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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JDN who wrote (614290)	8/30/2004 6:35:27 PM
From: Emile Vidrine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

AIPAC WAS BUSTED B4 BUT ZOG UNSCATHED AIPAC President Resigns It hasn't been a banner year for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. After coming out the loser in a public collision with President Bush over loan guarantees for Israel, being dressed down by Israeli Prime Minister Rabin, and facing revelations by a former employee first aired in the Washington Report that AIPAC runs a stealth operation to discredit American critics of the Jewish state, Israel's Washington, DC lobby ended the year with the resignation of its president, David Steiner, for, as his colleagues tell it, exaggerating AIPAC's influence both with Bill Clinton and with former Republican Secretary of State lames Baker III. The day after Clinton's election to the presidency should have been a joyous one for AIPAC. But instead, AIPAC's leaders awoke Nov. 4 to a page 3 story in the Washington Times announcing that Steiner, AIPAC's unpaid president, had resigned after being caught telling a prospective political donor on the telephone that the lobbying organization was "negotiating" with Clinton over whom the Democratic candidate would appoint as secretary of state and as his national security adviser should he win the election. When asked if AIPAC would participate in the selection of the new secretary of state, Steiner said, "We'll have access." Steiner told this to Harry Katz of New York City on Oct. 22, not knowing that Katz was taping the conversation. He turned the tape over to the Washington Times. The tape's authenticity is not in dispute. "We have a dozen people in (the Clinton) headquarters. And they are all going to get big jobs," Steiner, a trustee of the Democratic National Committee, told Katz, who had said he wanted to donate $100,000 to AIPAC-supported candidates. Katz told the Washington Times that he taped the conversation because "as someone Jewish, I am concerned when a small group has a disproportionate power. I think that hurts everyone, including Jews. If David Steiner wants to talk about the incredible, disproportionate clout AIPAC has, the public should know about it." Katz has a history of suing Jewish groups. He has been a low-level AIPAC donor. AIPAC told the Times that Steiner's statements were untrue, that it had no role in any deal with Baker, and that it was not negotiating with Clinton about administration appointments. Steiner issued a brief statement when he resigned. "In an effort to encourage and impress what I thought was a potential political activist calling on the telephone," he said, "I made statements which went beyond over zealousness and exaggeration and were simply and totally untrue. I apologize to Governor Clinton, Chief of Staff Baker, and AIPAC for these actions."