I was going to pile on you-know-who, but so many others have already done so that it would be superfluous and cruel.

That said, the fact that Mr. Romney chose to make his speech at my alma mater confirms my decision to stop contributing to it when it built the Bush I library. Gig 'em.

Are we really going to all gang up on the candidate's wife?

jedimaster says "I wonder if you can remember back to the 90's....Hillary Clinton was practically vilified on the campaign trail."

Can I remember? "Please", as they say. There was no "practically" about it. And then it just kept getting worse, year after year after year. And continues to this very day.

Still, I don't see any inherently good reason for lefties to do the same thing. It's not like Miz Huckabee will be on any ballot.

Gary Owen - do you want some kind of Japan-bashing article? It's been over 60 years - I thought we'd become friends with "the Nips" in all that time. And why should there be an article about the nuking of Hiroshima (or Nagasaki, for that matter?) They occurred on August 6th and 9th, respectively. This is, as you point out, December 7th.

timbuktom asks why the low-level dogfaces in the Abu Ghraib case were prosecuted, why the evidence had not been destroyed also. The reason was that these were not official US Army photos, under the control of Bush appointees and supporters. They were snapshots, taken by the perps for their own amusement and the enjoyment of their friends. Copies of Lyndie Englund and the rest were spread throughout the US occupying forces and their friends back home, by email, CD, and whatever modern technology allows.

Eventually, someone was not amused and told the media.

One wonders how many people saw the pictures of torture, abuse, humiliation, and death and were fine with it all.

Aycharaych says "Not only are the Dem candidates cowards, they are also not above pandering to a small minority for money."

The money is only a small part of it. Ask Juan Cole (informedcomment.com), who has undergone The Treatment, what happens when an academic or politician is insufficiently worshipful of the far-right Likudnik line on Israel - or worse, critical. The torrent of personal destruction begins: name-calling ("Anti-Semite!"), attempts to get the individual fired from their job, posting lies and half-truths among influential supporters or donors, whipping up a torrent of abuse that bursts forth like a laser beam ... the whole traditional right wing slime machine, except it's not run out of Grover Norquist's office this time, and it hits harder and faster.

It's not so much greed as fear that causes candidates to pander to the AIPACkers.

Aycharaych responds to my note "It isn't just about money" with "Note that I called the Dem candidates cowards; that is the term for someone who is motivated by fear."

Good point. I was fixating on your first sentence in your first post, which read in part "That the Democratic candidate's knuckling under to AIPAC is all about money rather than the Jewish vote " and your concluding sentence which read, as you noted "Not only are the Dem candidates cowards, they are also not above pandering to a small minority for money." [My emphasis]

I admit I only paid attention to the "money" part, which may not have been your intent. Also, at that point, nobody had adequately addressed the swift retribution that the AIPAC lobby has become legendary for.

In fact, not many people are saying much about it yet, but check Juan Cole (informedcomment.com) and Eric Alterman (mediamatters.org/Altercation) for references to tales of woe by people who didn't sufficiently worship the Israeli hard-right wing view of the world.

It's real. It's unfair. It's a dirty tactic. And apparently, it always works. The vast majority of American Jews, out of fear of being sneered at as "self-hating", haven't been adding much to the discussions about the Middle East.

And that's really sad, because the goyim ought to know that not all Jews or Israelis think alike - like AIPAC. Particularly given the declining popularity of that point of view.

Bill_H disingenuously posts "I can't remember ever having read/heard a right wing neocon ever claim to speak on behalf of the country of Israel or on behalf of all Jewish people."

1. Why would you expect them to? Isn't it implied?
2. This is a part with the careful (aka "weasel") wording so typical of the right wing and other con-men.

Mr. Bush always mentioned "911" every time he referred to Saddam Hussein. Later, he said that he had never connected the two. It just sounded like it to people who didn't parse his words legalistically - e.g., the US population. Alberto Gonzales, in his testimony to Congress, in the rare instances when he apparently could remember something - always carefully qualified his responses "in that program". He didn't mention any details about the programs in which the Justice Department was explicitly breaking the laws; he just didn't talk about them.

So the AIPACkers don't "claim" to speak for "all Jews" or "all Israelis." Meanwhile, no other Jews dare speak. What conclusion must we draw? What conclusion are we likely to draw>