Jewish Republicans Target Bonior While NY Times Renounces Its Own Op-Ed On Obama and Islam
It was nice waking up to today's New York Times to read a full-blown repudiation by its public editor (i.e. by the Times itself) on a libelous piece it ran by neocon Edward Luttwak on May 12. That piece argued that under Islamic law Obama was an apostate and that therefore would be the target of Muslim assassins. It was a crazy piece, and it was amazing to see it in the Times. (Why would they publish a piece by a neoconservative on Islamic theology? That's like publishing a piece by Pat Buchanan on Jewish dietary laws).
Anyway, it was all lies. And today the Times flatout admitted it in a long apologia.
The Luttwak hit job was part of the anti-Obama campaign that is emanating from the tiny right wing of the Jewish community. It's pretty intense. The haters are out in full force, exploiting racism and legitimate worries about Israel's security in an effort to elect McCain and preserve a neoconservative foreign policy.
Now they are going after David Bonior.
Bonior, a long-time liberal Congressman from Michigan, ran the Edwards campaign and has now come over to Obama.
It turns out, at least according to the Republican Jewish Coalition, that Bonior deviated repeatedly from the line on the Middle East. Although not much of a player on foreign policy issues in the House (nor is he handling that portfolio for Obama), he was a supporter of the two-state solution and spoke out against human rights violations by all sides.
Uh oh. Enemy of the Jews! Call grandma in Dade County!!!!
It's a pattern, in case you haven't noticed. Every person hired by Obama, or who endorses him, has to be vetted on this one issue. Is he kosher on Israel?
No other issue is used this way.
It so happens that Bonior is anti-choice. I'm sure that his record on abortion displeases NARAL and NOW. But I doubt there will be a campaign against Obama based on that issue. Why not? Beause Obama is pro-choice, so NARAL and NOW are not going to smear Obama because one of his aides isn't. Also, neither NOW nor NARAL want McCain to win.
Obama also is pro-Israel. so are all his foreign policy people (even if a few of them actually would prefer to see Israel at peace rather than engaged in endless war).
In other words, the whole Israel issue is a total phony.
Bonior is a good guy, a liberal, and a fighter. He is exactly the kind of person Obama needs to help run his campaign.
As to grandma and her friends in Dade County, just tell her she's being lied to and duped by Republicans. It won't be the first time. Or the last. (Pssst. Have you heard that Obama once had a legislative assistant who is married to a guy whose sister's husband used to...)
Comments (25)
I hope the NYT will apologize for their months of spam, under the guise of political coverage. The paper has never missed an opportunity to distort "news" to hurt Clinton and favor Obama. They haven't had a respectable piece of journalism in the political section in months.
June 1, 2008 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
The facts are biased, you idiot.
If the only news source that you think is accurate is FOX News, then you have an incorrect opinion.
And don't try to give me any of that "fair and balanced" crap, as I've been trying to get them to cover Norris design for years (there is no theory of evolution, only animals Chuck Norris allows to live).
June 2, 2008 12:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Slumlord, wherefore art thou?
June 2, 2008 12:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Could someone please vet this posting I read, from a viewer's comments:
"I see many Clinton supporters blaming Obama supporters for not voting for Obama. Have you forgotten that the Republican Party is essentially a men's club? Have you forgotten that McCain's temper made him call his own wife the C-word in public? McCain while in the Navy had a reputation as soliciting prostitutes in every port. He has a horrible record in voting for woman's rights and issues. Decide what you will but don't make McCain out to be a champion for woman when his whole career showed he was not"
Some light scrutiny from the Los Angeles Times online newspaper: "When John McCain arrived in the Valley of the Sun nearly three decades ago, he was weighed down with enough negatives to sink most budding politicians. Some Arizonans dismissed him as a carpetbagger shopping for an available House seat -- and a future in Washington politics. Others were annoyed that he had left the wife who waited valiantly for his return from a Hanoi prison, and that he had then married a much younger bride. His political opponents derided his marriage into Arizona's Hensley beer distributor fortune as a "money-in-law" arrangement to boost his campaign coffers."
June 1, 2008 10:51 AM | Reply | Permalink
The personal attacks on his behavior with women may be true, but don't seem fair as political fare to me. What about Bill Clinton. His behavior is far more than rumor in his treatment of woman.
June 1, 2008 11:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
In some ways, but I'd say that leaving a loyal wife for a bank account with a body is a worse act.
June 2, 2008 12:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Character counts."
June 2, 2008 10:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
The decline of the editorial page at the Times is so sad, isn't it?
I've read the paper at breakfast most of my life, but just recently
gave up my subscription in protest of that decline. I wouldn't have if I couldn't read it online I suppose. I want to support the journalists there under the gun--but enough is enough. I'm not going to be part of their readership base till they turn things around. Makes you miss so many fine writers, James Reston among them, though even as a teenager I most often disagreed with him.
June 1, 2008 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
MJ, one point I have to take issue with you on: The Times did not admit anything, and did not apologize; Clark Hoyt did. He does not speak for the Times or its editors; in fact, if you read the story you'll see that David Shipley, the Op-Ed editor, defends Luttwak's ravings.
When and if the editors post a correction, or an editor's note, or something like that, then you're free to say the Times has apologized, but not until then. (And, may I suggest, don't hold your breath.)
June 1, 2008 1:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wish that that were true. The Public Editor, Clark Hoyt detailed why the piece was wrong but suggested that the Op/Ed staff did not agree.
