Back in 1990, the Republican candidate for Governor of Texas, Clayton Williams, likened rape to bad weather, saying, "As long as it's inevitable, you might as well lie back and enjoy it."

When that joke came to light in June, John McCain was forced to "postpone" a fundraiser in Midland hosted by Williams. McCain spokesman Brian Rogers called the joke "incredibly offensive."

But what Williams said in 1990 is not all that different than a joke McCain made about rape in 1986. According to the Tucson Citizen, here's what McCain, then a two-term Congressman from Mesa, said during his run for the Senate:

Did you hear the one about the woman who is attacked on the street by a gorilla, beaten senseless, raped repeatedly and left to die? When she finally regains consciousness and tries to speak, her doctor leans over to hear her sigh contently and to feebly ask, ‘Where is that marvelous ape?'

The Arizona Women's Political Caucus and the Arizona chapter of NOW condemned the remarks as "insensitive, cruel and sexist." McCain said he "did not recall" telling the joke and his spokeswoman at the time, Torie Clarke, said the furor was "a politically motivated sideshow" initiated by McCain's Senate opponent, Richard Kimball.

The reporter on the story, Norma Collie, stood by her account in an interview with the Huffington Post this week.

"I'm not sure exactly what the wording was of the joke, but something was said. Some joke involving a rape and ape was said. Enough women repeated it to me at the time and the McCain campaign had a non-denial denial. It came after his 'Seizure World' joke, in which he referred to the [retirement community] Leisure World as Seizure World... I just think it reinforced this idea that John McCain is humor-challenged. Whatever his qualities, he seems to have a tin ear for how these jokes will go over."

More recently, McCain has "joked" about cigarettes killing Iranians, bombing Iran and beating his wife. No joke. Back in 1998, he said of Chelsea Clinton, "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because Janet Reno is her father."

Not exactly presidential material. Even though they're often ignored by the mainstream media (the rape account has yet to be picked up the MSM), these crude attempts at humor offer a window into the not-so-attractive side of McCain's fabled character.

Last Friday, as part of a push to court female voters, McCain held a "women-only" town hall meeting in Hudson, Wisconsin. Let's hope he didn't tell any jokes.

Comments (26)

1. based on the various comments the man clearly cannot be accused of having much in the way of sensitivity towards entire categories of people

   Posted by Zero at 07/16/2008 @ 2:19pm

2. Look, it's no contest. The result is n0w forordained.

   So who cares what a jerk McCain is?

   It no longer matters.

   Pay attention to the winner.

   He's our future.

   Think about Obama & Co.

   Posted by sloper at 07/16/2008 @ 2:42pm

3. You know Ari, Chinggis Khan once declared that the greatest achievement a man could hope for was, among several other conqueror-like things, was to take his enemies weeping women for themselves. Now that was in 1190, which is really only 796 years before the horror expoused by MCcain you mentioned. I think we should ask for damages from the Government of Mongolia for such insensitivity.

   Further, the grand celebration by the Mongols in 2006 celebrating the 800th anniversary of CK's ascension kind of implies tacit approval of such behavior, so lets sue the whole country, all 2.5 million of em!

   (BTW I thought the joke was funny, and untill you made an issue of it, I'd never heard it before-Thanks, its been a rough day.)

   Posted by william.harry13 at 07/16/2008 @ 2:52pm

4. I thought it was "Ghengis" Khan. Oh well. I guess your humor is as bad as McCain's. I get your sarcasm(terrible, by the way) but isn't Ari referring to AMERICAN women. I personally don't think asshole humor is funny but to each his own.

   Posted by k330k at 07/16/2008 @ 3:03pm

5. And let's not forget "At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you c_nt!" (directed at his wife). A real prize catch, this guy.

   The thing with the Iran cigarette joke -- I'm beginning to think all of our "enemies" are "gooks" to him. He can't tell Shia from Sunni, pro-American westernized youth from religious clerics. It's all the same to him, and there's that ugly temper inside just waiting to come out.

