I have a very Jewish take on this issue. The 11th century Jewish scholar and teacher, Rashi,  suggests that "In the place where penitents stand, the completely righteous do not stand".  What it means is that those who exprss genuine remorse for their sins and act accordingly, stand on a loftier level of human achievement than those who have never sinned. A somewhat similar thought was articulated differently by Jesus: " “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone...”

If people of faith could come up with this formula, I believe atheists and agnostics should be able to match this meaningful  instruction at least as wisely and generously.

So the question remains, is Eliot repentant of what he did and for the shame and humiliation he brought upon his wife and kids. I don't think there is a truly reliable way to gauge this. But what people can do is look at the man's record, before and since, and also how tainted and corrupt his public service has been due to this transgression

Even the "Law and Order" reeenactment of this sordid affaire couldn't bring itself to mete out the punishment the man received in real life. In the fictional dramatization of the case, he appears both corrupt and not duly remorseful, but his wife bails him out, excusing her interference as relying on the two principles of a pristine education:  family, and public service.

And who except for a secular messiah is best equipped to give this special dispensation?

It isn't his tastes in escorts that would disqualify Spitzer from public office, but his official conduct of the offices he previously held.  Just about all of his legal victories as New York attorney general came about through plea bargains he obtained through threats and intimidation.  Those who stood up and fought back invariably won in court and now some of them are suing to recover the damages they suffered for having the chutzpah to defend themselves against the Great One.  This record was buried by the media in its clamor to rush him into the governor's mansion on the illusion that he would usher in a great age of reform in the Empire State.  Of course, no such thing happened.  His reforms turned out to be petty and self-serving, he opened his potty mouth to legislators whose support he needed and scandals erupted, culminating in his downfall.

Spitzer's mistakes were not merely "personal."  He did not simply conduct an affair, or even enjoy the occasional call girl.  He was an Attorney General who prosecuted johns while employing prostitutes and as Governor quite possibly violated the Mann Act.  Making it all a "personal mistake" is the first step towards rewriting history.

Nbarry, with all due respect - that's mythology.

These Wall Streeters and insurance crooks knew exactly what they were doing and were intimately aware of the exact risks they were taking - they knew what they were doing was a house of cards with indictments at the end of the rainbow for YEARS.  It's was a game of chicken they lost and they knew it. The mythology of the big bad mean old AG going after these innnocent lambs of capitalism is handy and easily digestiible I guess.  But not true.

Whining about being caught after the fact by Joe Friday with a hard on wasn't even much their styles.  They took it like the sharks that they are, price of doing business.  Spitzer was an awesome AG.  Yep, he blew it and let the demons take over and does not deserve a break for it.  He'd say the same thing.  He knows.  No dice on the Senate seat.  

Spitzer went so easy on Wall Street - he could have closed down each of those firms with a phone call, especially Merril Lynch.  

He could have allowed the billions in class action lawsuits that were brewing come to fruition and make these firms deaths painful, long and still utterly inevitable.  

Instead, he told them that he'd take approximately the equivalent of one years coffee budget as a settlement if they'd deign to consider ceasing their rape and pillage antics and stop stealing from customers.  Antics that had nothing to do with the glories of the marketplace by the way, but simple flat out, easily prosecutable federal crimes.

Please.  Both sides of this whole era were big boys and girls and knew exactly what the dance was.  They risked, they barely got slapped for it because Spitzer had no desire to shut anyone down. He wanted them to follow the law and stop weakening the capital markets with (ahem) poor business practices. Of course they jumped at that offer.  Be shut down by millions of angry customers or pay a pittance and behave yourself?  Who wouldn't?

Every syllable of that editorial was right on.  If anything, it was much too polite...not exactly Spitzer's modus operandi usually, I'll admit.  I loved him - a badass progressive warrior who went too far and was consumed by his worst instincts, and ugly they were.  A shame.  But as far as his work as AG goes: they'll be writing it in texts for years.

timteeter is right on - nice try Spitzer.

Oh, cut him some slack, tim.  He's a sex addict.  Didn't you know?  His therapist told him so.  And we all know that addiction is not a moral failing but a disease.  Elliot is a sick, sick man.  He deserves our pity.  There, but for the grace of God, go I, afflicted with the overpowering urge to mount beautiful young women enabled by a bankroll large enough to let me indulge that urge at will.

On a serious note, this proposal is a non-starter.  If Spitzer's unfit to be governor, he's unfit to be Senator.  Does anyone think Paterson would jeopardize his reelection chances by pulling a Gerald Ford and appointing Eliot to a vacant Senate seat?  I sure don't.

Spitzer correctly identified the Wall Street MO (or that of certain slice of Wall St) as "crony capitalism."  The difference between crony capitalism and the regular kind is that the former seeks to turn off the market mechanisms and controls that characterize the normal functioning of the latter.

Thre's plenty of talent in the country without bringing back that self-serving hypocrite.  But then, if the Left is perfectly comfortable with William Ayers et al, why not Sptizer.

P.S., given that the Obama ethics exam wants to know if you ever got a parking ticket or xeroxed personal stuff at the office, how the hell would Spitzer's appointment sit with the Party Line?

I realize the Obama Admin has nothing to say about what New York does, but surely they would be lobbying in the b.g. not to have the Party embarrassed so soon.

Wandrey, I have personal knowledge of Spitzer's modus operandi as attorney general.  Everything he did was politically motivated, sometimes to the point of conflict of interest, which is why he ultimately went easy on Wall Street denizens he hoped would become campaign contributors.  And, yes, there are lawsuits out there by some he wrongfully prosecuted, including a dentist acquitted of Medicaid fraud, two horse racing officials exonerated of tampering with races and a lawyer exonerated of conspiracy, and I expect there will be more.

Channy -- I don't know what you mean by "perfectly comfortable" but as far as I know Ayers is not an applicant for a job of any kind in the Obama administration.  I don't see the parallel.

Indeed, one could argue that Spitzer's "offense" was little more than a breach of one of the legacies of late 19th century American Comstock-style puritanism and its unrelenting desire to police people's sex lives.

Irony, Spitzer himself policed other people's sex lives whenever he smelled political gain.

nbarry - I also have close personal knowledge of many Wall Streeters targeted by Spitzer. They had it coming and know very well that they are very very lucky they aren't in jail.  

I'm not saying he wasn't flawed, I'm saying the notion that he was hard on Wall Street is laughable - that is demonstrably just not so.

Leaving aside Spitzer's record as AG, he wasn't exactly distinguishing himself as governor, and I don't think the state missed a beat because of his resignation. And lets not feel sorry for the guy either. I know that David Vitter appears to have skated for a very similar crime, but Spitzer gets to live out his life as a privileged millionaire. He's going to be just fine.

