'Shiksa Countries Are for Practice'

I worried that I would not get into the Yale debate with John Mearsheimer last night because it would be so crowded by hostile faction and faculty, but this was not a worry.

A great hall with coffered ceiling teemed with students. Mearsheimer and I were the only adults there. No Arab legions, and I didn’t see the Israeli mob either. I had walked in on a formal debating society. Some of the kids walked around in suits and bowties. Before it got going Will Wilson and his friend Nicola Karras of the Party of the Right came over to introduce themselves. Wilson is burly and looks like a wildhaired Irish orator. He wore a 1776 tie and had read my work in the American Conservative. Nicola was smaller, quieter, hair pulled back. Will was to be one of the speakers. I thought, Maybe she is Will’s acolyte. 

It was the first Yale Political Union meeting of the year and the first hour was taken up with the chairmen of the various political groups introducing themselves from the stage and appealing to the freshmen to join them. I had never been inside such a formal society before, with so many mannerisms. No one clapped, they drummed deskboards and books. No one booed; they hissed. The chairmen gave theatrical speeches. “The left is broken!” “Resolved, that happiness is a noble lie.” “Liberalism is the plague of modernity.” The skinny Tory in a bowtie and three piece suit said it was an open question when America ’s values were ruined. Was it the 60s? Was it the 16^th amendment? Was it the eighteenth? He held up a card saying Prohibition. Or did it go back further. To 1776. The president of the society said, “Clarence Thomas had a single conversation with John Bolton at Yale that changed his entire life." So: imagine the impact you can have here.

I felt overawed. I remembered that Yale is the most intellectual of the Ivies, the kids aren’t hustlers the way that Harvard kids are, are not as urbane as Columbia students, they’re just smarter. And yet the mannerism was so odd my jaw dropped. I could see Mearsheimer chuckling on stage. This is the way they had behaved for centuries. I thought of the time 4 years ago when I came out of the bush in New Guinea with a Tolai guide and into a village where they were having an all-night fire dance wearing strange bird costumes in a field and I was the only white person within miles. I was privileged that night. Well, now the privilege was mine again.

At last it was Mearsheimer's turn. He was welcomed with huge applause. I’ve seen him speak several times, this was his best performance. He is now completely comfortable as a public intellectual. He’s got the scars to prove it. He relishes the battle. And the Political Union had done a lot of his work for him, by framing the question, Should “the special relationship” end? So the special relationship was not in question. The actual effects of the Israel lobby were not in doubt, though you could argue about why the relationship was special.

Mearsheimer's speech was a blistering attack on the idea of unconditional support of Israel ’s behavior. All countries do "boneheaded" things. But in Israel's case, our unconditional support for boneheaded policies had destroyed the American ability to move freely in the Middle East and had deprived Israel of the checks and balances that a "normal" relationship with a superpower would entail when it pursues foolish policies. Mearsheimer spoke of two boneheaded policies: the brutal treatment of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and the disastrous decision by Israel to invade Lebanon in ’06, in which it achieved none of its objectives, and which it subsequently anatomized in a report by a scathing commission. The errors were evident ahead of time; but no, the U.S. was joined at the hip to Israel and could not pull it back, even as it pursued a misguided strategy of punishing the Lebanese by forcing hundreds of thousands of people to leave their homes in fright.

The room hissed repeatedly, attacking Israel more than Mearsheimer. Now and then it hissed his coldblooded realism. He expressed admiration for the Israeli war machine, which he put on a par with the German one of the last century, and marveled at the intelligence of the Israeli pilots.

He left no doubt that the 9/11 hijackers had been motivated in good part by anger over our policy toward the Palestinians. And he said that of course ending the I/P issue would not end our terrorism problem, or Israel ’s, but it was crucial. "The US is in deep trouble in the Middle East and has a serious terrorism problem.. in good part because of its special relationship.... Israel is turning itself into an apartheid state and all you in the audience who care deeply about Israel should be horrified by this.” Who can argue with this stuff?

The most hellacious part of his book--neocons pushed the Iraq war for Israel--was not part of the argument. And meantime he extended the book's argument in a creative way. Because of relentless expansion that seems to be part of Zionism, Israel had all but foreclosed the possibility of a two-state solution. This would leave three choices in Greater Israel: a binational state that would give Arabs and Jews equal rights and would mean abandoning the original Zionist vision of the state; 2, ethnic cleansing to maintain a Jewish majority, or 3, most likely, some form of apartheid with limited autonomy for Palestinians, living in “statelets.” Everyone bridles at the word apartheid, Mearsheimer said.  “But that is the future they face.... No one who wishes Israel well should be enthusiastic about” these alternative.

