Rob’t Reich (photo by Perian Flaherty)
This is shocking and outrageous. Robert Reich, the former Labor Secretary now a professor of public policy, affects ignorance on the score of why Sheldon Adelson has given Newt Gingrich all that money. The long quote below is from his blog.
Reich suggests that Adelson’s gift has to do with his casino interests. He does not mention Israel or Adelson’s friendship with Netanyahu or his millions to Birthright or One Jerusalem (Adelson’s cause leading up to 2000 election when he sought to sabotage the peace process). He cannot say what the Wall Street Journal states in the lead of a news story: “A shared interest in supporting Israel, fostered over 15 years, is at the heart of casino mogul Sheldon Adelson’s support for Newt Gingrich’s presidential bid.”
This is an important moment because it epitomizes the refusal of intelligent, prominent liberal American Jews to acknowledge the role of the Israel lobby (let alone dime out their crazy cousins, the neocons). Reich. Emphasis mine:
Adelson has done it again. He and his wife Marian have cut another $5 million check for Gingrich to go negative on Romney in Florida. The money won’t go as far as it did in South Carolina – TV ads cost a lot more in Florida – but it’s enough to give the Grinch a solid footing.
And, who knows? The Adelsons are billionaires. They might decide to put in another $5 million or perhaps $20 million into Gingrich’s Super Pac. The point is, there’s no limit.
Do you know who Sheldon and Marian Adelson are? Do you know what Gingrich has promised them, or what they think they’ll get out of a Grinch presidency? I don’t. But if Newt becomes President of the United States, they’ll be singularly responsible. And we better find out, because Newt will owe them big time.
Forget the Lincoln Bedroom. The Adelsons and their kids will have the run of the White House, including the Oval Office. Hey, they’ll take over the Old Executive Building next door and turn it into a casino.
Never before in the history of American politics has a single couple given more money to a single candidate and had a bigger impact – all courtesy of the Supreme Court and its grotesque decisions that speech is money and corporations are people under the First Amendment.
The reason why the Israel Lobby is so powerful is not because of the hard-right crazies like Jonathan Tobin at Commentary. It’s the implicit backing of liberals like Robert Reich, Leslie Gelb, J.J Goldberg, Jeffrey Goldberg, Jonathan Chait and so on and on…
These liberals are the enablers, playing stupid while the neocons burn away.
The necons would never be as powerful as they are if they did not get this silent backing, contrast this vs the American debate on social issues like gay marriage, where there simply isn’t this kind of silent, implicit understanding on the ‘left’ towards the anti-choice people.
We’ll never break the castles of the neocons, until we realize that the liberals, the moderates are playing along.
It’s kind of like in the movie ‘The Help’ which focuses on the moderate middle class which defer to the radicals in their Deep South community. These people are not bad people, but they are misguided by a sense of ethnic loyalty and they cannot see their actions the way we can.
It’s just like MLK said(not the “silence of our friends” comment), the biggest threat are the ‘moderates’, who have misgivings and are not always that enthustiastic, but neverless fall into line when the whip flies.
Shame.
Thanks Phil for highlighting this. Reich is an smart, articulate guy, and has a conscience. So how does this former Rhodes Scholar justify this intellectual pretense to himself? Refusing to acknowledge the power and influence of successful modern American Jews because it comes uncomfortably close to classic anti-Semitic tropes? Have courage Robert- much, much better to discuss such power and influence out in the open!
Title should read, “Robert Reich Thinks We’re Stupid”.
I agree with what Krauss (above)is saying, but it’s apparent
that there is the erosion of faith in the media, because of the
inevitability of the internet, to interpret the great political landscape.
Newspapers were great at establishing the dichotomy
of right and left over the decades, now it’s more about one big establishment.
The Paul movement is something that sprung up from
the right, and one could argue as a result of the internet and it’s
free flow of information. The Federal Reserve questions were key
to Paul having a platform. And since that he has made a big dent in
the republican establishment, it’s difficult for the the republican
pundits to counter these concepts, And the democrats as well.
i still don’t believe that that freak gingrich is electable, nor do i believe that adelson believes he is electable. but how does republican nominee romney respond to a robust gingrich/adelson campaign? is there a secretary of state, or secretary of the department of war, gingrich in romney’s future? it’s not just electability but the positioning of candidates at work here.
to the condescending reich, chu has it right: you’re not as smart as you think, nor are we as dumb as you treat us. if reich’s willful ignorance is a defense mechanism against potential anti-semitism, it’s a tactic that will ultimately backfire.
Phil “This is an important moment because it epitomizes the refusal of intelligent, prominent liberal American Jews to acknowledge the role of the Israel lobby (let alone dime out their crazy cousins, the neocons). ”
Phil many of us have recognized this unwillingness by intelligent allegedly justice minded Jews to not only willfully ignore the injustices in the I/P issue but go along, fuel these injustices with their silence. As you and others have pointed out many so called liberal and some conservative Jews have been coming out the last five or so years and making a stand. Knowing that criticizing Israeli policies that are in continual violation of UN resolutions and international agreements has and continue to endanger Isreal based on the 67 border. As well as put a dark shadow on the moral and spiritual standing of these individuals. One would think that Reich given his commitment to social and economic justice here in the states would have come to realize now is a much safer time for him to come out if indeed he has the capability to apply those standards to the I/P situation. Sad to think that such a brilliant man would be so woefully complicit when it comes to Israel’s crimes