Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter says the race for president is “a 50-50 deal” which Jewish voters in swing states could tilt.
Photo by Robert Wiener
September 18, 2008
In an unusually partisan speech for a mainstream journalist, Newsweek columnist and senior editor Jonathan Alter said John McCain was “temperamentally unsuited to be president of the United States.”
Speaking Sept. 14 in the crowded sanctuary of Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield, Alter called his assessment a “strong indictment” of a man with whom he has been “quite friendly” since the early 1990s.
“I think we would see an impulsive, erratic, and fairly predictable administration — but one that got some things done. He would work pretty well with a Democratic Congress,” he said.
“It is not fair to say he is trigger-happy or would want to get us into a war.” But McCain believes in “‘rogue state rollback” — which the columnist defined as “getting rid of the bad guys.”
“The odds of getting into another conflict are considerable,” said Alter. “The problem is, we don’t have the manpower for that in our military.”
Alter said McCain’s presidency would be marked by “seat-of-the-pants — sometimes inspired, more often impetuous — decisions which, when they go wrong, he will apologize for.”
Alter said McCain’s unpredictability extends to his Mideast policies.
“The idea that he will somehow do unstintingly what Israel recommends is a complete misreading of John McCain and the kind of person that he is,” said Alter. “The only thing we can say with confidence about McCain’s policy toward Israel is that it will be entirely unpredictable, like almost everything else we know about Sen. McCain. It is very hard to know which side of an issue he comes down on, and he often comes down on both sides. He is dependent on timing and political calculation.”
The culture wars
Alter said McCain’s choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate is an example of his putting “politics first” in his decision making.
Alter said he counted “at least 15 separate occasions” when McCain said his only requirement for a running mate was “that he or she be ready to step in on Day One as commander-in-chief and president. Did he meet that requirement? I don’t think anybody with intellectual honesty could say ‘yes.’”
As for Barack Obama, Alter said, it would be “very difficult to say” what the outcome of an Obama presidency would be.
“It could collapse in a frustrating, inconclusive pile of rubble or be historically successful the way Franklin Roosevelt’s was,” said Alter. “He has a very ambitious agenda and is almost corporate in his approach to examining issues.
“Temperamentally, he is totally suited to the job. He is a very unflappable, even-tempered fellow. Even if he gets little done on a cultural level he will be successful.”
Alter also put in a word for a broader discussion on Israel than he now sees taking place among American Jews.
He said debate over government actions “is much more robust in Israel, while in the United States you can be branded an anti-Semite for criticizing Israeli policy.
“In Israel they think that’s preposterous — as if they were all a bunch of self-hating Jews in Israel.”
Alter also touched a Jewish hot button when he accused the GOP of “reigniting the culture wars.” He referred specifically to the speech given at the Republican National Convention by Rudolph Giuliani. The former New York mayor said that Palin’s home town of Wasilla, Ala., wasn’t “cosmopolitan” enough for Barack Obama.
Alter said that when Giuliani characterized Barack Obama as “‘too cosmopolitan,’ that is going back to [Nazi war criminal] Julius Stryker and the Nazis. ‘Cosmopolitan’ was a code word for Jewish…. There is definitely an anti-Semitic subtext to the culture wars, because they are about those Eastern ‘cosmopolitans’ who hate us in small towns and hate the Christian way of life.’ Are the culture wars a distraction? You bet they are.”
Researcher Daniel Pipes: McCain understands threat
Daniel Pipes lauded John McCain during his Sept. 4 talk at Temple B’nai Abraham in Livingston.
JONATHAN ALTER’S Sept. 14 talk at Temple Ner Tamid in Bloomfield wasn’t the first occasion when a local guest speaker praised one side at the expense of another during the 2008 presidential campaign — and it probably won’t be the last.
Speaking Sept. 4 at Temple B’nai Abraham in Livingston, researcher Daniel Pipes said that Sen. John McCain, unlike his Democratic rivals, forthrightly identifies America’s enemy as “radical Islamic terrorism.”
“Barack Obama does not,” said Pipes, director of the Philadelphia-based Middle East Forum. “Democrats don’t suggest anything of the sort.”
Pipes also quoted New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s speech the night before to the Republican National Convention. “For four days in Denver, the Democrats were afraid to use the words ‘Islamic terrorism,’” Giuliani asserted in his Sept. 3 speech. “I imagine they believe it is politically incorrect to say it. I think they believe it will insult someone.”
Pipes, who told the audience he is a Republican, praised Giuliani for having “taunted the Democrats for not using the words ‘Islamic terrorists.’”
Later in his talk at the synagogue, Pipes read quotes from several Democrats. He quoted a 2004 interview with then Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry, who said, “We have to get back to the place we were, where terrorists are not the focus of our lives, but they’re a nuisance.’’
Although Kerry went on to describe a strategy of reducing and fighting terrorism, Pipes said McCain, unlike those quoted, understands that radical Islam is “very important and very dangerous.”
“I’m on McCain’s side,” said Pipes.
— NJJN STAFF
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