Posted on 10/11/2008 8:19:18 PM PDT by T Lady
‘If Barack Obama doesn’t become the next president of the United States,” says comedian Sarah Silverman, “I’m going to blame the Jews.”
According to the New York Times, “she’s mostly kidding.”
Kidding or not, that’s the premise of “The Great Schlep” — a four-minute internet video where the popular star of her own Comedy Central series, who is Jewish herself, urges young Jews to trek to hotly contested Florida to convince their elderly grandparents to vote for Obama.
Given that Jews as a demographic traditionally vote overwhelmingly Democratic anyway, it’s not clear why all this effort is necessary. But with overblown rumors about Obama being Muslim, Silverman argues there’s cause for concern.
That, and elderly Jews are racist. “Explain to them we’re all the same inside,” she says. “You could compare an elderly Jewish woman like Nanna to a young black man. They may seem totally different but on paper they’re the same.”
Silverman counts the ways. They both like track suits and Cadillacs — and “all your friends are dying.” Get it? Because Florida Jews are old and there’s high homicide rates among black men! Hilarious!
This, of course, is all part of Silverman’s shtick. She’s an attractive woman who swears a lot and says things that are shocking. You’re supposed to laugh, and at the same time feel uncomfortable for laughing. That exposes how secretly racist/sexist/politically incorrect we all are. This is a not-unknown comedic trope, and Silverman is generally good at it, provided you’re not easily offended.
But it’s one thing when you’re making those kinds of jokes just for the sake of social commentary. It’s quite another when you do it to shill for someone. Thus Silverman doesn’t seem to know the difference between, “Hey, I said something outlandish that exposes how you might be influenced by prejudicial ideas you don’t consciously consider,” and “Hey, if you don’t vote for Obama you’re a racist.”
Or to put it another way, it’s the difference between kidding and “mostly kidding.”
And importantly, the Jewish Council for Education and Research (JCER), which put the video together, isn’t kidding at all. It has a rather unironic four-page list of “talking points” you can download to use. One of the categories is, unbelievably, “HE’S BLACK, LET’S TALK ABOUT IT!”; never mind that today’s Jewish grandparents were at the forefront of the civil-rights movement.
What’s really going on here is that Sarah Silverman has been enlisted to put a smiley face on a dishonest effort to swing the Jewish vote for Obama. Sarah Silverman even says that Barack Obama’s foreign policy will be “much better for Israel,” and no, she’s not joking.
No matter what, Obama will likely capture the majority of the Jewish vote. Nonetheless, many Jews have tangible reasons to be concerned about Obama, particularly his support of Israel.
Here’s Obama’s chief military adviser and campaign co-chairman Gen. Merrill “Tony” McPeak in a 2003 interview with the Oregonian, on what’s holding back the Middle East peace process: “New York City. Miami. We have a large vote . . . here in favor of Israel. And no politician wants to run against it.”
So Obama’s chief military advisor intimates that American Jew have dual loyalties. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. A former a PLO spokesman held a fundraiser for Obama; Obama voted against a bill to designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps — which has long supported Hezbollah terrorists and otherwise abetted the murder of Israelis — a terrorist group; and Robert Malley, a notoriously anti-Israel figure who hadd been in regular contact with Hamas, has served on the candidate’s advisory board.
The Silverman video is the second video the JCER has produced — the first had no jokes and is among the most dishonest ads produced this election cycle. Several prominent national-security officials in Israel purport to support Barack Obama. After the video was released, however, a number of the subjects in the video cried foul.
In particular, former head of the Mossad Ephraim Halevy and former IDF deputy chief of staff Maj.-Gen. Uzi Dayan told the Israeli press that their words had been taken out of context, they had been unfairly edited, they were never told they would be appearing in a campaign video, and they weren’t endorsing anybody.
When Mik Moore, one of JCER’s founders, was confronted about this, he told the Jerusalem Post: “It's a film to educate and mobilize the Jewish vote,” he said. “It's not to encourage people to vote for Obama.” You can watch the video and judge for yourself, but for any fair-minded viewer that’s a pretty transparent lie.
Similarly, JCER’s other co-founder, Ari Wallach, justified the crude unfairness “The Great Schlep” to the New York Times by saying it “is not a think-tank white paper. It’s meant to be a conversation starter.”
Well, okay then. If “starting conversation” is the point, here goes: The Jewish Council for Education and Research is a fundamentally deceitful organization that would rather grab attention through cheap stunts and than promote honest dialogue about Israel.
Discuss amongst yourselves.
— Mark Hemignway is an NRO staff reporter.
— Mark Hemingway is a writer in Washington, D.C.
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I guess she probably drove the poor guy nuts talking politics, much like Streisand had done up until she met and married James Brolin.
Those Yentas must be very hard to live with.
Her only claim to fame is that she’s “f_____ Matt Damon” at least comedically speaking. Search youtube and you will find the video. If you can stand it.
Matt voicing his concern over Sarah Palin and Silverman grousing about older Jewish voters being bigots.
> We’re becoming more like France every day. :D
Except they have nuclear power...
You really shouldn't pick on a "special needs" child. Obviously she is trying and isn't that what is really important.
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