I suppose there are a lot of ways to look at something like this:
Clinton’s campaign this week dispatched Joe Lieberman, the 2000 Democratic vice presidential nominee and an Orthodox Jew, to South Florida, where he wooed fellow Orthodox Jews, among others.
Lieberman told me that he sensed the community there – including the Orthodox Jews he met – were moving Clinton’s way.
The last time I paid any attention to Joe Lieberman was two summers ago when he was doing everything in his power to sabotage the nuclear agreement with Iran. Of course, I noticed that he endorsed John McCain in 2008. I noticed when he single-handedly spiked a Medicare expansion in the Affordable Care Act for seemingly no deeper reason than that he heard Anthony Weiner advocating for it. In the end, it seemed like Democrats purged Joe Lieberman from their system and the feeling wound up being mutual.
But Joe Lieberman can’t abide the idea of Donald Trump as president. If you want to take a darker view, he seems to be reconciled to another President Clinton.
And there’s probably a reason for that:
He won’t let me use his name – once he introduces himself, I realize I know him, by reputation — but he wants to give me the lowdown, “off the record,” of why no one will talk with me. I lower my notebook and he looks at me like I’m nuts.
“Write, write!” he says. He doesn’t mean off the record, he means “on background.”
“Call me an Orthodox [Jew] active in Republican politics.” Done.
“No one’s going to talk to you,” he explains. “You can’t be for Hillary in this community. But how can you be for Trump? What he said was disgusting.”
…Why can’t you be for Hillary in this community? I ask.
Democrats are hard work, he explains, and Clinton won’t be different from Obama: They come around to the right position on Israel, but it takes exhausting work behind the scenes.
“Four more years of that,” he says, not relishing the prospect.
The community in question here is in Miami Beach, where the Times of Israel reporter Ron Kampeas discovered that no Orthodox Jews wanted to speak to him about the election. Unlike in the overall Jewish population where Clinton has greater than 60% support, among the Orthodox she was barely cracking 20% in a September poll.
So, Joe Lieberman was dispatched down there to talk some sense into people, and the basic idea is that it might be hard work but the Democratic nominee is ultimately going to adopt policies vis-a-vis Israel that are acceptable.
But, then, Trump still has his supporters.
What about you? I ask Teresa, a 33-year-old stay-at-home mom. She who won’t give me her last name.
“I’m probably voting for Trump,” she says.
What’s appealing about him?
“My husband is voting for him.”
Anything else?
“He has some good points,” she says, pausing to think. “The wall – he wants to build a wall. He’s copying Israel.”
He’s copying Israel and he’s backed by every Nazi, Aryan Nation, and White Supremacist organization in the country.
Under the circumstances, I guess I welcome Joe Lieberman’s help.
The vast majority of Orthodox Jews are a fucking shanda.
That’s just great.
For those of you who didn’t grow up around Yiddish speakers, “shanda” means something like “shame” or “scandal”. “It’s a shanda” would translate as “it’s scandalous”.
Anyway, I’ll pass along this ridiculous remark to my cousin who maintains a “modern Orthodox” lifestyle and is a die-hard liberal Democrat who supported Sanders for the nomination.
I’m not sure how one person disproves Steggles remark. Also, your comment below pretty clearly indicates you’re misreading Martin.
The bigotry is strong in this thread.
Very true. One would never know our people were once persecuted. One would never know the Talmud talks about this. Many, maybe most, of the orthodox are a bunch of fuckin hypocrites. But then that’s true of pretty much all fundamentalists.
I didn’t read it that way at all. He’s just pointing out the paradox.
It’s the paradox itself that’s offensive, and that’s not Booman’s fault, it’s the fault of the orthodox khnyokes who walk around with that cognitive dissonance. (For the yiddishly impaired, “khnyok” means “bigot”.)
And no — avade nit ale. I myself was on the discussion group Orthodox Jews for Obama during the 2008 campaign.
As far as the end times Xians, you are totally correct. I’ve said the same thing myself here over the years.
Oh, and by the way, plenty of those khnyokes are NOT orthodox. For example, Netanyahu’s not orthodox.
Very illuminating comment: he’s copying Israel. Yes, yes he is. I wonder how many “liberal zionists” can wrap their head around that.
Top Likud politician calls to strip B’Tselem head’s citizenship
Grrr:
Fixed link
I think they mostly don’t even try, but it could be changing/
Yes, she IS more right than wrong about that. Just think about that.
Not a Democrat; just temporarily aligned for tactical reasons, like the neocons and Glenn Beck.
Fake Centrist have to Face Centrist. He’s for Clinton right now because it’s absolutely essential to his grift and 3rd Way nonsense that Trump disappears as quickly as possible down the memory hole.
You can bet that if he had any ability to no blow up what is left of his brand by being for Trump, he would be because most of Trumps policies are typical Republican policies. But Trump himself is so toxic, what with his refusal to dog whistle instead of bullhorn, that even the Fake Centrists have to actually pick the Dem side or the game is up.
I hope Clinton is not a fake Democrat. She’s saying most of the right things, though unfortunately not when it comes to Israel, where she’s very a much in the “Israel can do no wrong” crowd. That alone is why I supported Sanders in the Washington caucus. But having a large tent is sometimes a downer (and a challenge), and can make it tempting to abandon principles.
Joe’s a twit, but he’s not going to say any stupid shit to embarrass Hillary or Kaine. If he can get Florida safer into the win column paying for his fall vacation to Miami is perfectly acceptable. Even putting him on the civilian Defense Advisory Board is harmless if somehow Rubio could be upset as well.
