Lanny Davis, one of the most disgusting human beings to walk the earth, weighs in on the Hagel nomination:
But: Hagel owes it to all Americans, not just to American Jews, to do more than apologize for use of the expression “Jewish lobby” in communicating his concern about its power.
He must understand, first, that there is a difference between Jews who support Israel and the “Israel lobby.”
To suggest that there is a “Jewish lobby” is not only inaccurate, it is highly offensive to the American Jewish community.
Fred Kaplan prefuted (yes I just made that up) him earlier:
But the bugaboo issue—the third rail when it comes to foreign policy—is Israel. As a senator, Hagel once complained to a reporter that “the Jewish lobby” intimidates many lawmakers on Capitol Hill. And he once intoned that he was a senator from Nebraska, not a senator from Israel. These may have been impolitic remarks, but they weren’t false—either in strict substance or in spirit.
No one could deny that AIPAC has an overpowering influence on many lawmakers. Hagel’s sin, in the eyes of some, was to call it the “Jewish lobby” instead of the “Israel lobby.” If this is a sin, AIPAC and its allies have brought it on themselves. For decades, they have thundered that criticism of Israel is thinly disguised anti-Semitism. Yet they cry “anti-Semitism” again when someone inverts the equation (which is what the phrase in question amounts to: If anti-Israel equals anti-Jewish, then pro-Israel equals pro-Jewish). As for saying that he’s a senator from Nebraska, not Israel: Had he or any other senator said this about any other country (“I’m not a senator from France … England … Canada” or wherever), no one would have batted an eye. To accuse him of anti-Semitism on these grounds is to reveal a staggeringly deep paranoia—or a sensitivity far too acute to be allowed any role in American politics.
Why won’t Lanny Davis just go away?
Bulworth
The media can’t quit him.
Arm The Homeless
Corn Libel!
David Hunt
Because he can make more money by being a horrible human being in public and has not shame.
ranchandsyrup
I go with “pre-butted” in lieu of “prefuted”. But I’m a butt man.
LanceThruster
Neo-cons use him on the pretense of “liberal cred.”
What a schmoe.
AA+ Bonds
Note the multiple false implications in Davis’s statement: that everyone thinks Hagel needs to apologize, that the distinction is between “Jews who support Israel” and the Israeli lobby – when it’s actually between Jews who don’t support the current Israeli policy and the Jews who do. Professional Bibi licking.
Just Some Fuckhead
Don’t we have any anti-Semitic Democrats we can nominate? This is ridiculous.
Greg
Here in California the Israel-above-all crowd are the same people who believe that the US can do whatever the hell it wants with Mexico and that any Mexican-American who dares even voice an opinion on the matter is a traitor who should immediately move there.
NCSteve
Because he’s an antibiotic resistant strain.
I was unaware, however, that he’d been appointed King of the Jews. I don’t know how I missed the election. I would have expected it to have gotten more publicity.
Anton Sirius
The best argument in favor of Hagel’s appointment is the list of people who don’t want him to get it.
Lanny Davis.
Bill Kristol.
Eric Cantor.
etc etc etc
WereBear
Are the talking heads aware that the evangelical fussing over Israel is solely because they need to be wiped out to bring on the Second Coming?
Would that change their attitude?
Mandalay
On the shows where investment pundits are praising or pounding a publicly traded company they used to routinely do a “full disclosure – I am long/short this stock” so we could weigh their slanted remarks accordingly.
I’d like to see the same thing done when someone goes on a rant about Israel, Palestine or Iran: “full disclosure – I am (not) Jewish, and I am long/short Israel”. Of course the only viewpoints you will ever see on TV will be long for Israel, and hostile towards Palestine and Iran.
Al Jazeera can’t get here soon enough for me.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Anton Sirius: How about the people who do?
John Cole
Pat Buchanan
AA+ Bonds
@WereBear:
The Israeli conservatives know that those people aren’t let near the levers; the people who count on evangelical support for Israel are, like the elite here, bad-faith atheists playing their own dangerous game with the truly devout.
Raven
@Anton Sirius: And that little pipsqueak airforce fucking lawyer.
AA+ Bonds
@Mandalay:
I identify as Gay British Israelite ;*
Mustang Bobby
Elliot Abrams came on NPR this afternoon and accused Hagel of being an anti-Semite, based apparently on his use of the term “Jewish lobby,” his “distancing himself” from the Nebraska Jewish groups, and that he once said he swore an oath to the U.S. Constitution as a U.S. Senator, not the Senator from Israel.