Who thinks Rudy G has the cajones to run for governor of NY? Would he do it if Hillary were in the mix? I would love to see her pummel a Republican for a change, especially that snide mofo.

Wandreycer 1 is a leading candidate for the Madame Defarge of the Democratic ascendency.  Knows all about Wall Street and knows that Sir Lancelot was on the side of the angels.  The man litigated in the press; never won a case in court.  Elected governor, he did a very effective imitation of Nixon.  He was on the roller coaster down before his sex life administered the coup de grace.  Keep on knitting dear.

Spitzer sounds better than anyone Clay Risen has been touting lately.  Not that Clay doesn't make some good points about the people on his list, and the FT articles Noam recommended are a worthwhile read, but Spitzer puts Wall Street's excesses in proper perspective.

I mean, come up with a better paragraph describing what the allegedly much smarter Alan Greenspan couldn't wrap his gourd around (though finally admitting it to Congress a couple weeks ago):

"No major market problem has been resolved through self-regulation, because individual competitive behavior doesn't concern itself with the larger market. Individual actors care only about performing better than the next guy, doing whatever is permitted -- or will go undetected. Look at the major bubbles and market crises. Long-Term Capital Management, Enron, the subprime lending scandals: All are classic demonstrations of the bitter reality that greed, not self-discipline, rules where unfettered behavior is allowed. "

Yes, Spitzer let his ego get the best of him, but as Noam points out, he's not alone.

With respect to Wall Street, Spitzer may look good compared to Greenspan, to whom both sides of the Congressional aisle genuflected and who finally admitted that all it takes are a few schmucks to turn deregulation into a disaster.  However, Spitzer's battles with the Street remind me of the poem about the Battle of Blenheim.  "'But what good came of it at last?' cried little Peterkin. 'Why that I cannot tell,' said he, 'But it was a famous victory.'"

I disagree with everybody but nogal. Now that he's been completely outed and humiliated [Spitzer, not nogal], he's not going to have the motive to overcompensate or the zeal to clobber the poor johns. He can't now. Short leash. That is my theory.

I think Spitzer's problem (from my very limited reading on him) is that he went after prostitution in office while getting his rocks off.

That degree of hypocrisy makes him unfit for further office. I would have thought, that is a lot worse than say what Edwards did.

"But then, if the Left is perfectly comfortable with William Ayers et al, why not Sptizer."

There is a saying in Ye Olde Countrie: "The man muddies the water and proceeds to fish."  It usually refers to an opportunitistic cad, an intellectual and moral charlatan, who seeks personal gain by creating a fog of confusion about what is at issue.

Channy, meet Spitzer.  Many similar attributes between the two.

Ayres?  "Perfectly comfortable"?  The "Left"?  WTF?  

Spitzer, for his part, is a self-serving hypocrite.  Now, this does not in any way bar him from an institution that includes Porky Stevens, Ethanol Baucus, Santimonious Joe, "Not Right Enough" de Mint or "No Testifying" Chambliss.  Any institution that has a "Nieman" Coleman as its charter member, deserves a Spritzer Spitzer as a lieutenant.  But of course, it is Doc Aero from the Down Under that calls it correctly: If Paterson has a shred of political savvy, Spitzer will be serving as Sewage Treatment Commissioner in Rochester for the next eight years, wearing a scarlet A branded on his forehead.

ironyroad writes, "Channy -- I don't know what you mean by "perfectly comfortable" but as far as I know Ayers is not an applicant for a job of any kind in the Obama administration.  I don't see the parallel."

"Perfectly comfortable" means the Democratic Mayor of Chicago vouches for and defends Ayers.  It means Obama was happy for his endosement early in his career and continued to rub shoulders with him comfortably long after.

It means the Left is perfectly comfortable having Ayers on the public payroll and support his indoctrinating schoolchildren with LeftThink under public aegis.  Meaning all Illinois taxpayers are forced to help him foster his alien agenda.

Among civilized people, terrorists who went unpunished under the law would at least be anathema in civil society.

Meanwhile, all the defenses launched here from a certain kind of Democrat and Leftists show that Democrats are quite "comfortable" with Ayers.  That he has no possibility of a role in this admin is purely becausese of the political difficulties that would create.

You're deliberately missing my point -- the parallel is invalid because Ayers is not being considered for a job (nor indeed is Spitzer, ultimately, as far as I gather).  The Democratic Mayor of Chicago did indeed defend Ayers -- unsurprisingly, he noted that Ayer's offenses, whatever they may speculatively have been, happened over 30 years ago and one has as a matter of normal humanity the obligation to take into account, when judging a person, the positive things that he has done for a far longer period of his life than the objectionable things.  Mayor Daley was *not* defending Ayer's Weathermen activities in the late 1960s, a fact that I believe you know as well as I do.

And I'm not quite sure what you mean by "a certain kind of Democrat" but if you have something to say, say it please, rather than making me decode some sneering implication.  I've already made it clear in more than one exchange that I personally have no time for militant violence by haute-bourgeois adolescents disguised as progressive politics, either now or in the past.  I don't know Ayers, and have no idea how I'd react to him personally (I suspect negatively), but there are clearly a wide range of people who respect the work he's done in and on education over several decades.  The fact of that says something positive about our capacity to make judgments about the relative importance of past and present.

"The fact of that says something positive about our capacity to make judgments about the relative importance of past and present."

Some past activities cannot be undone by a lifetime of good works.

Would you extend the same release from accountability to  that Auschwitz doctor who carried out medical experiments on inmates for four years, and then spent twenty years in the Arabian desert, ministering medical care to the bedouins there? Does the good he rendered for twenty years delete, or outweigh, the evil he had committed for a much shorter period on fewer persons?

Ayers has never expressed any remorse for his activities, and when asked, he even regretted not to have done more of the same.

Something here simply does not compute.

"Would you extend the same release from accountability to  that Auschwitz doctor who carried out medical experiments on inmates for four years, and then spent twenty years in the Arabian desert, ministering medical care to the bedouins there? Does the good he rendered for twenty years delete, or outweigh, the evil he had committed for a much shorter period on fewer persons?"

I'm very surprised that you feel you have to ask that question, Noga, and it does contain an almost vertigo-inducing analogy.  However, I'll try to answer it.  

No, I would not.  But as a general rule I would very strongly favor criminal prosecution of such an individual, rather than, say, targeted assassination (it sounds like you're referring to a real-world case, but I didn't recognize the details).

Strange response, IronyRoad. I don't believe we understand each other  at all. I'm trying to figure out what universal principle  could be deduced from what seems like your "defense" of Ayers. Do you take my deep distaste of him having power and living in moral  comfort as "targeted assassination"?

I'm not casting any aspersion upon anyone's impeccable virginity, least of all yours... I'm merely trying to understand by what principle of responsibility and accountability you keep arguing for averting our gaze where Ayers' past is concerned. I don't see any reason why we should.

