November 13, 2008
In the weeks preceding Election Day we accepted and ran a series of advertisements from the Republican Jewish Coalition, nearly all attacking Barack Obama as, variously, “dangerously naive,” “reckless,” “reckless and dangerous,” and “naive and dangerous.”
Many, many readers were outraged and told us so in phone calls and letters. I defended our decision to publish the ads in the name of free speech and communal debate. For readers who objected to the ads, we offered plenty of space for letters to the editor. We encouraged the RJC’s rivals to take out their own ads, which they did.
I still think that in principle we made the right decision. But I must say this: Many of those ads were reprehensible. And whether or not they supported Obama or John McCain, Jews deserved a better, more intelligent, and more civilized political debate than the one whipped up by RJC.
In an op-ed this week, RJC executive director Matt Brooks writes that the ad campaign “helped not only raise…critical issues, but helped the Jewish community get clear answers” from the Obama campaign on Israel, Iran, and the Middle East.
You’d think the RJC had issued a series of policy papers.
But remember how low some of the ads really stooped. One bizarrely implied that because Pat Buchanan once spoke approvingly of something Obama said about the Mideast conflict, Obama may well share Buchanan’s “racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Israel, and anti-immigrant views.” (“Racist”!)
Never mind that Buchanan (a Republican, lest we forget) himself quoted Obama out of context, or that Buchanan never clarified in what ways Obama’s views on Israel were different from McCain’s. By the ad’s mischievous logic, because Elie Wiesel and David Duke both believe in freedom of religion, either they’re both bigots, or they’re both humanitarians, or freedom of religion is “dangerous.”
Or consider the ad that featured a photo of Obama speaking to a crowd in Germany, next to this helpful tag line: “History has shown that a weak and naive foreign policy has resulted in tragic outcomes for the Jewish people.”
Get it? Germany, crowds, Jewish tragedy? Unless, of course, it was coincidence that the RJC picked the Germany photo; after all, it’s not easy finding a picture of Obama speaking to a crowd in, say, the United States of America.
And on it went: Two ads left the misleading impression that McCain, topping Obama, supported an “undivided Jerusalem” (both candidates said the city’s future contours should be negotiated by the Israelis and Palestinians). Another plucked a 1999 quote to make it seem as if the head of the National Jewish Democratic Council supported McCain.
Brooks is within his rights to assert that “there were serious and legitimate reasons to be concerned by Obama’s positions on Israel, Iran, and the Middle East,” except the ads were never about opening debate, but closing it down. If you’re looking for “clear answers” on “critical issues,” you don’t invoke the Nazis or imply anti-Semitism.
And if you do, you can’t hide behind “the Jewish intellectual tradition of debate,” as Brooks does. Nor can you charge that the other side “consistently resorted to ugly intimidation to silence our message and stifle this important debate.” If you play the Holocaust card, the anti-Israel card, and the anti-Semite card, don’t be surprised when the other side pushes back, or, as in the case of the Obama campaign, declines to debate your people in public events. (Beyond this mild protest, and angry letters, I’m not sure what Brooks means by “ugly intimidation.”)
Granted, the people most likely to object to these ads were Democrats. But Republicans too have a beef — or should, anyway. A substantive debate on these issues and clarification of McCain’s positions — and there were clear differences between the candidates, especially on Iran — were obscured by the unwavering negativity of the ad campaign. Only two of the 10 ads even suggested what McCain’s strengths might be; the rest focused solely on Obama. Considering that Republicans actually lost ground among Jewish voters on Election Day — despite some real qualms about Obama — it’s reasonable to assume that the ad campaign actually turned off voters who might otherwise have voted for McCain.
You could argue that Jews should have tougher skins, and I might agree with you. But I heard enough of the complaints to understand that the writers and callers weren’t just faint-hearted — or partisan. Many expressed a genuine yearning for civility. And many were deeply disappointed not that we provided a forum for criticizing Obama or the Democrats — we published pro-McCain op-eds without a peep of protest — but that a Jewish newspaper would print messages intended to be so divisive.
As a result, we’re going to take a fresh look at our advertising policy, and we’ve begun the discussion among our staff and board of trustees. I prefer to err on the side of leniency, and agree with Brooks that our community must “value opposing positions.” But papers like ours also have a responsibility to build community. We’ll try to encourage open, even provocative, debate, but challenge those advertisers who are doing more to divide us than enlighten us.
