Where was the outrage when Pat Buchanan defended Hitler?

I’m really more saddened than outraged about Helen Thomas. I wish she’d been able or willing to express her outrage at the recent Israeli attack on a flotilla delivering aid to Gaza in a way that wasn’t so, well, just plain outright cruel. It’s probably appropriate that she retire, not because she spoke up against Israel, but because of the “Go back go Germany” sentiment. You can make the argument that the establishment of the state of Israel after World War II was the Allied powers’ way of assuaging their guilt over having looked the other way for years while Hitler was massacring Jews in Germany and Eastern Europe; and that it was probably not a great idea. But what are you going to do now? Dismantle it? Arguably this is what Helen Thomas was calling for. But when you have other opinion columnists like Charles Krauthammer and Jonah Goldberg and other knee-jerk supporters of EVERYTHING Israel does, no matter how heinous, still working, I have to wonder why only this particular statement warranted forcing a 90-year-old woman off the stage while those who have advocated nuking the Middle East, racially profiling all Muslims, and invoking the Crusades are still walking around.

If it’s just about being offensive to Jews, what about Pat Buchanan, then? He’s been a rabid anti-Semite for years, and he’s still a beloved, if less frequent, fixture on Joe Scarborough’s show on the supposedly liberal MSNBC.

Media Matters has a rundown of the Jew-hatred of Pat Buchanan:

During his time in public life, Buchanan has defended Adolf Hitler — repeatedly. He has peddled Holocaust denial claims and compared suspected Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk to Jesus Christ. 

Buchanan has reminisced fondly about his childhood in segregated Washington, DC, and complained that “Old heroes like … Robert E. Lee are replaced by Dr. King.” He wrote that “integration of blacks and whites” was likely to result in “perpetual friction, as the incapable are placed … side by side with the capable.” Buchanan’s anti-integration views were so hard-core, even Richard Nixon characterized Buchanan’s them as “segregation forever.” When 67 blacks were shot to death by South African police, Buchanan dismissed the massacre as “a few South African whites mistreating a couple of blacks.” In 1989, Buchanan defended Bob Jones University’s ban on interracial dating. 1989!

In 1983, Buchanan wrote that “homosexuals … have declared war on nature, and now nature is exacting an awful retribution.” (During his 1992 presidential campaign, he stood by that view, insisting “AIDS is nature’s retribution for violating the laws of nature.”) He has compared gays to alcoholics.

He has accused David Duke of stealing his ideas, and he has appeared — just two years ago — as a guest on a “pro-White” radio show that was streamed live on a self-described “White Nationalist” web site.

Buchanan’s comments have been denounced even by conservative leaders like William F. Buckley (who found it “”impossible to defend Pat Buchanan against the charge that what he did and said during the period under examination, the military build-up for the Gulf War, amounted to anti-Semitism,”) Charles Krauthammer (“There’s no doubt he makes subliminal appeals to prejudice”) and then-RNC chairman Rich Bond (who said Buchanan was “heading toward a low-road message of anger, hate and race-baiting.”).

It is important to remember that, although Pat Buchanan’s nasty comments about a wide variety of minorities are very much of the past, they are not in the past.  He has defended Hitler within the past year. His complaint that “Old heros like … Robert W. Lee are replaced by Dr. King” came within the past year. Just last month he was busy counting the Jews on the Supreme Court — and concluding that there are too many. The month before that, he insisted that “both sides were right” during the Civil War.

And if it’s about being offensive to Jews, how about Glenn Beck’s endorsement of the work and ideology of Elizabeth Dilling, who was such a rabid anti-Communist that she excused the encampment and gassing of Jews during World War II because many of the Jews exterminated were Russian? Where’s the outrage about that, and why isn’t there an outcry among the very journalistic organizations that called for Helen Thomas’ head to have Glenn Beck removed from the airwaves? Thomas was an opinion journalist, no longer a news reporter. What’s really the difference, except for the fact that Thomas has long spoken out about the worst of Israeli thuggery?