And yes, this was a real world case (Dering Vs. Uris, 1964).

Now I'm confused.  I'm not arguing for anyone averting their gaze, if gazing at Ayers is what they want to do.  The only thing I have concretely argued on this board is that Obama had nothing to apologize for in working with Ayers on the board of the foundation or in having him host a fundraiser back in 1997 or whenever.  The reason why, is that Obama was interacting with Ayers as a neighbor, professor, fellow (peaceful) activist, and someone with shared goals when it came to access to pre-primary education (as far as I understand the background), and I wanted to do my bit to counter the "palling around with terrorists" smear that was coming from a couple of people here.

I've just looked at the wiki entry on the Dering case -- now I understand.  I didn't of course think that your dislike of whomever living in comfort was "targeted assassination" -- I originally thought you were referring to a case where refugee Nazi scientists went on to work for the Egyptian military, where said scientists would be not only guilty of crimes against humanity in the past but were continuing their activities in the context of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Beyond that, if anyone wants to fixate on Ayers, sixties radicalism, the Weathermen or other topics in modern American history, that's their decision.  It's an interesting era.  Nevertheless I was flummoxed by the parallel you suggested (or seemed to suggest) between Ayers and a Nazi war criminal who experimented on human beings in occupied Poland.  It seesm to me very dangerous to relativize, even involuntarily, exterminatory German crimes in WW2 by using them as analogies for storm-in-a-teacup domestic political violence in the U.S.

I don't quite know what you mean by "virginity," but I feel in general terms it's been a long time since I could claim anything of that nature.

"The only thing I have concretely argued on this board is that Obama had nothing to apologize for in working with Ayers "

____

"The Democratic Mayor of Chicago did indeed defend Ayers -- unsurprisingly, he noted that Ayer's offenses, whatever they may speculatively have been, happened over 30 years ago and one has as a matter of normal humanity the obligation to take into account, when judging a person, the positive things that he has done for a far longer period of his life than the objectionable things. "

____

I believe you made the same argument that the Mayor of Chicago made, that Ayers' 30 years record of good deeds somehow outweighs whatever harm he caused in his past. So what you argued concertely went beyond defending Obama's reputation.

The point of my analogy was simple, and pertinent: both, as young men, did terrible things in the name of an ideology (in Dering's case this is not quite certain. He claimed he had been forced to do what he did). Then they both got a second chance to re create themselves as pillars of the community. Without ever paying for what they did, or expressing remorse. Does Ayers deserve, then, to be defended by such a decent thinker as you (which is what I meant by using the metaphorical virginity) , and if so, why? What principle can you apply that can actually take these three factors into consideration (violent past, charitable deeds, no regret for violent past) and still allow him to sleep the sleep of the just at night and enjoy the respectability that comes with an academic  position? Was he sowing his wild oats? Was it the sweet bird of youth that blinded him to the violence of his crazy solutions?

THere is no clarity here. I don't understand why people jump to defend this person, for defend they do, when they say what the mayor says.

What does it mean, that sneer about those who "fixate on Ayers"?

Fixate, to "preoccupy obsessively": One needs to be obsessed in order to find morally repugnant the many voices coming to defend Ayers' reputation and record.

irony, my feeling about Ayers is he was not indicted or convicted of a crime so he has a right to live out his life in private.  Let him write, let hims promote Leftists causes, let him do whatever he legally pleases.

But given as he not only does not deny his past activities but brags about them, defends them, and says he did not "do enough," I don't think he ought to be on the public payroll.  The taxpayers of Illinois ought not be giving him a comfortable salary.

People are denied jobs for for bad behavior all the time.

A man in Sacramento was just forced to resign from his job as artistic director of the California Musical Theater.  His crime was donating money to a legitimate political campaign on behalf of Propostion 8.  And this resignation was forced after 25 years service to the Theater.

Ayers has been politically protected despite his egregious admissions by a wealthy father, and political connections with the Chicago Machine.  

By a "certain kind of Democrat" I mean the kind I've described in numerous of our conversations here.  The Leftist bred, post-1968 kind of Democrat far from the traditional mainstream Democrats who unambiguously loved the country and were not snide underminers of the middle class.

I have watched this "certain kind of Democrat" for my entire adult life.  I know what they believe and what their motives are,.  And I've seen the egregious results of their cultural assumptions and attitudes on our society.  

The Ayers situation is just the more prominent example.  And if I'm supposed to be pleased that someone like Ayers is being invited to influence the education of children, I'm having some difficulty finding that pleasure.

Irony writes, "...Indeed, one could argue that Spitzer's "offense" was little more than a breach of one of the legacies of late 19th century American Comstock-style puritanism and its unrelenting desire to police people's sex lives."

Irony, I don't care that Spitzer hired hookers.  But I am highly offended at the hypocrisy of his ruthlessly prosecuting others who did, sending a goodly number to prison.

That is his crime in my eyes.  The question of prostitution, whether it ought to be legal or not, we can save for another day.  

irony writes, "...Nevertheless I was flummoxed by the parallel you suggested (or seemed to suggest) between Ayers and a Nazi war criminal who experimented on human beings in occupied Poland."

Why is that parallel so questionable?  Just because Ayers seems in everyday life like a familiar type we all know?  His crimes of the 60s were of the highest kind.  Bombing, arson, attempting to kill innocent people indiscriminately.

Yet you, while saying on one hand of course do not approve of such activities, give him with the other hand a pass because he's done these supposed good works for early education.

No, he was not convicted of a crime.  But, he has admitted them, and continues to brag about them.  He gave an interview the other day defending his past actions.

I'm sure the Auschwitz doctor was his life prior to the concentration camp seen as a respectable doctor.  And, if met afterwards in a German café might seem like any other proper professional.

Does that mean his crimes can be ignored?

I don't believe, by the way, that Noga1 told us if the good doctor was actually convicted of his crimes or is just known to have committed them.  Or openly admitted and tried to atone for them openly.

That Ayers was not indicted or convicted, Irony, is one of your ongoing justifications that he ought not at least be treated as pariah.  Or, at the very least, not be employed in the public sector on taxpayers money.

After reading the "McCain for Energy Secretary" post I thought that maybe you guys are all on LSD. Now I'm sure of it.

I may be in a minority of one around here, but I simply don't believe that experimenting on live human beings in a Nazi extermination camp is remotely in the same category as planning or executing bombing attacks on buildings in which warnings were issued.  And to suggest that it is, is to my mind a disturbing moral fudge.  For example, the famous Irgun bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946 -- a terrorist act, in the view of the then authorities -- may be reprehensible or not, depending on how one looks at the role of violence in wars of national liberation.  However, even if one determines it (or the Weathermen bombings) to be a terrorist act that should have been punished, that still doesn't make it (or IRA bombings in the UK, to take another example) an identical act to a Nazi crime against humanity.  I strongly suggest, Noga and Channy, that your sense of proportion is awry.

