Tom Davis: Bad For The Jews
Anti-anti-semites should not only be troubled by the "interesting" rhetorical tropes used in the Republican campaign against George Soros, but should also take note of who the latest anti-Soros effort is designed to benefit. That would be Fred Malek head of the Washington Baseball Club who, as Tom Noah reminds us has a troubled history with the Jews. Sally Jenkins went through the details on this in the Post, but the basic outline of the plot is that when Richard Nixon wanted someone to draw up a list of all the Jews in the Bureau of Labor Statistics in order to suss out some kind of Jewish cabal that was out to get them, Malek was put in charge and complied with the request. He was, as they say, only following orders, but still. . . .
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but should also take note of who the latest anti-Soros effort is designed to benefit.
I'm going to disagree with both you and Josh as to the source of this particular problem. You say Malek, Josh says the R House Caucus.
Think it through tho: what man do we know of, who is immensely powerful in R circles, who could make the entire R house caucus ssing in tune, who used to head a baseball team, who is sorta simple-minded when you get down to it, and before his previous political office had as his life ambition becoming Commissioner of Baseball? And who will be retiring come 2009 from his current job at the age of 62 (or 63, whatever) and will undoubtably want to spend his retirement years with the sport he loves...as commissioner. George Soros totally hates this guy, and this guy knows it, and is undoubtably very unhappy at the prospect of having to deal with Soros for years and years in his new job (which I'll betcha he is pretty sure he's going to get the job). And who hasn't said a word about this here baseball anti-trust exemption/Soros thing or anything else about it.
Yeah. That guy. So anyways, they are undoubtably uttering threats as a pure intimidation tactic (no rule of law involved) as our pal there already has a coupla baseball owners in his pocket. All he needs is to get 1/3 of the owners lined up agin Soros and Soros can't buy in.
And of course this Malek dude wants in.
This is more along the lines of Soros is a bad bad man and a liberal, what horrible things can we say about him?
Kinda like, 'Buy Ann Coulters New Book, get a free Elders of Zion poster inside!'.
ash
['If'n he was Hindu they'd be bitching that he wore diapers and stuff...']
June 30, 2005 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
No small number of Nazi officials were put to death for "just following" similar "orders." Not to suggest that anything like a Nazi could exist in the United States. Anymore. Ever.
Where's the outrage?
June 30, 2005 2:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
Could you expand on how Davis is "bad for the Jews" as you stated in your title. In a Google search, I could only find this one quote, which is taken from Davis's website:
October 30, 2003
Congressman Tom Davis offered the following statement on the House floor today:
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.Res. 409, and to join my colleagues in repudiating Dr. Mahathir Mohamad for his recent comments made to the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
It is distressing to me that an individual such as Dr. Mohamad often portrayed as a moderate Muslim leader would feel the need to issue what I view as a call to arms to the Muslim world. In doing so, his characterization of Jews as vast cabal that rules the world by proxy serves no constructive purpose whatsoever. Rather, it merely perpetuates hateful and destructive millennia-old stereotypes that have long made Jewish people scapegoats for any number of societal ills.
I call upon my colleagues to join me in condemning the anti-Semitic comments of Dr. Mohamed, and I echo the language of H.Res. 409 in calling on the European Union to also repudiate these remarks. I thank Mr. Blunt for his leadership in bringing this timely resolution to the floor, and urge my fellow members to give it their full support.
Now, I've been around long enough to know that the above might indeed fall under the category of covering one's butt, but the only other thing that I could find was references to Davis' representation of Muslim causes, but could find nop specifics, and being pro-Muslim is not necessarily the same as being anti-Semitic.
Every instance of anti-Semitism should be brought to public attention, and the public should condemn it. However, that charge should be documented, not inferred. So, I get back to my starting request. Could you expand on how Davis is "bad for the Jews" as you stated in your title (and I realize that the term "anti-Semitic was not used in the title, but it was inferred by the opening word of your comments).
I'm not defending Davis, by the way. I know little or nothing about him, except that he is a Republican from Virginia. I am defending the seriousness of using the word anti-Semitism, because it should never be used lightly or regarded lightly. Being an anti-Semite is one of the worst things that I can think of being called, or being, especially in light of recent history, so I think we should be extra careful not to use the term carelessly and thus dilute its meaning.
That's why I'm asking for clarification.
June 30, 2005 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fred Malek is the founder of D.C.'s Thayer Capital, a private equity firm. Before that, he helped run The Carlyle Group, which has actually become a really good private equity firm of late with $30 billion under management and a portfolio that actually stretches far beyond defense and its old political connections.
One of the ways that Carlyle grew out of being a penny ante D.C. operation that survived only because of its government connections was to start raising money from sources that would lend it respectability.
The first sign of Carlyle's transformation was... a $100 million investment from George Soros.
June 30, 2005 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I could not agree more. Anyone who criticizes George Soros is clearly an anti-Semite, anti-Israel, and favors the loss of our homes on the West Bank and Gaza.
The Los Angeles Times piece this week was pure rubbish. More of our enemies at work.
Long live George Soros and websites like this one that speak only the truth!
June 30, 2005 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wait a sec. I thought that the Democrats were the anti-semites. Somebody better go tell Kenny.
June 30, 2005 4:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
So George Soros owning a baseball team = good for the Jews?
More likely, Tom Davis: Bad for a particular Jew.
Because, as we all know, Jewish billionaire currency speculators who manipulate markets in a Muslim country for their own personal gain reflects very well on the community as a whole.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=19990920&s=baker
George Soros does a lot of good. That is undeniable. But he is also a huge hypocrite, and the issue here is that Davis and other Republicans may be trying to bar ownership of the team based on politics and trying to hook up a similalry comtemptible crony at the same time.
