{"id":451,"date":"2006-09-21T10:03:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-21T14:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/000af36.netsolhost.com\/wordpress1\/2006\/09\/21\/allens_ateam_th\/"},"modified":"2006-09-21T10:03:00","modified_gmt":"2006-09-21T14:03:00","slug":"allens_ateam_th","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/2006\/09\/21\/allens_ateam_th\/","title":{"rendered":"Allen’s A-Team: The New McCarthyites"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shaun Kenney has an extraordinary screed<\/a> posted on the A-Team blog that is George Allen\u2019s mouthpiece. Kenney resorts to the tactics of former Sen. Joe McCarthy. <\/p>\n

In essence, he asks not just Jim Webb but all progressives, \u201cAre you, or have you ever been, an anti-Semite?\u201d I might respond, \u201cHave you no sense of decency?\u201d But clearly conservative activists such as Kenney have rarely had any.<\/p>\n

The Allen team is desperate. Their candidate lied and denigrated Jews at the debate Monday in Fairfax. The Washington Post reports today<\/a> that Allen knew his mother was Jewish when he refused to confirm it at the debate. He then went on to slur Jews by suggesting the question cast \u201caspersions\u201d on him and his mother. It\u2019s clear now the reporter who asked the question was on to something: Allen was apparently worried that his Jewish heritage would hurt him politically. So he lied about it. He\u2019s now enlisted his mother to defend him. Why couldn\u2019t he say, \u201cYes, my mother\u2019s family is Jewish, and I\u2019m proud of it\u201d? But he sees being Jewish as a derogatory criticism, a damaging imputation. <\/p>\n

So to defend Allen, Kenney calls Jim Webb — and indeed all progressives — anti-Semitic, with the same twisted logic that generations of bigots from Joe McCarthy to Lee Atwater to Karl Rove would love.<\/p>\n

Thus former-Republican war hero James Webb morphs from Reagan appointee to Progressive Standardbearer, and the parallels between Charles Lindbergh in 1940 and James Webb in 2006 could not be more stark: <\/p>\n

\u00b7Both advocate an isolationist foreign policy,
\n\u00b7Both wed themselves to progressive ideals and policy
\n\u00b7Once again, anti-Semitism plays a role in the approach
\n\u00b7Frighteningly enough, just as Lindbergh\u2019s reputation was used as cover in 1940, so Webb\u2019s war hero status is used as cover in 2006. <\/p>\n

Now is all of this a bit conspiratorial? Given the themes of the progressive movement from 60 years past to today, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a terrible stretch to argue that the anti-Israeli, pro-Palestine sentiment among the radical left extends into progressive approaches to policy that have existed for a century.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kenney offers no proof, of course. He just makes the accusation that Webb must be anti-Semitic, along with the rest of progressives. And like many folks, alas some Jewish leaders among them, when they want to end arguments with those who argue that there are some legitimate concerns of the Palestinian people, they simply call them anti-Semitic.<\/p>\n

Webb\u2019s emphasis on anti-Semitic remarks may or may not be deliberate, but it is a thematic trend progressives have been beating for years. Ascendent [sic] in the Democratic Party, these people need to be stopped. Yesterday they were fighting FDR\u2019s attempt to break Nazi Germany, today they take a laissez faire approach to Israel and terrorism in the name of isolationsm [sic] and \u201cpeace.\u201d All the while, the progressive preoccupation with Jews in power remains a disgusting undercurrent in the progressive movement that deserves scrutiny \u2014 and when it surfaces, unmitigated scorn.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What \u201cemphasis\u201d or \u201cpre-occupation\u201d is he talking about? There is none, of course. But neo-radicals have learned that you simply make the charge and soon enough reporters will be asking Jim Webb, \u201cAre you anti-Semitic? And by the way, do you still beat your wife?\u201d If you want to shut down debate, call those who object to some of Israel\u2019s policies or defend some of Palestinians\u2019 objectives \u201canti-Semitic.\u201d Cong. Jim Moran knows that tactic well.<\/p>\n

If there is one thing neo-radicals like Kenney prove once again, it is their own hypocrisy. When a Democrats gets angry about the reality-challenged logic of their idiot leader, they mock Democrats\u2019 anger. Yet, when they feel their advantage slipping away, they resort to angry libels like the Kenney post. When they are directly confronted on their twisted policies, they denigrate what they call Democrats\u2019 dirty politics, but when their backs are up against the wall, they resort the kind of slime Kenney smears. <\/p>\n

Have Kenney and his ilk any sense of decency? No, they apparently don\u2019t. They also have no principles, no shame, and no agenda other than to call their opposition the ugliest epithets to save their candidate\u2019s hide. <\/p>\n

I recorded the HBO special on Barry Goldwater but haven\u2019t had a chance to watch it all, though I saw the last 15 minutes as it was repeated last night. It concluded that Goldwater today would be a liberal, a progressive, and I\u2019m sure he is turning over in his grave because of where merchants of malice like George Allen and Shaun Kenney are leading the Republican party.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shaun Kenney has an extraordinary screed posted on the A-Team blog that is George Allen\u2019s mouthpiece. Kenney resorts to the tactics of former Sen. Joe McCarthy. In essence, he asks not just Jim Webb but all progressives, \u201cAre you, or have you ever been, an anti-Semite?\u201d I might respond, \u201cHave you no sense of decency?\u201d… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=451"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/451\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=451"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=451"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=451"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}