   Posted by Ham_I_Am at 07/16/2008 @ 3:33pm

6. You are free.k330k to like or not like whatever humor you choose, thats an American trait

   And it really is Chinggis Genghis is the Latinized verious that everyone is familiar with, so its written that way a lot

   Posted by william.harry13 at 07/16/2008 @ 3:46pm

7. I'm willing to excuse a certain amount of "inappropriateness" in a joke if it's sufficiently funny, but this one fails on all counts. Where is that marvelous ape? Is it the unexpectedness of the punch-line that is supposed to be funny? Am I just not getting it? Hey McCain, the Jerk Store called and they're running out of you!

   Posted by Be Good at 07/16/2008 @ 3:56pm

8. Well I viewed the link to the McCain jokes and I have to say that I thought they were all not bad except for the Chelsea joke (although any joke that includes Reno can't be all bad).

   This is just more evidence about the absurdity of the Political Correctness of the left. Yet they don't hesitate to ridicule people on the right.

   Posted by lvliberty1 at 07/16/2008 @ 4:05pm

9. Test Post.

   I will post this, or a modification, later on a more appropriate thread:

   VARIOUS MUSINGS:

   ON THE NEED FOR PROGRESSIVES TO NOT SUPPORT OBAMA AND THE NATION'S MISTAKEN ENDORSEMENT, THE PRECARIOUSLY TOTTERING ECONOMY, AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST, A THOROUGHLY FASCINATING VIEW INSIDE OF LAST MONTH'S AIPAC GALA.

   I've written over the last few weeks that Obama's hard right turn has left progressives with little alternative but to emphatically state their intention to vote for a Ralph Nader or Cynthia McKinney candidacy in protest.

   As anyone who happened to watch the most recent Moyers Journal interviews (7/11, online viewing recommended) with the interesting and engaging conservative commentators, Mickey Edwards and Ross Douthat --authors of the new books, "Reclaiming Conservatism" and "Grand New Party", respectively-- it was quite revealing how well Obama's message and manner, of late in particular, has dovetailed so snuggly with these guys views and temperament. I found both men to be highly intelligent, articulate and genial, but like Obama they share at least one overarching and fatal flaw. They embrace the blindly delusional view of "American exceptionalism."

   If one can resist leaping to hysterical claims that clear-eyed commentators are not soulless, thankless, "blame America first" traitors, it should be nearly self-evident that one cannot begin to properly address the widespread cancer that now ails the American body politic without at least acknowledging the long term behavioral patterns that have presaged the now rapidly failing health of this once great nation.

   Without going into depth on the well-known storyline of the U.S. government's lengthy history of undermining genuine attempts by a laundry list of nations to establish fair-minded government, and propping up right wing regimes to "protect our interests", I will fast forward to the current predicament.

   The devil next door is, of course, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which are bleeding the U.S. Treasury, sapping the nation emotionally, and have decimated the currency of global American respect to an all-time low –not to mention the fast sinking dollar as oil prices spiral upwards, the deaths of countless innocent people, and the global crisis levels of displaced persons within and from Iraq.

   Of at least equal importance –-and probably much greater in my opinion-- is the devil that most of us don't know. This is the one that the sober conservative commentator, Kevin Phillips, documents in his latest, and must read, book, "Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism", Viking, April ‘08.

   Excerpt:

   As for the pitfalls of the domination of the United States by finance, both "Wealth and Democracy" and "American Theocracy" dwelled at length on the unnerving precedents of what that meant for the Dutch and British. Part of what "Bad Money" deals with that I have not touched on before is the financial sector's massive use of private debt and leverage during the 1990's and then again in the first decade of the twenty-first century to expand its size, global reach, and extraordinary profitability. This is less a market-based Adam Smith brand of triumph than a mercantilist joint venture with U.S. government authority, strategic direction, funding support, and periodic Federal Reserve or U.S. Treasury bailouts of overextended financial institutions....

   Farms and factories were expendable, but certain banks and other financial institutions could not be allowed to fail. The coordinating body, handed its government franchise in 1988, following the 1987 stock market crash, was the President's Working Group on Financial Markets, built around the secretary of the treasury and the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Its existence has never been secret, only the record of its discussions and the nature of its occasional interventions in the financial markets.

