Grasping at Straws

As the clock ticks down to November 4th, polls of the nationwide constituency and polls targeting American Jews predict a disastrous loss for the McCain-Palin ticket. In response, some Republican Jewish activists are scraping the bottom of the barrel to find a few more ways to smear Senator Barack Obama.

Typical of this genre of attack pieces is a recent column in the National Review Online written by Mona Charen. Charen uses all of the tools in her arsenal-- guilt by association, half truths, and out right falsehoods-- to incite fear among Jewish voters and to express her disappointment in them.

A partial review of Charen's tawdry tactics, accompanied by some factual responses, illustrates how desperate some McCain supporters have become.

1) Charen begins her column by describing a twenty-three-year-old Gazan who is "excited about the prospect of an Obama presidency."

If she believes that such anecdotal stories provide American Jews with hard evidence of Obama's own sympathies, then perhaps she should also write about the support from an Al Qaeda web site for Senator John McCain. According to this radical Islamist platform, "Al Qaeda will have to support McCain in the coming election."

2) Charen tells her readers that Obama has anti-Israel sentiments.

Charen and her fellow right-wing smear mongers cannot find one single public statement in Obama's long career that supports her contention that Obama has "anti-Israel sentiments." Instead, they piece together snippets of Obama's statements to make pro-Israel sentiments appear anti-Israel (see below).

3) Charen quotes Obama as saying, "Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people."

Obama made these remarks in the context of saying that the suffering of the Palestinians could be eased if the Palestinian leadership renounces terrorism. He believes "that in the end, the Palestinian people are suffering from the Hamas-led government's refusal to renounce terrorism and join as a real partner in the peace process."

4) Charen implies that Columbia University professor and Palestinian activist, Rashid Khalidi, is a political ally of Obama's. Charen also charges that a non-profit board on which Obama served awarded a $75,000 grant to one of Khalidi's foundations.

According to a CNN's "Fact Check," "...the two men strongly disagree over the Israeli-Palestinian issue and there's no evidence of a continuing political relationship."

Moreover, Charen is well aware that McCain served as the Chair of the International Republican Institute when that non-profit made several grants to a Khalidi foundation. For example, a 1998 filing showed this McCain-led group gave a $448,873 grant to Khalidi's Center for Palestine Research and Studies for work in the West Bank.

5) Charen ends her hit piece by returning to Farrakhan and Wright to highlight Obama's associations.

Guilt by association is the cheapest trick in the political hit man's arsenal. Guilt by association is a very poor measuring stick by which to judge a candidate's pro-Israel bona fides; there are literally thousands of individuals who are associated with a modern American presidential campaign. This makes it incredibly easy for an opposition researcher to sift through these supporters and come up with a handful of objectionable individuals.

If McCain supporters in the Jewish community level guilt by association charges at Obama, then how do they explain McCain's choice of James Baker as the person who he'd pick as his Middle East envoy? How do they address McCain's statement that he would turn to James Baker, Brent Scowcroft, or Zbigniew Brezinski as foreign policy advisors? How do they square McCain's appointment of Fred Malek, the individual who helped President Nixon target for firing Jewish employees of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as his campaign's National Finance Co-Chair?

Alluding to Jewish voter naïveté, Charen concludes her piece by saying, "Someone is making a big mistake." The big mistake this election cycle was made by many Jewish supporters of McCain. They believed that repeating one lie after another would sway the Jewish vote. If we can believe the latest polls, their gambit has failed and probably has backfired.

Follow Ira Forman on Twitter: www.twitter.com/NJDC

Comments

[newzzzjunkie]

The Democrats are for all the people, for the underdogs, for the minorities, for justice in an unjust world. The Democrats are for healthcare and for women's rights and veteran's rights, for the elderly and the sick and our children's future. The Republican party is full of bigots and selfish corporate types and the wealthy. How can any Jew be a Republican is beyond me!

