busted

by on April 23, 2009 9

Ron Kampeas at JTA says, Hey we say that Jane Harman is Jewish and we're the press! (I'd said that the press doesn't say Harman is Jewish.) Good point, Ron. Sorry about that. Though the point still holds, generally.

About Philip Weiss

Philip Weiss is Founder and Co-Editor of Mondoweiss.net.
Posted in Beyondoweiss, US Politics

{ 9 comments... read them below or add one }

  1. D. says:
    April 23, 2009 at 1:12 pm

    There's an interesting little coincidence in Kampeas's summary (which is quite good): He quotes seven authors working on the Harman case–

    ron kampeas at the jta
    jeff stein at cq
    mickey kaus at slate
    laura rozen at foreign policy
    mike soraghan the hill
    tim rutten at the la times
    phil weiss at mondoweiss

    All but Soraghan at The Hill are Jewish!
    I mean high verbal IQs are one thing, but this is ridiculous. :)

  2. D. says:
    April 23, 2009 at 1:22 pm

    BTW, Kampeas should have been more respectful to Phil. After all, it's Kampeas who's supposed to be writing "Jewish news," yet he missed the rather important fact that NONE of the mainstream media have dared mention the word Jew. You'd think his readership might be interested in that.

    Doesn't it have some bearing on the great themes of oppression and "antisemitism"?

  3. Me says:
    April 23, 2009 at 1:41 pm

    @D.:

    I got this idea from another commenter not long ago: May be there's some kind of Gentlemen's Agreement among some Jews that they only hire Jews if possible. It would make sense, since Jews are a very small minority and have been excluded during the WASPy-decades. If one considers that some religious Jews demand from their children that they only marry Jews so that the tribe doesn't become extinct, such a Agreement is not too far-fetched. May be this contributes to the fact why Jews are overrepresented in media and politics.

  4. Me says:
    April 23, 2009 at 1:43 pm

    Oh and yeah, back then mostly Jews where hired to "review" (read: bash) Mearsheimer and Walt when The Israel Lobby came out. It seems that Gentiles can not be trusted with scandals where some players are Jewish.

  5. LanceThruster says:
    April 23, 2009 at 1:50 pm

    That's like saying something "isn't covered" when it actually is but it's buried deep in the back pages. It gives them plausible deniability.

    Your point definitely stands. The MSM (JTA is on the margins of that in the US certainly) does not connect the dots in this regard.

  6. Colin Murray says:
    April 23, 2009 at 2:54 pm

    By what criterion could JTA be considered MSM? Surely no one is thinking 'size of target audience'? I don't think it is even close to being on the margins. Mr. Kampeas is playing silly word games: the reality is that MSM has not identified either Rep. Harman or Rep. Pelosi as being pro-colonization Zionists or even Jewish, and has not noted that they AND current House Intel. Com. Chair Rep. Reyes are AIPAC operatives with a long history of putting Israeli before American interests. These data are obviously vital to understanding the unfolding story, and that is precisely why they will not be found in the MSM.

  7. D. says:
    April 23, 2009 at 3:04 pm

    @me: or perhaps it's just because more Jews grow up WANTING to be in media.

    Far more important than why there are so many Jews in the media is the question of what effect it has. In many cases the perspective of someone who has chosen to think of himself as an outsider is a valuable contribution. But for the specific task of explaining what's going on in Israel, I'm afrad it's a disaster.

  8. GI Joe says:
    April 23, 2009 at 4:57 pm

    @ D

    "All but Soraghan at The Hill are Jewish!
    I mean high verbal IQs are one thing, but this is ridiculous. :)"

    Hey, you are NOT suppose to notice this! If you do, you are David Duke. ASK WITTY.

    Btw, what is the difference between Duke & Witty?
    Did you study the behavior of wolves?

  9. Me says:
    April 24, 2009 at 6:36 am

    @D.

    You're right. Phil also brought this up, that Jews have a strong journalistic tradition because of their (once?) outsider status and how they wanted to reveal wrongdoings by the (then?? WASPy elite. So this is an additional factor.

    But if it's true that Jews aren't outsiders anymore, especially when it comes to business and social status, then, in theory, this trend should stop sometime.

    "Far more important than why there are so many Jews in the media is the question of what effect it has."

    Definitely right. And it's great that Phil and Adam cover this aspect on this site.

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