If that constitutes antisemitism, that’s setting the bar a tad low.
catclub
@Mandalay: “Al Jazeera can’t get here soon enough for me. ”
It is amazing how much of a tizzy that purchase of Current TV has put into the cable distributors. It sure likes like the powers that be really would like to ban it. probably would ban CNN International if CNN did not already limit its distribution in the US. Informative news, without Village biases included, is dangerous.
AA+ Bonds
. . . versus Santorum, Gingrich and the whole lot of heretics, apostates and would-be Catholic Prosperity pseudos . . .
catclub
@WereBear: No. SATSQ
catclub
@Mustang Bobby: “that’s setting the bar a tad low.”
I always bring up the fact that the US has zero mutual defense treaties with Israel. But we do have such treaties with Turkey.
Raven
@Just Some Fuckhead: Me
Culture of Truth
He must understand, first, that there is a difference between Jews who support Israel and the “Israel lobby.”
Do tell Lanny
Culture of Truth
don’t get me started on the turkey lobby
Raven
@Culture of Truth: Palin took care of them!
AA+ Bonds
Will Ross Douthat join his Pontiff and declare his “solidarity” with the Palestinian struggle, hmmmmmmmmmmmm
Jeremy
I love how everyone feels the need to chime in about who should be sec of defense but President Obama is the leader of this country and the commander of the U.S. forces. He gets to choose who he wants not know nothing idiotic pundits.
catclub
@catclub: s/likes like/looks like/
cathyx
@Jeremy: Hail to the king!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Jeremy: shake yer pompoms, sugartits
AA+ Bonds
CLICK FOR MORE ON CHUCK “HAMAN” HAGEL AND HIS PLANS FOR WORLD JEWRY
AA+ Bonds
ADOLF HAGEL AND HIS NO-BUMMER NAZIS
Napoleon
He is a cockroach. Nukes can’t even kill them.
Culture of Truth
Please continue, Lanny
dr. bloor
@Just Some Fuckhead: Looking at his supporters and detractors, he is both morally reprehensible and not reprehensible. Hagel is like Schroedinger’s Nominee.
Yutsano
@catclub: Turkey is in NATO. Israel isn’t. Oh my…
Culture of Truth
@dr. bloor: He’s also the Rashomon nominee. Or Rash Hashanahmon nominee, if you will.
Jeremy
@cathyx: Hey it’s the truth. Presidents get to pick who they want in there cabinet. It seems like lately plenty of people want to pick someone for the president but he makes the decision. This is just like the SOS choice.
BGinCHI
Lanny Davis sings “Israel Uber Alles.”
Coming this spring on vinyl.
Jeremy
@Just Some Fuckhead: Yeah real mature comment. But like I said president get to pick who they want. You may not like the picks but that’s the process.
cathyx
@Jeremy: So no one can express an opinion about his choice?
joes527
Thank the Clintons. Just sayin…
Mandalay
To Davis’s point about being offended about Hagel’s reference to the “Jewish lobby”, does anyone know the percentage of Jews in the “Israel lobby”, which I am assuming is AIPAC?
Mr. Google is telling me how there are blacks in AIPAC, hispanics in AIPAC, evangelicals in AIPAC, lotsa ordinary Americans in AIPAC, and lotsa Democatrats in AIPAC, but I can’t find out what percentage of those controlling AIPAC are Jewish, and what percentage of its membership are Jewish.
If AIPAC’s board and membership is overwhelmingly Jewish then I don’t see why Hagel is supposed to apologize at all, but I am not Jewish and may be missing Davis’s point.
(Not a troll…just trying to understand WTF this is all about. Is this debate similar to that for “colored” vs. “black” vs. “African American”?)
MobiusKlein
Never forget Jon Lovett’s defenestration of Lanny Davis:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/05/the-brash-hypocrisy-of-lanny-davis/257701/
Spankyslappybottom
No one is doing more to foment anti-Semitism than the current crop of Zionist fundamentalists enacting and defending apartheid in Gaza and elsewhere.
Paul
Needless to say, anybody who was wrong on the Iraq war has no say on whether Hagel should be nominated or not. They have nothing of value to add. That goes for McCain, Lindsay Graham and 100% of the Republicans who voted for it.
burnspbesq
@Anton Sirius:
A-fucking men. If you judge a man by his enemies, then Hagel must be one bad-ass mofo,cuz he’s got all the right enemies.
burnspbesq
@Anton Sirius:
A-fucking men. If you judge a man by his enemies, then Hagel must be one bad-ass mofo,cuz he’s got all the right enemies.
xian
totally agree that the line between anti-Israel and anti-semite has been willfully blurred by Likudniks, but the logic geek in me feels compelled to point out that “If anti-Israel equals anti-Jewish, then pro-Israel equals pro-Jewish” isn’t necessarily true.
xian
@Mustang Bobby: “Elliot Abrams came on NPR this afternoon”
why is that war criminal consulted at all?
