Our Weekly Jackass Gets The Lileks Treatment
James Lileks takes our Weekly Jackass Cindy Sheehan to the woodshed, for a reason that will be familiar to regular readers:
If she blames the war on, say, Zionist fiends, ought not one wonder why the anti-war crowd seems deaf or indifferent to the loathsome underpinnings of her remarks? Perhaps they agree with her when she says this is a war for Israel. David Duke certainly does.
Best of all is Lilek’s conclusion:
The hard left in America needs to realize a bald, cruel fact: Anyone who sees no moral distinction between Israel and the mullahs of Iran, or sees the U.S. attempt to set up a constitutional republic in Iraq as equivalent to the Syrian occupation of Lebanon, suffers from incurable moral cretinism. The more the fervent anti-war base embraces these ideas, the more they ensure that no one will trust the left with national security. Ever.
Will they learn the lesson? Even money says Sheehan will be sitting in the Michael Moore seat next to Jimmy Carter at the ‘08 Democratic convention.
Hat tip to Lorie Byrd…
James is a treasure. It seems that the common denominator to the Lefties outrageous behavior is they don’t think anyone is paying attention. Don’t they know about Google? (Although I always use TEOMA) Do they really forget what has erupted from their pie-holes in six seconds as it appears? Krikey.
Mark—I only say this because I have seen it with my own eyes: there is a preponderance of anti-Semitism amongst liberals on America’s left coast.
In Feb. of 2003 I was visiting an old high school friend of mine who settled many years ago in San Francisco after graduating from Stanford. I’ve been out to visit him many times and know that city quite well. Anyway, this was just before the US invaded Iraq; there was a large “anti-war march” happening while I was there. My friend and several of his friends were all going to “march,” so I figured I’d tag along.
Before the “march,” everyone got together to make signs to carry. I thought about making a sign that said, “you are all a bunch of idiots” but thought it might be impolitic. I settled instead on a sign that proclaimed “Ankle Biters Unite!” My own little joke. But I digress…
So, we “marched.” As we “marched,” I was astounded by the degree of anti-Israeli sentiment I saw amongst both the marchers and the spectators. There were many sign that read “No Blood for Israel” and, on the sidelines, PM Sharon was hanged in effigy. It was all pretty intense and raised for me many troubling questions about “freedom of speech” and bald faced anti-Semitism.
At one point, suddenly, there appeared a group of masked young men wearing the Palestinian headscarf, or shemagh, who were calling “Death to Israel.” One of them whispered conspiratorially to a guy from our group, “there’s going to be some trouble at the end of the parade.” I remember saying to my friend, “this would never fly in New York.” What I meant was: in New York, the “left wing” is heavily funded and peopled by Jews. While I have seen Jewish Republicans on TV, having lived in New York City most of my life, I have never actually met one. I’m not kidding. But sure enough, we later saw on the news that the otherwise peaceful parade had been “marred” by some vandalism at the end.
Just before the Republican convention kicked off here in the city last year, there was a long anti-everything parade in front of Madison Square Garden, which I watched. I saw only a very little bit of the rampant anti-Jewish sentiment that I had seen in San Francisco the year before, but still, there was more of it present than I would ever have expected to see in broad daylight in New York.
It has become obvious to me that anti-Jewish ideas and messages are now being brought in and “mainstreamed” via liberal America. This is no longer happening via white supremacist groups alone. The ultra-sensitivity of liberals to ploys of “victimhood” is being badly exploited.
This is, of course, just an anecdote from a single person, so please, let that add context and perspective.
Greg, very disturbing. Thanks for sharing that…yes, it’s a subject that deserves to be examined in depth – that is, when did anti-Semitism become respectable again among certain radicals? Or did it ever really go out of style? We’ll be looking at this again and again, I’m afraid…