And he noted: the kind of discrimination which is “part of Israel’s essence” is “antithetical” to American values.

The questions began.  The Tory in the bowtie asked whether Israel's treatment of its “gentiles” was so unusual. Mearsheimer said its nativist policies were similar to Japan’s and Germany’s, two other liberal democracies. Not the U.S.

Then Michael Pomeranz made the first rebuttal speech. He was a small mopheaded kid with glasses and a khaki suit. I thought it was a very good speech because he put out the old neoconservative hogwash in a fresh bottle, as if he had truly considered the ideas himself not had them regurgitated directly into his esophagus by someone named Kagan Kristol or Kaplan. Yes Israel is special. And so is Ireland, Poland, Australia. Stability in the region depends on Israel’s qualitative advantage over highly militarized fascistic dictatorships next door, where women can be killed if their honor is defiled and gay rights is a null option. We went to war in World War II to preserve liberal values. If we cease to extend aid, we invite Israel ’s neighbors to destroy her.

He ended on a thunderous neoDemo note. We must stand for liberal democracy. The people in this room must not be the ones to abandon it. “Think of the moral moments of the 20^th century," he said stirringly. I heard the names:  Rwanda. Selma.

I’m an emotional person, I’m not a good debater. But as Pomeranz finished I reflected that everyone had served in WW2 and wondered what he or anyone else in the room would be willing to die for. I would have gone to Selma to stop the segregationists, and Afghanistan to get OBL. But Selma now? Ramallah.

The isolationist view was expressed by Will Wilson. I had thought he was idiosyncratic when I met him and Nicola, two more of the nut jobs that I always meet on the margins of intellectual discourse, which is where I graze. But I'd forgotten, he was a gleaming Yale student. My imagining him idiosyncratic quickly vanished. He was the most stumpy of the speakers, impassioned and personal. He began by saying that he was angry. Angry that to speak that night, he had to go to the leftwing floor manager. Angry that when watching the Democratic convention he had seen people waving Israeli flags at it. What other flags could be waved without drawing a storm of media protest? None. There would be a hue and cry so loud "I could have heard it from the moon."

As for Mr Pomeranz who claims the Israel lobby is no different from other interest groups, "I don’t know what universe those people are living in.” What other lobby brags about its ability to destroy the careers of congressmen? The lobby regularly smears people who dare to stand up to its power. They have slandered Mearsheimer repeatedly. Philip Weiss is in the hall tonight, he has been smeared as an anti-Semite. My great grandfather was a rabbi, Wilson said, but I don’t use that against anyone, while Abe Foxman dares to trivialize the deaths of 6 million people by using their deaths as a brush to tar his opponents.

"This--ladies and gentlemen is an American passport. I keep it in my pocket in case I have to make a quick getaway.” He read out some of the language about not serving in the military of another country. “There is a reason that it is in here… Different countries have different interests.” Why should Americans take sides in a "sordid and nasty little war" in Israel and Palestine. He threw down his hands. "If there is a clear right and a clear wrong, I don't know."

Thrilling. Though I saw my own values more in Joyce Arnold, a British girl with blonde hair in a black dress who spoke from my stance, as an internationalist, progressive. She had nothing to add to what Mearsheimer had said about the lives of Palestinians. He had done a “fabulous” job. “America has the least sensible conversation" about this in the world. If you want to know what is happening there, “read Haaretz, not the New York Times.” We have lost our position as honest broker. We cannot promote American values because of our close ties to Israel. Why, Israel’s nukes and our silent complicity had rendered it imposible for the U.S. to take  a stand against India and Pakistan getting nukes. I never thought about that before!

A questioner asked Arnold if the US should not be promoting liberal democracy to other states. “My views are still being formed,” she said openly. “I might well believe that.” She doesn’t yet. Hisses and thunder.

