November 4, 2008 | 5:07 am

Don’t ruin America: Vote today

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

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My friend Mediha just sent me this shocking video. It’s a news report from CNNBC, and it’s dated Nov. 7. It blames Barack Obama’s loss on me, which appears to mean I’ll be getting the Presidential Medal of Freedom and some face-time on “The O’Reilly Factor.”

(Actually, I already voted. MoveOn.org, which produced this short Barack the Vote campaign, didn’t know. Still, I couldn’t stop laughing.)

November 4, 2008 | 1:01 am

Obama foreign-policy adviser says Jerusalem will not be divided

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Dennis Ross, the top Middle East adviser for former presidents Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush, was tapped by Barack Obama to be one of his top foreign-policy advisers. Last month, Ross wrote a column for The Jewish Journal explaining he joined Team Obama.

Over the weekend, the Jerusalem Post added to that with an interview in which Ross, responding to a question about Obama’s AIPAC speech, talks about what his boss really thinks about Israel. Ross says that, despite a next-day about-face, Obama really does support an undivided Jerusalem:

“I am convinced that he will stand by Israel. I am. If I wasn’t convinced of that, I wouldn’t be standing here. Do I think that at the end of the day he will do whatever’s necessary if Israel’s threatened? I do.

“The fact of the matter is, Jerusalem is Israel’s capital. That’s a fact. It’s also a fact that the city should not be divided again. That’s also a fact. The position of the United States since Camp David, the position, by the way, adopted in the Israeli-Egyptian peace treaty, signed by [prime minister] Menachem Begin, was that the final status of Jerusalem would be resolved by negotiations. Those are the three points. That’s what his position is.”

If you weren’t aware, there has been a lot of concern about what an Obama presidency would mean for Jews and Israel. A lot. I don’t think it’s warranted, but it appears we’ll find out soon enough.

(Hat tip: Mondoweiss)

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November 4, 2008 | 12:20 am

John McCain knows his football, hoping for upset

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

John McCain has been playing the underdog card for a little while now. But he clearly hasn’t given up. A few minutes ago, in a taped interview during “Monday Night Football,” McCain waxed Herm Edwards, telling Chris Berman that he’s enjoyed running for president and still thinks he can win.

“Even though some pundits have written me off,” McCain said, “that’s why you play the game.”

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November 3, 2008 | 10:33 pm

McCain o Obama: ¿Quien es mas peligroso?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

It seems Jewcy has lost all its best regular bloggers: Ali Eteraz, Daniel Koffler, Joey Kurtzman. But here’s a good piece from Josh Strawn about the hollowness of calling Barack Obama a socialist. (Seriously, a friend of mine responded to another friend’s mass e-mail in support of Obama last night with “Obama for the people’s republic of America!!!”).

Most of Strawn’s blog post is after the jump:

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November 3, 2008 | 7:15 pm

Obama or McCain: American Nazi Party suprises us

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

It’s unclear just how big a deal campaign endorsements actually are. What is clear is that you’ll give one if you are a big deal. I can’t imagine John McCain and Barack Obama have been clamoring for endorsements from racial supremacists and neo-Nazis, but Esquire spoke with a few of these hatemongers and found out who they’re voting for.

The concept to me is beyond comical, though I’m sure a lot of people think it was ill advised to give a serious platform to these guys. (I heard the same when The Jewish Journal put Kevin MacDonald on its cover.) Surprisingly, they aren’t all fans of the white candidate:

“White people are faced with either a negro or a total nutter who happens to have a pale face,” Rocky Suhayda, American Nazi Party leader,  told the magazine.

“Personally,” he continued, “I’d prefer the negro. National Socialists are not mindless haters. Here, I see a white man, who is almost dead, who declares he wants to fight endless wars around the globe to make the world safe for Judeo-capitalist exploitation, who supports the invasion of America by illegals—basically a continuation of the last eight years of Emperor Bush. Then, we have a black man, who loves his own kind, belongs to a Black-Nationalist religion, is married to a black women—when usually negroes who have ‘made it’ immediately land a white spouse as a kind of prize—that’s the kind of negro that I can respect. Any time that a prominent person embraces their racial heritage in a positive manner, it’s good for all racially minded folks. Besides, America cares nothing for the interests of the white American worker, while having a love affair with just about every non-white on planet Earth. It’d be poetic justice to have a non-white as titular chief over this decaying modern Sodom and Gomorrah.”

(Hat tip: Matthew Yglesias)

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November 3, 2008 | 5:17 pm

Economy’s’ down, Scientology’s hiring

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Photo: LAObserved

Kevin Roderick at LAObserved says this sign was spotted in Van Nuys. Not sure what kind of health coverage the job comes with, but you do get a free personality test.

Previously in Scientology:

Churches are teaching it

Anonymous declared war on it

Germany moved to ban it

And protesters are trying to save Beck from it

After the jump is a short video of what happened when Stan took a free personality test. (He had been warned that anything that’s fun costs at least $8.)

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November 3, 2008 | 4:16 pm

Obama on gay marriage and Prop. 8

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Photo: LA Now

Barack Obama has been walking a rhetorical tightrope when it comes to gay marriage and Proposition 8. As a liberal, he can’t support the California constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage, but he also can’t make it seem like he’s in favor of gay marriage if he wants to get swing voters of the somewhat-conservative religious persuasion. In words, he wants to have his gay wedding cake and eat it too.

“I’ve stated my opposition to this. I think it’s unnecessary,” Obama told MTV. “I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that’s not what America’s about.”

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November 3, 2008 | 2:01 pm

Americans surmise why Jews are better at business

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Interesting video, via BlogShul, by one of the co-authors of “Jewish Wisdom for Business Success.” The book’s pitch is that Torah should be taught in yearlong MBA seminars, that it is rich with secrets to business success. How else could Jews dominate the Vanity Fair 100 and Hollywood?