NO ONE, not even in the blogosphere, is excusing what Helen Thomas said. As someone from a family who had members go up in smoke in Hitler’s camps, I find the “Go back to Germany” sentment as offensive as for white people here telling black people to “Go back to Africa”, or racists in Arizona telling children born here to go back to Mexico. I wish that Thomas had found a more artful way to express her sentiment, though I could also argue that at 90, you’ve earned the right to express your sentiments however the hell you want. And it’s quite possibly time for Thomas to leave the public scene. I just wish that it weren’t on this kind of note, and I also wish that in pushing her out of the public scene, the organizations expressing outrage at what she said reserved some of their outrage for the racists and Nazi sympathizers who continue to spew their own brand of bile in the newspapers and over the radio and television airwaves every day without impunity.

OK, can we stop pretending that we’re friends with these guys now?

For the last twenty years, we’ve heard all kinds of conciliatory crap towards Jews coming out of the Vatican. It was all horsepuckey, of course, no matter how much Rabbi Marc Gelman wanted to believe it. They believe we killed Christ, they’ve always believed we killed Christ, and when he comes back, we’ll get him again!

Sorry. Couldn’t resist.

Now I’m not one of those people who sees anti-Semitism around every corner, like Woody Allen in Annie Hall talking about someone saying “Jew eat?”. But all this nicey-nice stuff from the Vatican always struck me as creepy. I knew the shiv was there at the ready, and so it is:

A website quoted Giacomo Babini, the emeritus bishop of Grosseto, as saying he believed a “Zionist attack” was behind the criticism, considering how “powerful and refined” the criticism is.

The comments, which have been denied by the bishop, follow a series of statements from Catholic churchmen alleging the existence of plots to weaken the church and Pope Benedict XVI.

Allegedly speaking to the Catholic website Pontifex, Babini, 81, was quoted as saying: “They do not want the church, they are its natural enemies. Deep down, historically speaking, the Jews are God killers.”

He’s not all wrong. We do NOT want their church. Even those of us who are nonobservant as Jews want no part of a church that throughout its history has stood for persecution of heretics, the amassing of power, the cynical abuse of mankind’s quest for meaning, and harbors and protects pedophiles.

If you believe that Y’shua of Nazareth actually existed, it doesn’t matter whether you believe he was divine or just a cool guy with a message that we should all be nice to each other. The fact of the matter is that the deeply corrupt organization housed in Italy and populated by creepy old men does their messiah no service and pays him no tribute.

It isn’t just Father Raniero Cantalamessa

Father Raniero Cantalamessa is the Franciscan who yesterday compared criticism of of Pope Pedophile Protector to anti-Semitism. The underlying outrage here is not the trivialization of anti-Semitism, something with which the Vatican is very familiar, given the Church’s history of forced conversion and adherence to Catholic doctrine during the Crusades. the Spanish Inquisition, and Bart Stupak. The outrage is the implication that hating those who protect pedophiles is sort of like hating Jews, which means that Jews therefore protect pedophiles.

THIS is why Jewish groups are outraged, it has little to do with trivialization of the Holocaust. And it isn’t just Cantalamessa either. Today I took a break from an entire weekend spent working (for a change; this is all I do these days…I don’t even know how to cook anymore) and went for coffee with a friend I hadn’t seen in a long time. She is in her 60’s, and Roman Catholic. I asked her what she thought of all this, and she said that her faith is not rooted in the Pope or the Vatican (which of course makes her not really a Roman Catholic, but I didn’t want to tell her that), but in her belief in God. Then she said that there is a place for forgiveness, and just as the faith of the Jews was not shaken by what they went through in the Holocaust, her faith isn’t shaken by what the Church has done.

That’s when my head exploded, leaving a mess all over the wall behind me.