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.)
Maybe somebody can answer this for me. Who the hell is Lanny Davis, anyway? He’s some asshole I’ve heard about off and on for I don’t know how long, but why does anybody care what he thinks? Has he ever done anything? He’s never been in Congress or anything as far as I know. What is he, the Hidden Kardashian or something? Nobody else I know of is so well known without ever having a reason to be
Paul
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Is Barney Frank and Max Cleland good enough for you?
sparrow
@Mustang Bobby: My boyfriend and I were both aghast at his remarks on the way home from work today. I don’t see how his charge of being an antisemite isn’t slander.
Mandalay
@burnspbesq:
Add Jennifer Rubin to the list of enemies…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2013/01/07/the-hagel-firestorm/
Mandalay
@Paul:
But Hagel is a Republican who voted for the Iraq war. Are you suggesting that he should disqualify himself?
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
@Mustang Bobby:
It also recalls to mind the apocryphal story about Lincoln, after being pestered with yet another complaint about Grant’s drinking problems, replying that he’d like to send a barrel of Grant’s favorite whiskey to his other generals. Sometimes results do matter. Hagel seems about as well positioned on DOD focused policy issues as we’re ever likely to get thru the current Senate.
Of course Grant had his own problem with antisemitism, so this analogy could get off track pretty quickly.
Lyrebird
@Mandalay: I’m so glad you made your second comment, bc your first one scared me.
AIPAC is the Likudnik Lobby, sure, and also the Strange Bedfellow Lobby, too.
Your full-disclosure idea I’m afraid is exactly why I get afraid to even look at JC/BJ posts about Israel. Then I remember JC brought in Tom L and I take a deep breath and come back. Let me explain: I am “ethnically” mostly Irish and religiously Jewish. When I was growing up around Boston, no one EVER ever ever demanded I prove my loyalty to the USA over Northern Ireland, even as the local IRA lobby was shipping money *and* *guns* over the pond. I haven’t seen any Yale prof’s write top-selling books about this IRA lobby, have you?
Why should Keith Ellison be put on the spot about his loyalty to the US bc of his religion? Why should I? Esp when (as people have mentioned above) some of the worst Bibi-enablers around are Christians anyhow?
Yes the toadies gathering ’round to criticize Hagel are disgusting, but could y’all emphasize your disgust for the toadying w/o pulling this old “they all have divided loyalty” song off the shelf?
Paul
@Mandalay:
Great comeback!
I think, though, in Hagel’s case that he has been so adamantly against the war (and his own vote) ever since. I truly believe that he has learned from that. Compare his strong arguments against the Iraq with say Hillary Clinton. If Hillary Clinton had a chance to do her vote over, I truly believe that she would vote whatever way would make her more electable to be President (as the first time).
Maude
@Paul:
Barney Frank backed away from being against Hagel today.
@joes527:
You beat me to it. He’s still a friend of the Clintons.
Pococurante
It’s not about Hagel’s Israel comments.
Sheesh I swear BJ in the last few months has become FOX News with their ears turned in the other direction. But the same damn drooling desire to be led down a primrose path.
Hagel, to paraphrase Peter Gabriel, is not one of them (“Not One Of Us”). He’s the last of what passes for a moderate Republican.
Contemplate for at least a pico second….
Every minute Hagel breathes on the floors reminds the rest of the GOP clown show that they are… wait for it… just the clown show.
AIPAC doesn’t want this battle. J Street would like to paint it that way for, hmm, more donations from opposition overly-polarized people with more Paypal than common sense. And gawd knows the MSM needs a head fake even more.
Stop volunteering for the Fox News smoke screen.
Hagel will make it. He’ll be decent in his job. This gun-toting Zionist looks forward to it.
Mandalay
@Lyrebird:
I can’t speak for others, but for me the issue is one of MULTIPLE loyalties rather than divided loyalties. For example, Davis, Rubin, Kristol, Schumer et al are clearly both pro-US AND pro-Israel.
But that is automatically a problem, because whenever the powerful with multiple loyalties are shaping policy it should be based solely on the interests of this country, rather than this country AND Israel. Those with ties to Israel will (by definition) form their policy to accommodate Israel.
That view doesn’t seem remotely contentious to me, in the sense that it is inarguable and factual. But of course if you say it out loud a lotta feefees get hurt vewy vewy quickly.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Somebody who can get his drivel published in the sort of journals Very Serious People take seriously.
