The Rabbi, the Terrorist, and New Jersey's Own Version of Michele Bachmann
An interesting race is shaping up in New Jersey's 5th District, with the incumbent Republican Scott Garrett apparently increasingly antsy about his future, now that the Evans-Novak report and the GOP itself have put Garrett on the vulnerable list. Garrett has started to throw a very unkosher kitchen sink at his opponent, Dennis Shulman, who happens to be a Rabbi as well as a clinical psychologist.
Intriguingly, the line of attack that Garrett has taken against his Rabbinical opponent is to accuse him of being a terrorist-hugging, Ahmadinejad-appeasing, scary extremist. Check out this ad that Garrett is running, alongside mailings that depict Shulman and the Iranian President along with masked gunmen. If this is beginning to sound like the vile and counterproductive excesses of Minnesota motor mouth Representative Michele Bachmann, then that is not coincidental.
Bachmann's Chief of Staff and Press Secretary both worked for Garrett earlier this year-Chief of Staff Michelle Presson left in March to take up the same position, while in July Garrett's spokeswoman Mary Vought left to become Bachmann's Communications Director.
The TV ad depicts the blind Rabbi (yes Dennis Shulman is also blind) embracing the very worst trio imaginable: terrorists, immigrants, and taxes. This is wrong on so many levels; it's hard, as with Bachmann, to know where to begin. Of course, not only does Barack Obama support diplomacy with Iran, but so does the Pentagon leadership, President Bush sent his number three diplomat, Undersecretary of State William Burns, to Geneva for P5+1 talks with Iran, and even John McCain in the first debate said, in referring to secretary-level and lower level meetings with Iran, that "I've always encouraged them".
Scott Garrett also throws Hamas at Shulman--yes, the same Hamas that Israel has reached a cease-fire with, thanks to which Israel's Southern communities near the border, such as Sderot, have been living in much greater peace and security for the past four months (M.J. Rosenberg had a very powerful peace on this last week for Israel Policy Forum). And that's even before we mention al-Qaeda's recent flirtation with a McCain endorsement. It's easy to understand why the kind of belligerent, lump them all together, and don't talk to anyone policies, that Garrett favors, would serve only to strengthen the real radicals (by which I mean Salafi Jihadists, not Dennis Shulman).
Garrett had the audacity in a debate last week to call on Shulman to "renounce your endorsement by J Street PAC," which is a pro-Israel, pro-peace group that apparently does not sit well with the Mideast suicide mission that Garrett would prefer to send Israel and the U.S. on (you can see the J Street PAC endorsement of Dennis Shulman here--an endorsement that he did not renounce).
This is all especially bizarre when one considers that Garrett voted against a U.S. foreign aid bill in 2007, which of course included aid assistance to Israel.
Garrett really does deserve to have all of this backfire on him--Michele Bachmann-style.
How interesting Hasn't the Mc Cain campaign results taught them anything?
I owe a debt of gratitude to the McCain/Palin campaign. Because of their attacks lies and innuendoes on Barack Obama and his background, I can vote for him with complete confidence. I have carefully checked out everything I have heard and read. With sources like Snopes http://www.snopes.com/politics/politics.asp and Fact Check http://www.factcheck.org/ independent, unbiased sources, it is easy.
I am now confident his background is as as clean as is possible in any human being, especially those in politics. Also his accomplishments so far are amazing.
I can't say the same for McCain and Palin. While there are things to admire about both, their record is far from admirable, especially in this campaign. Those facts can be checked too.
I watched Senator Obama's rally in Indiana this morning. Suddenly in dawned on me.... we can listen to speeches like this for the next four years? Change IS possible!
October 23, 2008 8:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
"This is all especially bizarre when one considers that Garrett voted against a U.S. foreign aid bill in 2007, which of course included aid assistance to Israel."
This right here oughta do it.
Seriously though, this should be posted on Haaretz.
October 23, 2008 9:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
In this instance I fully agree with you. Nobody who votes against military and economic aid to Israel should be re-elected to Congress. Note that candidate Shulman has not articulated any of the dangerously naive positions about Israel's security that you and Mr. Rosaenberg have espoused on this website, and Congressman Shulman--while quite properly favoring increased U.S. efforts to fashion a two-state solution-- will undoubtedly vote for every single resolution as to aiding Israel and opposing arms sales to Arab countries that my friends and I consider important in the next Congress.
October 24, 2008 10:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
apacmamber says:
Good luck in opposing "arms sales" to anyone, oil rich Arabs or non Arabs. In the words of that illustrious ex-Congressman from Phila, Ozzie Meyers, "Money talks and bullshit walks."
October 24, 2008 11:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
Here's my favorite apacmember comment: "Nobody who votes against military and economic aid to Israel should be re-elected to Congress." Nothing like disproving the dual-loyalty stereotype.
And yes, the "opposing arms sales" line was priceless. As if the Merchants of Death could survive without peddling their crap to the Middle East. I'm sure the Russians would love to sell their top-of-the-line Sukhoi 30s and get part of the $100 billion Saudi arms outlay over the last 20 years.
