February 14, 2008
I can think of a lot of questions Jews ask themselves as they enter a voting booth. Since when did one of them become, “How would Ed Lasky vote?”
Lasky is the author of a widely — and wildly — forwarded article that first appeared in the (modestly named) American Thinker, the conservative blog where he is listed as news editor.
The lengthy article questions Barack Obama’s pro-Israel credentials, in an argument that ranges from troubling (How close is Obama to his problematic pastor?), to tendentious (Is calling for withdrawal from Iraq ipso facto an anti-Israel position?), to just plain underhanded (Obama didn’t support John Bolton as UN ambassador. John Bolton is pro-Israel. Obama is thus anti-Israel. QED.)
Lasky’s article is a case study in the techniques of blog polemics. Carefully “annotated” with Web links, it is also given to sweeping and overreaching statements like these about Obama: “His off-the-cuff remarks have been uniformly taken by supporters of Israel as signs that the inner Obama does not truly support Israel despite what his canned speeches and essays may contain.”
Uniformly? Really? Well, not really, because Lasky later describes the various Jewish (and unassailably pro-Israel) members of Congress who vouch for Obama’s pro-Israel credentials, including Steve Rothman (D-NJ), Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), and Adam Schiff (D-Calif.).
Faced with this internal inconsistency, Lasky avers that their stamps of approval “might be met with some skepticism.” After all, Obama may well be the next president, and “it never hurts to have a friend in the White House.”
Likewise, when Obama introduces the Iran Divestment Bill (along with Jewish Democratic Reps. Barney Frank and the late Tom Lantos), Lasky suspects “that Obama signed on as a co-sponsor for protective coloration.”
In other words, even when Obama does something pro-Israel, it’s proof that he’s anti-. When his pro-Israel pals give him a hechsher, they have ulterior motives.
But at least Lasky is high-minded, unlike the anonymous author of the e-mail saying Obama is a closet Muslim intent on waging jihad from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. High-minded Lasky dismisses those accusations as “overheated and unfair.” “Still,” he writes in the very next sentence, “his full name alone conveys the biographical fact that he has some elements of a Muslim background.”
I love that “Still.”
A Google search turns up nothing about Ed Lasky except what I can glean from his list of articles for the American Thinker. He’s pro-Bush, anti-liberal media, pro-military, and strongly pro-Israel. But “pro-Israel,” like “conservative” or “vegetarian,” is a word that tends to obscure the diversity within the community it supposedly describes. Based on his writings, Lasky is the kind of pro-Israel that resists diplomatic pressure on the Israelis, does not see the settler movement as an obstacle to anything, and believes anything less than bombing Iran is tantamount to appeasement.
That there are other ways of “being pro-Israel” may occur to Lasky, but they, too, are to be met with some skepticism. One of his targets is Mideast expert Scott Lasensky, described by Lasky as a foreign policy adviser to Obama. Among Lasensky’s black marks, writes Lasky, is that he has been “hosted” by Brit Tzedek v’Shalom and Americans for Peace Now, “both of which groups have been highly critical of Israel over the years.” Unlike, say, the Likud Party.
Which brings me to my point, which is neither to defend Obama nor excoriate Lasky, but to ask how American Jews make up their minds. I don’t blame what the National Jewish Democratic Council calls a “right-wing attack machine” for the Lasky piece. I blame the Jews who accept a clearly ideologically driven essay as the “truth” about Obama, and simply hit “forward” on their e-mail. No doubt some of the folks in the e-mail chain share Lasky’s politics, but I wonder about the credulity of those who don’t. To coin a phrase, would you buy a used argument from this man?
I’m not saying we shouldn’t challenge the candidates on Israel, or anything else. And Obama is not above being asked the tough questions. But don’t check your critical thinking at the door when someone sends you and his 300 closest friends an e-mail. Check the sources. Find opposing viewpoints. Challenge the conclusions. Ask just what the author means by “pro-Israel.”
(A good place to start is the indispensable blog of Shmuel Rosner, the Washington correspondent for Ha’aretz. Rosner has assembled a panel of eight ideologically diverse Israelis who regularly rank the candidates on a scale from “Worst for Israel” to “Best for Israel.” Clinton and McCain are running neck and neck; Obama’s a distant third.)
And if you do have to forward a mass e-mail? Then please put a strong message in the subject line, like “you have to read this!” or “IMPORTANT INFORMATION!” That way I absolutely know to hit “delete.”
Continue the conversation at Andrew Silow-Carroll’s “JustASC” blog.