I had to drop it right there, because otherwise I was going to have to confront her on drawing parallels between keeping one’s faith when one is targeted for mass genocide, and keeping the faith when the leaders of your church for the last 40+ years are exposed as having either been or protectors of people who rape children.

So here we are.

Enjoy your chocolate bunnies tomorrow.

Leave it to a pope who’s an ex-brownshirt to decide that Pope Pius XII should be a saint

Sainthood just ain’t what it used to be, now that they let just anyone in. Former Nazi brownshirt Pope Benedict has decided that the predecessor who looked the other way while six million Jews and millions of others were slaughtered by the Nazis should be elevated to sainthood:

Jewish leaders from around the world expressed their outrage today after the Pope opened the way for his controversial wartime predecessor to be made a saint, with some calling the possible beatification of Pius XII as “inopportune and premature”.

Benedict signed a decree last Saturday on the virtues of Pius, who has been criticised for not doing enough to stop the Holocaust. The decree means he can be beatified once a miracle attributed to him has been recognised.

Beatification is the first major step towards sainthood. But Benedict, who has long admired Pius, continues to draw fire for ignoring concerns over the controversial pontiff.

Among those to criticise him was the World Jewish Congress, whose president, Ronald Lauder, said: “As long as the archives about the crucial period 1939 to 1945 remain closed, and until a consensus on his actions ‑ or inaction ‑ concerning the persecution of millions of Jews in the Holocaust is established, a beatification is inopportune and premature.

“While it is entirely a matter for the Catholic church to decide on whom religious honours are bestowed, there are strong concerns about Pius XII’s political role during world war two which should not be ignored.”

He called on the Vatican to immediately open the files on the controversial figure. “Given the importance of good relations between Catholics and the Jews, and following the difficult events of the past year, it would be appreciated if the Vatican showed more sensitivity on this matter,” he added, referring to Benedict’s rehabilitation of a Holocaust-denying cleric, Richard Williamson.

The incident sparked worldwide condemnation from prominent Jewish groups and individuals and placed an additional strain on interfaith relations, which were already under pressure after the pope issued an edict permitting a prayer that called for the conversion of Jews.

In France, the country’s chief rabbi urged the Vatican to abandon its mission to beatify Pius. Gilles Bernheim said: “Given Pius XII’s silence during and after the Shoah [Holocaust], I don’t want to believe that Catholics see in Pius XII an example of morality for humankind. I hope that the church will renounce this beatification plan and will thus honour its message and its values.”

This pope and Pat Buchanan ought to get together for a beer. They have a lot in common.(h/t)

Where is the Republican outrage over THIS use of the Holocaust?

It wasn’t so long ago that Republicans had a hissy-fit over Alan Grayson, who is Jewish, using the word “holocaust” (lower-case “h”) to describe the deaths of over 40,000 Americans EVERY YEAR due to lack of health care coverage.

Richard Blair wants to know, and so do I, why NOT ONE REPUBLICAN has taken a similar stand of outrage against the lunatic frothing teabagger who went to Washington the other day carrying a poster of dead Holocaust victims and calling it “National Socialist Healthcare, Dachau Germany – 1945”. This is the same rally at which Eric Cantor spoke and said nary a word about it, nor did he say anything about the poster which read “Obama takes his orders from the Rothchilds” — “Rothschild” being code for “Jew” that was used by Jew-haters before they elected George Soros to be their all-purpose Jewish scapegoat.

Yes, folks, Eric Cantor, a Jew, sides with Jew-haters against the president for no other reason than political power.

For one brief moment during the 2008 campaign, John McCain got in touch with his humanity just long enough to contradict an insane woman who was a precursor to the teabag lunacy who ranted about how she couldn’t trust Obama “because he’s an Arab.” Eric Cantor can’t even do that much.

Over eleven million people were murdered during the Third Reich simply because they were Jewish, or gay, or disabled, or in some other way didn’t fit into Hitler’s plans for a master race. Six million of those were Jews — Eric Cantor’s people (and mine). And this man gets up and speaks who have shown that they would gladly show up to be some contemporary version of brownshirts, simply for political gain.