   And later in the book:

   The Working Group's purposes, as elaborated in a 1997 Washington Post article, were to enhance "the integrity, efficiency, orderliness and competitiveness of financial markets and [maintain] investor confidence." It set up something of a war room, maintained a global as well as a national list of key contacts, and carried out simulated emergency drills....

   Just how much power the Working Group was allowed to exercise was never publicly made clear. A year after its launch, Robert Heller, a retiring member of the Fed's Board, wrote in a widely discussed op-ed the Wall Street Journal that there was a better alternative in emergencies than rate reduction: "Instead of flooding the entire economy with liquidity, and thereby increasing the danger of inflation, the Fed could support the stock market directly by buying market averages in the futures market, thus stabilizing the market as a whole." Besides being relatively inexpensive, the focus on futures market activity made sense. No conclusions were ever reached in writing, but Heller's recommendations may have been accepted backstairs....

   Apart from the one groundbreaking article in the Washington Post, the opinion-molding journals in the United States generally let the group's operations go without serious investigation or comment. The overseas English-speaking press, however, was more intrigued. The Telegraph in London ran several articles, in 1998 and 2006, eventually describing the Plunge Protection Team as a "shadowy body with powers to support stock index, currency and credit futures in a crash." The newspaper also quoted George Stephanopoulos, the former top aide to Bill Clinton, as saying that the PPT -–the preferred handle in the press-- had "an informal agreement among major banks to come in and start to buy stock if there appears to be a problem." In September 2001, the London Observer reported that the PPT was "ready to coordinate intervention by the Federal Reserve on an unprecedented scale. The Fed, supported by the banks, will buy equities from mutual funds and other institutional sellers if there is evidence of panic selling in the wake of last week's carnage."

   In case it slipped past the reader, this is a HUGE FREAKIN' STORY.

   Today we talk pretty regularly of "bubbles" of various sorts, but in reference to the above revelations by Kevin Phillips, we might more appropriately use the term "volcanoes". The U.S. Fed and Treasury, under the auspices of the "Working Group" and the "Plunge Protection Team" have been enabling big players in the market to seek greater and greater risk in the full knowledge that a bailout –wider and deeper in scope than the one's we hear about in the news-- is waiting if things get a little "too hot".

   Well, no one who is paying attention should be surprised if at some point in the near future things get a little hotter than anyone has seen in a long, long time as the fallout from a global financial meltdown begins hurtling back to Earth. I'm not predicting a cataclysm, but if you think it's not possible I wouldn't hold your breath on that one.

   And that brings us to Barack "my biggest financer is Wall Street" Obama.

   This is the same Obama that The Nation chose to endorse, against its better instincts, last January. Let's be frank, that was a misguided decision to be generous. All the warning signs were clearly in evidence to any semi-alert observer, yet The Nation chose to ignore them in the incautious hope that Obama would somehow become the more-or-less progressive president that we projected on him.

   Katrina vanden Heuvel famously said on Stephanopoulos recently, "Barack Obama is not the Messiah". But the amount of trust that The Nation placed in him with its endorsement would suggest a commensurate level of blind faith that renders Katrina's "not the Messiah" comment empty at best, and perhaps more accurately, crass.

   Although The Nation's endorsement was likely not instrumental in Obama's securing the Democratic nomination, as a matter of principle it should be noted that endorsements, when given, should go to candidates that clearly articulate a largely progressive platform.

   But here's the central point in regards to Obama's "new" trajectory.

   We progressives have represented Obama's core support group and have held the key to his most promising door to victory --that is, the path of conviction on such popular fronts as NAFTA reform, complete withdrawal from the Iraq quagmire, reengagement with rest of the planet on global warming and foreign policy, Constitutional restoration, and massive investment at home to reinvigorate our ailing manufacturing base and sagging infrastructure.

   Instead Obama has chosen the same tired old Washington consensus (lowercase) strategy of three yards and a cloud of dust over bold leadership and slashing new tactics.

   It is progressives who offered Obama a brand new playbook of multiple offensive sets and multiple receivers to confuse and confound the defense. We saw in his oratorical ability the talent to run our sophisticated "west coast" offense, but he has failed to deliver even a single crisp pass since securing the nomination.

   That's not "change we can believe in", but business as usual. And that's not gonna cut it.

