August 28, 2008

Attention, Clinton Democrats: Were it not for the National “Jewish” Democratic Council and Anti-Defamation League, Hillary Clinton might have been last night’s nominee.

It is always interesting to explore historical might-have-beens, and events in late 2006–in fact, almost exactly two years ago today–may well have tipped the outcome of the very close 2008 Democratic primary. It is a known fact that MoveOn.org supported Barack Obama, and it endorsed him well before the end of the primaries. MoveOn.org still commands substantial resources despite the damage it suffered at our hands and those of our friends in 2006, and these resources could well have tipped the nomination from Hillary Clinton to Barack Obama. Clinton Democrats are well within their rights to ask how the primaries might have turned out had MoveOn.org been not merely damaged but destroyed in 2006.

As a refresher, here is what happened in 2006. In late August, some friends brought to our attention the most vicious imaginable anti-Semitic hate speech at MoveOn.org’s Action Forum. Among the most infamous was “Jew Lieberman Done, Corporate Clinton is Next.” Not only did MoveOn’s Action Forum use “Jew” as an epithet, it announced an intention to destroy Hillary Clinton–a goal it achieved in 2008, at least as far as her Presidential ambitions were concerned.

When we learned of this, we searched MoveOn.org’s Action Forum for similar hate speech, and we uncovered quite a collection–just as we have found reams of hate speech at Barack Obama’s official campaign site. We also demonstrated that MoveOn.org exercised editorial control over its Action Forum, thus making MoveOn.org responsible for the content–just as we have proven that the Obama campaign exercises editorial control over My.BarackObama.com.

MoveOn.org reacted visibly to our attacks, first by temporary disablement of its Action Forum. We recognized this immediately as a backward step (like soldiers of the horse and musket era breaking ranks and stepping backward) that might portend a total rout. MoveOn.org realized this as well, because it brought the Action Forum back online but under heavy moderation that alienated many of its users. A couple of weeks later, it disabled the Action Forum permanently in response to ongoing attacks from ourselves and others.

No one disables their Web site, or part of it, six weeks before an election they are trying to win. Page visits– the more the better– are every Webmaster’s measure of success, and the excuse that MoveOn wants to “conserve bandwidth” would not fool a child. Does anyone seriously think that an organization that is backed by George Soros’ money can’t afford the bandwidth necessary to reach as many potential voters as possible during this critical period before the election?

It is eminently clear that MoveOn.org disabled the Action Forum to prevent its adversaries from harvesting reams of anti-Semitic and in some cases racist, anti-Christian, and anti-American hate speech along with 9/11 conspiracy theories that would play well on the Jeff Rense Show. Even this does not begin to describe the extent of this latest disaster…

At this point, it was quite possible to envision the destruction of MoveOn.org as a viable organization–especially because we succeeded (with the timely intervention of a pro-Second Amendment columnist) in breaking the back of the Million Mom March in 2000. Had we succeeded in destroying MoveOn.org as opposed to merely maiming it by forcing it to get rid of its Action Forum, Democrats might well have cheered for Hillary Clinton as their nominee last night–and, unlike Barack Obama, she is quite capable of going one-on-one against John McCain.

This does not necessarily mean that we would vote for Clinton. We opposed her national health care plan of 1994, but her 2008 platform is something that we might have helped write ourselves. Instead of forcing people into a socialized medicine plan, it allows people to choose between government and private plans–thus forcing greedy insurers to compete with the government, but without giving the government a monopoly. On the other hand, we remember her involvement with the anti-Second Amendment Million Mom March in 2000, and we think she needs to say unequivocally that the Second Amendment is about owning weapons for defense of home, family, and country as opposed to duck hunting. We are not happy about her appearance with Al Sharpton in 2007, or her vote against a Senate resolution to stand with General Petraeus against MoveOn.org’s defamatory advertisement. Nonetheless, we think she has moved from the Left toward the center, and she has risen considerably in our esteem.

This is, however, beside the point. What we think of Hillary Clinton does not matter, because she would almost certainly beat McCain this November. The National “Jewish” Democratic Council and Anti-Defamation League may well be the reasons she is not the nominee, and why John McCain will almost certainly be our next President–and deservedly so, because Obama is not fit to clean the soles of John McCain’s (or Hillary Clinton’s) shoes.

Let’s return to September/October 2006, when MoveOn.org had already been forced to cut its Action Forum loose (like a trapped animal chewing off a leg to escape immediate death), and when it was facing total catastrophe. MoveOn.org was in headlong flight, with its opponents ready to pursue it to the death. It is quite possible that MoveOn.org survived to bring down Hillary Clinton only because the National “Jewish” Democratic Council and Anti-Defamation League used their Jewish identities to issue MoveOn.org a whitewash and a clean bill of health.

