Letters to the Editor
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thomas c @ NYT
NYT:
Since the beginning of his campaign for president, Mr. Obama has combated rumors and e-mail campaigns suggesting that he was a Muslim or was hostile to Israel, a problem exacerbated by pro-Palestinian remarks made by his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
And here I was thinking, well, at the least the silver lining in the whole Rev. Wright media frenzy was that it would finally dispel the notion that Obama is Muslim.
Y'know, in that it was the Reverend Wright Controversey, not the Mullah Wright Controversy. But I guess a lot of people are just that stupid.
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an even more basic point everyone has missed
The question was wrong. and Obama's answer was wrong too. All this talk about 'kishkes' or 'guts' - it isn't about that. That isn't where you feel love for Israel, or for anything or anyone else. It's possible none of these people have ever felt love, but when you do feel it, you feel it in your chest, not your 'gut'. In the area conventionally referred to as the heart, but actually it is in the center of the chest, around the lungs, whereas the heart is off to one side.
Now one could say (the real devious ones, like Phil Weiss, could say) it's because these Palm Beach Jews are hard boiled machers, ashamed of showing their feelings.
Well, when it gets to juggling with nuclear world war, that isn't good enough any more. In fact, probably the thing that has allowed me to get past all the Electro Robots of this world, here, there, in Israel itself,and so on, is that I am really not ashamed to feel it, right in my chest, and bleed about it too, very publicly. So far, no one has had the 'guts' to accuse me of faking this.
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Shorter Glenn
How DARE that horrible awful Goldberg ask a presidential candidate QUESTIONS about the candidate's views toward Israel?!!? Scandalous!! J'accuse!!
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If I wanted to really put the cat among the pigeons
I might mention the religious zionist youth groups who give LSD to their followers, as part of their initation into what purports to be Rav Kook's kabbalah.
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Rowan B.
You are distinguished from a mob. However. If you begin to call newslady, Lady Katie Curic a a Libertarian.... Or, Mr Galilleo Galillei, Moses, Bendict Spinoza, or Peter Cotton Tail.... you may sow confusion in our minds. Who can think?
Just be normal. Don't make people haughty.
People are more contumacious against dogmas of the higher mysteries. Keep it simple?
I mentioned I did a Givit Oz kibbutz 'gig' in Israel in 1973. Israel was 1,000 times more fascinating than Honolulu. I ran home from Israel as fast as I could when the M-16 guns started to be slung over the shoulders. Ladies in the military have olive skin? I ran home as quick as a lame goat can go.
The Jewish people were serious orchardist, irrigators, and even cotton pickers. The communal lifestyle had an appeal. The sardines and homemade yogurt made me think I died and endedup in a paradise.
The "gaps" are still in my life... The experience any many memories are almost a dream? In that I loved the brief Israel adventure, and loved the varied people who seemed so fervent.... a trauma in their life too? I am still wondering? I was to study modern Hebrew/Yiddish (?) with immigrants to Israel. I was wandering lost, post-Nam, and them came the 1973 Yon Kippur (!).
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Of Presidents and Priests
Apparently they didn't wear their faith on their sleeves back then.
Document #13; February 1, 1953
Diary
Series: EM, Diaries
The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XIV - The Presidency: The Middle Way
Part I: Charting a New Course; January 1953 to April 1953
Chapter 1: Developing a spirit of teamwork
Mamie & I joined a Presbyterian Church. We were scarcely home before the fact was being publicized, by the Pastor, to the hilt. I had been promised, by him, that there was to be no publicity.1 I feel like changing at once to another church of the same denomination. I shall if he breaks out again!
1 Earlier in the day, in a private ceremony that preceded a regular 9:00 a.m. communion service, Dr. Edward L. R. Elson had accepted President and Mrs. Eisenhower and about fifty others into membership at the National Presbyterian Church. Elson, pastor of the congregation, had served as chaplain of the XXI Army Corps in Europe during World War II; he had met with the President on Saturday, January 24, to discuss the Eisenhowers' attending the church (New York Times, Feb. 2, 1953). For more on the reasons for Eisenhower's displeasure see no. 16.
http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/13.cfm
Document #16; February 2, 1953
To Milton Stover Eisenhower
Series: EM, AWF, Name Series
The Papers of Dwight David Eisenhower, Volume XIV - The Presidency: The Middle Way
Part I: Charting a New Course; January 1953 to April 1953
Chapter 1: Developing a spirit of teamwork
Dear Milton:
[...]
Mamie and I were scarcely home from church yesterday when we began to get evidence that the pastor was trying to extract the maximum publicity from the fact that we joined his particular church.3 You will recall that I communicated to you some of my uneasiness about his preliminary actions. But he had very clearly and flatly made a promise to me that "there would be the minimum of publicity--everything would be most quietly done."
The first thing I resented was his announcing our names to the congregation. This may have been necessary under the Presbyterian ritual--of that, I am not sure. But one thing is certain--he did not tell me so, in advance. He allowed me to understand that no announcement of any kind would be made. He stressed the fact that the whole affair would take place in front of a very small group of men (as it did) and that would be the end of the matter.
But assuming that all this was to be anticipated, imagine my shock to find that he called up Jim Hagerty, immediately after the second service on Sunday morning, to ask Jim's approval of a press release.4 Jim objected strenuously, and the pastor came to see him. During their talk, it developed that Dr. Elson had already given out copies of the release to the AP and to the UP.5 There was nothing to do.
I recite this at some length merely to show you why I grow more and more dependent upon my instinct in judging people. During the war, I became almost arbitrary in refusing to employ anyone of whom I did not instinctively approve. Every time I do violate my personal hunches, I regret it.
Oh well–As ever
1 Milton, president of Pennsylvania State University and one of his older brother's closest advisers (see Galambos, NATO and the Campaign of 1952), had spent part of the preceding week in Washington working with Eisenhower and Emmet John Hughes on the State of the Union address; for its main points see no. 14. "On listening to your speech on TV, and reading it once again this afternoon," Milton wrote in reply on February 3 (AWF/N), "I've decided it's a truly great State paper. Emmett Hughes deserves a lot of credit for helping you put it together." On leave from Time, Inc., Hughes had served as one of Eisenhower's speechwriters during the 1952 campaign (Galambos, NATO and the Campaign of 1952, nos. 974 and 1057).
2 See the preceding document.
3 See no. 13.
4 James C. Hagerty, Eisenhower's press secretary (Galambos, NATO and the Campaign of 1952, no. 924).
5 Elson told reporters that the induction ceremony had been "simple and modest," and in keeping with the President's request for privacy, he declined to discuss details. But he went on to say that the ceremony included an examination and confirmation of a candidate's Christian faith and that Eisenhower's decision therefore was the "climax of long consideration by the President and instruction by the pastor." Eisenhower, he went on, "is a man of simple faith, who takes his religious doctrine very sincerely" (New York Times, Feb. 3, 1953).
http://www.eisenhowermemorial.org/presidential-papers/first-term/documents/16.cfm