JustASC

I thought this New York Times article about the Jewish vote on Super Tuesday was particularly weak in capturing the Obama dynamic within the community — and two commentators quoted were IMHO a little sanguine about the pernicious effect of the anti-Obama emails:  

 The American Jewish Committee and other Jewish groups have criticized an e-mail campaign that made false claims that Senator Obama was, among other things, disguising a devotion to the Muslim religion. (He is a Christian who has attended Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago since the 1980s.)

“I think Obama has dealt effectively with those rumors that he is really a secret agent,” said Mr. [Gary] Rosenblatt, of Jewish Week.

And Rabbi [Ammiel] Hirsch said that “most Jews are too sophisticated to fall for that garbage” and added, “It’s almost embarrassing that there would be an attempt to sway us in that manner.”

I’ve had conversations with a few “sophisticated” Jews in the past few days, and was saddened when they asked me if there is any truth to the Manchurian Muslim slurs. And I’ve seen the email passed on by listservers who should have known better. Happily, other recipients quickly recognized the emails for the garbage they were, and noted Obama’s strong ratings on Israel.

But as I wrote in a previous post, the purpose of Swift Boating, like industry attacks on the science behind global warming and the dangers of tobacco, is not to “win” a debate but to sow enough doubt to soften the target.  From the famous memo from the tobacco company Brown and Williamson:

“Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.”

(See “Doubt Is Their Product: Industry groups are fighting government regulation by fomenting scientific uncertainty, in the June 2005 Scientific American).

The static about Obama, like the 2006 Republican Jewish Coalition ads attacking the Democrats on Israel, obscures what Hirsch captures nicely: 

The situation is “almost an embarrassment of riches for the Jewish voter,” said Ammiel Hirsch, senior rabbi of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.

“Perhaps there is a certain amount of distress that they have to choose between the two,” Rabbi Hirsch said, “because they are both enormously appealing to the Jewish community.”

That “embarrassment of riches” extends, of course, to the Republican  Party as well. In fact, some have suggested, the strength of both parties on Israel accounts for polls showing that Israel is no longer among the top considerations Jewish voters are citing in explaining their vote. 

I did think this quote nailed a trend, at least among the non-Orthodox:

Sid Davidoff, a lobbyist who has been involved in New York government and politics since the 1960s, said: “I think there is going to be a split between established older voters in the Jewish community, with whom Hillary will do well, and younger and more liberal Jews who see Obama as an agent of change.”

[UPDATE: Obama's office is sending around this email from Rudi Shenk, New York State Director of
Obama for America:

Even if you do not plan to endorse Senator Obama, please counter these false rumors that have been specifically targeted at our community. As former presidential nominee and Senator John F. Kerry wrote recently:

"If lies can be spread virally, let's prove to the cynics that the truth can be every bit as persuasive as it is powerful."]

This entry was posted on Monday, February 4th, 2008 at 10:16 am and is filed under JustASC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.