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…