The vote was taken. It was nearly 10:30 and only the most serious were still here. There had been no Jewish demonstration all night long. When Justin Raimondo came to Yale a few years back to say similar things, there was an uproar. Stuff had been thrown at him, Wilson told me. The atmosphere has changed. When the affirmatives were asked to raise their hands, a religious Jew in a beard, tsitsis and a yarmulke, with a sardonic smile on his face walked up the aisle toward the neocon backbenches and held out two fists at his side, in a way that seemed a cross between crucifixion and Tommie Smith's clenched fist at the Mexico Olympics. Martyrish. They knew they were going down. 44-25.

We all went out for pizza. Again, I was overawed. Joyce Arnold corrected Will Wilson on the language from the passport, saying that one must have the intention of relinquishing U.S. citizenship, just serving in another country’s army was not necessarily wrong. They got out a flashlight to look at his passport in the street. A pretty English girl called Kate sighed that she would not take Harold Bloom’s class this year, then battened onto Wilson on the issue of divided loyalty. “In Sophocles the root of all tragedy is divided loyalties. Conflicting loyalty between family and self… So which would you choose...” Wilson argued back. I am sure I am getting that wrong. It was over my head.

If the theme of this article is lost on you, I should state it baldly. These kids are the smartest kids in the world, and they are not interested in identity politics. When Mearsheimer went on about Lebanon and Suez, they knew what he meant. When Tory held up the 16th Amendment, they knew what he was talking about. Serious people with not an ounce of street smarts, forming their world views in a privileged, idealist petri dish, they have little doubt about this question--44-25. Though Nicola said that, had the vote been taken on the entire campus, Mearsheimer would have been defeated. Then the highminded debate would surely have devolved into the usual religious battle that happens on other campuses. The streetsmart would have entered the discussion. The Jewish establishment is obviously a factor at Yale. The president is Richard Levin and the Architectural dean is Robert A.M. Stern, and Juan Cole was blackballed from coming 2 years ago because he is heterodox, and today the Daily News features the usual angry attack on Mearsheimer.

The geniuses had milkshakes, I had a beer. Mearsheimer was at the biggest table. I was with the Party of the Right. Nicola told about being at a bar mitzvah when she bragged about Mearsheimer coming to Yale, and an older man started berating her from across the table about being an anti-Semite. There she was in a hot pink yarmulke, a Jew, and this man was accusing her of being an anti-semite. Nicola laughed. She could care less about identity politics.

Nicola, who I had regarded, foolishly, as an acolyte, had had the best line of the evening. There had been one funny speech. Matt Lee of the Progressive Party had chosen to mock the U.S. for being a Jewish mother to Israel, and Israel for being the princeling child-- upsetting the mother by coming home with China.

When the questions came for Lee, someone stood up to ask if Israel could “marry a goyische country.” Lee looked around mystified. “I don’t even know what that word means.” Nicola stood up to clarify things. “Shiksa countries are for practice.” It was a neat play on a dirty old line. Marry a Jew-- shiksas are for practice. The neocon backbenchers roared.

Comments

[americangoy]

"I felt overawed."

Hahahahahahahahahhahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahhahahahhahahahhahahahahhahahahahahahahhaahha.

[samuel burke]

israel is like the potemkin villages that russia used to fool the communist travelers from foreign nations while enroute on the trains to their training centers...
the fascade is presented in america to its zionist fellowtravellers...the truth lies overseas where the rest of the world sees israel for what it is....a pariah state.

lets see how many news channels report this....how about newspapers?

Last update - 18:45 10/09/2008

Iran demands UN response to Israeli 'threats' to kidnap Ahmadinejad

By Reuters

Tags: UN, Israel, Rafi Eitan, Iran

Iran demanded on Tuesday a "resolute and clear response" from the United Nations to what it called dangerous threats against it by Israel, and said Tehran would not hesitate to respond to any attack.

A letter from Iran's UN Ambassador Mohammad Khazaee to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon described comments by two Israeli ministers as "vicious threats ... in blatant violation of the most fundamental principles of international law."

[samuel burke]

meanwhile back in the shiksa country of america...not a creature was stirring not even a mouse...

but overseas they can speak more freely and even question the ridiculous.

deutsche welle

http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3626100,00.html

Italian film-maker Giulietto Chiesa, who was in Berlin for a screening of his documentary which questions the official US version of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has called for an international tribunal to probe events.
Chiesa was in Berlin at the weekend for a screening of his film which features, among others, novelist Gore Vidal and playwright Dario Fo as well as retired American professor of philosophy David Ray Griffin who advances conspiracy theories that contradict mainstream accounts of events of 11 September, 2001.

