Naomi Ragen, who I often (but not always) agree with, has sent out a pro-Bush campaign e-mail that serves as a good illustration of the demonization of Democrats among the knee-jerk subset of the Republican establishment that have more in common with Michael Moore than they'd care to admit.
Her logic is this: Saddam launched Scud missiles at Israel, and Saddam sponsored suicide bombing; therefore we should thank Bush for getting rid of Saddam. Clinton pushed Israel to negotiate with and grant concessions to Arafat, which sparked the current intifadah. Kerry and Clinton are friendly and are both Democrats. Not only that, Kerry wants the US to get friendly with France again, and since France is no friend of Israel, that would be bad. Oh, and Carter shook hands with Kerry, too.
So there.
But I also noticed that when asked about Israel, Kerry gave the most unequivocal and principled statement about his view of the Arab-Israeli conflict; and Bush was the one who referred to a place called "Palestine," calling for further negotiations.
She reassures us she's not naive: Bush may put pressure on Israel to make painful and potentially destructive concessions. But she believes Bush is the better choice, because Kerry is a "slick, multi-millionaire dilettante," a description that as far as I can tell could equally apply to Bush.
But time for reality check:
Iraq sent Scuds raining over Israel after a) Bush senior attacked Iraq; and b) forced Israel to promise not to retaliate.
It's a legitimate point that sponsorship of terrorist attacks ended with Saddam out of the picture, but I don't think we know yet whether Israel will be more or less safe as a result of Saddam being gone. Honestly, I hope so, but I'm not willing to bet on it.
Clinton wasn't the only one who believed in the so-called peace process. But it seems perverse to blame him - and Barak, and Netanyahu, and others - for trying.
And Naomi, guilt by association is beneath you. I imagine Carter and Kerry disagree about a great many things, and I'm not sure I'd even shake Carter's hand at this point. And it's not as if American conservatives and the Bush family in particular are squeaky clean when it comes to antisemitism.
I think an intellectually honest assessment should give us pause about either candidate, but I'm not ready to believe that Kerry is the road to oblivion and Bush is the road to victory. For all the talk about character, honesty, etc., Republicans like Naomi seem to have a blind spot about their own tendencies to deal in bulls**t.
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