Obama Mishegaas
Well, there’s much to be written about the Obamaphobia in many parts of the Jewish community, and I would recommend checking out this wonderful op-ed by Rabbi Yosef Blau in the Jewish Week a couple of weeks ago. Meanwhile, I thought I would share with you this picture of a bumper sticker that I got last week. (Hat tip to Akiva Weiss)
Funny, I would have thought “Yerida…because he might win” would have been more appropriate. No one is concerned about what Obama will do to Jews in the US. It’s what he will do to Israel’s safety/security that people are debating.
Wow. Any word on whose bright little piece of sunshine this bumper sticker is?
where can we get the bumper stickers?
scary, just scary. Yet one more reason I have given up on the mainstream Jewish community.
Funny, I would have thought “Yerida…because he might win†would have been more appropriate. No one is concerned about what Obama will do to Jews in the US. It’s what he will do to Israel’s safety/security that people are debating.
Yeah, if I understand the email forwards correctly, I thought the problem was that Obama, if elected, was going to appoint his former pastor Mahmoud HUSSEIN Ahmadinejad as Secretary of State, and would then nuke Israel and establish a fundamentalist Islamic state on the charred wreckage. It seems that the Obama-smearers need to be more on-message.
Yet one more reason I have given up on the mainstream Jewish community.
Is there evidence that this bumper sticker comes from “the mainstream Jewish community”? Jewish voters voted overwhelmingly for Kerry in 2004, and (at least outside of Florida) are likely to vote overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008.
Rabbi Blau writes that Obama “represents change”…. I wish he or somebody else could tell me what that means. Seriously. John McCain also “represents change”. What would be honest to say is that Sen. Obama desires leftist change and Sen. McCain desires centrist/rightist change.
All in all it’s a logical op-ed….but also self-evident: There’s no reason for the Jewish community or anyone else to shun contact with Obama. OK. And there’s not much evidence that the Jewish community has shunned contact with him. His appearance (and slightly painful pandering) at AIPAC shows that the establishment American Jewish groups also recognize the value of contact and involvement.
None of us can know if this means that a huge majority of Jews will necessarily go on to vote for him. Increased contact doesn’t always lead to increased liking.
Precisely in what way could Obama — who loved on AIPAC to the point that Arab-American journalists and pundits are asking if they can even support him — be bad for Israel? Or American Jews?
The printer of this bumper sticker has absolutely no basis.
The printer of this bumper sticker has absolutely no basis.
Except racism. Welcome to the new willie horton! SO glad my family is a part of it. I’m so embarrassed.
There you go KRG, you opened the can of worms that I was trying to keep subtle. All of this makes no sense from any other point of view. This is exactly what many of the commentators have been saying. The anti-Obama fear in the Jewish community has mostly centered around what could happen to Israel. From that point of view, then the logical conclusion is to make yeridah, not aliyah. I’ve heard very little fear-mongering of social collapse happening here. So, the fear that this bumper sticker expresses is something else.
Hmm, now what could that be? Well, one pointer would be the unusual inclusion of his picture in the bumper sticker. I have rarely seen a portrait on a bumper sticker, and for good reason. Bumper stickers are small, real estate is precious. Every square inch of it needs to be used effectively. Therefore, if any part of it does not communicate your message, you should get it off. So, I will assume that his image has to be part of hte message. Now, what kind of fear could be elicited with his picture? A fear of lanky people, perhaps. A fear of big smiles, more plausible. Wow, but a fear of black people, racism, well that starts to make sense. I’m not sure it’s there, but I too, like KRG, smell something fishy here.
Folks–it’s the internet age. Anybody who wants can print up anything they want in batches of 50 for maybe $0.50 per sticker or so. Tastelessness aside, loony people get what they want when they get internet forums to discuss their basement laser printer creations.
ashamed that Jews can’t embrace diversity. what have we forgotten?