Federal Aviation Administration controllers, US Air Force pilots, military commanders and physicists also appear in the critical documentary, which the director hopes will create "political awareness" of the "faulty" official investigation into the events by the 9/11 Commission.

"Some of the individuals appearing in the film are former FBI and CIA agents, people who have in a sense taken a very big risk in speaking out. I am very grateful to them because they have done a big job," said Chiesa.

"The film would not have been possible without them," he said, adding that ZERO had been seen in France and Belgium at individual screenings, and by more than 20,000 people in Italy. But the film so far has not gained a distributor in Europe.

Pushing for an international tribunal

[Jim Haygood]

"Mearsheimer and I were the only adults there."

Yee haw! Reminds me of Capitol Hill, where KongressKlowns are the only grayhairs among a throbbing sea of blossoming staffers and interns.

"It was an open question when America’s values were ruined. Was it the 60s? Was it the 16th amendment? Was it the eighteenth?"

Actually the 17th, which destroyed the federal structure of the United States. RIP the Republic.

"[Mearsheimer] expressed admiration for the Israeli war machine, which he put on a par with the German one of the last century, and marveled at the intelligence of the Israeli pilots."

Man, I loved the way they rocketed and torpedoed the USS Liberty in 1967. Thirty-four freshly-minted shiksa widows in one whack!

'And [Mearsheimer] noted: the kind of discrimination which is “part of Israel’s essence” is “antithetical” to American values.'

Stone obvious, even as Hillary and Nancy proclaim Israel as a bulwark of American values in their annual grovelings before AIPAC.

"I’m an emotional person, I’m not a good debater. But Selma now? Ramallah."

That's OK, Phil -- you make up for it in your post hoc musings.

"Angry that when watching the Democratic convention he had seen people waving Israeli flags at it."

Are you kidding me? I didn't watch it, so I wouldn't know. I'm guessing that was my KongressKlown, Eliot Engel (D-Israel), wavin' the Israeli flag.

'If you want to know what is happening [in Israel], “read Haaretz, not the New York Times.” ' -- Joyce Arnold

Have you ever seen ANYONE under 30 holding a 'newspaper'? The Slimes is over.

"The geniuses had milkshakes, I had a beer."

I'll buy you a beer anytime, Phil. You're on fire, my man. More, please, kind sir!

[samuel burke]

phil you keep me informed, thank you for sharing your experiences.

you seem to be somewhat perceptive of trends.

[Justin Raimondo]

Nothing was thrown at me when I went to Yale to speak: indeed, everyone was quite polite. And when the vote was taken, my side won ....

[Ed]

Weiss on Mearsheimer: 'He expressed admiration for the Israeli war machine, which he put on a par with the German one of the last century...The most hellacious part of his book--neocons pushed the Iraq war for Israel--was not part of the argument...the kind of discrimination which is “part of Israel’s essence” is “antithetical” to American values.'

Israel has a Nazi-like war machine, discrimination is part of the Jewish state's essence, U.S. Jewish Neocons helped push Americans into a war for the Jewish state that has nothing to did with the officially stated rationales: Once one concedes these premises, one must concede that Judeofascism is a reality. And once one realizes that Judeofascism is real, and played a huge role in the Soviet Union, the brutal wars of the 20th Century, particularly WWII, make much more sense. What also makes much more sense is Zionist-bought two-party Washington's complete disregard and contempt for average Americans and their best interests, the push for Godless internationalist-materialist globalization and open borders, and the authoritarian ethos embraced by those in bed with the Judeofascists. In short, America is being run (into the ground) for the benefit of, at best, perhaps 5 percent of the country -- the greediest 5 percent.

How can Washington possibly provide blank check support to a country that is “antithetical” to American values? Because Washington itself has become antithetical to American values.

[Adrian]

Excellent recounting of the night. I met you briefly outside (boy wearing a bow tie, smoking Lucky Strikes unfiltered, also PoR) before being forced to run to other engagements. Although I stray away from calling us too bright: some amongst us (myself included) put on airs better than we deserve; however, all your personal commentaries are quite fair, barring Nicola's, she being a force to be reckoned with in her own right. But, I wanted to thank you for showing up and writing up this great post. Perhaps we'll be seeing you around again.

[Leila Abu-Saba]

Yes I love Phil's novelistic setting of scene, brush-strokes to depict characters broadly, then honing in to refine and even change his initial sketches (Nicola). Love the details of dress and comportment. I want to see the novel out of this.... It's good drama.

