Chas Freeman vs Chuck Schumer is Hutus vs. Tutsis. They're from different tribes, in a power struggle for the American establishment. Schumer's is winning. Freeman's crowd, the bluebloods, have been pushed out. Schumer has tribal loyalties to the Jewish neoconservatives, and as Juan Cole says, they all have a black hole in their soul when it comes to Palestinians. Anyone who wants to change American policy is going to have a lot more traction with Freeman's tribe than Schumer's.
I agree–Schumer is a pain. Some facts you know already but to repeat the
painful reminders: together with Dianne Feinstein, Schumer gave us Michael
Mukasey as the replacement for Alberto Gonzales. (I see on Wikipedia that
Schumer also in 2003 submitted Mukasey's name to Bush as one of four
Republicans to consider for the Supreme Court.) Schumer and Feinstein crossed
over after a mysterious pause and broke the Democratic majority against Mukasey
on the Judiciary Committee; we still don't know why.
But Mukasey (I found many
people at the time didn't know this) is Jewish, a graduate of the Ramaz School,
where later his wife was the headmistress of the lower school; a devoted reader
of Commentary, adviser to the Giuliani presidential bid, along with others from Commentary,
and a backer of Joe Lieberman's
independent run against Ned Lamont.
Schumer, recall, was absurdly hospitable to
John Roberts too in the run-up to the confirmation hearings and in the hearings
themselves; cf. the idiotic remark "he is a Bills fan."
He is a perfect illustration of the syndrome you have described, whereby liberal
Jewish lawmakers and journalists keep neoconservative company and rub with their
policies and somehow that isn't counted anywhere in the bookkeeping.
Consider too that Schumer never showed up for Lamont in the '06 campaign. Lamont's people kept waiting for him. Schumer was the head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, whose job it was to get Dems in the Senate. Wasn't interested. Lamont is a WASP who was anti-Iraq war. Lieberman and Schumer and Bush were all in the war party. Hutus Tutsis.