“Is there evidence that this bumper sticker comes from “the mainstream Jewish communityâ€? Jewish voters voted overwhelmingly for Kerry in 2004, and (at least outside of Florida) are likely to vote overwhelmingly for Obama in 2008.”
I sure hope he does not win Florida. Jews and Cubanos united against Obama in 2008!
Actually, maybe my parenthetical qualifier about Florida was premature. FiveThirtyEight reports a new poll that shows Obama in the lead in Florida. They write: “If Florida is in play, then John McCain’s defense is completely broken; it was the one traditional swing state that always had looked off-limits to Obama. More frustratingly for McCain, he had spent the better part of three days in Florida earlier this month, hoping to raise doubts about Obama among Jewish voters. Although Quinnipiac does not break out the Jewish vote, Obama holds a 61-31 lead in Southeast Florida, where most of the state’s Jewish population is concentrated.”
For comparison, the three big counties in southeast Florida collectively went 59-40 (Kerry-Bush) in 2004 and 60-38-1 (Gore-Bush-Nader) in 2000 (source: uselectionatlas.org), so Obama is doing no worse. If McCain wins Florida this year, it will be due to the northern part of the state (which is part of the South), not the Jews.
“Actually, maybe my parenthetical qualifier about Florida was premature. FiveThirtyEight reports a new poll that shows Obama in the lead in Florida.”
Polls, shmolls. We both know what’s going to happen in Florida. Most working-class white folks, Jews, Cubanos and other Latinos will vote overwhelmingly for McCain. Thank goodness for the South.
Isn’t FiveThirtyEight the new electoral predictions guy? I read something about his mathematics genius in Newsweek. BZ, what’s the word on the street about him? Is his stuff for real?
KFG-
His name is Nate Silver (mot perhaps?) and his math is pretty damn good. Turns out he honed his skills crunching numbers for baseball prospectus.
WEVS1- is your named linked to your blog? and if so, how could someone who seems to be a such a strong labor supporter by so excited about a McCain NLRB? you’ll be lucky if anyone gets overtime on his watch, nevermind farmerworkers who have to be covered on separate legislation.
Josh- thanks for posting. And yeah, something doesn’t smell right.
I used to work for a union, am a union member, and have a long history of supporting organized labor.
McCain will be the first Republican I have voted for in my life. Support for labor and a strong defense do not need to be mutually exclusive. At one time, there were Democrats (Scoop Jackson, Al Shanker, etc.) who understood these connections. Sadly, the Democratic Party is now dominated by useful idiots and fellow travelers (aka “progressives”).
“You’ll be lucky if anyone gets overtime on his watch…”
Anyone? So McCain is going to be *worse* than Bush?
So McCain is going to be *worse* than Bush?
Yes.
> support for a strong defense
Because nothing says Strong Defense like ignoring “Al Quaida Determined to Attack”… letting Bin Laden escape… stovepiping intelligence data… forgetting to plan for the day after an invasion… and not being able to keep Shiites and Sunnis straight.
VEVS1: DLC-syndrome gone wrong.
By “wrong” I mean “overboard”, of course – it’s already pretty wrong already.
Okay, so you say that labor and defense aren’t mutually exclusive. But the fact of the matter is, you’re throwing your support to a candidate for which it is? The fact of the matter is, you’re throwing a heavy weight towards the anti-labor forces in order to have your “national defense” cake. Face it, you’re opting for one issue over another, and you know it.
And WTF is a McCain anti-Obama ad doing on the bottom of my screen? JewSchool should know better than to accept their money. “Unconditionally negotiate” my schmeckel.
And I still find it laughable that you think Miami Jews and Cubans will unite on ANY non-local issue.
Everything I have read indicates that most American Jews intend to vote for Obama– it’s a vocal minority of fear-mongering paranoid racists who are co-opting the name of American Jewery.
Anti-Semites (pardon me, “Anti-Zionists”) have far more facts upon which to base their distrust of Senator Obama than Jews and philo-Semites.