[Richard Witty]

"Mearsheimer admires Israel's war machine".

Everytime you refer to Mearsheimer you decrease my opinion of him. Why the passive aggressive, and naming that as "intellectual".

Why didn't he say "I admire the commercial, political, legal, cultural life that Israel has worked to achieve?"

And, still be critical, but the passive aggressive only?

[Eva Smagacz]

Which is the shiksa country to be F*&*ed for fun and practice?

Is this Palestine or USA or Georgia?

[LeaNder]

The room hissed repeatedly, attacking Israel more than Mearsheimer. Now and then it hissed his coldblooded realism. He expressed admiration for the Israeli war machine, which he put on a par with the German one of the last century, and marveled at the intelligence of the Israeli pilots.

Can, what bothers you here, really be mended with the tools of Honesty in Reporting? And aren't you really reacting to the juxtaposition of hissing and the Israel/Germany comparison?

First: In the phrase you object to, Phil renders matters positively, as you demand. And isn't it to be expected that Mearsheimer a former soldier and realist admires military power?

Second: Israel over the years choose the Iron Wall strategy to keep its enemies at a distance. Mistrusting and ignoring offers for dialog. Israel has the atom bomb, and compared to its size is the fifth military power on earth.

So the realist Mearsheimer is in fact only acknowledging reality; and or the image Israeli actions project.

But your honesty-in-reporting-rule is: Nobody can mention the military aspect if he does not mention before a series of positive aspects, even if culture and/or achievements have nothing to do with the topic somebody speaks about? This is something astonishing in the age of specialization and framed and focused speeches.

[Richard Witty]

Mearsheimer in person is very sarcastic.

When he speaks in that way (or Phil reports), they are insulting intentionally, then seeking plausible denial later.

[LeaNder]

Americangoy: I loved overawed too. And this: Well, now the privilege was mine again. Remember? ... anthropological perspectives and influences ...

And yes, thanks to Nicola for bringing a ray of light into our dark world. Why are salacious jokes, at least the god ones, among the best? Do they mark a space of heightened transgressions?

[Todd]

"Why, Israel’s nukes and our silent complicity had rendered it imposible for the U.S. to take a stand against India and Pakistan getting nukes. I never thought about that before!"

Are you serious? You can't call isolationists marginal nut jobs if you haven't thought this far ahead.

[Richard Witty]

What earns nationhood?

Common identity, development of social, political and legal institutions.

Palestine has earned nationhood (or is learning). Israel has earned nationhood.

[higginslads]

Thank you for that account of the evening, Phil.

Major Jon I. Fox, U.S. Marine Corps – Former Marine Corps fighter pilot, including interceptor pilot. Retired commercial airline pilot, Continental Airlines. Aircraft flown: Boeing 727, McDonnell Douglas DC-10, LearJet. 35-year commercial aviation career:

"On hearing the military (NORAD/NEAD) excuses for no intercepts on 9/11/2001, I knew from personal experience that they were lying. I then began re-checking other evidence and found mostly more lies from the "official spokesmen". Jet fuel fires at atmospheric pressure do not get hot enough to weaken steel. Structures do not collapse through themselves in free fall time with only gravity as the powering force.

Recent research proves that explosives were used at the World Trade Center. Flight paths and maneuvers of the aircraft involved at the Pentagon and Shanksville do not match NTSB released flight data recordings. Shouldn't there be a criminal investigation before more lives and trillions of dollars are wasted?"

http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/#Fox

[Todd]

I don't know how smart these kids are, or what it even means to give up identity, but I would bet that they represent a slightly modified version of the out-of-touch elites that are destroying the nation at present.

Whatever it is that they have given up their identities to identify with, I seriously doubt that they will be able to identify with average Americans any better than the current elites do. It matters! And most college kids stray from their identity only to return later.

Also, to refer to the rest of the population as shiksa whores to be experimented with may draw howls form the neocons in the back, but what will happen when the rest of the nation catches on? The comment was a joke, but a very revealing one.

[Richard Witty]

Todd,
I think the point of using that language was to evoke your response.

No Jew posting here got it. I didn't have a clue why Phil used that language.

Actually, I have a suspicion, that it is very personal to him. He reported that his parents were visiting, and he and they have an ongoing drama about his non-Jewish wife, and Phil has an internal drama about that may reflect or may exagerate the actual drama with his parents.