It’s not like he’s David Duke or Jeff Sessions.
Agree completely, LosGatos (although I’d say Lieberman is much more of a screaming asshole than a twit).
So, Joe Lieberman was dispatched down there to talk some sense into people, and the basic idea is that it might be hard work but the Democratic nominee is ultimately going to adopt policies vis-a-vis Israel that are acceptable.
Something smells here. When has Clinton ever crossed Netanyahu? She is the Democratic nominee after all. Hell, is Netanyahu acceptable to these people? If not, what’s the point? Also, how many of them are there? Will they really make the difference or is Trump already DOA down there?
Perhaps this is about the Senate seat as much as Clinton, though I am speculating. Seeing Lieberman’s name in a political sphere made me recoil near automatically, but we’ll have Bayh to worry about again too. I want him nowhere near the White House, even an appointed position. It’s been nice not seeing he, or his ilk, lately. Reading Obama discuss the role Lieberman played in shutting down the public option as well as other things in the NYMag reminded me of how nice it is he is away from power.
How about an ambassadorship in some comfortable but reasonably far away country? No, not Israel. Perhaps Austria? Vienna is comfy, and Lieberman’s maternal grandparents were from Austria-Hungary. It’d probably be only for a couple years, by mutual agreement, since Lieberman is already 74 years old now.
Fuck Lieberman.
If he wants an ambassadorship make it Bhutan.
Let him eat yak butter.
What an appalling thing to do to Bhutan. I have visited there. They certainly deserve better than the LIEbertoad. Plus they eat more than yak butter. Food there is actually pretty good.
LIEbertoad should get NOTHING for doing this. As far as I’m concerned, it’s scant reparations for all the damage he and his wife have done to this country over the years.
Why should he get ANY kind of appointment out of this small thing. Sure, it’s great if he can convince these people to vote for THIER OWN BETTER interests (rather than electing a frickin Nazi, sheesh). As far as I’m concerned, this is scant reparations for all the damage he and his wife have done to this country over the years. Let him do this ONE possibly good thing and then go away again, thankyewverymuch.
Hey, thanks Booman. You’ve conflated being Jewish with being an unquestioning supporter of Israel and its baleful record vis a vis the Palestinian people. I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that this isn’t what you actually meant. I’m going to assume that you’re just fed up with Joe Lieberman and his smarmy ways. As am I. As is, I’ll wager, every reader of this blog.
“He’s copying Israel and he’s backed by every Nazi, Aryan Nation, and White Supremacist organization in the country.”
Oh great. This sure reads as if you’re associating Israel with “every Nazi, Aryan Nation, and White Supremacist organization in the country”. To those of us whose family trees have lots of dead ends owing to Nazi massacres and death camps, making that kind of association is just a wee bit troubling.
By the way, polls in Florida show Hillary Clinton has overwhelming support among Jewish voters.
It shouldn’t be necessary to explain this, but allow me to say a few words about the Republicans and Israel. The GOP has been cultivating fundamentalist Christians for several decades now. Those fundamentalists view Israel as core to their perspectives about “end times”. They want some sort of conflagration in the Mideast because they believe it’ll set off a chain of events leading to Jesus’ Second Coming, at which point Jews who accept Christ as savior get to go to heaven, while the rest are condemned to eternal damnation. The fundamentalists don’t actually give a rat’s ass about Jewish people except insofar as that we are a means to their bizarre theological end.
I don’t think Booman himself meant anything but aghast disagreement with the woman’s statement. He does not entertain any notion that Netanyahu’s Israel is in any way-shape-or-form like Nazi’z or other racial supremists, etc. imo
(To paraphrase Big Dog Clinton’s famous parsing.)
But booman didn’t make “that kind of association”, Teresa did (and I think you’re taking unwarranted offense based on a misreading?).
In its context (directly following quote from Miami Orthodox Jew explaining her avowed support for Trump, and using “he” in reference to Trump), booman’s also clearly using “he” to mean Trump in the sentence you quoted.
So it doesn’t “read” as you’ve characterized it at all. Not to me, anyway.
Though I read booman’s real point to be the irony of Teresa, a young Orthodox Jew (by implication) failing to make the association between the candidate she’s expressing support for “copying Israel”‘s wall-building strategy and the fact that a big chunk of her most ardent fellow-Trump-supporters are “every Nazi, Aryan Nation, and White Supremacist organization in the country.”
[I inadvertently posted this comment above as a reply to the wrong person. I meant it to be for Joel.]
I didn’t read it that way at all. He’s just pointing out the paradox.
It’s the paradox itself that’s offensive, and that’s not Booman’s fault, it’s the fault of the orthodox khnyokes who walk around with that cognitive dissonance. (For the yiddishly impaired, “khnyok” means “bigot”.) Oh, and by the way, plenty of those khnyokes are NOT orthodox. For example, Netanyahu’s not orthodox.
And no — avade nit ale. I myself was on the discussion group Orthodox Jews for Obama during the 2008 campaign.
As far as the end times Xians, you are totally correct. I’ve said the same thing myself here over the years.
The final sentence is indeed offensive, but I am not the cause of the offense.
You bring your own conceptions of what it means to emulate Israel to the table, as do I.
If there is an indictment of Israel there, it’s in your own consciousness not as a result of me stating it.
You can accept or reject the equations that sentence details.
This election is turning Godwin’s Law into a parody of itself.
I’m pretty sure that even Godwin said that the aforementioned law did not apply when actually discussing Nazi’s and fascism.
That said, I still find a agree with you…
“I hate
IllinoisNazis”