Smears against Obama that he is anti-semitic: a research thread

[beachmom]

The best place to start is a great post by Ron on Liberal Values:

http://liberalvaluesblog.com/?p=2717

There have been two different smears that I am aware of: one are the nasty e-mails and the other is a very unfortunate column by Richard Cohen. In Ron's above post, he includes a great letter written by Jewish groups (like the anti-defamation league and Simon Wiesenthal, etc.) condemning the e-mail smears. One does tend to think it is also against Cohen's column, although not explicitly. Ron's post also has links to Cohen's column, the fact that the smears are being translated into Hebrew, and Carpetbagger's summary of it.

More links here:

http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com/2008/01/15/richard-cohen-bad-for-the-jews/

"Richard Cohen: Bad for the Jews" (this is a great post with links to even more posts condemning the column.

Ah, and it seems the Cohen smear came from NewsMax (link deadened. Just add in http://www):

newsmax.com/kessler/obama_wright_farrakhan/2008/01/14/64332.html

Here is a good diary from a Kossak who is Jewish and offended by ... Cohen:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/1/15/133217/817/46/437282

Even right wing blogger, Captain Ed, isn't buying this story. I will deaden the link, but this will come in useful if you are dealing with Republicans to show it is a smear:

captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/016641.php

Normally, I would not go out of my way to defend Obama, but this is a rather unusual tactic for his opponents -- even if sincere, as I believe Cohen to be. One could argue that Obama needs to explain the view of his church on its more ethnocentric doctrines, especially given the inclusiveness Obama preaches and by all accounts lives. His membership in that congregation is his decision, and perhaps it has some significance for voters, although it certainly sidles up to a red line that respects religious diversity. It's quite another to demand that Obama answer for the decisions of his minister, who has nothing to do with Obama's campaign or his policy formulation.

Had Obama published a newsletter that praised and feted Farrakhan, that would be different. Farrakhan has a noxious history of anti-Semitism, as Cohen documents in small part. If Obama ran the church that published the newsletter that awarded Farrakhan, it would also be a legitimate issue to cover in the campaign. However, Obama merely attends the church; he does not make those decisions, and one would suspect that he'd be a lot smarter than Wright about it if he did. Obama should not have to answer for either Farrakhan or Wright, and implying that he has some responsibility to do so attempts to assign guilt by second-hand association.

Consider the eruptions that came from Hillary's camp over the last couple of weeks. Billy Shaheen explicitly suggested that Barack Obama may have dealt drugs without any evidence supporting that allegation. BET chief Robert Johnson alluded to Obama's admitted drug use as a teenager to suggest something similar. Both of them had direct ties to Hillary's campaign, which made Hillary responsible for their behavior. Not only does Farrakhan have no ties to Obama, but Obama isn't putting Wright out on the campaign trail as Hillary did with Johnson.

This seems intended to paint Obama as anti-Semitic as a way to push back against the repeated Hillary fumbles on her civil-rights rhetoric and attacks on Obama. If so, this is very, very thin gruel.

By the way, is Cohen a Hillary supporter? I'm not going to believe this comes from Hillary based on a right wing blog. Anyone know?

Everyone, please add to this thread. I don't have the original e-mail smear. Someone needs to add that. Also, please deaden links to right wing/questionable sources. No need for them to find our group.

[TayTay]

1. Wow!

Great stuff. I thought that Cohen article was awful. It had nothing directly to do with Barack Obama. The innuendo was unsupported.

Thanks!

[beachmom]

2. Excellent. Now 7 Jewish senators (none who have endorsed anyone) have sent a letter:

http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2008/01/seven_unaffiliated_jewish_us_senators_release_letter_condeming_obama_muslim_smears.php

(Lieberman a no-show, of course)

An Open Letter to the Jewish Community:

Over the past several weeks, many in the Jewish community have received hateful emails that use falsehood and innuendo about Senator Barack Obama's religion and attack him personally. As Jewish United States Senators who have not endorsed a candidate for the Democratic nomination, we condemn these scurrilous attacks.

We find it particularly abhorrent that these attacks arc apparently being sent specifically to the Jewish Community. Jews, who have historically been the target of such attacks, should be the first to reject these tactics.

We won't dignify these falsehoods by repeating them in order to refute them. Instead, we will express our outrage at these tactics, which are being used to demonize a good and decent man and our friend and colleague. Attempting to manipulate voters into supporting or opposing one candidate or another based on despicable and fictitious attacks is disgraceful. These false and malicious attacks should not be part of our political discourse.

All voters should support whichever candidate they believe would make the best president. We sincerely hope that Americans will make that decision based on the factual records of these candidates, not false charges circulated by anonymous mass emails.

Sincerely,

Carl Levin

Barbara Boxer

Ben Cardin

Russ Feingold

Frank Lautenberg

Bernie Sanders

Ron Wyden

[Inuca]

3. Do you or anybody else

know where exactly this letter was sent and what is being done for people to become aware of it? I am Jewish, but do not participate in any kind of community activity, so I do not know, but would be very interested to find out.

Do I have to add that I find the insinuations despicable?

[beachmom]

4. Bad news to report: the smears are working

http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/coffeehouse/2008/jan/24/smear_campaign_against_obama_succeeding_among_jews

Smear Campaign Against Obama Succeeding Among Jews

By M.J. Rosenberg | bio

A few weeks ago when I informed TPM readers about the hate campaign against Obama withing the Jewish community, I did not believe that it would succeed.

Jews are too smart to fall for such obvious lies. Or so I thought.

Now I read in the New York Jewish Week, the largest Jewish newspaper in the country, that the campaign is working, as intended. Jewish voters actually are buying into the "Obama is a secret Muslim" lie. It also appears that some Jewish organizations are involved in disseminating the smears. Incredibly, the recently retired Israeli ambassador to the United States has also jumped into the act with a column saying Obama should not be President. That is almost unprecedented.

The goal, of course, is to defeat Obama in the Florida, New York and California primaries where Jewish voters are numerous.

I'd write more but the whole subject is too nauseating.


Go to the post, so you can follow the links.

[ralbertson]

5. We do need to spread the word about that letter, yes.

Did anybody post OPs about it in the big forums here on DU, or put up diaries on dKos about it there?

Another option is for those of us who are either in or have friends in the Jewish community to take a page out of the smearmeisters' book and send out a rebuttal email with this material in it, send to everybody in your address books, and request them to forward it on to everybody in theirs as well.

Similarly, whenever you see one of those forwarded and re-forwarded smear mails, you can hit 'reply to all' and send the rebuttal message right back out at them. (You might want to set up a blind freemail addy like a Hotmail account to use for that, though, so you don't get spam-slammed in return.)

[karynnj]

6. I agree

I"m Jewish - so I intend to use the facts, that letter and this editorial in a local Jewish newspaper - and send it out to everyone in my husband's and my address book.

Here's the local op-ed - so the truth is getting out in at least some of the Jewish media:
http://www.njjewishnews.com/ed.html