviks. The Neocons are merely liberal Jewish Nazis who've come out of the closet. And because racial consciousness, unity and aggression are an inherent component of Judaism, authentic liberal Jews are ultimately going to leave the religion, and those that stay are going to be less and less interested in concealing their racialism…which takes us to virsal's point:
"I am however convinced that in the long run the Democrats will go back to their populist and nationalist (Jacksonian) base and the Republicans to their Whiggish and internationalist roots. Jews will be happier in the second group…because the renewed Democrats will harbor anti-Semitic tendencies."
Greedy, internationalist, fixated on racial consciousness, racially ambitious…of course Jewish Nazis are going to, in the long run, be more comfortable as Republicans. The only reason that they didn't fit in with the Right before was that the Continental Right has always been Christian, and water and oil don't mix. But in America, Christian Zionism has fixed that, and Jews and the GOP will also be united in money-worship and One World Capitalist internationalism, which is merely the equally Godless flip side of internationalist Communism.
Ironic, isn't it: The Democrats are getting more conservative on the Jewish question while the Republicans are getting more liberal. In fact, as the Jewish Nazis move in to the GOP, it is turning positively soulless. It seems the forces of darkness are uniting around Zionism for the final battle…
On a side note, why is it that only white European countries and the USA do not have very strict immigration laws and policies compared to the rest? If you want to know what I mean, take a look at Mexico's for starters.
Peter spoke "pins in the butt" driving Jewish success. Harvey Weinstein must have 10 inch spikes in his.
This from CNN:
"WASHINGTON — In a heated phone call with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi late last month, Hillary Clinton supporter Harvey Weinstein threatened to cut off campaign money to congressional Democrats unless Pelosi embraced a new plan by the movie mogul to finance a revote of the Democratic presidential primaries in Florida and Michigan, according to three officials who were briefed on the contents of the conversation."
Pelosi folded long ago like the proverbial lawn chair. Just look at her on Syria, impeachment, and Israel first legislation. Typical Italian, no?
Comments on this entry are closed.