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Oh Andrew! Now you’ve done it. First you didn’t give me one of your coveted “Yglesias Awards” when I said that Webb handily won the “Meet the Press” debate with Allen. I’ll have you know, I spent my father-in-law’s 70th birthday party Sunday afternoon mired in a profound funk because of this shocking insult. When I got home and saw the wrong had still not been redressed, I had to hie to my fainting couch.
But now you’ve really done it. You’ve just written a blog post that says I think the South is full of anti-Semites. Actually, strangely, your attack is directed against Hugh even though it was my blog post, suggesting either an intellectual dishonesty of the highest order or an intellect of the lowest.
But I digress. In case you’ve forgotten what you wrote, busy as you are with your book publicity schedule, I will re-post your essay in full (thus exposing your work to a much larger audience than was previously the case):
Here's an interesting remark on Hugh Hewitt's blog:
As a Jew, I found Fox's question [to George Allen] profoundly offensive. Trust me, the wounded minority card is not one that I play with much frequency. But the attempt to "tar" Allen as a Jew in a southern state was at the very least disturbing, and I actually consider it sickening.
The premise of this argument is that many Southern voters are anti-Semitic. Is that Hugh Hewitt's belief, as well as his colleague, Dean Barnett's?
Allow me to correct your miss-impression, giving you the benefit of the doubt that you really couldn’t follow my train of thought. My premise was that someone thought it would be to George Allen's political detrimental if he were labeled a Jew. It certainly wasn’t me. I see absolutely no benefit in a candidate sharing the same ethnicity as most of the electorate’s likely voters. On a completely unrelated note, my political consulting business has been a little slow to get off the ground.
Lord only knows the identity of the person who hatched the idea that it might be a swell thing to begin digging into George Allen’s ethnicity. It certainly couldn’t have been the questioner, one Peggy Fox, because she is sending out the following email:
Thank you for writing regarding my question at the debate yesterday. The point of my question was not the Senator's religious heritage itself, but about a report in the Jewish newspaper "the Forward" that he may have avoided discussing his background because it may cost him votes and political support in Virginia.
I regret the way I worded the question and the way Senator Allen turned the spotlight onto the question itself without addressing the bigger political issue which could be relevant to the campaign.
Thanks again for writing. Your concerns will be shared with W*USA managers and reporters.
In other words, Allen may be a self-hating non-Jew and this possibility should be of profound interest to the Virginia electorate. A question for you Andrew: While Ms. Fox is sharing her virtual pen-pals' concerns with her W*USA overlords, do you think her prior comment that “on television, you're always one word away from getting fired. If you slip and say something stupid on the air, it's all over,” will come up?
As to how this became a matter of conversation, I’m sure that will remain a mystery because the figure who decided to make an issue of George Allen’s ethnicity will surely remain in the shadows. You may ask, how can I be sure that the hatcher of this scheme will remain anonymous?
The answer is because while Americans don’t mind their politics being played hardball style (hence the runaway popularity of Chris Matthews’ show by the same name), there are a few things that are clearly beyond the pale. One such thing is attacking an adversary’s family. We saw this during the John Roberts confirmation imbroglio when certain enterprising reporters figured the procedure behind the Roberts’ adoption of their children was fair game. What percentage of America that pays attention to such nonsense was well and truly repulsed.
Another thing beyond the pale is attacking a candidate’s ethnicity. Whatever Fox was trying to get at, the entire subject is verboten. Ms. Fox’s automated response suggests that Allen’s sin is a failure to adequately embrace his Jewish forebears for fear that if he did it would cost him support in Virginia. Again, it is my opinion (not necessarily Hugh’s – are you still following that distinction?) that this is a vile tack. Discussing a candidate’s ancestry is redolent of some rather disgusting stuff. I will also say that determining the tack’s creator should be a matter of more than passing interest.
I hope this effort to clarify things has been helpful. I know you desperately want to rejoin your feud with Hugh, but Hugh has no interest in coming out to play. Sorry. You’ll just have to generate traffic by providing interesting and original content.
May I suggest an essay on the horror that is the belly slap?
Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com.
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