Obama/Biden '08/12

[nk007]

Mr. Forman:

Thank you for your excellent article. Republicans are so used to fooling people who do not pay attention to the facts by constantly repeating lies and smears in the hopes that will believethe lies and smears to be true. Someone ought to ask Ms Charen if it is fair, and legitimate, to lebel Senator McCain as a racist segregationist. After all, he is a friend and a colleague of Trent Lott, who believes that the country would have ben better off had racist segregationist, Strom Thurmond been elected President 1n 1948. He was a colleague and friend of segregationist late Senator Jesse Helms. And how about Sarah Palin's friendship with members of Alaska Independent party that includes her husband? Should we infer that Sarah Palin is a secessionist, who endorses violence against the United States? Is her husband a patriot? If so, how come he joined a party that preaches disloyalty to the United States? If she disapproves of his secessionist views how come she is still married to him? Doesn't she have a choice?

[knowBuddhaU]

Thanks, my brother. Charen's looks, to me, like a textbook psy op hit piece.

What are the hallmarks of the Bush-APA Torture Doctrine? Isolation and psycho-spiritual attacks. We've weaponized that which makes us human.

Did you see the movie, _White Squall_? On a plaque below the ship's bell was inscribed the best phrase I've ever read: "Where we go one, we go All."

Where we smear one, we smear All. That last line is an attempt to isolate the reader and implode your psyche with a nuclear guilt bomb.

Until we get beyond the absolute dualism of 'Us Good Guys Here' vs. 'Them Evil-Doers Over There,' we'll be doomed to repeating the wars of the past.

[[[Absolute Supremacy / The Commons///­[[[{{{Abso­lute Subjugatio­n}}}]]]]]]

The brackets and slashes represent the walls we hide behind, including the most fundamental wall of all: the self / other divide. As you can plainly see, a dominant group asserts privileged access to the Commons, simultaneously denying access to an underclass. Substitute any wall (Berlin Wall, Israel's Apartheid Wall, a Klansman's hood, etc.), any dom/sub pairing you like.

beloved/UN­ION/Belove­d is our more perfect Union.

Until we include all of us in at least one group, the dread methods of _dividum et imperium_ will continue to succeed.

[betz55]

We are being blackmailed by a country that has an illegal nuclear arsenal, no regard for international law, Geneva conventions, apartheid behavior, or their own terrorism and are demanding that sanctions be imposed on Iran for pursuing its inalienable right within the framework of the NPT.

If Obama is interested in "change" we can believe in, he needs to "change" the same old rhetoric, dogmatic, unquestioned, unconditional support of Israel. Level the playing field and be an honest broker of the "change" he is espousing.

I will be proud of the day when the President puts the interest of America before the interest of Israel and not be crucified for it. It's a shame that American politicians are selected, not on their commitment to the best interests of America, but by vowing to put the interests of a foreign nation, Israel, first. The oath of allegiance that I said everyday in school was not to Israel, but the US.

A true "friend" of Israel would say this: end the occupation of the West Bank, stop repressing the legitimate national aspirations of the Palestinians, stop warmongering. The time has come for the US to stop pandering to Israel and it's destructive, belligerent, failed policies. And cut off their "aid" until they do so.

Why is Israel allowed to lay waste to every international law and convention without criticism and their "enemies" - any one against Israel's failed policies and are not entitled to raise a hand in their own defense ?

[Grada3784]

American and Israeli politicians would do well to study the situation of Rome in the 1860's. Napoleon III was able to assure that Rome would remain in the hands of the papacy, but only until he had to fight the Prussians. Then he withdrew his troops and Rome was incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy.

[krocklin]

It was reported this morning that the McCain campaign has alleged that Obama's mother wore army boots.

Obama spokesmen deny the charges as more desperate last minute name-calling.

However, McCain spokesmen say that video evidence showing Obama's mother wearing army boots is being suppressed by the L.A. Times.

The merits of these charges will be discussed exhaustively by pundits from both sides on all media outlets until the day of the election

[AbstractImp]

It is interesting how so many of the "arguments" from the dark side collapse upon the simple presentation of facts.

[gurukalehuru]

That, and Sarah Silverman, gives us Florida.

[DevilsLawyer]

What can I say? Bravo, sir.