Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (77107)	3/14/2008 8:37:14 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

The Irrelevance of Obama's Minister tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com By M.J. Rosenberg - March 14, 2008, 8:44AM Here's a surprise. Just as the superdelegates are breaking for Obama, we suddenly are seeing videos of his minister, Jeremiah Wright, saying all kinds of ugly things. So the same people who are telling us that Obama is a Muslim and controlled by Islamic law are saying that he's a serious Protestant, controlled by his minister. Come on kids, decide on a story line. Funny we have never heard about any previous candidate's minister. Billy Graham was spiritual adviser to Ike, Nixon, Johnson, the Bushes and Clinton but nobody pointed out that he was an anti-semite (although his anti-semitism is well documented in the Nixon tapes). And rightly so. But with Obama, for some reason, it's different. What a crock. I've been a member of a conservative Jewish congregation for 25 years. I love the rabbi but not his sermons on Israel and the Palestinians. He is a total Israel hawk. To put it mildly, I am not. I am all about the two-state solution (the so-called Clinton plan). Even worse, the congregation has become the favorite of Washington's neocons including the worst warmonger of all: Douglas Feith. The idea of communing with God together with a thug like Feith is sickening to me. Then there is Charles Krauthammer who, in 2001, disrupted Yom Kippur services by bellowing at the rabbi for expressing, in the most general terms, the desire for Middle East peace. The worst moment I've ever had at my congregation was when a visiting rabbi from Europe (he comes every year for the High Holy Days) devoted an entire sermon to the value of hate. "To everything there is a season. This is a season for hate." He was talking about the Palestinians. I almost puked. And yet I am a member of this congregation and will remain one. Why? As I said, I like the rabbi (the regular one, not the annual visitor) despite disagreeing strongly with many of his views. More important, this is the congregation that my kids grew up in. This is where their Bar Mitzvahs took place. The people there (not the war criminals though) are kind of like family. It's home. Probably how Obama feels about his church. The bottom line is that I am not discredited as a strong supporter of a Palestinian state and the end of the occupation because my rabbi has a different view. Pro-peace Israelis, Palestinians, and other Arabs do not refuse to work with me because I go to the "neocon" synagogue. My writings on Israel/Palestine are not disregarded because my rabbi is a Likud guy. Of course, not. My rabbi's views are his views. He is my spiritual adviser not my political adviser. In 2000, when Joe Lieberman ran, do you recall articles about the political views of his rabbi? I don't know who his rabbi is (that tells you something) but Orthodox rabbis are invariably very conservative on the same issues on which Democrats are very liberal. They also tend to feel strongly that Jews and non-Jews should not marry each other or even date each other. Some Orthodox rabbis will tell you that dietary laws prevent Jews and non-Jews from even having a meal together except in a kosher locale. So what. That's religion. Lieberman's politics (not his moderately liberal politics then or his conservative politics now) has nothing to do with his rabbi. Lieberman is pro-choice, pro-gay rights, pro-feminist, all the things Orthodox rabbis tend not to be. There is a good chance Joe's rabbi is against the Iraq war (75% of Jews are) but Joe sure isn't. But, as I said, Joe's rabbi, whoever he is, was never an issue. Obama's is. Why is that? The last time a candidate's religion was an issue was Kennedy's Catholicism in 1960. Kennedy's priest, Joseph Cardinal Cushing, was a pretty old school Catholic with all the old school Catholic political views. Did that discredit Kennedy as a candidate? Sadly, it did with alot of people. Bigots across the land cited his church as a reason not to vote for him, cited Cushing and the Pope as scary political influences on a JFK Presidency, howled about what Kennedy's faith indicated about the kind of leader he would be. But that was 48 years ago and, today, we call the people who used Kennedy's religion against him ignorant bigots. Now we call them political strategists.