February 20, 2008

but fails to update story on anti-Semitic leaflet in Memphis election
by Bill Levinson

McCain and Kirk: The Myth of Republican Moderation
By Steve Sheffey

Yes, John McCain is pro-Israel. But that is the minimum we should expect from our elected officials; it is hardly sufficient, especially when their opponents are also pro-Israel. …[Regarding Mark Kirk, R-IL] That’s not good if you care about reproductive choice, gun control, or separation of church and state. Our Republican friends are entitled to their own opinions, but not to their own facts, and the fact is that while the parties and the candidates might not differ on Israel, there are real differences on other issues that should concern all of us. Support for Israel is the minimum we should expect from our candidates—it does not excuse being wrong on so many other issues.

Good. It is now on record that the National Jewish Democratic Council, aka National Judenrat Democratic Kapos, says that McCain is as pro-Israel as Obama or Clinton. NJDC is, however, the organization that seems to consider itself entitled to its own facts.

To begin with, we do care about the gun control issue. We cared about it so much that we broke the back of Hillary Clinton’s creative campaign financing organization, the Million Mom March, in 2000. (Downloadable Word document that shows how the Million Mom March raised money by lying to its own supporters and donors, used 501(c)(3) tax exempt money for electioneering, and then filed an extremely creative Form 990 tax return with the Internal Revenue Service.)

Now for reproductive rights. Perhaps the National “Jewish” Democratic Council supports live birth abortion (not “partial birth abortion,” “LIVE birth abortion”) as Obama does.

Click image for 1000 by 300 pixel, suitable for reproduction as a bumper sticker at CafePress

We have shown repeatedly that the NJDC makes up its own “facts” on everything under the sun like MoveOn.org’s promotion of anti-Semitic and other forms of hate speech, and the Christian computer game “Left Behind: Eternal Forces.” More recently, we cited NJDC’s blog as an information source to show that Democrat Nikki Tinker was passively accepting the support of people who circulated an anti-Semitic leaflet. Upon discovering that Tinker had in fact denounced this leaflet, we updated our own blog entries accordingly. We also entered a comment to this effect at NJDC’s blog, but our comment (simply an independently-verifiable information link showing that Tinker had denounced the anti-Semitic leaflet that people were circulating to support her candidacy) was neither posted nor acted upon. In other words, NJDC is content to let a tacit accusation of anti-Semitism, this time against a fellow Democrat, stand instead of updating its Web page to reflect the facts. But wait, wasn’t it the NJDC that complained about sinat chinam (baseless hatred), and false accusations of anti-Semitism?

We are not saying that NJDC “lied” about Tinker. It reported the content of a credible source, the Memphis Commercial Appeal:

According to a report in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, Tinker “declined to answer” questions about the flier, which was condemned by the Anti-Defamation League. The flier reportedly states that “Memphis Congressman Steve Cohen and the JEWS HATE Jesus. So Memphis Christians must united and support ONE Black Christian to represent Memphis in the United States Congress in 2008.” [Memphis Commercial Appeal, 2/13/08 and 2/11/08]

We also found this source believable. Our attention was later, however, directed to an entry in the Star Telegram.

Nikki Tinker, a black lawyer expected to be Cohen’s chief opponent for re-election in the Democratic primary in August, said she was incensed by the anti-Semitic attack.

“My faith teaches me to love, not hate,” said Tinker, who is Christian.

Whether we like Ms. Tinker’s politics or not, we deal in facts. The fact is that she denounced the anti-Semitic leaflet, so it was our obligation to update our originally hostile blog entries to reflect what actually happened. Much as we detest Barack Obama as a fraud, phony smile, and empty suit, if he were to denounce and repudiate anti-Semitic and/or racist entities like MoveOn.org and Al Sharpton, it would similarly be our duty to report that as well. Only the National “Jewish” Democratic Council continues to stand behind lies and fabrications (e.g. the smear of “Left Behind: Eternal Forces”) whitewashes of anti-Semites (MoveOn.org), and even faulty information that it acted on in good faith (Nikki Tinker).