October 24, 2008 6:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
a(i)pacmember.
Your problem with me is the fact that I've been relying on Israeli (re)sources for years. Which is why I give more weight to the opinions of Israeli experts than you and your hasbara-soaked IFer "friends".
Tell you what. If you guys would like to include me on one of your all-expenses-paid Israel junkets for journos and influential DC insiders like Steve Clemons, I'll clear my schedual.
However, I'll insist on a chopper tour of the North with a stop at the same village, Kiryat Shmona, that Obama visited on his first tour. The house damaged by "Hizbollah's" Katyushas really touched him and reinforced the threat of "Hizbollah". He loves to cite that experience that he "keeps so close to his heart".
What would Obama think if he learned that his tour guides fucking LIED to him about the source of those "Hizbollah" rockets and more?:
"Israeli military officials mapped out for Illinois' junior senator Wednesday how Hezbollah terrorists unsuccessfully tried to kidnap Israeli soldiers during the attack. They offered information to Obama that the militant militia group is going unchallenged by Lebanese leaders and United Nations commanders, hoping Obama and the US will press Lebanon to stop the border assaults."
http://obama.senate.gov/news/060111-obama_visits_re/
Would Obama have been so gung ho to support the stupid war of '06 if he knew that the real perps, according to your IFer Aussie bros, were Palestinian Salafist types, not Hizbollah?:
"27 Dec 2005 - A branch of a Palestinian organization connected to Al-Qaida fired 6 Katyushas, damaging a house in Kiryat Shmona and a house in Metulla. In response, the IAF attacked a training base of the Popular Front, south of Beirut."
http://www.aijac.org.au/resources/hezb_00-06.html
Of course, thanks to an account originally published in the Jerusalem Post, we also get the truth of the matter via Northern Commander Udi Adam:
"On Tuesday night (December 27, 2005) a barrage of six Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon struck Kiryat Shmona damaging two apartment buildings and forcing local residents into bomb shelters until Wednesday morning.
Four people were treated for shock.
Three impacts were reported in different locations in the city - one was identified as landing on Yehuda Halevi Street and one in the Vradim neighborhood in east Kiryat Shmona. Initial reports said that one of the impact sites was close to a high-tension wire, Israel Radio reported.
Three Katyushas were also fired into the town of Shlomi in the western Galilee, two of their shells were found on Wednesday morning near the town; explosions were also heard in Nahariya.
The PFLP denied that they were behind the Katyusha attack against Israel. Hizbullah likewise denied responsibility.
OC Northern Commander Maj.-Gen. Udi Adam said the IDF knew which of the Palestinian groups was responsible for the attack on Kiryat Shmona. He said the Palestinian terrorist organizations in Lebanon were trying to escalate the violence in the area."
http://www.onefamilyfund.org/Default.aspx?tabid=654
See why I so value my familiarity with Israeli (re)sources?
PS. I will also insist on being treated to the best hummus that Israel has to offer.
October 24, 2008 5:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Stop with the facts. You are starting to prove that Israel is a nation state that tries to shape reality to its own selfish, nationalist needs. You know, like all nation states. But apacmember believes in the Mythological Israel which is an ally of the Mythological America. Both countries are God's Countries. Both countries only act righteously. Both countries are trying to bring forth God's Redemption to a Broken, Evil World.
(You know, the standard fundy crap.)
October 24, 2008 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Mythbuster, you'd be shocked indeed to learn that as a proud member of a very liberal Reconstructionist congregation, and having worked for one of the most liberal Democratic governors serving between 1982 and 1994, and having worked for one of the most liberal Attorneys General in the U.S., I'm as close to "fundy" as you are to Ted Bundy.
I have the same exact position on I-P issues as the very liberal and not at all fundy Rep. Jerry Nadler, the same position as the very liberal and not at all fundy Sen. Joe Biden, and the same position as the very liberal, not at all fundy, and hopefully soon-to-be President-elect of the United States, Barack Obama.
It's you and your naive and stupid cohorts who, thank G-d, nobody in an Obama Admninistration is going to listen to when it comes to determining U.S. policy in the Mideast. Deal with it.
October 25, 2008 11:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Lally, I won't defend dumb Israelis who gave Obama the wrong info, if that in fact is what happened. To me the key point is that I am confident Senator Obama "gets it", and I have no doubt Joe Biden, as Vice President, will help reinforce the message. And the message that Obama gets is this: until there is a Palestinian leader willing to do what Ben Gurion did with the Irgun--fight the wackos even if it means he and his friends may die--no elected Government of Israel will put its citizens at risk by unilaterally withdrawing from the West Bank, and the Government of the United States will not threaten Israel in any meaningful way to make those concessions.
I rest easy in the knowledge that you, Rosenberg, Levy and Avaishai, and anyone who thinks like you about I-P issues, will have absolutely no say in the councils of an Obama Administration as to what U.S. policies should be in the Miedast. My friends and I, through the effective service of Ambassador Ross will run those policies just like we did with Bill Clinton. And if you don't like that, you and your fellow jerks can go to Ramallah.
October 25, 2008 11:38 PM | Reply | Permalink