And I know your question was rhetorical, but if memory serves he was assistant COS to Clinton, generic “White House Official”
Pococurante
@Pococurante: I should also add: Hagel’s viewpoints on women, rape, and abortion should carry little weight with opponents of his appointment.
Ideally feminists and gender advocates will appreciate that, while they state AIPAC has no reason to oppose him and to vilify those who do, he is in no way in a position to see women and gays disenfranchised here and across the world despite his lifelong positions.
This, as over Hagel’s other possibly controversial views, Obama will prevail.
I think he’d be a great friend of real Israelis. Non-white people of the female persuasion… well we’ll see.
LosGatosCA
@ranchandsyrup:
Everyone knows the correct terminology is ‘prefudiated.’
Tom Q
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Lanny Davis is prominent because, in the early days of the Lewinsky scandal, when alot of Democrats were scared of betting the wrong way, Davis was willing to go on TV night and day defending the Clinton position. He must have been on Geraldo every other night. (And, sure, Geraldo’s easy to mock now and forever, but in that initial month or so, all the other media outlets were in such lynch-mob mode that Geraldo’s show on CNBC was one of the few places where the Clinton side got at least half a hearing) In retrospect, it was a preview of Davis’ propensity for taking any position if the price was right, but at the time it was refreshing to have someone loudly speaking for what about 60% of the country supported.
rikyrah
go Mr. Hagel!!
fuck Lanny Davis
Baud
From TPM:
liberal
@Lyrebird:
You might want to consult a dictionary. A private organization sending money and guns overseas does not constitute “lobbying”.
liberal
@Pococurante:
I doubt that’s true. Gotta get back to work, but I’d wager if you consult e.g. Americans for Democratic Action’s Congressional scorecards, Hagel won’t come out as all that moderate.
On specific issues relevant to the question of whether he might be an OK SecDef, he might be OK, but that’s a different issue.
Zapruder F. Mashtots, D.D.S. (Mumphrey, et al.)
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
No, it wasn’t really rhetorical. I’d long since forgotten whatever he might have ever done that anybody would care what he thinks. Now, even knowing that he was President Clinton’s chief of staff, I still don’t see why anybody would care what he thinks.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Paul:
aren’t they easily cancelled out by glenn greenwald’s support for hagel?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Tom Q: Oy. There’s a flashback. What a rogue’s gallery Geraldo used to have on. That was my first exposure to Ann Coulter. The toxic-ly (if that’s a word) smug Victoria Toensing and her obnoxious poseur of a husband with his prop cigar. Pat Cadell, who had the same crazy eyes as Coulter. Grendel Goldberg and his Dam. Susan Carpenter MacMillan. Also, too, remember when Geraldo was defending Clinton, and Tweety Matthews was all full of Catholic self-righteousness at the defiling of THE PEOPLE’S HOUSE! Crazy fucking days, that turned me into a political junkie.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
that’s only because geraldo will fuck anything that moves and tweety hasn’t had sex on the downlow since his priest tapped him in the shitter in the sacristy back in ’55.
Yutsano
@Just Some Fuckhead: I think you need to balance your equation again.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Yutsano: no way, glenn greenwald is evil enough to cover a dozen more has-been congresspeople.
cmorenc
@David Hunt:
Exactly, +1. To Lanny, it’s a “fuck you” cynical version of Liberace’s famous response to whether he was hurt by what people said about him: “I’ll cry all the way to the bank.”
amy c
@Mandalay: Even if AIPAC membership is 100% Jewish, this does not mean that AIPAC lobbies for the interests of “Jews.”
It represents the interests of a certain brand of Zionist thought. And Zionism is a Jewish concern, for obvious reasons. But not all Jews are Zionists, and there are different shades of Zionist, too.
Of course AIPAC wants people to believe that their goals are the undisputed goals of all Jews, en masse. They’d have you believe their goals are the undisputed goals of all humankind, if they could sell it, as is the case with any and every lobbying group throughout all of history. I am sure that AIPAC is glad that Fred Kaplan is so deeply convinced by their efforts that he thinks we can call what they do the “Jewish lobby” and so what?
Well no. No. I’m a Jew and the specific policies that Hagel was thinking of when he said “Jewish lobby” are mostly not policies I endorse. I am not okay with that linguistic shorthand. Hagel does not get to tell me what is important to my people, and by extension, me. If he has a problem with the Israeli right and its American supporters, great – because I have a big problem with them, too. So do many Israelis, incidentally. But AIPAC and their ilk do not speak for me, and do not lobby for me, just because I am Jewish and they are too. They may be Jews who lobby – they aren’t the Jewish lobby. See the difference?