In the above video, Rabbi Levi Brackman, who wrote the book with Sam Jaffe, asks people from across the Midwest whether they think Jews outperform other ethnic groups in business and, if so, why.

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November 3, 2008 | 12:11 pm

Utah polygamists hand out voter guide

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

From the AP:

One of Utah’s original voting blocs — polygamists — is attempting to re-establish its political influence after more than a century of largely trying to go unnoticed.

Communities in Harmony, an alliance of representatives from various Utah polygamous groups, has issued a voter’s guide to assist Utah’s polygamists with Election Day decision-making.

“We need the candidates to know that they are just as accountable to us as they are to other constituents,” Carlene Cannon, the group’s spokeswoman and a member of the Davis County Cooperative Society, which practices polygamy.

I guess ... though polygamy is against the law and criminals temporarily lose their ability to vote and, I would argue, therefore cease to be constituents. The point those is moot. If there is only one openly atheistic member of Congress—and it took him a lot to “come out”—does Cannon really think politicians care what about the hopes and dreams and legislative wishful thinking of polygamists who live in the mountain towns between Utah and Arizona?

These folks are fundamentalists Mormons, though it’s important to note that polygamy is now way outside the Mormon mainstream.

The voter guide is available here. Neither Barack Obama nor John McCain earn an endorsement. Apparently neither responded to questions about “equal civil rights for people of our culture.” Go figure ...

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November 3, 2008 | 4:52 am

McCain spokesman tongue-tied talking about Obama and anti-Semites

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

I missed this interview CNN’s Rick Sanchez has Thursday with Michael Goldfarb, spokesman for the John McCain campaign. In it Sanchez asks about why voters should be concerned that Barack Obama was at the farewell dinner for Rashid Khalidi, and Goldfarb responds that Obama has made a habit of hanging out with anti-Semites. Sanchez asks Goldfarb to name another beside Khalidi and first he mentions Bill Ayers and then goes blank.

“OK ... give me No. 2,” Sanchez said. “Who is the other anti-Semitic person he hangs around with that we ‘all know about.’”

“Rick, we both know who No. 2 is.”

“Who? Would you tell us?”

“No, Rick. I think we all know who we are talking about here.”

Thanks for sending it along @ejrhee.

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November 2, 2008 | 11:43 pm

Anti-Semitic undercurrent in presidential election?

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

Image: Mere Rhetoric

I wrote in my cover story about the presidential election last month that Jewish voters were the evangelicals of 2008, the holy grail of the electorate that both sides have waged war over. (It’s been an ugly battle.)

Though Jewish representation in Congress is expected to surpass the records achieved in 2006, a Jewish friend of mine who has been an Obama supporter from the get-go messaged me Friday to ask if I thought she was paranoid or if something vicious had been beneath the surface of the whole campaign season.

Our dialogue follows:

Her: Am I imagining it ... or is there an unsettling undercurrent of anti-Semitism going on in this election? This whole thing with Lieberman has got me a little worried. I know he’s a colossal dickhead, but many are publicly calling him a traitor and that’s a really ugly thing to say.

And this thing with Khalidi ... it’s just something I’m sensing, but having a hard time articulating.

Me: I’m not sure. The Jewish community certainly hasn’t helped itself this election being so internally divisive and commanding so much attention throughout. Certainly after the 2004 election a lot of Americans held negative feelings about evangelicals. Maybe the same thing is at play here. Hope not—the economic crisis is enough to spike anti-Semitism.

Her: I know. The whole “Jews Own the Banking Industry” and all that Elders of Zion crap will follow us in perpetuity. And I know that older Jews’ support of McCain has changed the once liberal stereotype we had. There’s just something very ugly out there, and I can almost assure you that I will not see a Jew as president in my lifetime, but ... I don’t, something’s just been bugging me lately. I can’t even give you any examples, it’s very subtle.

Me: I’m not convinced this country will ever see a Jew as president. Though, a lot of young black people would have said that 20 years ago.

Her: I hear what you’re saying, but it’s different for Jews, I think. This is going to sound awful ... and it’s going to sound as though I have persecution issues ... but EVERYONE hates Jews. I don’t mean everyone literally, of course, but anti-Semitism exists in all segments of society. Women, men, whites, blacks, immigrants from every land on this planet, Christian, Muslim, Hindus—they all have anti-Semitic issues both blatant and quiet.

There is a fear and a hatred of Jews that goes back centuries and it comes in many forms. It’s political, it’s religious, it’s even societal.

Me: Indeed: Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you. But, you know, some of my best friends are Jewish.

Her: And some of them just look Jewish.

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November 2, 2008 | 11:37 pm

Obama’s lead smaller in final Pew poll

Posted by Brad A. Greenberg

The final Pew poll before Tuesday’s presidential election shows Barack Obama with a 49-to-42 percentage-point lead over John McCain:

Though still a significant lead, it’s suddenly a much tighter race than Obama’s 15-point lead from last week.

There are two things closing the gap, says Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center. First, McCain has made some gains among whites, independents and middle-income voters. But the other boost he’s enjoying comes from narrowing the pool of responses from registered voters to likely voters.

Typically, Republican voters tend to vote more regularly than some Democratic voting groups — particularly young people and blacks, Kohut says. So while turnout is up among those groups, it’s also up across the board — giving Republicans a boost when the poll focuses on likely voters.

It may not be as strong as a week ago, but Obama’s lead in the Pew poll agrees with several national polls that have him ahead by a 5-point average.

“This is a pretty substantial lead,” Kohut says. “We haven’t had a lead for a candidate this substantial since 1996, when President Clinton was leading Sen. Dole in the final weekend of the campaign.”

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