Eric Cantor is a disgrace.

UPDATE: Cantor FINALLY speaks up (sort of):

At yesterday’s tea party rally on Capitol Hill, at least one protester brandished a large graphic photograph of the victims of the Dachau Nazi concentration camp, comparing health care reform to Nazi policies. Today, Rep. Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) spokesman called the photograph “inappropriate.”

Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY) has also condemned the poster.

Cantor, in an interview today with Bloomberg, also offered some criticism of radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh’s comparison of President Obama to Adolf Hitler.

“Do I condone the mention of Hitler in any discussion about politics?” said Cantor, who is the only Jewish Republican in Congress. “No, I don’t, because obviously that is something that conjures up images that frankly are not, I think, very helpful.”

In a climate where Republicans who criticize Limbaugh come crawling back on their knees (see TPM’s “Forgive Me Rush” photo feature), Cantor’s office has pointed reporters to the story, emailing the link to Glenn Thrush’s post on Cantor’s remarks.

It’s worth noting that Limbaugh made the comment in question — “Adolf Hitler, like Barack Obama, also ruled by dictate” — on Aug. 6. Cantor at the time did not respond publicly to calls from Jewish groups to condemn the remarks.

I guess if it were “helpful” to the Republican agenda to make Obama fail even if the nation collapses as a result, Cantor would be A-OK with it. Because if you’re a Republican, ideology trumps everything.

Where does one even start with something like this?

That David Brooks is an idiot isn’t a secret to anyone. But just when you think Brooks can’t get any dumber, he comes out with a column like this one, in which he bemoans that fact that highly-educated people are giving more money to Barack Obama than to John McCain (perhaps because EVERYONE is giving more money to Barack Obama than to John McCain), that these “educated elites” are (horrors!) taking over the government, and he even gets in a veiled allusion to the Twelve Jewish Bankers of legend.

Excerpts illustrating the above:

As in other recent campaigns, lawyers account for the biggest chunk of Democratic donations. They have donated about $18 million to Obama, compared with about $5 million to John McCain, according to data released on June 2 and available at OpenSecrets.org.

People who work at securities and investment companies have given Obama about $8 million, compared with $4.5 for McCain. People who work in communications and electronics have given Obama about $10 million, compared with $2 million for McCain. Professors and other people who work in education have given Obama roughly $7 million, compared with $700,000 for McCain.

Real estate professionals have given Obama $5 million, compared with $4 million for McCain. Medical professionals have given Obama $7 million, compared with $3 million for McCain. Commercial bankers have given Obama $1.6 million, compared with $1.2 million for McCain. Hedge fund and private equity managers have given Obama about $1.6 million, compared with $850,000 for McCain.

When you break it out by individual companies, you find that employees of Goldman Sachs gave more to Obama than workers of any other employer. The Goldman Sachs geniuses are followed by employees of the University of California, UBS, JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, National Amusements, Lehman Brothers, Harvard and Google. At many of these workplaces, Obama has a three- or four-to-one fund-raising advantage over McCain.

You notice that he isn’t saying the COMPANIES are making these donations, it’s people who WORK for the companies. That of course means it’s as likely that these donations are coming from secretaries, clerks, back-office workers and the mailroom guy, as the brokers and hedge fund managers. But why even look at this when you can attack everyone who doesn’t work for Wal-Mart?

The trends are pretty clear: rising economic sectors tend to favor Democrats while declining economic sectors are more likely to favor Republicans. The Democratic Party (not just Obama) has huge fund-raising advantages among people who work in electronics, communications, law and the catchall category of finance, insurance and real estate. Republicans have the advantage in agribusiness, oil and gas and transportation. Which set of sectors do you think are going to grow most quickly in this century’s service economy?