   Yes, Obama will very likely win the White House this Fall, but he's already set himself up for a fall in the process. And if he does somehow manage to lose the election, it's likely to be largely attributable to his lack of principled leadership.

   We've seen this movie before -–too many times.

   Posted by b_kool_66 at 07/16/2008 @ 4:13pm

10. AIPAC Article --Part One:

    I have stated here before that I will occasionally post lengthy articles that are of high interest in a bit of protest against the lack of linking ability here at The Nation.

    A good one follows.

    I discovered the article when it appeared at Tom Feeley's invaluable Information Clearing House website. I strongly encourage readers to visit often and support Tom's work.

    Looking Into the Lobby

    The American Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual conference is one of Washington's most important--and least reported--events.

    By Philip Weiss

    09/08/07 "American Conservative" -- - For three days in the capital in early June, suspense built over the question of how the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference would greet Barack Obama. There was a lot of grousing about Obama in the hallways of the Washington Convention Center, and AIPAC officials repeatedly warned the faithful to be respectful. "We are not a debate society or a protest movement. … our goal is to have a friend in the White House," executive director Howard Kohr said in a strict tone. It wasn't hard to imagine things going poorly: Obama gets booed on national television. He feels insulted. Conservative Jewish donors and voters turn off to Obama. He becomes president without their support. AIPAC has no friend in the Oval Office.

    But of course, Obama complied. His speech became the annual example the conference provides of a powerful man truckling. Two years ago, it was Vice President Cheney's red-meat speech attacking the Palestinians. Last year, it was Pastor John Hagee's scary speech saying that giving the Arabs any part of Jerusalem was the same as giving it to the Taliban. Obama took a similar line. He suggested that he would use force to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons, made no mention of Palestinian human rights, and said that Jerusalem "must remain undivided," a statement so disastrous to the peace process that his staff rescinded it the next day. Big deal. The actual meeting had gone swimmingly.

    This was my first AIPAC conference, and the first surprise was how blatant the business of wielding influence is. The conference makes no bones about this function, the most savage expression of which is the Tuesday dinner at which AIPAC performs its "roll call," where the names of all the politicians who have come to the conference are read off from the stage by three barkers in near auctioneer fashion. The pols try to outdo one another in I-love-Israel encomia. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi surely won the day when she teared up while dangling the dogtags of three Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah and Hamas two years ago.

    The second big surprise was that apart from coverage of the headline speakers, the AIPAC conference is a media no man's land. It would be hard to imagine a more naked exhibition of political power: a convention of 7,000 mostly rich people, with more than half the Congress in attendance, as well as all the major presidential candidates, the prime minister of Israel, the minority leader, the majority leader, and the speaker of the House. Yet there is precious little journalism about the spectacle in full. The reason seems obvious: the press would have to write openly about a forbidden subject, Jewish influence. They would have to take on an unpleasant informative task that they have instead left to two international relations scholars in their 50s--Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, authors of last year's book The Israel Lobby.

    The press is missing a phantasmagorical event. Imagine a basement meeting in the Warsaw Ghetto transplanted to the biggest hall in Vegas, and you have something of the feeling of the thing. The staging is faultless. Little documentaries called "Zionist Stories" play on the Jumbotron, complete with footage of Auschwitz, and then the subject of the documentary comes out on stage to thundering applause. There is breakout session after breakout session on Middle East policy and Jewish identity and anti-Semitism, with star turns by Natan Sharansky, Bill Kristol, and Leon Wieseltier. The press was excluded from "Advanced Lobbying Techniques," but still this is a feast of the political condition. And posh. The roll call is described by AIPAC as the largest seated dinner in Washington. The wine flows. I went about in a daze of awe and admiration.

    My awe was for men like Haim Saban, a toymaker and giant donor to the Democratic Party. After his Zionist story, Saban came out on stage wearing a platinum tie and white shirt and silver gray suit. He has wonderful presence and something of an Arab look--black-haired, wide forehead. He was surrounded by 200 college students, veterans of the Saban Leadership Seminars he sponsors at AIPAC.

