OxBlog reports on the “stupidity”
OxBlog reports on the “stupidity” of Gary Hart, which is always a good thing. But then he goes on to reach what strikes me as an odd conclusion:
Says Hart: “We must not let our role in the world be dictated by ideologues with their special biases and agendas … or by Americans who too often find it hard to distinguish their loyalties to their original homelands from their loyalties to America and its national interests.”
Says OxBlog: “Now, he’s almost certainly talking about Jews (sidenote to Sen. Hart: Israel is not the “original homeland” — in fact, it is not any kind of homeland — for the vast majority of American Jews). But let’s suppose that we believe Hart’s attempt at damage control. Let’s suppose he really was talking about Irish Americans and Cuban Americans ….”
Huh? Now, I’m not a Rhodes Scholar–or even a Marshall Scholar–but this seems like a leap. I don’t have the full text of the speech–and neither OxBlog nor his referring link provides it–but it strikes me that he could indeed be talking about any number of groups, certainly to include Cuban-Americans. Secondarily, even if he were talking about Jewish Americans, so what? It would hardly strike me as a anti-Semitic to say that there are American Jews who view the region through the lens of Israeli interests rather than US interests–and the two aren’t always in synch.
