The truth may be dirtier than we know.
According to this report, Democrats threatened to attack the tax-exempt status of Jewish Groups which organized an anti-Iran rally outside the United Nations if Ms. Palin was allowed to remain on the invite list.
"It's an absolute shame that this has happened," [Assemblyman Dov] Hikind [D-Brooklyn] said. "To threaten organizations … to threaten the Conference of Presidents that if you don't withdraw the invitation to Gov. Palin we're going to look into your tax exempt status … that's McCarthyism."
Let's go back to the beginning. In preparation for a UN visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Council of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations (CPMJO), in association with other groups, planned to protest in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza.
They had separately invited Governor Sarah Palin (R) and Senator Hillary Clinton (D) to the event. Ms. Clinton, upon finding out that both were billed to speak, declined her invitation on the grounds that having both speak would make the event a partisan one.
That's silly, of course - having only one party represented would make it partisan. Having both makes it bipartisan.
Once Ms. Clinton declined the invitation, the ball passed to Barack Obama, Junior Senator from Illinois' running mate, Joe Biden, since both he and Ms. Palin are running for the V.P. slot.
Biden declined, citing a previous commitment to an American Legion event.
After that, Malcolm Hoenlin, the CEO of the CPMJO disinvited Ms. Palin, which is tacky beyond belief. (What would his mother say?) He cited a desire to keep the news about the event, instead of about the partisans.
None of which makes any sense.
Ms. Palin didn't make the event partisan. She did not object to being on stage with Democrats. Further, the decision on the part of the CPMJO makes the entire Jewish community that they represent look silly and petty in the face of Iranians who back President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. If the leaders in the Jewish community can't even sort out how to deal with a couple of politicians, Iranian theocrats will note, "of what importance should the world pay to their rally?"
The Obama camp denies any wrongdoing, saying that they were going to send Robert Wexler (FL) to speak.
For those of you who don't know, Wexler called Ms. Palin a "Nazi sympathizer" because, as mayor of Wasilla, she wore a Pat Buchanan button when Mr. Buchanan came to Wasilla in the lead-up to the 2000 elections. At the time, Ms. Palin was on record as being a Steve Forbes supporter.
Let's examine this.
- Democrats pull out of a bipartisan event on the grounds that staying in would be partisan. Up is down. We're used to that.
- They then, in the face of a media crisis, fail to send anyone to the event.
- The organizers of the event disinvite the Republican speaker, making themselves look foolish and weak.
- The Barack Obama campaign then says it would have been happy to send to a Jewish event a man who traffics in Nazi slanders. Brilliant. Totally bipartisan.
The question now is, were the lawyers who threatened CPMJO connected in any way to Barack Obama or the Chicago political machine?
h/t Hot Air.
Comments
Great story. This has only been mentioned in passing, even on "Fox". This is truly a disgrace.
Thanks for bringing this information to light. Disinviting Palin was the wrong thing to do. I'm also dismayed that the Democrates threated to use campaign finance laws to dictate the details of the event. Campaign finance laws chip away at free speech, and as this case shows, the first crack in a freedom leads to more.
This tactic was used during the Clinton Administration against Conservative publications and media groups. It was also applied against ABC when it was going to air "The Path to 9/11."
Of course, you're right. One of the reasons McCain didn't have much cache with Republicans was McCain-Feingold, still, I think the worst attack on the First Amendment in memory. But then, my memory stinks.
I remember Bush saying transparency was the best solution in his debates with Gore. I used to agree, but now I'm not so sure, given how Progressives - and soon enough, maybe, Conservatives - start digging into donation records to attack people. Now, it's all such a mess, it's hard to figure out what to do with the problem.
Thanks for dropping in, folks.
These contentious, divisive thugs are now *openly* intimidating individuals and organizations with paper tigers. And what next?
Does brutal intimidation not always begin with legal manipulation and coercion? These tactics no different than the ones used on smaller scales by groups such as the White Citizens' Councils during the period that so many of today's Democrats look to for inspiration.
I find it unfortunate that these groups permitted themselves to be distracted by such tactics.
Concerns over something like "tax-exempt status" in this situation are a costly distraction, exploited by those who seek to intimidate and dictate to others.
When targets of such intimidation allow themselves to do the dictator's bidding, to focus upon the distraction rather than their own purpose, I cannot help but think of those of us who do not evacuate from hurricanes because they become similarly distracted by attachments to material objects, however important they may be. What is most important? What can and can't one afford to compromise, to lose? (No offense intended here to hurricanes, which tend to mind their own business.)
One can always make more money. Each opportunity, each moment, to validate freedom, to manifest goodwill, to seek justice, is unique.
This sequence of events here concern things in a context much more significant than the individual names who happen to be involved. It is about dictatorship, about coercion, and how to maintain purpose in its shadow. Such things have happened before, and will again; there are always controllers and opportunists who seek to intimidate, to coerce others into compliance with and service to their own interests. What happened here is only one manifestation of this ceaseless condition. One cannot control the malevolent intentions of others, so: Why allow something like "tax-exempt status" to distract, to hold captive a good intention, a good cause? It is not so important, it is an affordable loss.
Remember those who intimidate, and remember those willing to appease them. Be wary as to why they do so, in both the short and long term. Who and what are they serving?
In cases like these, let the legal mercenaries distract themselves, undermine their own integrity, while the integrated spirit follows its original cause. Would true justice come to the side of those with such petty intentions, anyway? Their machinations undermine them, rendering the whole of their own cause cowardly and corrupted!
These lib Jewish orgs [and their members] are a DISGRACE. Don't give to any of them! [There are a few worthy alternatives, such as JINSA, CAMERA and ZOA].
Palin going would make it political, but clinton going would not? Only in the perverted dem/Jewish mind.
Now, why shouldn't McCain Palin return the snub once in office?
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