Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Pro and Con: Is Obama Good For The Jews?

Pajamas Media is featuring opposing sides of the question. Tuesday, Daniel Koffler wrote about why Jews will vote for Obama:

This November, the overwhelming majority of American Jews will vote for Barack Obama. In the most recent poll of Jewish voters, Obama led John McCain by two-to-one. This makes perfect sense since the vast majority of American Jews are liberal Democrats who oppose the Iraq war, have become steadily more liberal and Democratic throughout George W. Bush’s presidency, and aren’t likely to have any major objection to a candidate like Obama whose position on Israeli security is slightly to the right of the current Israeli government.

That’s an odd set of background circumstances for the interminable chattering this campaign has produced about “Obama’s Jewish problem,” which seems to consist of the ordinary opposition of Republican Jews to any Democratic candidate, plus scurrilous rumor-mongering that begins and ends with Obama’s middle name.

...What journalists interested in telling the actual story of Obama’s Jewish support might notice — that is, by investigating the depth and content of Obama’s support among Jews rather than passing off sensational anecdotes and calling them a trend — is that Obama will not only win the Jewish vote by a huge margin, but also has a greater affinity with the culture and cultural history of American Jews than any previous major party candidate.
Don't bother reading Koffler about Obama's past connections to the Muslim community--both personal and financial. You shouldn't expect to read about his backtracking on Jerusalem either.
Instead, there is a lot of the warm and fuzzy stuff about why Jews will identify with Obama--plus 3 paragraphs about James Joyce and agenbite of inwit.

The piece is as marked by the issues it fails to address as it is by the feel-good tone to prove that Obama, as a 'stranger in a strange land' identifies closely with Jews.

Funny, I imagine American Muslims once felt the same way.

Read the whole thing.

It's amazing the lengths Obama's supporters go to compensate for the inability to talk about his experience and actual accomplishments.

Read Ed Lasky's rebuttal here.

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