Theory of Mukasey's Jewish Network Reveals Divided Discourse, and Media Decadence

On TPM, the main approach that commenters have to Mukasey's approval is to talk about AIPAC: Mukasey's Jewishness, and the Jewishness of Chuck Schumer and Dianne Feinstein, the NY and Cal senators who gave him the votes he needed. Meantime, the Wall Street Journal has been running op-eds--by Norman Pearlstine and Gabriel Schoenfeld, I'm told--calling on Mukasey to drop the case against AIPAC's Weissman and Rosen, which is scheduled soon to go to trial.

Again, I think, this is a miasma. Something's going on. Too many politicians and Jews in public life care too much about Israel for the good of this country. I don't buy all the conspiracy talk--Russ Feingold and Herb Kohl, Wisconsin's two Jewish senators, voted against Mukasey. But that doesn't mean there aren't networks and affinities. And though I know nothing about the AIPAC case, I sure hope they have the trial, just so we get to hear Feith, Wolfowitz, and Condi Rice talk about the power of the lobby and how it does its business.

When oh when will the mainstream media talk about the religious left? Leave the conversation on the blogosphere, and the blogosphere grows more relevant by the day, and the mainstream media more irrelevant and corporate. When I was a kid, we used to throw around the word "decadent." Back then decadent meant hedonistic and indulgent, in this sort-of-cool way. Now I know what decadent really means. It means so fattened by wealth and success that institutions lose all connection with their original purpose. The exciting energy goes elsewhere. It's on the blogosphere now. We have a bifurcated discourse. Dangerous.

Comments

[Oarwell]

Assuming, after a quick glance, that TPM is a pro-Democrat, pro-Hillary/Obama blog, and looking at the comments, all I can say is, this is not going to end well. Such extreme anti-democratic politics can only be ended by a MAJOR political earthquake.

Phil, you really know nothing about the trial? I find that hard to believe--it cuts to the very core of what your blog is about.

[Oarwell]

As highlighted by one commenter at TPM, here's Schumer's money quote

...“I deeply esteem those who believe the issue of torture is so paramount that Judge Mukasey’s views on it should be the sole determinant of our vote,” Schumer said in a statement. “But I must respectfully disagree...."

Hard to find a reductio ad absurdum when talking about torture, but here's one: replace the word 'torture' with 'cannibalism,' and see how that sentence sounds.

Perhaps 24 will show Jack Bauer eating the terrorists, to gain their wiles, and then soi disant Christian Cal Thomas can write a column calling for cannibalism, referencing the fictional FOX show.

"Whom the gods would destroy, first they make mad."

[Cal]

You are right, the main stream media is irrelevant to a larger and larger share of the public.
I have about 20 blogs and news sources
I visit everyday...from right to left,from one issue blogs like this one concentrating on the jewish political element to blogs where the commentors are mostly military members to blogs where there are mostly foreign policy wonks. Then I go to Thomas.gov to review legisation if I want to know what the DC incest tank is really up to.

What passes for the media and "news" in this country now is nothing but gossipy talk shows for low I.Q.'s.

[scorpio]

the Pearlstine piece was a real jaw-dropper

[Chuck]

The US Constitution clearly prohibits torture.

Those who choose not to abide by the US Constitution are contrary to American values and in a word, UnAmerican. They will take this once great country into the abyss.

[Cal]

"'cannibalism,'"
Posted by: Oarwell

I think oarwell has just described the current US society...at least as it applies to the "elites" and the politicans.

Cannibals are extinct now...their neighbors were such easy pickings they ate them
all up without planning out their future food needs.

Time for Americans to quit being easy pickings. We need to get the cannibals before they finish us off.

[Charles Keating]

Scooter Libbey was pardoned. The indirect trial of the AIPAC spy case will never get off the ground. The "backdoor channels" will stay that way. In fifty years your kids can read about it. An analogy: How and why the US went "over there" in 1917. A few others: How and why we went to Federal Reserve System and IRS
in 1913. Have fun with the puzzle.

[Charles Keating]

Ron Paul would merely point at the constitution itself and at Hague & Geneva and declare water-boarding is illegal. Maybe he'd add that we prosecuted imperial Japanese officers for just that action, or show how the Gestapo and The Inquisition did it. From a marketing perspective, how do you think an OK on water-boarding will fly over the world's eyes? Putin knows, and Chaney. They are actually brothers you know. BTW, all the tactics
used have been used in Israel for years. Is America in the same situation as Israel? Our leaders seem to all think so. Shall we start sending Americans in modern conestoga wagons? Does Nuremberg mean nothing? Goering must be rolling over laughing in his grave.

[samuel burke]

we may be nearing chaim weizmanns tipping point in america.

this is a quote from C.Weizzmanns autobiography Trial and Error.
"Whenever the quantity of Jews in any country reaches the saturation point, that country reacts against them ... The fact that the actual number of Jews in England, and even their proportion to the total population, was smaller than in other countries was irrelevant; the determining factor in this matter is not the solubility of the Jews, but the solvent power of the country ... this cannot be looked upon as anti-Semitism in the ordinary or vulgar sense of that word; it is a universal social and economic concomitant of Jewish immigration, and we cannot shake it off."

the neocons have tried hard to conflate the interests of israel with those of the united states so they can defend both but...
the love that some of these people have for israel makes them act as a nation within a nation.