Incidentally, to the best of my knowledge, not a single person was killed (apart from three Weathermen members) in a Weathermen attack.  Noticeably different from the consequences of Timothy McVeigh and his anti-government paranoia-driven crime, one might note.

I also want to reject, vehemently, the way in which leading questions appear in both your emails on the lines of "are you in favor of Nazi perpetrators getting away with their crimes?" when the answer is clearly no, of course not, and I never have been.  I deeply resent the "certain kind of Democrat" comments.  I deeply resent the "are you in favor of Nazis?" questions.

So let me ask you, Noga, or Channy, do you think that the shouts of "Kill him!" when Obama's name was mentioned at McCain-Palin rallies, including the election night rally (where it was clearly caught on the audio track), is the opinion of the majority of the Republican Party, or just a large part of it?  Because there is no record of either McCain or Palin ever confronting the racist thug element at their rallies.

Irony writes, "...incidentally, to the best of my knowledge, not a single person was killed (apart from three Weathermen members) in a Weathermen attack.  Noticeably different from the consequences of Timothy McVeigh and his anti-government paranoia-driven crime, one might note."

A policeman was killed in a Weatherman bank robbery.  Part of the same campaign.  If no one was killed at the Pentagon or the Capitol, it is not because they didn't desire it.  If their crimes were smaller than McVeigh's, it was merely because he wasn't a hapless rich kid incompetent, but unfortunately knew what he was doing.

In this re McVeig and re the Nazi doctor, Irony, you reveal yourself the most.  An atrocity by someone you deem of the Right is an atrocity.  Atrocities committed by the Left are all understandable, mitigateable, and not truly, really, bad at all.

I see atrocities for what they are, no matter who commits them or why.

And, P.S., I don't think Begin's crime at the King David was forgiveable, either.  And I regret he was let back into civilized politics and was elected PM.  

I'm sure it has undermined Israel's cause and cost her much in terms of moral authority.

Irony, if anyone yelled "Kill him" at the rally, of course it is a deep wrong and ought to be denounced.  The Secret Service officers present there deny that this happened.  And would be obligated to investigate if it had.

Meanwhile, McCain always rebuked anyone make ad hominen or disrespectful comments about Obama in his presence.  If McCain had ever heard a "kill him" in one of his crowds he would have denounce such talk in no uncertain terms.

I'm not sure what you have to "deeply resent" in my opprobrium, "a certain kind of Democrat".  

There is no secret code here.  I defined what I mean.  "A certain kind of Democrat" is the hard Lefty type that emerged prominently in the Party since the 1968 Chicago Convention.  

This "certain kind of Democrat" is of a mentality in sharp contrast to the traditional FDR-Truman-Kennedy style of Democrat that were once the mainstream of the Democratic Party.

This "certain kind of Democrat" holds traditional Americans in deep and ill concealed contempt.  This certain kind of Democrat has promulgated ideas and social values that have undermined the moral integrity of this country for the last forty years.

These are Leftists born in the sixties who have championed either socially or politically or both way every kind deviancy since that time:  

Drugs.  

Abortion on a Holocaust scale that will one day be seen as barbaric in the Extreme.  Just as we look upon the Roman practice of legal infanticide.

The mockery of family that is gay "marriage".

Single motherhood.

The concurrent devaluation of fatherhood which has done so much to destroy black families.

The celebration and glorification of totalitarians-- Fidel, Che, Mao.  

The proscription of speech on campus along Leftist lines.

The defense of people like Ayers and allowing them to shape education for our children.

The ongoing and relentless defining of deviancy down, as expressed by the brilliant Sen Moynihan, a classic traditional Democrat.

The general coarsening and ugliness of the culture, all of which is promulgated from the Left.

Irony, I enjoy my conversations with you.  I believe you are a very bright guy with a very large blind spot.  A double standard that defneds the indefensible and gives a pass to hideous behavior.

If you resent my recognizing that there is a "certain kind of Democrat" who is alien to the kind of Democrat, who defined another era and whom I find admirable-- then I'm afraid I'll had to let your resentment stand.

It is doubtful that you are the "certain kind" of my definition because you likely would no ascribe to the entire litany of mutated attitudes that I describe.

But all of those attitudes and beliefs have to one degree or a very large another, been embraced either culturally or as an actual policy by the modern Democratic Party.

I can't imagine that FDR, Harry Truman, or Jack Kennedy would not all be horrified.  

"I may be in a minority of one around here, but I simply don't believe that experimenting on live human beings in a Nazi extermination camp is remotely in the same category as planning or executing bombing attacks on buildings in which warnings were issued.  And to suggest that it is, is to my mind a disturbing moral fudge.  For example, the famous Irgun bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946 -- a terrorist act, in the view of the then authorities -- may be reprehensible or not, depending on how one looks at the role of violence in wars of national liberation. "

Yes,  was wondering when this argument would pop up. By your own definition, however, Begin is not such a terrible man since he too, issued a warning to the British officers which headquartered at King David Hotel. Since they ignored it, you might claim that the onus of blame lies upon them. Well, I don't think so.  People who plant bombs where there are other people cannot be let off the hook because they issued a warning. Begin always insisted that a warning had been given. At least that shows a degree of the awareness of the indefensibility of the deed itself.  There is always the possibility, indeed likelihood, that someone would not know. Anyway, the bombing resulted in the Hagana cooperating with British to capture Irgun members.

I did not ask you ""are you in favor of Nazi perpetrators getting away with their crimes?"  I thought of the Dering example because it lended itself to some analogy with Ayers' past and present, especially the mitigation offered. I am much more concerned about the sort of exculpation I keep reading from the Left of terrorists and other antisemites. They must be "understood", they are doing a lot of good in their community, etc etc. Where does it end? At what level of violence does a thinking person say enough, nothing can excuse that?

 I am trying to extract a moral cogent principle from your position.  

And you are hardly in a minority of one here. Others seem to espouse your forgiving position where Ayers is concerned. Please, Irony, let's not lose perspective here. I suggest you go to the threads where Ayers was discussed and count all those who agree with you vs. those who disagree. and then ask yourself why you feel like you are being unfairly hectored by my dissenting voice....  :)

"A man in Sacramento was just forced to resign from his job as artistic director of the California Musical Theater.  His crime was donating money to a legitimate political campaign on behalf of Propostion 8.  And this resignation was forced after 25 years service to the Theater."

ChanRobt, on another thread, you acknowledged that customers have the right to vote with their feet when they don't like the politics of a business's employee(s).  Could it be the director was fired because the theater goers, and perhaps donors, let it be known that their continued patronage was contingent upon his removal? What's wrong with giving a warning before voting with your feet?

Ayers.  Soon to replace the 40 year old Chappquiddick as the GOP catchall.

