Robert Scheer
Judge them by their enemies. More evidence that Barack Obama might be shaping up as a good president is that Norman Podhoretz hates him so much. In a Wall Street Journal column Monday the guru of the neoconservatives declared: “I would rather be ruled by the Tea Party than by the Democratic Party, and I would rather have Sarah Palin sitting in the Oval Office than Barack Obama.”
Be careful what you wish for, dipshit.
[...] He is joined in this embrace of the Palin rage by Bill Kristol, whose late father, Irving, was Podhoretz’s comrade in the long march from the far left to the far right. That shift brought the neoconservatives to the pinnacle of power in the Bush administration before they flamed out over the distortions of fact and logic they peddled as justification for the invasion of Iraq.
Among other things—and this was particularly important for Podhoretz, who for 35 years had edited Commentary, a leading journal in the Jewish community—the elimination of Saddam Hussein was supposed to leave Israel more secure. Instead, just the opposite has occurred as a consequence of the vastly increased power of Iran in the region thanks to the elimination of its most feared local adversary. Any effort to contain the power of Iran has been compromised by the leading role of the disciples of the Iranian ayatollahs in the politics of Iraq.
In a WSJ article from last September headlined “Why Are Jews Liberals?” which is also the title of his latest book, Podhoretz complained bitterly, “One of the most extraordinary features of Barack Obama’s victory over John McCain was his capture of 78% of the Jewish vote.” What followed was a self-hating tirade against his own: “Jews are by far the most liberal of any group in America.” In support of that view he quotes the sociologist Nathan Glazer, who argued that Jews, as opposed to any other immigrant group in America, have ignored their improving economic status and instead consistently supported “increased government spending, expanded benefits to the poor and lower classes, greater regulations on business, and the power of organized labor.”
Gee, d'ya think the Jews might have a better sense of their own history than these privileged, pampered neocon clowns? Perhaps they "have ignored their improving economic status" and not turned into dumbass greedy Repugs because they remember from whence they came? Their forebears came here penniless, for the most part, from the shtetls and ghettos of Eastern Europe precisely to escape oppression and to "improve their economic status", and now that a few generations have done just that, are returning something to those less fortunate than themselves.
Sure, there are right-wing Jews, just like there are right-wing gays, women, and people of color who espouse conservatism and vote against their own best interests for people who hold them in contempt. I do not understand why. Greed, self-loathing, and ignorance perhaps. Or maybe they want to be the rich old white men who run everything. Add 'delusion'.
What a great testament to the enduring decency of Jewish values that they have proved so capable of embracing social goals that transcend narrow class interest. What a wonderful refutation of historical anti-Semitism that Jews so consistently ignore personal economic gain to serve the larger good. Not so in the eyes of Podhoretz, who was immensely disappointed that the commitment of Jews to those enlightened views did not dissipate with the nomination of Obama but rather increased somewhat.
He bemoans the fact that the vast majority of Jews did not share his fear that Obama was too liberal or anti-Israel, but instead of chalking that up to an honest disagreement he invokes the language of the devil’s deception: “I am hoping against hope that the exposure of Mr. Obama as a false messiah will at last open the eyes of my fellow Jews to the correlative falsity of the political creed he so perfectly personifies and to which they have for so long been so misguidedly loyal.”
So what does that make Sarah Palin—the true messiah?
Maybe so. Every time I think of her ascendance to Queen Of The Tiny Brained I think "Jesus Fucking Christ!"
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