Sillius Sodus

I'm not generally given to reading Rabbi Gellman, but thanks to Atrios I couldn't avoid him. Of all the takes I've seen on Joe Lieberman's collapse that were not uttered by the candidate himself or one of his few remaining flunkies, this wins the Palm D'or for fatuous punditry:

Please understand, this is not a political rant. Yes, I support the war and yes I support and admire President George W. Bush, but I understand and respect those who have come to another conclusion about how best to fight the war on terror. My disappointment is with my people. I simply do not understand why so many Jews bailed on Joe. I cannot understand why Joe's percentage of the Jewish vote was not in the high 90s instead of the 54-57 percent range (according to Lieberman’s campaign). I have opinions on way too many things I don't know nearly enough about, but I know about Jews. I am a professional Jew, and yet if you asked me to explain why Jews did not vote for Joe the way blacks voted for Barack Obama or Catholics voted for John F. Kennedy I would not know what to tell you.

In truth I am also bewildered about why Jews do not support President Bush more than the pathetic 22-26 percent (depending on which exit poll you look at) he received in 2004. Bush would win a landslide in Israel, and never once invited Yasir Arafat to the White House, but that is a bewilderment best left for another day. What has frozen me is the lack of support for Joe by Jews. Joe voted the Democratic line 90 percent of the time. Twenty-nine other Democrats also voted for the war and none of them was targeted (yet). Joe is the most famous Jewish politician of all time (unless you count former New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia whose mother was Jewish). He is an observant Jew and obviously he was on the presidential ticket in 2000. He is modest and self effacing. He is moral and faithful. He is principled and intelligent ... and he is one of us! What more do you want of the guy?

Well, leaving aside the hyperbole of Joe Lieberman as the most famous Jewish poltician of all time (I didn't know he beat out Golda Meir and Yitzak Rabin), the rest of Gellman's argument rests on a fundamental misreading of U.S. politics. Voters in the U.S. don't vote strictly along ethnic or religious lines. U.S. catholics did vote for John Kennedy, but split pretty heavily when it came to the other JFK, John Kerry. Yes, Barak Obama won the vast majority of the black vote in Illinois, but a white candidate would have probably done just as well among black voters because even though the republican in the race was black, he was also a raving lunatic.

Ethnic voters living in this country are not going to necessarily vote the same way, or for the same reasons, as people who live in their country of origin. Pakistanis in London don't see issues the same way as Pakistanis in Islamabad do. And I'm sure U.S. Jews see issues differently from Israeli Jews, Russian Jews, Polish Jews, Canadian Jews or Ethiopian Jews. The politics of any diaspora is complicated, with generational, regional, and religious dimensions. It can't be reduced to "he's one of us" because it begs the question of who "we" are.

It is possible that many Israeli Jews would vote for George W. Bush (and they can have him if they want him). Israeli Jews didn't live anywhere near Hurricane Katrina. They haven't had to put up with stagnant wages, jobless recoveries, "Kenny Boy", or Guantanamo. Their tax dollars and their kids aren't being shipped off to the blood and money pit of Iraq. There are a lot of things going on in this country that are not their problem. So they may just look at him and see a man who supports Israel. Fine. But U.S. Jews, QED, have to live here. They get a closeup view of Bush, and many of them apparently don't like what they see. And I guess they don't much care for politicians, Jew or Goy, Democrat or Republican, who make a habit of parroting the President's talking points.

Now, a few parting shots. "He [Lieberman] is modest and self effacing. He is moral and faithful. He is principled and intelligent..."

"Modest and self effacing": I really have to question whether a man who abandons his party after losing a primary to run on the ticket of "Connecticut for Lieberman" is either.

"Moral and Faithful": I know nothing about Lieberman's marriage, and if that's all Gellman is talking about I'll provisionally take "faithful". But Lieberman doesn't seem that faithful to his party, his colleagues, or to his youthful ideals. He'll jettison those the moment his career is threatened. (Once upon a time a young staffer for McGovern became a politician. He lost a race somewhere along the line--beaten up for being too liberal. So he, well, you know the rest...) As for "moral"--again, as long as it's a question of whose sex organs interact with whose, I'll accept the word. But Lieberman's backing of Alberto Gonzales's archipelago of torture farms, and his willingness to throw downfield blocks for people who lied us into a war don't sound moral to me.

"Principled and Intelligent." I think we've sufficiently covered Lieberman's principles. As for his intelligence, one need only look at the campaign he ran against Lamont to see Lieberman is completely blinkered and out of his depth. He can't really defend his views convincingly, and propounds ideas that six-year-olds could see through. Osama is really more evil than Hitler and more dangerous than the Soviets, Joe? A vote for Lamont is a vote for Osama? Only an idiot would think that, or in Lieberman's case, a principled, intelligent, useful idiot.

Maybe I'm just spitballing here, but I'm guessing that around 43% of Jews in Connecticut noticed some if not all of the things I've noticed about the erstwhile Democrat, and decided Joe Lieberman wasn't "one" of any "them" that they wanted to be associated with. I hope this cures your bewilderment, Rabbi Gellman, for a few minutes anyway. Good night, and good luck.