Ted Koppel
Last night on Hardball, Chris Matthews went to commercial after teasing his next segment– Ted Koppel on Super PACs. I turned to my wife and said, “Matthews wants to talk about Sheldon Adelson’s attachment to Israel, and why he gave $5 million to Newt Gingrich’s Super PAC. He can’t do it himself– but he can turn to a renowned and sagacious Jewish correspondent, and then Koppel can talk about it.”
After the commercial, Matthews did just what I predicted:
Sheldon Adelson is very pro-Israeli. No surprise. He has a cause. He`s one to double-down with one candidate, because he believes Israel, the state of Israel, is in danger.
That was the end of it. Koppel had a lot to say about how Super PACs work but nothing about Adelson’s agenda. Koppel backed away. The guy is all hat, no saddle. A pity– Chris Matthews is looking for some backup on an important issue.
P.S. On the Jewish identity front, Koppel is married to a Catholic and has written that he has four Catholic children. His son-in-law Ken Pollack, now head of the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution, helped pave the way to the Iraq war.
I thought Koppel was an interesting pick by Matthews to talk about Super Pacs. But not surprised one bit that Koppel did not take the bait. Koppel is so pro Israel no matter what they do he can barely see straight. Did you ever watch his unbiased (cough) documentary on Iran that he titled ” Iran the Most Dangerous Nation” What a neutral title..
His daughter is married to war mongering and USGov 2 in the Aipac investigation….Kenneth Pollack. Koppel is used as a pro Israel no matter what voice on NPR all of the time
Chris Matthews is stepping out on this issue further than any of the other MSNBCer sell outs. Although Matthews seems incapable of understanding why many anti unnecessary wars are temporarily supporting Rep Paul. Matthews always refers to Rep Paul as “irrelevant” and “does not matter”
Wish one of the MSMers would spend some time on South Carolinas education situation, poor wages , block against unions for decades and racism that is still rampant down there. Now it has been tempered due to some of the inserts from other states but believe me alive and well in that state. I have spent a fair amount of time in Charleston and in the interior of the state working for a few Dem candidates. And have been going to Charleson since 1976. Lots of white kids in private schools. Lots of maids etc making pathetic wages. Have talked with house maids who have worked for the same Charleston families for decades and still making the same wage that they made 30 years ago with no health care. When will the MSM dig a bit into the racism and economic disparity in that state.
Go check out some of the magazines that advertise homes for rent of sale out on the barrier islands and along the coast…all white. They do not even try to pretend to be diverse by false advertising. Keep in mind that African American communities were run out of those barrier islands to make room for mostly white peoples golf courses and expensive homes
People say politicians are by nature reactionary. Those that have not have tended to be fanatics, demagogues and dictators.
Journalists is a much more varied profession. You have intellectual journalists, writing for truth and not profit or prestige but these people are a minority and have always been there.
Orwell had enormous amounts of contempt not only for the established journalist class but also academia, who he saw as giving intellectual legitimacy for the current order.
Maybe he was onto to something. I’m not worried. Labor is up in the polls again, and how? By reaching out to settlers and haredim. That’s right, that’s how warped the political landscape is in Israel today. For a ‘leftist’ party, you want those haredim and settlers in your base.
Yair Lapid is a vapid opportunist who only wants to raise taxes a little bit. He is on record ranting about the ‘leftist media’ in a university lecture. His father was an arch-conservative who lives off demonizing the ultra-Orthodox, something Yair himself is starting to do.
In short: Israel is about to turn even more right-wing. I think that we’ll start seeing individual Arab MKs being denied entry to the knesset, culminating to the outlaw of most Arab parties save for a token one or two(but only if they are harmless) or some other way of breaking their influence.
Matthews can try to avoid the subject all he wants. He’ll be forced to raise it but perhaps he’ll do so once it’s already over. It’s too bad because the guy is really clever, and he strikes you as a guy who loves a heated, controversial argument. But deep down perhaps he is a coward, after all, prestige and profit over truth?
Several years ago I watched Koppel interview Hamas political leader Khaled Meshal on “Nightline.” Meshal stated flatly that the Israelis had murdered Arafat–and Koppel did not ask a follow-up question! even though he was interviewing someone the Israelis acknowledged they had tried to poison (that would be the fiasco in Amman, when King Hussein insisted Netanyahu provide the antidote if Israel wanted its Mossad agents back).
So much for “professional” journalism.
You have a sagacious prescience for things Jewish, not necessarily Israeli.
So Why does the press all of a sudden have the permission to speak the unspeakable? It’s really important for Chris Mathews to come out on this issue finally and lay it out as professionally as possible.
Is it just politics?