What else can we rehash from the 60's?  From when Obama was a toddler?  Hanoi Jane Fonda?  

satyendra, I hope your employer gives you a warning before firing you for your (I presume) Obama vote.

The impulse of the Left is totalitarian.

P.S. when I wrote, "...These are Leftists born in the sixties who have championed either socially or politically or both way every kind deviancy since that time..." I didn't mean literally born in the 60s, I meat who first emerged prominently in the Dem party in that era.

Chan, I've discreetly shared my Obama vote with a couple of co-workers who I've discreetly discovered think likewise.  Otherwise, in places or work, politics along with sex and religion are considered touchy subjects.  If I flapped my gums to a customer about my Obama or McCain or Bob Barr or Ralph Nader vote, and said customer didn't like my views, I risk not meeting my company's goals, and ultimately mine, with respect to the customer.  I don't know the backstory to the Sacramento theater director, how is it that his contributions to Prop 8 became known? The performing arts as you may well be aware is so very gay.  If the director trumpted his support for Prop 8 all over town, well, he's a fool for not understanding that theater goers, theater employees and performers will predominantly sympathize with gays, if not be gay themselves.

Actually, if my vendor told me he was voting McCain, that wouldn't hamper my work or even personal relationship with them.  I have made crude assumptions about McCain voters, but with respect to any individuals realize that I can't, and don't.  They could have so many reasons, most of which I could concede are "respectable."  Prop 8 however was a much more focused issue.  By banning gay marriage you're really attacking the core of someone's identity and spitting upon their very personal and very universal need to find love and happiness.  I married a brown man which thankfully no one notices now (except for the very occasional person in Desi enclaves, but who cares about them). 50 years ago perhaps our union would have been perceived as miscegenation.  My coolie husband would have been tainting my white purity.

Spitzer for Senate!  BRILLiant!  Let's make New York politics even more of a pathetic joke than they are!

Please.  Some of us have to live here.

To be clear, I don't quite believe in coherent moral positions, because when offered they are quite often not to be trusted, or the people who present them are not to be trusted.  I believe in trying one's best to evaluate the relative importance of actions and implications according to ethical standards, which are coherent in the limited sense that they imply some reciprocation in social life, rather than according to "moral' standards, which beyond the basic bans on murder, theft etc get very murky and have been invoked in this country to support everything from slavery to banning Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye."

Channy, I find that ascribing responsibility for the "coarsening and ugliness of the culture" to the Left to be one of the most astonishing cases of projection onto the other than I've seen in recent times.  Without the radical forces of the 1960s we would not have the gender and ethnic diversity and tolerance of our workplaces, the vitality of our culture in both arts and intellectual life, and indeed the lateral democracy of the internet that we have now (all with negative sides, agreed, but I'd rather we had them with mixed results than not at all).

You talk about "defining deviance down," -- how about not defining atrocity down.  If you see the Weathermen as equivalent to human experimentation in Nazi concentration camps then you have little grounds left on which to stand.

Noga, you're the Israeli, not me, so in a sense I'm poking around in things that aren't quite my affair, but it seems reasonable to say that -- much as I disliked Begin's heavy-jowled pomposity when he was PM -- that the Irgun were carrying out a military action in a situation where guerilla warfare was a legitimate/justifiable option for Jewiish-Palestinian pro-independence forces.  To that extent, I think that Ayers and the Weather Underground types come off very badly in any comparison, as they (like the German RAF) had no larger purpose at stake than causing destruction in a kind of elitist political fantasy in which they were the only enlightened revolutionaries and everyone else was part of the problem.  However, to condemn all violent tactics is to assert, in effect, that nobody has the right to fight back against an oppressive authority that embodies its violence in "legal" forms and denies them their basic freedoms.  Ayers and the WU were wrong to use violence, as the U.S. was a functioning democracy in which many paths to reform of legal, social, and other inequalities were open, and they in fact damaged the causes they claimed to represent.

Most importantly, however, for those reasons, the assertion made by Palin that Obama was "palling around with terrorists" is a lie, as it was not the WU Ayers of 1970 that Obama worked with, an Ayers that Obama could not have made an ethical decision about as Obama was seven years old at the time, but rather the one who is engaged in constructive activity in his job and his neighborhood in Chicago.  The question of a parallel between Ayers and Nazi experimenters (the matter of whether later good actions can ever balance out earlier evil ones) cannot be taken seriously as the offences of the WU -- real or even speculative -- would not rise to the level of crimes against humanity.

What is going on exactly? Every day we get hear increasingly bizarre proposals. Kerry for SecState. No, Hillary for SecState! Spitzer for senator! (OK, we seem to have skipped a few degrees of heinousness there, but maybe I missed a few posts over the weekend...) I can guarantee you the NY public would not be pleased if a humiliated and scorned ex-governor is APPOINTED (by the way, appointed by the governor who was not elected to the position, but who ascended to assume Spitzer's place). This would make Ford's pardon of

Seriously, guys, stop drinking the kool-aid. I think it's spiked.

I'm glad Obama won, but can we return to planet earth (and that includes all this talk about America now being a proudly left-wing nation...)

tj, thanks, I forgot to mention the "McCain for energy sec" post too. Maybe that's one of the missing links. Maybe Channy's on to something...Ayers for Homeland Security! Nader for chairman of the DNC! Palin for Secretary of Education! Woo hoo!

This just in - Nader didn't get DNC. It went to Lieberman instead.

Damn you, Channy. Ayers is human filth, but I simply cannot allow you to continue with your willful smudging of the facts to suit your narratives.

The Weathermen were responsible solely for their own deaths. Two ex-members went on to persue a criminal career which culminated in the death of a security officer. www.weeklystandard.com/.../printer_preview.asp

Also, due process is a bitch, but you should do your utmost to respect it. Ayers got away with his criminal activity because the Feds decided to violate due process in order to gather evidence to indict him. The conundrum here is that due process allows for much in the realm of gathering evidence, and one absolutely must wonder why the Feds would willfully seek evidence outside of due process. It may very well be that they were incompetent morons, and depending on the assumptions one makes this may be the default conclusion; and yet it allows for the distinct and real possibility that the Weathermen were not as guilty as either they or the Feds made them out to be. Of course, like OJ, I think Ayers is as guilty as sin but the reality is that this is an opinion which swings contrary to the actual evidence which indicates that Ayers was simply a spoiled rich brat who tried to act tough, never did anything except get his friends killed and took credit for crimes to which he cannot be otherwise associated. Especially considering that the one bomb we know they did make killed the bomb makers, one has to wonder if the Weathermen were actually competent to make the bombs for which they took credit. The true purpose of due process is to establish certainty in the convictions of the justice system; you don't have to like the outcomes, but you should do your best to respect them because one day you might find yourself relying on it. To wit, Ayers is as "free as a bird, and guilty as hell" and you don't have to like him, but like so many well known and "respected" Republican convicts, he has reintegrated himself with society and is getting along fine, and needs to be summarily ignored and forgotten like the smelly garbage he is.

