This is interesting. Take a breath, and connect the dots in this post.
Yesterday we ran a post on Rush Limbaugh, by the assidulous FE Felson, who had dug up a 2007 speech where Rush said that he had gone to Israel in 1994 at the behest of Israel lobbyist Malcolm Hoenlein.
The post prompted the following note from another friend:
"Excellent and revealing
item on Limbaugh. It sheds light on the peculiarly soft profile of Limbaugh that was
published by the New York Times Magazine on July 6, 2008, by Zev Chafets, former director of the government press office under Menachem Begin and
an extreme Israel chauvinist.
"The Times did not do that unknowingly. Already in
the weeks before they had triangulated against Obama by endorsing Hillary
Clinton and John McCain: the only time the paper ever endorsed a candidate in
both major parties. Think what it meant to assign the Limbaugh profile to this
man, and look at what he made of it–the closest Rush Limbaugh has ever come to
legitimation by the mainstream media. Chafets would likely have known about the
Hoenlein-Limbaugh connection and the Israel trip.
"The Times was kind to Rush for a reason."
I showed this note to Felson, who agreed with the analysis, and noted that Chafets wrote another kind piece about a rightwinger, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, in the New York Times Magazine in 2007. Felson added:
In early 2007, Chafets published A Match Made In Heaven, in which he called for a partnership between American Jews and the Christian right so as to serve Israel's political ends in the U.S. And within a year or so, Chafets lands two NYT mag cover stories, each a warm and fuzzy profile of a right-wing leader.
It's classic: The stories say virtually nothing about Israel, but in a way, they're all about Israel.
Chafets also had a chat with Haaretz, in which he urged Jews to be nicer to the religious right.Here's the money quote:
Also, try this one:
and this:
One last point: In Irreconcilable Differences, the superb book on American Jewish attachment to Israel by sociologist Steven Rosenthal, Hoenlein's group, the Conference of Presidents, is said to have been formed 50 years ago for "coordination of lobbying and propaganda."