[Richard Witty]

I hadn't read the whole post.

The last line in it was the punchline.

The term "special relationship" is a uniquely bitter phrase.

Bitter to dissenters. Weapon to racists.

Phil,
You don't want to arm Israel. Then similarly, restrain yourself from arming fascists.

[Scott]

The shiksa pun/joke is pricelessly funny. Jewish girls might have the same joke and practice. (though I don't know the male equivalent of "shiksa". If so, I enjoyed the benefits big time in the summer of '69. (Hi Deb).

[jonathan ekman]

The male equivalent of the loathsome "shiksa" is "sheygetz". The Hebrew root refers to "an abomination, something unclean."

[Eva Smagacz]

Shiksa pun/joke is pricelessly funny if it refers to sexual antics, and it is no more hypocritical than a guy who visits a whorehouse but marries a virgin.

But the same "in-joke" that refers to screwing a country out of what one can get is much less funny. It underlines that you set yourself as separate and better from that country (and countrymen)where you reside and that you are happy to milk the country for what you can get. This is an ugly side to exceptionalism or tribalism or choseness - whatever you wish to call it.

I find it offensive.

[Ruth B.]

"I find it offensive."

We all do (except Richard Witty, who appears to take it for granted). Nicola too finds it offensive. She was being ironic.

At least that's my reading of the scene.

[D.]

BTW, I hope everyone understands that Nicola didn't just make up that phrase. The reason the Jewish audience had to laugh was that they recognized the sentiment from their own lives. It's often used in the context of a first, short-lived, out-of-tribe marriage.

[Oarwell]

Wonderful writing, Phil.

Witty, you are amazingly boring. You wouldn't happen to be an accountant, would you? Also, could you do me a favor and put your name at the beginning of your posts, so I can scroll past them?

And knock off the "I knew Phil when he was a pubescent" routine. No one cares.

[Todd]

I get it now! Phil is a fifty-something who can't handle his parents, and the rest of us are either too stupid, racist or fascist to handle the discussion. Thanks, Rich.

[Richard Witty]

Eva,
You should be angry at Phil for feeding you the line.

EVERY community has its condemnations of those that marry outside (an expression of disloyalty).

But, Phil's community includes multiple references of what is his community. My and his community was hippies in the late 60's. (We were personal friends.) Anti-war activists. Utopians.

Some of our references were common to humans, some common to males, some common to Jews, some common to college-bound.

If Phil had married a republican investment banker, I and most of his community would consider him disloyal. (Except that I know some very wonderful and politically inspiring investment bankers.) If Phil had married a working class girl in a shotgun wedding, part of his community would consider him disloyal. If Phil had married a non-Jewish woman, some of his community might consider him disloyal.

He speaks of dual-loyalty often, but I don't know anyone that is singly loyal, nor would I find much in common with someone that would be that one-dimensional.

I hope that I am more than that, especially using loyalty to empire US as reference. I'd rather be merely a good citizen, without any requirement of being a rah-rah superficially loyal one.

[D]

I notice that Richard describes Phil as his "friend." But Phil describes Richard as more of a chilhood acquaintance. I'm wondering whether Richard is using the word in the same sense as most of us.

Increasingly it seems "stalker" would be a more appropriate term.

[Eva Smagacz]

Thank you Richard,

I appreciate your answer. I acknowledge a matter of degrees and shades of loyalty, shaped by one's connections and communities.

It was just that this joke was not about marriage at all. It was not even about dual loyalty. It was about dis-loyalty to the country one is citizen of - at least that is how I read it.

I accept your reassurace that I completely misinterpreted his post and these are not sentiments expressed at the meeting.

[Todd]

Don't fool yourself, Eva! Richard is probably telling a completely innocent Polish joke this very moment.

[Ira]

Yale teems with the dullards of the Ivies. There are more burping, scratching, neurotic little nerds at Yale than all the other Ivies combined. Harvard attracts all kinds but there have always been genuine wits and interesting students there, Fred "Herman Munster" Gwynne and Susan Faludi went to Harvard. George W. Bush and Joe Lieberman to Yale. JFK - Harvard. John Kerry - Yale. Yale is the home of the ersatz intellectual, the Ayn Rand- loving schmendrick. And, look where it is - New Haven. Wow - it's just like ancient Athens!