Saturday, September 20, 2008
Is the Obama campaign good for the Jews?
Whether Barack Obama can be said to be "good for the Jews" is too portentous a question even for this blog. It is now safe to say, however, that his campaign is not.
CWCID: Glenn Reynolds.
7 Comments:
By 
, at
Sat Sep 20, 02:30:00 PM:
I'm confused -- how is this the responsibility of the Obama "campaign"? Hillary Clinton pulled out (presumably because she did not want life to imitate SNL). Yesterday you suggested that the Clintons were sandbagging Obama.
According to the cited sources, "Democrats" (maybe even the ostensibly "anti-Obama" Clintonistas????) pointed out that this particular tax exempt organization could not be used to host a partisan (Republican) event -- which is about the tax code and the intended uses of 501s, not about the "Obama campaign's" opinions about Jewish tax-exempt organizations.
Maybe I'm missing something.
By 
TigerHawk, at
Sat Sep 20, 02:46:00 PM:
Let's see. It was not a "partisan" event when only Hillary was going to appear on her own, but then when it became literally bi-partisan with the inclusion of Sarah Palin it suddenly became "partisan" and Hillary withdrew. Then somebody -- I jumped to the conclusion that it was somebody who knew the wishes of the Obama campaign -- threatened the organizing non-profits with hosting a partisan event, when it was never that in the first place. Meanwhile, thanks to this effort nobody on the national ticket is in a position to demonstrate against Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Bizarre.
By Miss Ladybug, at
Sat Sep 20, 03:24:00 PM:
Also, let's not forget that when Hillary backed out, the Obama campaign was invited to have someone attend. They declined. Then they proceeded to bully the group into withdrawing Palin's invitation...
By , at
Sat Sep 20, 03:52:00 PM:
Then they proceeded to bully the group into withdrawing Palin's invitation...
Actually, Miss Ladybug, it was three of the five Jewish organizations participating in the rally who pressured the UJA to withdraw the invite.
Sara Palin's church, the Wasilla Bible Church, recently gave its pulpit over to David Brickner, the executive director of Jews for Jesus (an organization which has been targeted by the ADL for, inter alia, its deceptive proselytizing to Jews, namely: accept Jesus as your savior and you'll still be a Jew). When Brickner spoke at Sarah's church in August he said that recent terrorist attacks in Israel were God’s “judgment” against Israelis for failing to believe in Jesus as the Messiah.
Given that, is it any wonder that the rally's participants and supporters wouldn't want her to attend?
If they wanted to invite a Republican, they should have asked Lieberman....
By Dawnfire82, at
Sat Sep 20, 05:27:00 PM:
"Given that, is it any wonder that the rally's participants and supporters wouldn't want her to attend?"
Then why was she invited in the first place?
You've got a neat little pseudo-conspiratorial rationalization here that doesn't actually deal with the sources given for the original story, for instance: "This is insulting. This is embarrassing, especially to Gov. Palin, to me and I think it should be to every single New Yorker," Assemblyman Dov Hikind, D-Brooklyn, told CBS 2 HD."
and the behavior of the guilty.
"As for Sen. Clinton, she brushed right past CBS 2 HD's Lou Young when he tried to ask her about the issue on Thursday night.
Lou Young: "Were the organizers of Monday's rally right to depoliticize it?"
Clinton walked past Young, said "Thank you all very much" and started hugging people."
By , at
Sun Sep 21, 11:58:00 AM:
You can easily find the Wasilla Bible Church's website and indeed David Brickner did speak there last month. I stand next to few people in my disdain for Brickner's dishonest and deceitful organization. There's nothing to indicate that Sarah Palin had anything to do with the invitation but certainly she's a member of the church.
So does that mean it's now OK to inquire into who receives invitations to speak at a candidate's church? I ask this because I seem to remember that it was somehow illegitimate to broach such questions about a church to which Obama belonged for twenty years and whose pastor he referred as his spiritual advisor.
If we're going to hold up Sarah Palin for who comes to her church, let's do it for McCain's church, Biden's church, and Obama's church. That would be only fair.
By ZZMike, at
Mon Sep 22, 12:50:00 PM:
Bringing up David Bricker is not a good idea. That opens the door for asking how it is that Obama attended Jeremiah Wright's church for about 20 years and never realized that Wright was an anti-American hate-monger. (I will not use the term "Reverend" with either Wright or Jesse Jackson.)
The plain fact of the matter is, the Obama campaign was scared stiff that Palin and Clinton would be seen together - to the detriment of Clinton. The Obama campaign sent Big Louie over to tell them that if they didn't "disinvite" Palin they were going to sic the IRS dogs on them.
As someone pointed out, this is knee-breaking diplomacy.
This is the kind of strong-arm operation we can expect from Democrats if Obama gets in.