On October 27 2006, NJDC leader Ira Forman wrote, “NJDC Reacts to the Swift Boating of MoveOn By the RJC.” Forman wrote the following while accusing the Republican Jewish Coalition and, by implication ourselves (since we supplied the RJC with information about MoveOn.org) of lying.

Jewish voters should take comfort in knowing that MoveOn.org is not a haven for anti-Semitism and the organization will renounce and remove any postings of the sort.
Leave it to Republicans to not allow the truth to get in the way of campaigning.

Sincerely,
Ira Forman
Executive Director
National Jewish Democratic Council

The National Jewish Democratic Council has stood by this falsehood despite being given proof that MoveOn.org did know about the hate speech, and that it did not even remove more than a few items (the “Jew Lieberman” piece being among them). The following were all provided to NJDC, which replied only by telling us to stop “spamming” them.

1. Jan Poller’s letter of April 1 2004, which told MoveOn.org about the hate speech. This alone proves that MoveOn.org didn’t “just find out about it” in mid-August.
2. Reams of hate speech that were harvested from the Action Forum two or more weeks after the MoveOn press release, thus proving that MoveOn.org lied about deleting all but a few items.
3. The MoveOn.org Action Forum FAQ page that says in more than one place that MoveOn monitors the forum and even reads each comment (including the hate speech) twice. This again shows that MoveOn.org didn’t “just find out” about the hate speech.
4. Votes of overwhelming approval, as opposed to condemnation, of the hate speech by other Action Forum participants.

In other words, the National Jewish Democratic Council, which is also well known for posting anti-Christian hate images (in the “Bubbie versus the GOP” video) and even anti-Semitic “Jew as Christian hater” material, used its nominally Jewish identity to deceive Jewish voters about MoveOn.org’s sponsorship of anti-Semitic hate speech.

The Anti-Defamation League was meanwhile once a highly respected organization. Our father thought very highly of it, and so did we until the past few years. This changed when ADL, on Abraham Foxman’s watch, stepped in to save MoveOn.org’s bacon with the following statement.

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) welcomed the responsiveness of MoveOn.org Political Action in removing anti-Semitic messages that had been posted on the Action Forum on their Web site.
In response to a letter of concern, Eli Pariser, Executive Director of MoveOn Political Action, has been in direct contact with ADL. He indicated that MoveOn.org found the comments abhorrent and had them removed.
ADL is pleased with Mr. Pariser’s responsiveness to our concerns and believes the matter has been resolved satisfactorily.

This statement is still online as of August 28 2008 even though ADL, like NJDC, was provided with evidence that MoveOn.org had not only known about the hate speech contrary to its denials, but did not even remove more than a few items. Then, in 2007, Foxman stepped up to oppose a Congressional resolution to recognize the genocide of Armenians in 1915. While this fell short of the equivalent of Holocaust denial, because the ADL stipulated that Armenians were indeed murdered, it was sufficiently close to demolish much of the ADL’s credibility. Foxman then fired an ADL director of conscience, Andrew Tarsy, for going against him on this issue. Two other ADL directors then resigned in disgust. (We understand that Foxman later re-hired Tarsy after much outrage over his dismissal.) We mention the Armenian issue because it casts some light on why ADL might have chosen to whitewash MoveOn.org.

If a nominally “Christian” organization posted a picture of the American flag with a Star of David in the blue field (as in “the Jews are taking over America”) we would expect decent and responsible Christians to condemn it immediately. If a nominally “Jewish” organization posts a picture of the American flag with a Cross in the blue field (as in “the Christians are taking over America”), responsible Jews should similarly step up to condemn it as anti-Christian hate speech. ADL has condemned as hate speech, and rightly so, a white supremacist cartoon of Obama and McCain kissing the buttocks of an Orthodox Jew, in front of a flag with the Star of David in the blue field. ADL has yet to condemn an almost identical picture from the National “Jewish” Democratic Council’s “Bubbie versus the GOP,” in which Republicans sew a Cross into the flag’s blue field.

Anti-Semitic hate image rightly condemned by the Anti-Defamation League

Similar anti-Christian hate image from NJDC’s “Bubbie versus the GOP.”

This is not the only use of Christians, ministers, the Cross, and even Jesus in a “This is the Enemy” context in “Bubbie versus the GOP,” either. In addition, NJDC is on record as providing false and hostile information about the Christian computer game “Left Behind: Eternal Forces.” NJDC, which has about as much to do with Judaism as the KKK has to do with Christianity (despite its use of the Cross on its regalia) is now supporting Barack Obama while doing its best to smear John McCain.

These are the organizations that, by arguably saving MoveOn.org from total and well-deserved political annihilation in 2006, may well have tipped this year’s nomination from Hillary Clinton to a fraud, liar, empty suit, promoter of infanticide, abuser of tax exempt church resources, and enabler of racists and anti-Semites. Obama’s landslide defeat this November will, however, achieve what should have happened two years ago: the excision of the MoveOn.org cancer that currently infests the Democratic Donkey.