Posted on 03/06/2002 5:40:27 AM PST by Pharmboy
Erroneously
A dispatch from Chicago in the national section of today's New York Times reports that the president of the Polish American Congress, Edward Moskal, "suggested, erroneously, that" an Illinois congressional candidate, Rahm Emanuel, "had dual citizenship with Israel and has served in its armed forces."
If the impression that Mr. Emanuel served in the Israeli armed forces is erroneous, it is certainly widely held. Mr. Emanuel's White House colleague, George Stephanopoulos, told "Nightline,""Rahm had served in the Israeli army."
The Jerusalem Post reported in July 1997 after an interview with Mr. Emanuel that, "What has perhaps gained Emanuel the greatest admiration in Jerusalem was his coming to the country during the Gulf War to volunteer at a supply base near Kiryat Shmona. He did menial work at the base, separating tank brakes from jeep brakes from truck brakes. He downplays the trip, saying it was not a sacrifice, merely 'something I wanted to do.'"
The Associated Press reported in a 1996 biographical sketch of Mr. Emanuel that "In 1991, during the Persian Gulf War, he spent 2 and a half weeks rustproofing brakes for Israeli Army vehicles." And the Washington Post reported in 1992 that "Rahm retained dual citizenship until age 18, when he gave up his Israeli passport, but sometimes thinks 'ambivalently' about moving permanently to Israel. It is now part of his legend that during the Persian Gulf War in early1991, when Iraqi scuds were falling on the country where he spent many a childhood summer, he volunteered for 2 1/2 weeks on an army base near the Lebanese border, rust-proofing brakes for military vehicles."
The New York Times article would have been better if it had included some of this context rather than simply dismissing the claim as erroneous .
Oh I know: how could I ever think that a crony/advisor to x42 would LIE.
Emmanuel's service is a big deal when people want us to admire him for being there, but it is little or nothing when people think it was not a good idea.
Maybe Emmanuel will just give us the facts, instead of letting folks make him out to be all things to all people.
This quote is inaccurate. On this thread, I posted a story from the Chicago Tribune in which Moskal says Emanuel served for two years in their armed forces, not an indefinite, unstated amount of time.
"As many in our community perhaps don't know, he was a citizen of another country and served in their armed forces for two years," Moskal continued, referring to Israel. He then went on to attack Emanuel for giving his "allegiance" to Israel, a country that Moskal claimed "defiles the Polish homeland and continues to hurl insults at the Polish people."
What I've been able to establish is that Emanuel is Jewish; he held dual nationality with Israel but renounced it when he was 18, and he volunteered for a month in Israel in 1991. No one has been able to give me dates in which he served his two years in the Israeli army, so I can only assume that Moskal lied about that.
I'd like to chalk it up to Chicago politics, but the lie or lies were unwarranted.
Fortunately for Rahm, the tank brakes came in boxes labeled "tank brakes." Those for Jeeps came in boxes marked "Jeep Brakes." All the other brakes came in boxes labeled "Truck Brakes." This made it easy for Rahm to tell which brakes were which and separate them.
Of course, in the absence of markings, a 3rd grader could do the same sorting - BY SIZE. Jeep brakes are the smallest. Tank brakes are the largest. Any you've got left over are truck brakes. Nice to see that Mr. Emanuel was given a task just as knee-jerk as would be commensurate with his White House service.
Michael
Maybe they were all shipped in the same truck or RR car and had to be separated for the fork lifts.
Actually, the "separating brakes" chore sounds suspiciously similar to the long-time tradition of driving Pvts. crazy when they sign up for KP. The drill goes like this.
You get a stool, have the Private sit on it, dumpa huge pile of potatoes on the floor next to him, and give him THREE SACKS. You tell the dupe to put all the LARGE potatoes in the first sack, all the MEDIUM potatoes in the 2nd sack, and the SMALL potatoes in the third sack. And you give him NOTHING with which to grade the size of the spuds, sit back, and watch him go crazy after a couple of hours - as he can't decide anymore what's the difference between spuds of the same approximate size.
Here, Rahm, have a tater.
Michael
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