Yeah, and the Republicans will do the same. The Clintons are just like the Republicans in that all they care about is preserving the status quo and taking care of their own. Entitled to power, and holding on to it no matter what.

If you read either Horse's Mouth or Salon's War Room you would know that the "shucking and jiving" comment had nothing to do with Obama. The smear is of Cuomo, not Obama.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Of course it's a phony issue.  But that doesn't mean it's not a political liability.  Campaigns have been brought down on much less than this.

Surely you can't believe that if a politician belonged to a church that had a neo-Nazi speak, he or she wouldn't have a problem.  Of course they'd have a problem, regardless of how great a candidate they were.

mjrosenberg,

I have no idea if his church honored Farrakhan.

So far, searching the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times turns up nothing.  The only places I've found any corroboration of the Farrakhan claim are NewsMax and the Council of Conservative Citizens.  I may not know bupkes, but I'm pretty confident in my skepticism about this one.

"Because of the Minister's (Farrakhan) influence in the African-American community, Trumpet Newsmagazine honors him this winter at its Sounds of the Shore gala with an Empowerment Award.  It seemed a fitting tribute for a storied life well lived."  Trumpet, November/December 2007

Trumpet Newsmagazine is Obama's church's publication. 

Cheers MJ for coming out against the old guilt-by-association muck-rake.

In a different way, I may have engaged in guilt-by-association thinking by implication when I commented in another post that I'd like to know the percentages (not a name list) of Jewish American surnames among journalists (editors & publishers).

My premise was, if there is a disproportion between an ethnicity's population representation and representation in the Fourth Estate, a study of media bias for that ethnicity and against its historic opponents would be warranted. I specifically speculated whether there may be a larger number of Jewish Americans coming out for Hillary Clinton in NH's urban areas because of a fear of Obama's early links to Islam.

My comment prompted an individual to call me a bigot. I railed against that because I'm not. On the other hand, I am sometimes a critic of things I see without much sensitivity for who I might offend. And criticism is a form of judgment. And judging, if it is imprecise as to scope and not experienced with those impliedly criticized, can be pre-judgment, i.e. prejudice. Does an error by failure to qualify the scope of a suspicion equal bigotry? I don't think it does. I think it equals a failure to qualify one's comment. But of course I'd want to see it that way. I implied a judgment of suspicion that an ethnic group might abuse a professional presence by collusion as warranting a study.

I qualified it in later comments and by referring to previous posts in which I filled out wider views on why I think an Israeli state is a reasonable mode of self-protection and so on. Also, I implied that transparency about it would have a positive and protective quality against those who would ask the question with persecution in mind.

However, your counterexample to the implied suspicion, showing a Jewish American journalist not obeying the call of Mr. Dinerstein and / or other similar examples is a check on my implied suspicion showing its opposite.

I appreciate your post, your civil libertarian guts and the humbling nature of these revelations inasmuch as they apply to my implied suspicion in the other post.

Also, I bristled in one of your posts of the other day at the term used in one of your commenters comments, "righteous gentile." I did so because I took it to imply that those not so-designated could be assumed not to be. Although there are likely other alternatives to that view, but I bristled instead. The humility in some of your views and comments, and your magnanimity are exemplary.

Thank you for that, and the fact that you do interact with your commenters.

Yes, the flyer has a nice Rovian flair and I agree that the best response to Republican garbage is to ignore it. But some of these smear campaigns in the months to come will have to be addressed and countered. The big Republican smears to come will be bad and nationwide and spread through the MSM.

Still, Ellen is asking about the factual assertions in the attack. What is the basis of the attack, race-baiting and name-calling aside? It is obviously a racist appeal. Conflating David Duke and Cynthia McKinney narrows the audience to those it is targeting. But are the facts true and are they any kind of proof positive of racism or anti-Semitism?

I would go further and ask, if the quotes are true, how are they a slur? Obama’s minister referred to “Israel as an apartheid state and calling for a boycott of Israel as punishment for its treatment of the oppressed Palestinians.” An Islamo-fascist if ever there was one. Obama himself said Palestinians are "(t)he most oppressed people on earth." Mercy. Is this guy a commie or what?

Of course, this is a targeted smear like telling South Carolinians McCain fathered a black child. My point is, out of the unlimited weapons available to assassinate a character, how much damage could this do? Are Jewish-Americans going to vote for any of the candidates because of their AIPAC speeches? Is the rest of America going to run screaming down the cul de sac when they receive these flyers? Frankly, I don’t see someone with sympathy for the plight of Palestinians as a devil, but that’s just me.

I posted below about Obama’s flip-flop on the I-P issue, but I don’t really even factor that in when assessing his candidacy (though I do note his subtle threats towards Iran and his Israeli-centric view of the M.E.). Honestly, I think the I-P issue should be off the table in the campaign anyway because candidates have all bowed to AIPAC.

There are other red flags for me about Obama, and for that matter, about Hillary and Edwards, too. All of the candidates have compromised during their careers and all are taking acceptable, draw-the-most voters positions now in an attempt to get in the WH door. The trick is to figure out what they will do when they close that door behind them.

Added: Having said too much already, I saw a diferent email posted below that is nothing but racist bullshit (Obama is a radical Muslim stuff). To be clear, I do think that kind of crap should be trashed immediately.

Huckabee's achille's heel (if there is a god)  is his own mouth, and  all of his many quotes, giving his pronouncements on gays, abortion, phone calls from god, immigration, and his complete ignorance and lack of interest in foreign affairs. 

The guy is a complete nutcase, but does the MSM challenge anything he has said?

Achilles -  A Greek God.  Blasphemy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 Jan

In the general election Huckabee's church is going to be more than his Achille's heal. His idea that this is a Christian Nation is horrific.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

Exactly.

argumentum ad ignorantiam

Commonly in an Argument from Ignorance, the speaker considers or asserts that something is false, implausible, or not obvious to them personally and attempts to use this gap in knowledge as "evidence" in favor of an alternative view of her or his choice.

Maybe this isn't a newspaper, but people have the right to expect a modicum of journalistic integrity. If MJ Rosenberg is claiming there is a campaign against Obama in the Jewish community, he should focus on some basics: who, what, where, why and when.

I get out a lot MJ. And I ask you sir, have you any sense of decency?

Bruce S. Levine
New York, New York

You're too articulate to be naive, so by a process of deduction I have to conclude that you're a tacit supporter of the smear campaign. Disgusting. Or perhaps you have a reading comprehension problem; MJ said a segment of the Jewish community, not the entire community. IE the right wing pro republican segment. For my money - your segment Mr Levine.

Now shower me with your phony outrage.