I’m fine with the Hagel nomination in general and haven’t seen any real, solid arguments against it. But “Jewish lobby” is a thoughtless term.
Tom Q
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I confess, I watched Geraldo pretty much every night for a year or so; it was the only way to get through the crazy time. Bill Maher, still doing Politically Incorrect at the time, was the other outlet.
Tweety’s show was totally unviewable; there wasn’t a salacious rumor he didn’t push in a way to make Fox News proud. I truly laugh at how he lionizes Bill and Hillary now (to the point he was put out Barack didn’t specifically mention Bill in his victory speech Nov. 6th). If Matthews had had his way, Clinton would have left office the most vilified president short of Nixon.
liberal
@amy c:
That is a distortion of what Kaplan wrote:
[emphasis added]
amy c
@liberal: His point is that AIPAC and its allies invite the term “Jewish lobby” by the way they speak and respond to things.
My point is that what AIPAC and its allies invite is irrelevant. There are tons of Jews for whom AIPAC and its allies do not speak. Therefore, they are not the “Jewish lobby,” even if they have successfully given Fred Kaplan and others that impression. And I’m not okay with shrugging my shoulders and saying its AIPAC’s fault that people say “Jewish lobby.” AIPAC is all kinds of wrong, but it’s still a lousy term.
And Kaplan is right that “Jewish lobby” is not an inherently anti-Semitic term, of course. It’s just thoughtless.
Or something like that.Suffern Ace
@amy c: I
DavidTC
And perhaps just as importantly, the IRA was not attempting to constantly have get us into their conflict with England. How often did we threaten England with war over Ireland?
The analogy rather falls apart, but the real problem people have with AIPAC is not they are a lobbying group, it’s that they have managed to make (what they think is) an Israeli enemy an American enemy. And apparently this is completely acceptable behavior to everyone.
In fact, they’ve managed to make a somewhat extreme Israeli political position the default American position, which, to stretch the analogy of a hypothetical ‘Northern Ireland Irish lobby’, is like the default American position being ‘Conquer England, turn it over as a vassal for Ireland to rule’, which wasn’t even the position of the Irish people fighting the English occupation.
And all criticism of Ireland, or this insane position, is not allowed.
So Israel finds it completely acceptable to be a bad actor in almost every international norm, from not doing an military occupation within the law to having undeclared nuclear weapons to operating illegal blockades to attacking nearby countries for fairly dubious reasons. As the country that helped create half those international norms, you’d think we’d have something to say about that, but apparently not, because they’re our ‘ally’. (Despite, of course, not actually having any mutual defense treaties with them. Strictly speaking, we’re more Turkey’s ally then theirs.)
DavidTC
@amy c:
My point is that what AIPAC and its allies invite is irrelevant. There are tons of Jews for whom AIPAC and its allies do not speak. Therefore, they are not the “Jewish lobby,” even if they have successfully given Fred Kaplan and others that impression. And I’m not okay with shrugging my shoulders and saying its AIPAC’s fault that people say “Jewish lobby.” AIPAC is all kinds of wrong, but it’s still a lousy term.
Is it wrong that I actually _want_ this issue to be blow out of proportion by the _right_, so for once the news will actually, in public, talk about why AIPAC _isn’t_ the ‘Jewish lobby’?
Because, of course, current Republicans are controlled by the media and whatever donor gave them money last, and are too stupid to realize that a discussion about how ‘AIPAC’ is not ‘the Jewish Lobby’ is _ astonishingly_ stupid on their part. I love this ‘cut off our head to spite our toes’ thing the right has going on, where any position that Dem hold (Or, in this case, a Dem-supported Republican.) is immediately attacked, no matter how damaging that attack is to the Republican party in the long run.
And, thanks to the current Republicans being unable to function without sounding like stupid racists, I’m sure they’ll produce some antisemitism in that discussion also. While standing there and asserting that AIPAC does not represent Jews.
Oh. My. God. I need to go start some popcorn.
I think, to continue this, Hagel should apologize by saying something like ‘I apologize for falling for AIPAC’s often-implied claim that they represent the interest of Jewish people, when in fact they only are supported by X% of Jews in America. They probably want to be called the Israeli lobby, except it’s increasingly clear that not even the majority of Jews in Israeli support them. From now on I will refer to them simply as the ‘Likud Lobby’. Again, I apology to painting all Jews, both here and in Israel, with the extremism brush of Likud, represented here by AIPAC.’
I.e., he should apologize while punching AIPAC in the face.