A friend sent this note along:
This is smarmy/cute. At Huffington Post, Jeffrey Goldberg’s authorized corn about Obama, “Barack Obama is such a traditional Jew sometimes,”now that Obama promised Goldberg he’ll bomb Iran if necessary. It incidentally validates Goldberg as the most well-connected Jewish journalist. And not only a journalist! he knows all the good young Jewish writers and drops all their names with many a flaunt of false modesty. As a piece of therapy conducted in public, it’s an odd handshake between Richard Lewis and Milton Berle.
(Oscar Levant on Milton Berle when he converted to Christian Science: “Our loss is their loss.”)
I’d add that this piece, on Obama as a M.O.T. (member of the tribe), is an unconscious revelation of the Jewish presence in the U.S. establishment. Goldberg:
No president, not even Bill Clinton, has traveled so widely in Jewish circles, been taught by so many Jewish law professors, and had so many Jewish mentors, colleagues, and friends, and advisers as Barack Obama (though it is true that every so often he appoints a gentile to serve as White House chief of staff).
Our political access is not personal or peculiar to Obama. It is a reflection of our prominence in the ranks of the powers that be– finance and media. And Goldberg is like George H.W. Bush, he was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.
“No president, not even Bill Clinton, has traveled so widely in Jewish circles, been taught by so many Jewish law professors, and had so many Jewish mentors, colleagues, and friends, and advisers as Barack Obama ”
But they attack Phil Weiss for counting Jews?
“he was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.”
Damn it Weiss, That’s MY LINE!! hahaha….. one of my all time favorites. i heard that was what billy martin said about george steinbrenner
… (though it is true that every so often he appoints a gentile to serve as White House chief of staff).
This ethnocentric hubris is disgusting, and I’m hardly the only one who thinks so. All the more so because Jewish Americans in powerful positions are pushing the country toward another war at Israel’s behest.
Our ‘meritocracy’ at work!