"Shipley, the Op-Ed editor, said he regretted not urging Luttwak to soften his language about possible assassination, given how sensitive the subject is. But he said he did not think the Op-Ed page was under any obligation to present an alternative view, beyond some letters to the editor."
So presenting Luttwak as an expert representing information and analysis whiteout doing any fact-checking is just fine with Shipley, minor language issues notwithstanding.
June 1, 2008 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for correcting my optimism. You are right. The Times didn't apologize. It just explained why it should!
June 1, 2008 1:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
And someday, you'll learn that an apologia -- your term -- doesn't equate to an "apology." Indeed, it's much more the antithesis thereof.
June 3, 2008 9:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
kudos for the catch. An apologia is a defense or justification for something.
June 3, 2008 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
Many years ago I subscribed to the Christian Science Monitor. One issue ran a by-lined article on the plight of the Palestinian people, with absolutely no mention of Israelis or Jews or even what had led to it.
Within days, perhaps the same Jewish faction as mentioned in Mr. Rosenberg's post sent out a mass-mailing to any Jews who might subscribe to the Monitor to immediately cancel their subscriptions.
I've neither forgotten the article nor have I forgotten the unjustified reaction it evoked.
June 1, 2008 1:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
To paraphrase the late, great, Mike Royko, "no self-respecting fish would be wrapped in the New York Times editorial pages!" Peddling Nuttwak's and Kristol's garbage is supposed to be "fairness"? Bull puckey!!
June 2, 2008 8:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm having trouble reconciling,
...with,
Yes, the right wing of the Jewish community is tiny. Yes, there are right wingers in the Jewish community that enable this kind of anti-liberal propaganda. Yes, it is disgusting the way Republicans use Jewish concerns for a political football. But it is difficult to grasp how the anti-Obama campaign "emanates" from within Jewish community while "the whole Israel issue is a total phony."
June 2, 2008 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
During his Congressional career, David Bonior repeatedly opposed pro-Israel legislation. In 1997, David Bonior was one of 15 Congressmen who signed a letter asking then-President Clinton to pressure Israelis into making concessions to the Palestinians. In 2002, David Bonior was one of only 21 Congressmen who opposed H.R. 392, which publicly affirmed Congress's support of Israel's right to self-defense and called for the dismantling of the Palestinian terrorist infrastructure. In 1990, David Bonior was one of only 34 Congressman to vote against a measure naming Jerusalem as the united capital of Israel. In 1989, Bonior was one of six House members to vote against a bill that prevented US funds from going to UN entities that granted the PLO membership. Throughout his career, Bonior repeatedly opposed US aid to Israel and supported arms sales to Arab states opposed to Israel's existence.
David Bonior: an M.J. Rosenberg kind of guy.
As was Yasser Arafat...
June 2, 2008 12:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
As an American Jew, I agree with Bonior on all of the so-called negatives about Mr. Bonior that you bring up, even though some of them are couched in such nonspecific terms that your arguments are either fairly meaningless or simply bias against Bonior, or both.
For instance, Jerusalem should be the capital of BOTH Israel and a contiguous Palestine.
We SHOULD have supported the UN's affiliation with charitable organizations associated with the PLO.
We SHOULD not continue to support Israel with billions of free dollars and unlimited loans for weapons systems that are never intended to be repaid, especially as it occupies and punishes an entire people.
We SHOULD support Israel when it does the RIGHT things only!
June 2, 2008 7:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
The New York Times does not value reasoned discussion. It hasn't for a long time. So much is clear.
They value partisan advocacy indifferent to any basis in fact.
It really is unfortunate, because their advocates only speak to their choirs - not convincing anyone of anything really - just amplifying idiocy.
I think there HAS to be a market for straight-news - and reasoned analysis. The NYT doesn't think so though.
June 2, 2008 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
lapiltz,
America should support Israel against those explicitly committed to reprising the Holocaust, although "Jews" like you doubtlessly disagree.
June 2, 2008 9:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
" . . . a full-blown repudiation by its public editor (i.e. by the Times itself) on a libelous piece it ran by neocon Edward Luttwak on May 12."
It's not clear to me whether MJ's 1:41 p.m. post -- "Thanks for correcting my optimism. You are right. The Times didn't apologize. It just explained why it should!" -- actually gets to the essence of the earlier comments: the public editor in no ways speaks for the NYTimes.
June 2, 2008 9:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
I know nothing of David Bonior's legislative record. In fact, if asked "Who is David Bonior" before reading these comments I'd probably not have had any idea. But assuming without conceding that Bob Lane's list of Bonior's votes is accurate, I'm compelled to ask, What's the problem?
June 2, 2008 9:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yeah but check out the NYT today reporting on
McCain at AIPAC
`McCain sharpens his foreign policy attacks on Obama'
then contrast it with this report at Daily Kos
McCain's Slam Of Obama At AIPAC Backfires. Proposes Same Sanctions Obama Proposed Last Year
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/6/2/19550/30100
Sickening. Is the NYT trying to ensure that they don't again get blocked from a key McCain event?
June 3, 2008 4:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
McCain was just the opening act. Obama addresses the conference tomorrow on its final day.
June 3, 2008 3:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Fran -- What I find sickening is not what Kos says or what the NYTimes says, but -- if it's true -- that "Obama Proposed Last Year" the "Same Sanctions" that McCain "proposes" this year.
How is it good news that Obama is not only as big a panderer as McCain -- he panders in exactly the same words, a year sooner?
June 3, 2008 12:19 PM | Reply | Permalink