Of course Brooks regards this as a BAD thing — that rising sectors favor Republicans. He’s too dumb to realize that this flies in the face of the Republican conventional wisdom that Democratic policies hurt business development. Why would rising sectors favor Democrats if they think they’re going to get screwed? Is Brooks saying that the titans of rising economic sectors are dumber than the titans of Big Oil?

And now we get to the truly cranium-combusting part:

If the Democrats are elected, this highly educated class will have much more say over policy than during the campaign. Undecided voters sway campaigns, but in government, elites generally run things. Once the Republicans are vanquished, I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for that capital gains tax hike or serious measures to expand unionization.

Over the past few years, people from Goldman Sachs have assumed control over large parts of the federal government. Over the next few they might just take over the whole darn thing.

ZOMG!!! SMART PEOPLE AND JOOOOOOOOZZZZ MIGHT BE TAKING OVER THE GOVERNMENT!!! HORRORS!!

Just whom does Brooks think should run the government? The guy in the two-can beer hat whose belly is painted green at the Steelers game? And don’t you just love that mention of “people from Goldman Sachs” assuming “control over large parts of the federal government”? This wouldn’t be the first time that “Goldman Sachs” was used to mean “Jews”.

Google “Goldman Sachs as code for Jews” and you’ll see what I mean.

That Brooks is himself Jewish doesn’t excuse him from using standard boilerplate white-supremacist code, even in the service if this peculiar agenda he has to fancy himself as the spokesman for the common man against all those smart people who would dare think it takes intelligence to solve complex problems.

Republican Ratfuck alert

They must think we’re stupid; that we aren’t wise to the tactics used by wingnuts to make it look like Democrats are radicals. Another Republican ratfuck busted:

Earlier today, some extreme rightwing blogs went into outrage overdrive as someone "discovered" an anti-semitic blog over at the open-registration "community blog" my.barrackobama.com. Israel Matzav declared “Barack Obama Explains how the Jewish Lobby Works.” Doug Ross was a little better off with the “Official Obama Blog.” LGF, in a classic pot-calling, said that there was "something deeply wrong with a presidential candidate who attracts so many of these hateful psychotics."

Kyle and Matt over at Comments From Left Field, however, would like to point out that – as usual – the outrage is entirely manufactured. The truth is that it’s a "ratfuck" operation, reminsicent of Roger Stone’s infamous "Socialists for McCloskey" scam in 1972.

How? Matt explains:

– The original “Jewish Lobby” post, copy-pasted to my.barack.com by a “Juan Carlos”, appeared in April in on a site called “Real Jew News”, run by anti-semite nutcase “Brother Nathaenal”.

– All anti-semitic comments originally appeared on the Real Jew News post, with corresponding timestamps. For some reason the comments at my.barack.com have my.barack urls, even though they appear to have been directly copy pasted from Real Jew News.

[snip]

Let’s repeat that for the hard of understanding : The anti-semitic post and its hateful comments were ported directly over from the rightwing Real Jew News site; the names and time stamps weren’t even changed to protect the innocent. Only two comments were made on the actual Obama site – and they were both complaints about the post.

You know, that the wingnuts are doing this tells us a lot more about them than it tells the world about us. They are frightened, cornered animals, who are always the most dangerous. I’m sure some of your friends will get e-mails about this alleged anti-Semitic post at My.Barack.Obama. It’s our job to set them straight.

The Search for Intelligent Life in The Universe

WASHINGTON – Former Wisconsin governor and Republican presidential hopeful Tommy Thompson told Jewish activists Monday that making money is “part of the Jewish tradition,” and something that he applauded.

Speaking to an audience at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington D.C., Thompson said that, “I’m in the private sector and for the first time in my life I’m earning money. You know that’s sort of part of the Jewish tradition and I do not find anything wrong with that.”

Thompson later apologized for the comments that had caused a stir in the audience, saying that he had meant it as a compliment, and had only wanted to highlight the “accomplishments” of the Jewish religion.