Foreign Policy has the latest on the Jane Harman case. A little inside-baseball even for this scorecard-keeper.
But a couple points: Harman's former Intelligence aide, Jeremy Bash, is now working as chief of staff for Leon Panetta at the CIA. (Bash is a rabbi's son. Does this get my Israel lobby mojo working? Yes, Virginia.)
Also, Harman has hired Lanny Davis, the Clintonite, to be her attorney. She is pushing back hard and, Foreign Policy suggests, trying to make the whole thing into some intramural partisan conflict in which Porter Goss, the former Republican congressman and CIA head, was getting political retribution.
This is how the lobby operates: trivializes a conflict of principle, in this case the issue of dual loyalty, into a partisan foodfight, so that people will shut off the matter.
Davis is an Israel lobbyist who supported the Gaza slaughter, in Huffpo of course. He has worked for the Israel Project, which basically argues that Israel is a thriving democracy where Arabs win beauty contests and gays can get married; and don't look at second-class citizenship, let alone the occupation. Help me, I'm surrounded.
Related posts:
- Alan Dershowitz and Lanny Davis are rabbis for secular Jewish society
- Harman primary opponent: ‘Let us remind Harman and the rest of Congress that they represent the people of the United States of America.’
- Two delicious angles of the Harman story– do I hear the hounds baying?
- Two delicious angles of the Harman story– do I hear the hounds baying?
- Dumped by Ahava, Kristin Davis sticks with Oxfam
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Lanny Davis was a particularly hackish Clintonista. The man is a caricature of himself. However much an hour she pays him, is too much.
Harman is no more a Democrat than Specter.
1. http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/04/28/cal... Jon Stewart on the corruption of Jane Harman: outraged by being snooped on, in favor of the rest of us being bugged; a spy protecting Israeli agents who wants to be in charge of an Intelligence committee. 2. http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/04/28/cal... "Antiwar.com, Congressional Quarterly, and Philip Weiss’ indispensable blog are about the only three venues where you can regularly read detailed updates on the Harman-AIPAC spy scandal…. They think they can – and will – get away with it, but we’ll see. The Harman affair is pushback from those whose job it is to protect this nation’s security from all enemies, both foreign and domestic. The problem with AIPAC, from their perspective – and mine – is that it is both foreign and domestic, as the leaked conversation with Harman underscores: here was an Israeli agent promising to mobilize AIPAC just as if it were a division of the IDF – which, in fact, it is…. Which is why I’m glad to see that someone in the Justice Department (where the Harman leak originated, I’m told) is fighting just as furiously and viciously to make sure that doesn’t happen – at least, not without inflicting some damage on those who are protecting and enabling a spy nest in the heart of our nation’s capital. "
What Hamon tell us about Israel's hold over Congress: The belief that the Israeli government can tell the Democratic leadership what to do is apparently so widespread that the set of believers seems to include high-ranking Democratic Members of Congress. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/jane-...
Did Leon Panetta choose Jeremy Bash as his chief of staff? How did Mr. Bash get the job? Is is a competitive civil service billet or a political appointment like Mr. Panetta's? I'm assuming the latter but hoping someone might know something definitive.
I hope she gets shown the door (and prosecuted if applicable) especially in light of this quote: From the LATimes: http://articles.latimes.com/1998/mar/23/news/mn-3... Rep. Jane Harman of Torrance asserted right off that "I'm proud to be a Democrat"–hoping to clean up a little mess she created recently by bragging about being called "the best Republican in the Democratic Party." This piece on Harman is also excellent: Jane’s Harman Us by Becky Akers
*RE: "Davis is an Israel lobbyist who supported the Gaza slaughter, in Huffpo of course. He has worked for the Israel Project, which basically argues that Israel is a thriving democracy where Arabs win beauty contests and gays can get married…" SEE: "ISRAEL PROJECT, BOUGHT AND PAID FOR BY ISRAELI GOVERNMENT" – by Richard Silverstein, 04-26-09 (EXCERPT) At an earlier point in his career, Lanny Davis actually did something meaningful with his life by defending Bill Clinton from impeachment. But he scraped the bottom of the barrel during the Gaza war by signing up as a “senior advisor” and “spokesperson” for the Israel Project, one of the rightist pro-Israel groups that never met an Israeli war it didn’t like… ENTIRE POST – http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2009...
*ALSO SEE “Focus Grouping War with Iran” by Laura Rozen, 11/19/07 (EXCERPT) …Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, the founder and president of the Israel Project, contacted Mother Jones and said that her group had commissioned the focus group and that it was designed by Public Opinion Strategies, a Republican polling firm. The Israel Project is a nonprofit group that supports Israel and conducts extensive polling on American public attitudes toward Israel and the Middle East. Its board of advisers includes 15 Democratic and Republican members of the House and the Senate, plus actor Ron Silver. Mizrahi says that her group and Freedom’s Watch share a common interest in “thwarting the threat of Islamic extremism” and in “dealing with the threat of Iran.” But Freedom’s Watch “in no way is directing our work, and it’s not funding our work.” She pointed out that the Israel Project is not “involved with Iraq,” a major concern of Freedom’s Watch. But the two outfits, she said, “shared information” produced by this focus group. …[snip] …”Of all the focus groups I’ve ever been to,” Sonnenmark wrote in a subsequent email to a group of fellow volunteers for the 2006 Senate campaign of Jim Webb, “I’ve never seen a moderator who was so persistent in manipulating and leading the participants.” (Webb is lead author of a Senate letter warning President Bush not to attack Iran without congressional approval…) The gist of the event was “anti-Iranian,” says Sonnenmark… ….Sonnenmark left the session wondering if foreign policy hawks would soon be pushing publicly for military action against Iran using language that had been tested on her. But, she says, “It is not going to be so easy this time around.” *ENTIRE ROSEN ARTICLE – http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2007/11/focus...
Yikes, Laura Rozen links to this post on the A-Lister, warandpiece
"Sonnenmark left the session wondering if foreign policy hawks would soon be pushing publicly for military action against Iran using language that had been tested on her. But, she says, “It is not going to be so easy this time around.” " The dumb goys are starting to wake up? Perish the thought. We need that physical and financial cannon fodder.
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