We’re late to the game on this (see Captain’s Quarters and Blue Crab Blvd), but Alan Dershowitz’s piece in Front Page on The Real Jimmy Carter is a base-clearing home run. There was a time, not so long ago, it seems, when I would have felt it very unlikely that I’d ever agree with Mr. Dershowitz about anything, but as Jhimmi is purportedly a Christian, I guess it’s not halal for him to accept Wahhabist pork.
The entire premise of his criticism of Jewish influence on American foreign policy is that money talks. It is Carter, not me, who has made the point that if politicians receive money from Jewish sources, then they are not free to decide issues regarding the Middle East for themselves. It is Carter, not me, who has argued that distinguished reporters cannot honestly report on the Middle East because they are being paid by Jewish money. So, by Carter’s own standards, it would be almost economically “suicidal” for Carter “to espouse a balanced position between Israel and Palestine.”
By Carter’s own standards, therefore, his views on the Middle East must be discounted. It is certainly possible that he now believes them. Money, particularly large amounts of money, has a way of persuading people to a particular position. It would not surprise me if Carter, having received so much Arab money, is now honestly committed to their cause. But his failure to disclose the extent of his financial dependence on Arab money, and the absence of any self reflection on whether the receipt of this money has unduly influenced his views, is a form of deception bordering on corruption.
Also, Democratic legislature rides to aid destitute trial lawyers.
UPDATE: “Linguist” Noam Chomsky accuses Dershowitz of leading “jihad” against Norman Finkelstein’s tenure bid at DePaul (nominally “Catholic” university)
Got the blues,
‘cause the old mans’ in the booze?
Blame the jooos
The rent is due.
But you burned the lot up in the slots?
Blame the jooos
Coffee cold?
Gettin’ old?
Yer little man
no longer bold?
Blame the jooos.
They control the banks,
and TV,
not to mention Washington DC.
And Hollywood?
Fergetit.
Have you ever read the credits?
They’re all joos!!!
There ain’t no problem
that you got,
that can’t be blamed on that lot.
Those low down,
money grubbin’
hook nosed
jooos.
etc. etc.
I wish that Opinion Journal piece had mentioned the latest plaintiff’s bar routine – find municipalities/counties/school districts to hire them to “assist” in “public nuisance” lead lawsuits….on a contingent fee basis. Elliot Spitzer would never have done that – he wouldn’t want to share credit or $….heh.
I honestly don’t understand how some people live with themselves. Although perhaps, not having had someone give me shit-loads of money, I am deeply underestimating the human capacity for self-deception.
Well, I guess the constant and shameless self-promotion worked out for Spitzer, Major John. It seems that “attorney-general” is synonymous with “publicity whore” nowadays. Which is a bit sad, in a way. I know this is naive, but I think it would be nice to see them concentrate on enforcing the law rather than getting their mugs on tv and their names in the papers.
What? Selling your soul in order to create one? I don’t think that’s been known to work, Jimmahi – a.k.a. Jhimmi.
[Thanks for the link, Dan. The info contained is memorable, indeed.]
My only reservation with capital punishment is its tendency to turn prosecutors into headhunters. It is unsettling to me to see executions turned into such blatent political campaign devices.
For Marvin Kalb to blithely profess to have no idea whether George Soros has a liberal agenda or not is another expression of this sort of corruption.
It is not “absence of any self reflection” at work; it is deception. Ask yourself how the doctrine of “campaign finance reform” can be drawn from the same well that produces such a blind eye to the agendas behind Carter’s “Arab money” and the Orwellian “Open Society” rubric under which Soros operates. It can’t be reconciled with Dershowitz’s idea that Carter may be “honestly committed.”
That Dershowitz so willingly obscures Carter’s venality points to the Dershowitz/Carter exchange being less a “base-clearing home run” and more an expression of the “policing of the narrative” as the left sorts out its pecking order.
Dershowitz is taking care to allow that Carter remains “inside the tribe,” and as such, Dershowitz is NOT as concerned with discrediting Carter as he is concerned with Carter redefining his role from that of an explicit contributor to the left’s narrative to a role very much like that of the “Arab money” and of George Soros.
That’s an interesting idea, happyfeet. Seems to me that this is sort of like herding with a hydrogen bomb, though. I’d like to see you draw up a post outlining your view in more detail, though.
Writing that took so much time my coffee went bad, Dan, and that is pretty much the limit to what I can bring to this, other than to say that as the left consolidates it’s power, an escalation of intra-left spankage is banal and predictable. I think that’s where Jeff’s “identity politics” stuff leads… but that’s the basis I was arguing from anyway, not from any broader happyfeet insight. You know what? I get nostalgic sometimes for when the Saturday morning priority was analysing Friday night’s preliminary box office numbers. I haven’t even checked yet to see if Disturbia is improbably enough set for a likely third week at #1. I think I understand why liberals are so darn petulant about a war on terror.
Okay, but my major problem with your analysis was that you didn’t work in a baseball metaphor.
Uhm… a walk and three balks?
Why “bordering on”?
See DupAge County, IL for and example of this (yes, Joe Birkett, I am talking to you…). The State’s Attorney I worked for would simply let the Assistant handling the case talk to the press. But then again, he no ambition higher than the office he held, so he didn’t need to whore himself out to the press…