/I know you were just trying to be flip.
June 30, 2005 4:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have never understood why Democrats don't brag about having Soros an boards, instead of being ashamed of him. I can see that old-style populist Democrats might not feel good about a currency trader, but those guys have been driven from the party already. Yes, Soros is an international currency trader with a thick accent, but Republicans are pro-Jew and pro-business, so they're cool with Soros in those respects. (/ heavy-handed sarcasm)
June 30, 2005 4:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Jew" must be the new one word way to end conversations, just like "Nazi" used to be used on the Internet for similar results. I'm not making any kind of snide implication between the two terms by the way. I am however saying that since anytime anyone says anything negative about Israel, the fact that there really is something called anti-Semitism is sort of non sequitor given that most people accused of it are just being labled in order to shut them up of their anti-Israel opinions.
June 30, 2005 4:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
In the case of Soros, the anti-Semitism was differently motivated. Soros is a non-observant, non-Zionist Jew and has gotten flak for the reason.
With Soros, the criticism takes the form "cosmopolitan international currency trader". Words I've seen actually used about him, and accurate words, but also traditional anti-Semitic code words, like Farrakhan's "diamond merchant".
Al the resident troll here has been on the anti-Soros bandwagon, supporting Mahathir: "Soros earned [his money] by bankrupting proverty-stricken countries. Soros takes from the extreme poor and gives to himself." (In point of fact, Soros got himself established by betting against the English pound -- not exactly an impoverished nation.)
I documented a lot of the Soros stuff here:
http://seetheforest.blogspot.com/2004_08_01_seetheforest_archive.
html#109387758902294735
and here: http://seetheforest.blogspot.com/2004_08_01_seetheforest_archive.
html#109382393631411505
June 30, 2005 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah didn't a lot of the "Soros rips off poor Muslim countries" BS start when The Indonesians (or was it the Malaysians?) tried to blame their economic collapse on him. Basically trying to divert attention from the fact that it was the internal government corruption more than anything else that was the problem?
June 30, 2005 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Tom Davis has delusions of grandeur. Some major league baseball club owners are Republicans, some are Democrats, some, like George Steinbrenner, bribe both sides as the need arises.
None of 'em take well to threats, and all of them see ANY member of Congress as hired help, somewhere above the pool boy but well below the teaching pro.
All the owners have to do is say "we can't do business in DC with Davis around" and his constituents will lynch him, at least as long as the Nats remain in first place.
June 30, 2005 5:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
The anti-Semitism directed at Soros has been on the record for years now from the rabid right, this is nothing new. They constantly accuse Soros as being "European" and "One of those money traders without morals". They might as well call him Judas.
In a bit of irony, the Biblical family that was the sworn enemy of the Jews was named "Amalek."
June 30, 2005 5:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yep, you're right, and those economies were over-valued, in a market sense, at the time. Malaysia is also a big boom markt right now, things come and go. Soros was also blamed by the British for the fall of the pound, and, yes, he made a billion dollars on the bet but that was a rounding error compared to the size of the British economy at the time. Soros has traded currencies and made maco-economic bets. But, the way I see it, he bet correctly, he didn't cause his bets to be correct.
Right now, Warren Buffett, who is considered a saint of American capitalism, and in many ways he's much better than his peers, has a much larger bet against the American dollar than any bet Soros ever made against any country. He's not denounced as a traitor (not should he be).
June 30, 2005 5:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
1. This is about a major liberal player getting a prize in the nation's capital. It would have been much different if he acquired a team in the West Coast or Midwest.
2. Soros is not an observant Jew nor a Zionist nor a supporter of the State of Israel. Some would argue that he is a "self-hating Jew."
3. Here is another take on it "George Soros To Acquire Washington's National TRrust - Congress, Sen. McCain's Fee Is Negotiable"
at http://satire.myblogsite.com/blog June 27, 2005 article
June 30, 2005 6:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
For some reason many critics of Soros always seem to ignore the work that he has done in Easter and Central Europe in support of democracy, a free press, etc. I guess that they aren't so excited about his "Open Society". See what happens when you help try and spread democracy around the world peacefully, they don't let you own a baseball team in DC.
June 30, 2005 6:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey, conservatives don't loathe George Soros because he's Jewish. They loathe him because he's an atheist and Jewish.
That should clear up the whole controversy.
June 30, 2005 8:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think Tom Davis is bad for everybody. Whatever his motivations, and I will defer to other's who likely hear code words I don't, he is abusing his power. I cannot get used to the brash open way these GOPers use their power to satisfy their private agendas. The worst is that they don't seem to pay a price for it. Nobody seems to notice -- or care.
My guess is that if Soros were a Republican, Tom'd probably be trying to make him a deal and take a cut. I'd bet this is much more about politics and money than bigotry. You're just hearing Davis's latent racist attitude coming out. Something he is too tone-deaf to appreciate. But then I may be tone-deaf myself.
June 30, 2005 11:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
It should not be difficult for Democrats to make political hay out of this. This is assuming that any of us have any media savvy, which I am increasingly beginning to question. What we're talking here is a naked attempt by Congress to politicize baseball. This kind of meddling in a private business violates all of the Republicans' own stated basic principles as well. And that's without even getting into the anti-Semitism angle. This is the kind of crap one would expect in a Third World country. Telling someone they can't buy a business because they belong to the opposing party? We should be trumpeting this from the rooftops.
July 1, 2005 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink