Is that the best Bill Kristol can do? Kristol, the Fox News commentator, founder of the Weekly Standard, and instigator of much of President George W. Bush’s foreign policy, is behind the “Emergency Committee for Israel,” an entity that’s leveling cheap, base, and demagogic attacks on those supporting Occupy Wall Street.
[…..]But ECI says supporting Occupy Wall Street is to support “hate.” Try that again? By splicing hate-filled anti-Semitic statements that may or may not come from individuals hanging out on the fringe of the Zuccotti Park protests together with Nancy Pelosi’s, President Obama’s, and my supportive statements, ECI and Bill Kristol are trying to argue that Occupy Wall Street equals Obama and Pelosi equals anti-Semitism. They’re insinuating that support for OWS is the same as support for hate. (Former NYC Mayor Ed Koch—a recent ally of Kristol on Israel issues—has also written supportively of OWS: Why doesn’t he appear in the ad?)
Who is this aimed at? Jewish voters are 2-3% of the population nationally. Yes, Democratic donors are disproportionately Jewish but this kind of stuff is aimed at low information voters, not party activists. I don’t think Real Murkins discuss anti-Semitism with each other over the sneeze guards at the Applebees salad bar.
Even the liberal Ed Koch and Abe Foxman think this charge is bullshit.
Bobo floated the OWS-hates-Joos smear a few weeks ago and I thought it was roundly panned. Did it go over better than I thought at the time?
Cacti
So if you don’t like getting hosed by Wall Street…
It’s because you h8 teh Jooz!
Okay then.
arguingwithsignposts
evangelicals and neocons hard up for a new war. SATSQ
Spaghetti Lee
Who is this aimed at?
The Beltway media. This is like a heaping plateful of “both sides do it” and Kristol just handed them all forks and spoons.
El Cruzado
Have we considered the possibility that Mr. Kristol may not be that smart?
Quaker in a Basement
I believe Mr. Tbogg has issued a standing invitation to Mr. Kristol. I enthusiastically urge Mr. Kristol to accept.
Robert
For some reason a huge number of Southerners love the idea of being pro-Jewish. I think its something like “Love the sin, Hate the Sinner”, as I’m pretty sure their main motivation is to bring about the rise of the (Jewish) Anti-Christ and party on into the End Times.
Loneoak
Am I wrong in believing that the author is wrong here and neocons have little to say about domestic policy, other than alliances of convenience with economic conservatives? I associate real neoconservatives almost entirely with military and foreign affairs, characterized by an obsession with comparing America’s dick to everyone else’s and wanting to kill anyone who has a dick bigger than 2 inches or makes fun of our monstrous chode.
Violet
@arguingwithsignposts:
Exactly. Can’t believe you even had to ask the question, DougJ.
Ron Beasley
The Weekly Standard was founded by little Billie’s father Irving. Even Irving thought his son Bill was an idiot.
Violet
Isn’t there some rule about Bill Kristol being wrong about everything and if you do the opposite of what he suggests, you’re on the right track? OWS must be doing something right.
syphonblue
As a Jew, I’m offended that these assholes keep trying use me and my religion as their own personal vector of attack.
Repeatedly.
Seriously, just fuck off already.
wilfred
The neocon world view is to make the world safe for Israel. You think that evangelicals are offended by anti-semitism? You have to be joking. They don’t care about Jews, they care about Israel – and this only for some crackpot eschatology that involves the end of the Jews.
Nice try. A little lower layer, please.
beltane
The way the right-wing is equating Wall Street with Jews is in itself a form of anti-Semitism which is no less ugly on account of the fact that some of the people making the case are Jewish. David Brooks and Bill Kristol are playing a very nasty, very dangerous game here and they should be called out on it in the strongest terms possible.
pete
@Quaker in a Basement: Not that I wish to be designated a “fan” (except of Bob Dylan and some mop-top group that’s mostly dead) but TBogg is so often correct. Especially there.
Ron Beasley
@Violet: My favorite Bill Kristol is this one at the beginning of the Iraq war:
Loneoak
Also too, has anyone seen commentary on the notion that Jews are suddenly major Wall St. players? Back in the day (and not that long ago), there’s no way the Protestant elite would have allowed members of the Tribe onto the trading floor, despite racist associations between Jews and anything financial. Is this something that happened after banks were allowed to act like brokerage firms?
Cacti
@beltane:
But all money lenders are Jewish, aren’t they?
I thought The Merchant of Venice was a biography of that Shylock fellow.
Dexter
Bill Kristol is never right. That is one small consolation.
beltane
@El Cruzado: You mean to say that Bill Kristol, the Henry Higgins to Sarah Palin’s Eliza Doolittle is not the intellectual giant we assumed he was? I am shocked.
Yeah, he’s a moron but an evil moron with far too much influence in the Village (any influence at all is too much when it comes to him).
Hob
They don’t care about Jewish voters. They care about voters who have no strong religious or political positions, who might be tempted to support OWS on common-sense principles if they realize that they’re part of the 99%, but who generally want to be thought of as nice people and don’t want to be associated with anything indecent or “extreme”. So the idea is to plant a vague association with some scary thing people have heard of before, even if it makes no sense, just to reduce the chance of more people getting involved. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
wilfred
And if Kristol is behind the Emergency Committee on Israel, he should be asked about this:
“Rachel Decter Abrams, a board member of the Emergency Committee on Israel, advocates for the extermination of Palestinians, including children. Abrams is married to former Assistant Secretary of State Elliot Abrams, and is the half-sister of Commentary editor John Podhoretz and step-daughter of Norman Podhoretz, founder of the neoconservative movement.
“He’s free and he’s home in the bosom of his family and his country.
Celebrate, Israel, with all the joyous gratitude that fills your hearts, as we all do along with you. Then round up his captors, the slaughtering, death-worshiping, innocent-butchering, child-sacrificing savages who dip their hands in blood and use women-those who aren’t strapping bombs to their own devils’ spawn and sending them out to meet their seventy-two virgins by taking the lives of the school-bus-riding, heart-drawing, Transformer-doodling, homework-losing children of Others-and their offspring-those who haven’t already been pimped out by their mothers to the murder god-as shields, hiding behind their burkas and cradles like the unmanned animals they are, and throw them not into your prisons, where they can bide until they’re traded by the thousands for another child of Israel, but into the sea, to float there, food for sharks, stargazers, and whatever other oceanic carnivores God has put there for the purpose.”
Imagine saying something like about black people, or gays. That’s the agenda of the Emergency Committee.
http://politicalcorrection.org/fpmatters/201110190003
General Stuck
Kristol is fishing for any meme to put a dent in the fact that US Jews are overwhelming dem voters. In addition, he and the other wingnut/neocon clowns are plain skeert of the OWS movement and what it could mean. Which for Kristol, at least. Dashing his hopes for a near term Holy WAr against Iran, and any other country of swarthy personnel he can slip by the noobs. Fuck him. He don’t surf.
amk
I don’t get it. If ebil obama and pelosi are portrayed as joo haters for LIV retarded rw crowd, doesn’t that work in favor of dems ?
jwb
@Violet: Yes, Bill Kristol is worse than a broken clock. Rule #1 with Bill Kristol is that he is always wrong. If you ever have reason to believe that Bill Kristol is right, see rule #1.
OzoneR
I don’t understand why they do this when they’re doing just fine with the “Florida mother abandons her family for protest cause she’s a dirty hippie, says neighbor who doesn’t really know her.”
Cacti
My favorite story of Bill Kristol and “meritocracy” wingnut style:
DanielX
Fuck Bill Kristol. Whatever he says, assume the opposite is the truth. Whatever he recommends, do the opposite – you can’t go wrong with this simple rule.
jwb
@Cacti: Clearly, Irving earned every bit of his son’s failure.
Alex
Has right-wing rhetoric about Jews and Jewish voters ever been aimed at actual Jewish voters? It’s always aimed at the media and evangelicals (look, we’re inclusive! That’s why our big religious convention was on Yom Kippur!)
arguingwithsignposts
@wilfred: I blame King James for that butchering of the English language.
Jenny
Bobo did that in 2004. He said opponents of the Iraq war, and Wes Clark in particular, were anti-Semites.
The backlash was so strong he was forced to disavow his entire column, saying he was just joking.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/01/09/8430/-Brooks-Apologizes?via=search
http://nytimes.com/2004/01/06/opinion/the-era-of-distortion.html?src=pm
beltane
@Hob: That may be what they are attempting to do but being the idiots they are they are actually running the risk of fomenting actual anti-Semitism. Telling low-information voters that attacking bankers is synonymous with attacking the Jews is the same as telling these people that the much-hated financial industry is wholly in the hands of Jews, thus legitimizing whatever latent anti-Semitism exists in the general public (and it does exist).
Villago Delenda Est
@beltane:
This is right on. It’s definitely playing to a very very old stereotype, dating back to before the Renaissance. Oh, wait, the Renaissance… that’s another thing that the reactionaries hate. Helps explain things…
Cliff in NH
@Alex: @Loneoak: @syphonblue:
They just want Jews around so the can have the end of the world on their watch. That’s the Only reason Rethuglicans love Jews.
Sorry.
beltane
@amk: Bill Kristol is too f#cking stupid to entertain the possibility that his target audience might harbor some actual anti-Semitic sentiments.
arguingwithsignposts
This is OT, but apparently the Cain Train has a dude _smoking_ in his latest campaign ad!
Cliff in NH
@Loneoak:
well, some of my news feeds do mention Jewish holidays, but volume doesn’t really change all that much and they always sound quite skeptical that money makers will really take the day off (aka they imply that they are not strict/don’t care)
beltane
@arguingwithsignposts: Smoking what?
Brandon
At what point does Kristol win the monicker, ‘The Al Sharpton of Jews’?
And I am being serious by that comment.
jon
@arguingwithsignposts:
This is correct. Anything to do with Israel these days is really just aimed at “Christian Zionists.” I have a pretty strong anti-semitism radar.
JWL
Lawyers, Guns, & Money posted something along this line a week or so ago.
I remarked then that if I were Jewish, I’d resent being dragged into the argument.
Villago Delenda Est
@Cacti:
Clues, we have none in the Kristol family.
Cliff in NH
@Ron Beasley:
LOL, I never saw that one , Thanks.
It’s in my quiver now.
Ohio Mom
@General Stuck: the idea that it’s an attempt to “put a dent in the fact that US Jews are overwhelming dem voters” has my, um, vote.
I’ve already started to hear that OWS is full of anti-Semites and it’s only been a few weeks, and the parts of the Jewish community I frequent are ostendibly liberal.
1, 2, 3…time for one of my co-religionists to call me self-hating…sigh
mclaren
Anti-Semitism is like anti-black racism…it’s one of the few guaranteed effective smears out there. If you’ve got a political opponent and you want to destroy him, just haul out the old “you’re an anti-Semite!” smear.
I’m truly surprised they haven’t also tried to smear OWS as racist Klansmen.
AA+ Bonds
It “works” for the same reason that Herman Cain is a candidate.
AA+ Bonds
Many Republicans feel the need to be reassured over and over that they are not fascists, they could never be fascists, never ever ever, because that would mean that they betrayed everything the country fought for in World War II
Cliff in NH
@Ron Beasley:
Thanks for this:
AA+ Bonds
(thread is chock full of Koch concern trolls on this Republican propaganda story, y’all check for wires in the jungle)
AA+ Bonds
I’d like to point out that Jews vote for Democrats because they know full well the Republicans are the ones who will raise a pogrom in this country if they can, against everyone who isn’t white and Protestant
AA+ Bonds
The Republicans are where the Kluxers hang out now. I mean, the people running for President, they aren’t members of the KKK except maybe Ron Paul, but like I’ve always said, they’re a big tent party.
Karen
I mentioned this last week when we were talking about ringers….
As a Jewish person, it insults the fuck out of me. It suggests that the stereotype of the Jews owning the banks and running the world is a valid one.
It also pisses me off because it implies that as a Jewish, ringer antisemitism works on me and would actually make me side with the banks. Fuckers.
AA+ Bonds
I understand that Republicans have plans for the Jews that involve a gigantic Christian war in all their major cities followed by their mass conversion to Christianity. The world will then end.
What’s not to like!
Villago Delenda Est
@wilfred:
In what way, if I may ask, is Rachel Decker Abrams different from, say, Reinhard Heydrich?
AA+ Bonds
@Karen:
Agreed, close thread.
AA+ Bonds
Many Republicans have a belief system, a bizarre and heretical Christianity, that involves the mass death of millions of Jews in the Land of Israel.
Nutella
@mclaren:
Not quite. But Michelle Malkin and others have been saying It’s just a bunch of white hippies fooling around.
Cliff in NH
@AA+ Bonds:
Well, as a atheist, I always assumed that the Christian world will then end.
Leaving the rest of us to deal with the shit they left behind while killing themselves and others over their stupid myths and dreams
Lyrebird
@Brandon: Hmm, hadn’t given enough thought (gag) to Mr. Kristol… A. Dershowitz got my vote after he (with Hillary Clinton, I think) suggested that torture might ever be acceptable.
generally:
The first OWS-hates-Joos thing I saw was quickly debunked, it was a video of a false-flag type thing by “The Lotion Man” (????) whose name might be Danny Levine or something. He was the one heckling a guy in a kippah, all for the camera, trying to discredit the protests. The protests w/tons of Jewish bubbes showing up, I might add. (Were the debates here or on Wonkette about hook-ups at demonstrations & wondering whether the bubbes pictured might in fact be some of the babes previously hooked up with?) Actual protesters were able to identify and discredit him first!
Having so many cameras in the hands of the participants is kinda useful.
Karen
Let’s be blunt. And please note, Christians is capitalized here to denote the difference between normal Christian people and Talichrists.
Republicans and CHRISTIANS love Jews the same way that carnivores love cattle.
Jews are the CHRISTIANS cattle who will be slaughtered at the pleasure of the CHRISTIANS.
They love Israel. I wouldn’t be surprised if if there wasn’t a CHRISTIAN video game called “End of Days” where you kill as many Muslims then you have to before they get their own Jews and when they get enough, the End of Days occurs, they go to heaven and the world left behind sinks into the fires of hell.
Sorry if I’m over the top here but if I hear another person say that CHRISTIANS love Jews I’m gonna punch a hole in the wall.
Ron Beasley
@Cliff in NH: I was about to do a follow up comment explaining it was from a Terry Gross interview on NPR. Thanks to you!
BBA
It’s not just targeted at evangelicals. There’s a large strain of the Jewish community that’s convinced that nothing’s changed since 1947, that antisemitism is rampant among the Gentiles and an existential threat to the Jewish people, and that we must therefore give our unquestioning support to the State of Israel, which is a scrappy upstart and not a major regional power maintaining a brutal military occupation.
Or maybe that’s just my mother. *shrug*
Mary Jane Leach
Even the liberal Ed Koch….
Huh? Koch has been supporting predominantly Republican candidates since he was mayor, including GWB.
Dougerhead
@BBA:
Be that as it may, are there really many Jewish voters who are scared they will be rounded up by drum-playing hippies? I doubt it.
Dougerhead
@Karen:
You don’t have to sell me on Christianity’s shameful historial record of appalling, genocidal anti-Semitism. It’s in the history books. (Though maybe not in Texas high-school history books.)
Bullsmith
I gotta say I find the Kristol-Aipac strategy of loudly accusing anyone they don’t like of being anti-Semites is getting pretty tired. The big winners, long term, are the actual anti-Semites, who used to be a lot easier to spot.
Cliff in NH
@Ron Beasley:
I loves me some google (except when they are Evil, Then It’s On)
Mike in NC
What will they carve on Billy Kristol’s tombstone: the person who brought us ‘Dan Quayle’ or ‘Caribou Barbie’?
Cliff in NH
@Dougerhead:
Scared, No, Stoned, Yes.
Cain
@BBA:
This is true amongst older Jewish folks, especially in the east coast. I have the privledge of knowing a orthodox Jew and he is as liberal as all get out. We both kvetch about Israel policies and so forth. We understand it is a separate country and I don’t think of him as some kind of loyalist. When they do something wrong they are doing something wrong.
He does tell me that saying anything against Israel in the east coast can get you in trouble. I know that younger Jews have a very different attitude towards Israel than the older folks. Anti-antisemitism amongst younger folks is fairly small. I know myself that I don’t give a damn about whether you’re a Jew or not. In fact, I find that amongst the three western religions Judaism makes the most sense and is the closest to Hinduism.
That said, I am amused about how my friend handles money. It’s akin to how Hindus handle their money. I sometimes can’t imagine why Hindus are anti-Semitic; least the older folks are. That blows my mind that Indians are anti-Semitic. I have no idea where they learned that from.
Karen
@Dougerhead:
No. But there are older Jews that are afraid to be involved in anything that can be construed as subversive because they’re afraid they WILL be rounded up.
A lot of them remember the Communist witch hunts and know how easily it can happen again…
Mr Stagger Lee
@AA+ Bonds: And when Jesus comes back you all better accept him as your Messiah. Or your ass is grass and the Lord in righteous(spoken in Samuel L Jackson style) anger will be the lawnmower! And John Hagee will have to call out the hunters.(or was that Jefferies dude?)
wilfred
Just to connect the last dot. It’s obvious that the OWS movement is more inclined to support the Democratic party, hence the tentative outreach efforts by various Dem pols, including a comment by the White House press secretary about the 99%. In addition, there are already efforts to co-opt the movement into supporting Demcoratic candidates.
Thus Kristol. Anti-semitism are words of power; the mere accusation is enough. Once OWS is smeared, will any Dem politician go near it?
It’s a pre-emptive elective strike to keep the Bomb Iran movement in gear.
David Koch
@Cain:
What, is he afraid to touch money (ie germ phobic)?
El Cid
@Mr Stagger Lee: Anybody not understanding how fucking much he loves you will burn in god-damned hellfire forever!
Ron Beasley
My father tended to be anti-Semitic. I must admit he had some justification. He owned a grocery store in the 50s in an area that had a lot of eastern European orthodox Jews. They robbed him blind and thought it was OK because he was not Jewish. He had to keep the caviar under lock and key. These were not poor people but stealing from my father who was anything but rich was OK.
I’m not trying to justify antisemitism but it’s not always as clear cut as we might like to believe.
Cliff in NH
@wilfred:
No. (they should be though, educate them!)
======================
Well, the Original tea party (tickerforum, fedUp(originators of ‘teabag obama before he teabags you’ – yea that person knew what it meant)) supports OWS ….
As the 99% said, 99% is pretty damm broad, it covers all the fringes! Don’t judge one participant of the 99% on the others, Judge the 1% vs the 99%! and their supporters!
David Koch
@Mary Jane Leach: He recently became a BIG Obot.
Phoenician in a time of Romans
Many Republicans feel the need to be reassured over and over that they are not fascists, they could never be fascists, never ever ever, because that would mean that they betrayed everything the country fought for in World War II
Indeed. And the equation of “fascism” with “Jew-hating swastika-wearing Germans” is the sort of facile one wingnuts find easy to make, being generally unable to deal with metaphor or abstraction. The idea that there might be a home-grown, cross-wearing and Stars and Stripes waving fascism which doesn’t hate Jews (as long as that People play their assigned role in the apocalypse myth) is just something they can’t cope with.
“Fascism = Jew-hatred, therefore no Jew-hatred = no fascism!!” is about the limit of their cognitive reach.
David Koch
@Brandon:
How can you compare to Sharpton to Kristol?
Unlike Kristol, Sharpton has never supported dropping bombs on people.
handsmile
To me, the target is starkly clear: members of the Democratic Party who might express support for the “Occupy Wall Street” movement and its mission of economic justice and financial reforms.
Few epithets more terrify Democrats than that of “anti-semitism”. One need only witness their prostration before AIPAC, their silence in the face of flagrant provocations by the Netanyahu, Olmert, and Sharon governments, their abject failure to support Palestinian statehood.
Countless commentators on the OWS movement have insisted that its success be predicated on the adoption of concrete legislative proposals. Obviously any such proposals would be advanced by Democratic politicians.
Through its scurrilous charges of “antisemitism, the Emergency Committee on Israel wishes to brand OWS as a toxic entity that no Democrat will risk supporting or be seen to propose legislation that could address its concerns.
EDIT: I see that wilfred (#73) has much the same idea. His comment must have posted as I was writing mine.
handsmile
One other brief remark:
Agreeing completely with Mary Jane Leach’s comment (#63) on the “liberal Ed Koch”, let me also extend it to say that to describe Abe Foxman as liberal is baseless.
Cliff in NH
@Cliff in NH:
I can’t find the comment I refer too , but its similar to this:
http://www.zazzle.com/tea_bag_the_liberal_dems_before_they_tea_bag_you_tshirt-235381317448019770
singfoom
Doug,
You know how the game works. Once you make the smear, you have to keep fucking that chicken. If you don’t stop fucking the chicken, people might stop repeating the meme.
You can count on hard hitting ‘journalists’ like Bill Kristol to keep fucking that chicken.
handsmile
@singfoom: (#84)
Hey, please, enough of that “man on poultry” action. I’m getting ready to go to sleep around here and don’t need to be kept awake by nightmarish images of Bill Kristol’s sexual preferences.
Cain
@David Koch:
He’s a bit cheap, but he has expensive tastes.
I’m cheap too, and I have expensive tastes as well. But indians being cheap is pretty normal like a lot of asians, but the difference is that I’ll save my money to buy the best. While a lot of indians will buy Hondas, I’ll buy high end shit because I think I deserve it and I’m willing to cheap out on shit until I can afford it. My jewish friend is similar but more stereotypical of what people think of Jews.
And his wife is totally like a jewish mom, she hounds me constantly if she thinks I’m doing something that’s just wrong to her. haha.
Cain
@Ron Beasley:
Yeah there is an underlying reason I think. My brother has the same problem with AA folks who don’t work very hard because they know that they are covered to anti-racism stuff. Talk on the phone all day, throw roadblocks. My wife also has some problems with people who hare OHP (oregon health plan) who don’t take care of their teeth and don’t realize how lucky they are to have their dental stuff covered.
I’m fairly pure, I don’t see the underlying reason of why people who form the reasons they do regarding various people and can pretend to be innocent. :)
David Koch
@handsmile: It was intentional snark.
It’s an internet tradition to mock DINOs (Democrats in name only) as “even the liburl so-and-so…”.
What happen was in the mid 1970 “The New Republic” changed ownership and it went from being a liberal magazine to a neo-conservative organ. Once this happened, TNR began to criticize the Democratic party at every turn. The main stream media would use TNR’s criticisms to undermine, and undercut liberals and Democrats, while sowing doubt among low information voters. They usually would say, “even the liberal New Republic says Ted Kennedy is wrong”; “even the liberal New Republic supports the Contras”; etc., etc. This would confuse low information types into thinking wing nut positions were non-controversial, because they were being told by the MSM that both ideologies support something.
It was maddening.
This went on for the longest time until blogging emerged in the early part of the last decade. Blogs finally killed the deception by taking that phrase and mocking it to death. And the mockery is still used to deny conservadems and DINOs the ability to pose as liberals.
JR
Of course it’s bullshit.
THAT DOESN’T FUCKING MATTER!
If it’s bullshit that feeds into some underlying narrative (in this case, that OWS is something despicable that should be shunned and/or ignored), then it will be repeated ad nauseum. It’s not like this is a new thing.
joe brown
it’s aimed at evangelicals .. end of world bs and all that
wilfred
Some intrepid journalist should ask Kristol how a racist and bigot like Rachel Decter Abrams mamnages to remain on the board of the Emergency Committee.
Nah.
Calouste
@AA+ Bonds:
Except people like Pat Buchanan, who’s main regret in life is that he was too young to join the other traitors in the SS Viking brigade.
PeakVT
@Brandon: He doesn’t. Sharpton has gotten better with time; Kristol has gotten worse.
Martin
Honestly, I think the right is running out of material. They’ve had this thing turned up to 11 since early 2008 and essentially gotten nowhere. None of this shit is going to work on anyone in the middle, which they need to win over. What, Obama is bad for going into Afghanistan to get Bin Laden? It took 9 months to get Gaddafi rather than 3? We’re out of Iraq? People are pissed off at Wall Street?
I don’t think the right has anything to work with here. They’ve been promising marxism and slave reparations and just about the only thing that’s actually happened is that Republicans in Congress keep trying to blow the place up.
I think all they really have left is to wind up the teatards as tight as possible and hope their turnout carries the day next year.
Gene in Princeton
The angle is to get the press to stop covering the OWS, by tainting the protesters’ characters.
EconWatcher
Bill Kristol thought it would be a brilliant political maneuver to put Sarah Palin on the ticket. Obviously, Bill Kristol is an idiot. Any other questions?
Svensker
@wilfred:
It is not racist or bigoted to despise Muslims.