[Matt]

"We have a bifurcated discourse. Dangerous." - this is incredibly true.

[Anonymous]

Justin on Ron Paul:

"All this buzz, however, has generated a counter-buzz, a sinister stream of smears and jeers coming from both Right and Left. What's instructive is how similar these attacks are in their viciousness, and, in the case of the "serious" mainstream critics, their juvenility. Whether coming from the liberal and ostensibly antiwar Kevin Drum of the Washington Monthly and Matt Yglesias of The Atlantic, or from some neocon hack over at the Weekly Standard, the "Ron-is-crazy" meme is being furiously pushed upstream against the raging current of the Paul phenomenon – so far, to little avail. He's a "fruitcake," sniffs Drum, and the beat is taken up by Yglesias, who chimes in with charges of "extremism.""

As I already told you Yglesias was a chicken hawk and is part of the jewish charade. Wasn't The Atlantic the commissioner the Walt & Mearsheimer paper which ended up in the London Review of books because The Atlantic refused to publish it. The chicken hawk jew Yglesias who accused the Adbuster crew of antisemitism when they alerted us about the jewishness of the neocons is now a paid blogger in the same publishing house who refused W&M.

That's the deal: ignore gentile scholars, fire gentile journalists and support jewish opportunists whatever the garbage they write, as long it serves zionist purposes.

[Matt]

Anonymous, you are being over the top about Yglesias. I am unaware of his involvement with the Adbuster incident, but he has been a mild critic of Israeli policies and of those trying to shutdown debate. It is wrong to cherry pick a few positions while ignoring other balancing positions of Yglesias, such as his highlighting some of John Judis' writings in TNR or criticizing Schoenfeld's attack on fellow Atlantic writing. I agree that Yglesias isn't a gutsy commentator as Philip is, but Yglesias also isn't someone who shuts down all debate or is part of some secret conspiracy against gentiles.

[David Seaton]

For the record:
http://www.wrmea.com/archives/November_2007/0711062.html

[samuel burke]

how can anyone say that this is a bifurcated issue? this is an interrelated issue.
aipac exerts exceptional pressure on our elected government officials, no ifs ands or buts.

Steve Rosen, AIPAC chief lobbyist once boasted to the New Yorker's Jeffrey Goldberg: "You see this napkin? In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin."
http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache:jghbaOQwF-EJ:www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/07/04/050704fa_fact+aipac+napkin&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

why is it so easy for the neocons to see something sinister in anything muslim, and why would anyone try to pretend that there isnt something as sinister in what is clearly evident within americas government....aipac is out of control and so are our governernment officials.

this anti israel and anti aipac sentiment is at the crux of what is starting to build across this nation, israel and aipac play a too important role in americas foreign policy.
it may be disheartening for some jewish americans to be associated with the neocons and israels firsters interests but dont feign disbelief that it is happening. it is a natural concomitant of aipacs arrogance and power.

trying to get the israeli spy pollard freed is arrogance, trying to put pressure on mukasey to dismiss the aipac rozen weissman franklin trial is arrogance and it shows that the primary interests considered are israels.

speak out against the groups and organizations who are tainting the good name of patriotic judaic americans across this nation, not against patriotic citizens across the entire spectrum of americanism who see how aipac operates and are getting disgusted with it.

[David Seaton]

Well, ok, after weeks and months of discussion we've thoroughly established that AIPAC are a bad bunch. My question is what can we DO about it?

I think we should devote more of our time to that question instead of beating that same dead horse

[samuel burke]

i dont think there is a damned thing we can do about it.
i call my representatives and speak my mind and introduce as many of my friends to the issue as will listen, its the least i can do for the nation that took my family in as political refs.

the sound of discontent across the nation will eventually reverberate in washington, especially if the middle east unravels and the economy here starts to cause pain in the pocketbook of middle america who is busy wondering whos baby daddy britney is sleeping with or which natural disaster is more devastating.
finance capitalisms geniuses have run our economy into a cul-de-sac.

the dollar, gold, the price of a barrel of oil, and over the counter derivatives will do the rest.

go neocons go...keep up the good work america needs to hear about your handywork.

[samuel burke]

down the rabbit hole we go.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — In his second day on the job, Attorney General Michael Mukasey leaped into the political fray, telling a key Democratic senator he opposes his electronic surveillance plan and would recommend the president veto it if it is passed.

In a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., on the eve of crucial committee votes to update the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), Mukasey was adamant in opposing Leahy's plan for changing the law.

Mukasey and Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell co-signed the letter released Wednesday night by the Justice Department.

[Defenestrator]

There is a Jewish angle with Schumer and Feinstein voting for Mukasey.

Schumer and Feinstein are much more beholden to Jewish interests than Feingold and Kohl, if for no other reason than there are more Jews as a % in New York and California than in Wisconsin. The fine line... Feingold defends Jews, Schumer and Feinstein appear to defend Jewish interests.