Lastly, I dare you to prove that McCain consistently rebutted members of his audience who spoke badly against Obama. As a former McCain entheusiast, I paid attention to his campaign, and noted behavior like this; I noticed no such thing as a consistent pattern. He was very encouraging in January when he denounced the opening speaker in Texas before the press could even open their mouth to ask. It was a non-issue until towards the end of the Democratic primary, but allowed for all sorts of things until the little old lady in (I believe) Wisconsin who was rambling on and about to accuse Obama of being an Arab or some such. He did ok during his concession speech; it was a less that stellar rebuttal of the overwrought partisans in the crowd. In fact, I'm not sure he wasn't simply asking that they not be so disruptive of his speech except that he said many of the correct things during that speech, which lends credence to the idea that we was rebuking the partisans. But these instances are not comprehensive, and do not indicate the pattern of behavior I had hoped to see. Perhaps you have something besides a story about how stupid Lefty Radicals are to convince me McCain is something more than a Partisan, opportunistic shill?

satyendra writes, "'...I don't know the backstory to the Sacramento theater director, how is it that his contributions to Prop 8 became known? "

You are right in your post to say it is prudent not discuss politics with coworkers or customers in the workplace unless you are sure you won't suffer financial consequences for your opinions.

In the case of the theater director, he was outed because of the egregious laws that require political contributions, their source and amount and address of the donators be published in a public dBase.  

These dBases are now available online.  Somebody had to look pretty deep to find this guy and his $1,000 donation.

I think it is highly undemocratic to publish a person's political donation.  It is tantamount-- or worse than -- depriving him of a secret ballot.

We can now see the consequences.

It used to be in America that a person's political opinions were not held against him outside of the political sphere.  We are entering a less tolerant, and nastier era.

Someone will of course bring up McCarthyism in this context.  That was an ugly anomaly that makes my point.

Gspinks, I respect due process.  And as the Feds tainted their case, Ayers & Dohrn got off the hook they ought still be hanging on.  So be it.

But, there is no requirement that after admitting and bragging about their crimes repeatedly, publicly, and in print over the years, that they not only be accepted into what in Chicago is politic society, but in Ayers' case, be given public employment.

A man in California just lost his job of 25 years because he donated money to the legal Prop 8 campaign.  

Ought Ayers' enjoy employment in the public sector along with the respectability of a professorship after what he did and has more than admitted?  

Ought he to enjoy better treatment then a man just outed for his perfectly legitimate political activity?

I will go and read your article referenced, but my understanding has always been that the robber was perpetrated by Weathermen to raise money for the cause.

Meanwhile, I arson-- and I would expect bombing-- are very serious crimes.  Whether a death results or not.  Ayers & Dohrn, if it were not for the tained evidence, would have done a decade or so for it.  The robbers who killed the guard or cop are still in prison.  Ayers/Dohrn raised the child of one of them.

irony writes, "...Without the radical forces of the 1960s we would not have the gender and ethnic diversity and tolerance of our workplaces, the vitality of our culture in both arts and intellectual life, and indeed the lateral democracy of the internet that we have now (all with negative sides, agreed, but I'd rather we had them with mixed results than not at all)."

I heartily disagree.  

Racial barriers started falling during WW2 and were accelerated under Eisenhower in 1954 when he enforced desgragtion with Federal troops in Little Rock.

Radicalism only became widespread in the 60s in concurrence with the unpopularity of the Viet Nam War.  Without the war, radicals would have been in the minority.

Without the trauma of the Kennedy assassination  compounded by Viet Nam, there would have been a much more peaceful, much less radical evolution of our culture and civil justice.

Instead, we had a Cultural Revolution.

Without the two traumatic events, the rest of the 60s would have looked in all likelihood like the 60s of the New Frontier.  

Civll Rights would have been the most volatile issue.  But all people of good will-- and that was the majority-- supported black civil rights.  The Supreme Court and two administrations had bee actively supporting civil rights for a decade.

Martin Luther King wasn't going away, nor were his followers.

Meanwhile the vast number of Baby Boomers, the great number of that generation getting advanced education, the cultural effect of the Beatles, music, movies, were all moving the culture in a more open direction.

Feminism and gender equality, as well as homosexual liberation, were inevitable in the wake of black civil rights.  the logic of it was irreversible.

What was not necessary was the violence and radicalism, which only could take such deep root because of the two great traumas-- and most especially because Viet Nam created an anti-government youth movement.

In the early sixties, before Nov 1963, everyone I knew expected to serve in the military, didn't question that Communism was a bad thing and that the Cold War was at least to some minimum extent, necessary.  And I went to high school in a very liberal, Democrat dominated community.

There was a lot that had to evolve from where we were culturally in the 50s.  (But if you read Halberstram you will see we weren't as primitive s you are imagining.)

All the necessary and beneficila changes would have come about.  Probably more easily without the radicalism, drugs, and the rest that discredited reasonable progressivism.

Irony writes, "...it seems reasonable to say that -- much as I disliked Begin's heavy-jowled pomposity when he was PM -- that the Irgun were carrying out a military action in a situation where guerilla warfare was a legitimate/justifiable option for Jewiish-Palestinian pro-independence forces."

the British were essentially refereeing the situation in Palestine.  The were impoverished, broken, and over-extended by WW2 (more such victories and we are undone).  They weren't going to stay in the region indefinitely to quash Jewish aspirations.

For God sake, the British had been the Jews' greatest champions in Europe and had supported the homeland concept since the early 20th Century.  The British had a Jewish Prime Minister in the 19th Century.  

Begin was a murderous hothead who jumped the gun.  Too bad he was eventually rewarded.  

ChanRobt, you've been relying too much upon Rashid Khalidi's revisionist history, I'm afraid. There is enough documentation to support Jewish claims that the Brits were actively helping the Arab  forces in their war against the Yishuv. Here is an eye witness report, if you care to give it the time to read:

www.solomonia.com/.../cairotodamascus.shtml

And btw, Disraeli was baptized when he was 13 years old. So he couldn't have been Jewish when he became prime minister, could he? Unless, that is, you cling to a Castillian principle, the  "limpieza de sangre"  one?

nobal1 writes, "...There is enough documentation to support Jewish claims that the Brits were actively helping the Arab  forces in their war against the Yishuv."

I'm no student of this 100-years war.  I'm simply taking the wider view which is that Britain was not going to be able to sustain itself on any side for long in Palestine.  

The Jews, given the preponderance of British goodwill towards the Jews, ought to have been patient and kept their powder dry.  what is the point of committing an atrocity and making an enemy of an old friend?  

In the event, Britain stood by Israel anyway.

As to Disraeli being baptized, well, Obama hung out 20 years in a church with which he didn't agree-- he sez-- and either way, it was at least partly for political reasons.

But, more to the point, I grew up as a gentile in a majority Jewish community.  I've lived among Jews my entire life.  Being Jewish it seems to me is a cultural and I guess a blood thing.  It's not a "race" per se, but its something beyond a faith.

Otherwise, how to account for the inordinate concentration of talent, influence, genius, and all the rest of the virtues and accomplishments which we associate with the Jews.

I think it is something of a mystery.  And I've always been fascinated by the phenomenon.  As, I believe, much of the world is.  Whether wishing Jews good or ill.

Disraeli was baptized-- I believe you.  Disraeli embraced Christianity and accepted Christ as the Lord incarnate and as his Savior?  Maybe he did.  But, did he really cease being a Jew?

I don't know, you're Jewish.  You tell me.

As the Jews would say.

noga1, I may not have made my central point.  I know many Jews, some very observant, most very secular.  Some are like cultural Christians who only go to church if at all, on Christmas and maybe Easter.  

The secular Jews I know rarely if ever go to temple except for a Bar Mitzvah or at Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah.  If then.

Yet they most certainly think of themselves as Jewish just like De Niro thinks of himself as Italian.  Meanwhile, though I've known Jews who identified as gentiles because they were so aculturated in the American ethos, I've never known one to truly embrace Christianity.  And interestingly, some of the Jews I've known who identified as gentiles when they were young evolved back to identifying as Jews as they got older.

It is a fascinating subject, and obviously all I am saying is purely anecdotal.  But, Jews being of a scholarly bent, I'm sure more than one study has been done of this.  I'd love to read the most readable one.

Finally, noga1, for the record I have not read Khalidi on this subject.  I simply knee-jerk support Israel as a Democracy amongst the autocrat states, and the hell with it.

The entire subject is too mind numbing to dive into.  I ought to do better in this regard.  But, my reading of history, while extensive, is focused elsewhere.

nogal1, you've got me going on an interesting subject:

I read quite recently that Jews in America have been so deeply accepted in American society, and have intermarried so often, that they are in danger of disappearing as a recognizable ethnic group within a few more generations.

That sounds true, and if so tragic.  It would be ironic if the Jews were destroyed through acceptance rather than exclusion.

But perhaps the observant and the Orthodox will keep the seed alive and carry the Ark on for future centuries.  Then, of course, there is Israel.  But, without American support, Israel is doomed.

An irony inside an irony.

Chan, you've explained to me how the theater director's contribution was publicized.  We've learned during this election that some whites who hold some negative views of blacks still voted for Obama.  I can conclude that racism and probably sexism and homophobia as well run on gradients.  Without knowing the director I'd have to judge him not 100% homophobic, if only because he had to work with so many gays over the years.  If he was an overly difficult or unpleasant director, whether towards everyone or gays in particular, his job could have been in jeopardy long before these 25 years, unless there's an unusually tight tenure process for that position.

During the V. P. debates Biden and Palin agreed on one thing - a separate but equal institution for gays known as "civil unions."  It's great that the long time gay companion you grew old with can speak up for you in the hospital.  That's a step in the right direction but compartmentalizes gays into functions they're allowed to perform.  Not allowing two consenting adults to marry, or in the case of AR, adopt kids, is denying them full personhood.  Hey, blacks can entertain, play sports, and we'll even allow them to be doctors to their own people.  Just don't invite them to dinner, it's - unseemly.

The Weather Underground disbanded in '75 because their stated objective of ending the Viet Nam war had been met.  Plus, The Brinks robbery was committed six years later by a Weather alumna, Kathy Boudin, and some fellow travelers.  It was to "raise funds," i. e., enrich, a small band of black militants.  I suppose one could argue that Boudin was still clinging to Weather ideology.

satyendra writes, "...Without knowing the director I'd have to judge him not 100% homophobic, if only because he had to work with so many gays over the years."

Satyendra, being against gay marriage is not proof of so called "homophobia".  

I'm against gay marriage.  I'm not against gays.  I agree with most homosexuals that one is born with ones sexual orientation, it is not a "lifestyle choice".

The only thing I hold against gays is that they subsumed the original meaning and usage of the word "gay" under their own slang meaning.  I don't like seeing the English language fucked up.

Marriage is an ancient institution that is dedicated to the protection of family and reproduction and establishes official paternity and responsibility for children.

It is not about some 19th century idea of Romantic love and wedded bliss amongst happy couples.  It is not about tax benefits and the rest of the recently introduced paraphernalia created to assist the expensive and long commitment of raising a family.

So let's not confuse and conflate different concepts and different issues.

That the artistic director was against gay marriage but also worked comfortably with gays is not a paradox.  It's two different things.

You could have, at the turn of the last century or in 1948, been against the establishment of a Jewish state, but not in the least anti-semitic.

There are many today who don't like Israel but like Jews just fine.  Two different issues.

I suport Israel myself.  But it is easy to understand how anti-semitism and anti-Israel sentiment are entirely different issues.

You should understand the same about gay marriage and one's attitude towards homosexuals.

satyendra wrote, "Not allowing two consenting adults to marry, or in the case of AR, adopt kids, is denying them full personhood."

I believe that if a child has to choose between an orphanage and being adopted by gay parents, the latter is preferable to institutional upbringing.

At the same time I believe that being deprived of a mother or a father, either through your mother's or father's choice to  single parenthood (the latter rare, but possible) or because, say, artificial insemination put you in a two father or two mother situation, this is egregious because it has been engineered.

It is less than happy, and often close to tragic to have but one parent or be in a peculiar situation with two parents of the same gender.

Its one thing if there is no other choice.  But to engineer such a situation for the selfish needs of adults is egregious.

By the way, Obama opposes gay marriage.  So did every single major party candidate.

How come only the Rightist taking this position are bigots but the Democrats who do get a big passola?

Chan, you have a point about Obama and Biden opposing gay marriage.  I'd almost like to think it's pandering and political convenience, but that's not a ringing endorsement, either.  Still, I don't see them contributing hard money to Prop 8 even if they were private citizens.  The sort of financial contribution that would get you in a (agreeably questionable) database is a much stronger statement than any TNR talkbacker or other private citizen who opposes gay marriage from their armchair, even when Obama / Biden lead them to think it's OK to have that opinion.

Your arguments against gay marriage are somewhat predictable, to which I'll provide what to you will seem part novel and part predictable rebuttal.  You at least concede being adopted by two gays is better than growing up in an institution.  So you're acknowledging some situation in which the upbringing is so bad that gays are better.  Where to set the bar?

Believe it or not, my primary preference is for a child to live with a mother and father.  I think it's important to have role models from both sexes even if e. g. mommies' brothers are involved uncles.  And people to the left of me will hold this view as well, esp. if they have a lot of gay friends or work in social services for gays.  My friend's dear friends are two lesbians raising one of the daughters, my friend thinks the girl has an unhealthy need for male attention, not necessarily in some icky precocious sexual way, just male attention.  That said, this is a real minor complaint, and not one that justifies the state denying an individual full right to love and happiness based on their sexual orientation.  Everyone knows that so many people are so fucked up in so many different ways (and let's look inward, too). So many straight unions are dysfunctional so as to produce unhealthy outcomes in their offspring, that accepting gay parents isn't defining deviancy down but rather not deviant at all.  Of course, gay people and relationships can be dysfunctional too, just like anyone else, but not for being gay.  Ozzie and Harriet and Father Knows Best might be great models, but in real life no one conforms.  I don't think anyone really conformed then, either, at least if you consider people's personal mental health wouldn't have been better then than now.  So gay marriage should be passed, unless you have such high standards that even straight couples need to pass some special exam to get married, and an extra special exam to procreate.

Channy:  "I heartily disagree."

Looks like you'll have to leave me with my resentment and I'll have to shrug at your hearty disagreement.  I think you have a blind spot also.

irony writes, "I think you have a blind spot also."

Irony, I don't know how old you are.  but I'm old enough to remember both the 50s and the 60s very well.

The world was well along the way too changing under the New Frontier and the emerging Boomers and the music of the Beatles which were expressing a new awakening in 1962 and 63 before Jack Kennedy was killed.

There was going to be a Cultural Revolution, but it was going to be a peaceful one.  Then came Dallas and the Gulf of Tonkin.  When the nation became firmly disenchanted with the war four years later, and two more political murders extinguished the country's trust in its government and turned its natural patriotism into cynicism.

This change of atmosphere gave Radicalism a purchase.  Which simply meant that all the changes that were already in process became polarized and violent change rather than the peaceful change that would have been.

The Great Divide we witness to this day, and on these pages, date back to that period.  We have been in a slow-motion civil war for 40 years.

It took 100 years to recover from the first Civil War.  I think it will take 60 or 70 before this one is finally reconciled.  Mainly with the death of all the combatants.

"The Jews, given the preponderance of British goodwill towards the Jews,"

Goodwill is a relative matter. If by "goodwill" you want to state that British antisemitism was a bootless kick, then yes, goodwill it is... I expect more from "goodwill" and the facts simply do not support such a description:

www.yale.edu/.../lappin_yiisa072.pdf

____________________

"Disraeli was baptized-- I believe you. "

No act of faith is required. Just check up on any biographical note about Disraeli. The Internet is rich with this kind of detail, people being so obsessed by Jews and such...

noga1 writes, "...Goodwill is a relative matter. If by "goodwill" you want to state that British antisemitism was a bootless kick, then yes, goodwill it is."

Anti-semitism exists in every nation of Europe.  The Jews were stabbed in the back by the French very recently.  

The Jews were so successful and aculturated in Germany that they served the Kaiser with distinction in WW1 and felt as German as American Jews feel American.   We know how that turned out.

I'm not an expert on the subject, but while I'm aware of British anti-semitism I've been of the impression that it was almost of a piece with their general down the nose attitude towards anyone who was not English.  Starting with Americans.

Was not Britain generally the Jews' most comfortable refuge aside from America?

"Was not Britain generally the Jews' most comfortable refuge aside from America?"

Let me direct your attention, once again, to Shallom Lappin's well researched paper on how comfortable and welcome Jews were and are in Britain.

www.yale.edu/.../lappin_yiisa072.pdf

No doubt everything is relative. Antisemitism is also relative. Compared with Nazi antisemitism, of course any other sort of antisemitism bows its head in awe.

This is way off topic, but pertinent to ChanRobt's comments:

From  Rudolph kaster's trial:

"Brand later testified that Lord Moyne, the British Minister Resident in the Middle East and a close friend of Prime Minister Winston Churchill, was present during one of the interrogations and is alleged to have said: "What can I do with this million Jews? Where can I put them?" Lord Moyne was assassinated in Cairo a few months later on November 6, 1944 by Eliyahu Bet-Zuri and Eliyahu Hakim of the Lehi (Stern Gang). Ben Hecht writes that Ehud Avriel, the Jewish Agency official who had accompanied Brand to Aleppo and had assured him the British would not arrest him, insisted that it was not Lord Moyne who had said this, and asked Brand not to repeat Moyne's name in Brand's autobiography, Advocate for the Dead. However, Brand repeated under oath during Eichmann's trial that it was Lord Moyne who had said it."

en.wikipedia.org/.../Joel_Brand

Lord Moyne's feeble dismissal of one million Jews echoes Canada's pre-war policy of refusing to accept any Jewish refugees from Europe: "none is too many". Except that in Canada's case, the more charitable might attribute this indifference to disbelief that actual harm may befall the European Jews. Moyne's retort comes in 1944, when reports of the mass extermination of the Jews have already filtered through and spread into public awareness. It's frightening how the obvious answer to that question was not readily available to Moyne's mind.

Sorry. Rudolph Kastner

nogal1 writes, "...Lord Moyne's feeble dismissal of one million Jews echoes Canada's pre-war policy of refusing to accept any Jewish refugees from Europe: "none is too many"."

Roosevelt has been traditionally revered by American Jews, but he turned back ships filled with refugees and they were returned to their doom.  

Perhaps there is some nation on the planet that has a more admirable record, but I don't know which it is.  Some Jews escaped to China, although I don't know if they were officially welcomed or not.  Likely they just followed their survival instincts and slipped in.

It ain't easy being without a country for 2000 years.  It ain't easy being a race that doesn't by nature have a "get along, go along" nature.

Thirty years ago I read an interesting book on this topic, "Why the Jews?"  Its premise was that the Jewish instinct to question conventional wisdom and to make people uncomfortable in their various cherished beliefs is what has made life challenging for the Jews since they first decided there was only one God.

The author of that volume is Dennis Prager.

oh, and, Noga1, I will check out your Links.  Thanks.

"It ain't easy being a race that doesn't by nature have a "get along, go along" nature."

I thought it was the other way around. It was the people among whom Jews dwelt that wouldn't get along, go along with them... You know, "reasons of race and religion combine to make any large number of free-thinking Jews undesirable"

Or better still,

"On the Rialto once.

The rats are underneath the piles.

The jew is underneath the lot.

Money in furs."

nice bit of verse, Noga.  Whose?

I thought you might like it.

Here is another of his, lighter mood,  poems:

"But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,

A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,

Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,

Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?"

www.youtube.com/watch

fun stuff, noga.  I'll check out youTube

Saw CATS years ago and didn't particularly love it except for the one famous, touching song.

But, you're picking out the good bits for me.