    On Middle East policy, Saban is barely distinguishable from his Republican counterparts, who are there in equal force. The main hall of the conference was filled with lavishly-produced banners featuring AIPAC donors, not a few with trophy wives, alongside statements of their mission. There was Donald Diamond, an Arizona real estate developer whom the New York Times recently profiled on the front page after he raised $250,000 for John McCain. The Times said nothing in its piece about Diamond's Israel work. But that was all the banner was about. "The U.S.-Israel relationship is the single most important determinant of democracy in the world, and we must commit to securing it," Diamond wrote. "It is so obvious to us that the Jewish community is a family and that we have to take care of each other."

    I was writing that down when an AIPAC spokesman stopped to check my credentials. The audience for this stuff isn't the public, it's people in the hall--other rich Jews who might put AIPAC in their wills.

    At most conventions, people gather out of self-interest. Therein lies my admiration: the AIPAC'ers didn't come for selfish reasons. They are devoutly concerned with the lives of people they don't know, very far away. Yes, people with whom they feel tribal kinship. When Israelis came out on the dais to speak, they were almost invariably overwhelmed by the generosity, if not the Vegas schmaltz. "There is a tremendous amount of love in this place," Meir Nissensohn, an Israeli executive of IBM, said in wonder. "If it was a beaker, it would explode." Even a sharp critic like myself of what AIPAC is doing to American policy in the Middle East was frequently moved by the pure loving feeling that surrounds you at every moment.

    Among the devout there is only one real issue: What is the latest AIPAC line? This is the organization's function. After consulting closely with the Israeli political leadership (leaning toward the right wing), AIPAC regurgitates a simple version of Israeli policy to its followers, who in turn regurgitate that line to American politicians. AIPAC'ers do this with the conviction that Israel's life is on the line. "It is we that are the guardians of that relationship," AIPAC president David Victor said. James Tisch, the Lowes executive and leader in the Jewish community, warned the audience that it might be 1939 all over again were it not for them.

    AIPAC makes sure the Israeli line is America's line by cultivating politicians before they reach the national scene. Victor described this process when he warned the audience that 10 percent of Congress will be new next year because so many seats are open: "Do we know them? Do they know us? Have they been to Israel? Do they understand the issues we care so deeply about?" Finding Israel activists in the suburbs of Detroit is easy, Victor said. "But how about finding the one right person to reach out to candidates for communities like Muscle Shoals, Alabama, or Tacoma, Washington, or Council Bluffs, Iowa? Ladies and gentlemen, the success or failure of the pro-Israel community rests on three words, our personal relationships." And people accused Walt and Mearsheimer of fostering a conspiracy theory.

    Posted by b_kool_66 at 07/16/2008 @ 4:18pm

11. AIPAC Article --Part Two:

    AIPAC flashes its relationships the way kids trade baseball cards. Bill Kristol said that Hart Hasten, a Holocaust survivor and successful Indianapolis businessman, had been crucial to shaping Dan Quayle's view of Israel, having "spent a lot of time" with Quayle when he was still a congressman. (Quayle's office later told me, "The statement Bill Kristol made was not exactly accurate. Mr. Quayle said his broad knowledge of Israel came from many people and sources, not specifically from Mr. Hasten.") Dan Senor, an analyst on CNN and former AIPAC intern, boasted that AIPAC won over Spencer Abraham when he was the head of the state Republican Party, years before he became a Michigan senator. The party was $500,000 in debt, and an AIPAC leader helped him pay that off. And of course, the famous story was told of George W. Bush going up in Ariel Sharon's helicopter in 1998, two years before he ran for president, and saying of Israel's ten-mile waist, "We have driveways in Texas longer than that."

    The anxiety about Obama is that he is so new to the scene that few people have had a chance to get to him. The relationship guy is Lee Rosenberg of Chicago, who introduced Obama. "I can personally attest that Senator Obama is a genuine friend of Israel," he said. In 2006, Obama "fulfilled a pledge he made to the Chicago Jewish community" and visited Israel. And the topper: Obama "has gotten to know" Benjamin Netanyahu, the former prime minister who is against ever dividing Jerusalem. Rosenberg looked pale, drained--as queasily forceful as a mob boss vouching for an unknown family's bona fides.

    The good news I can report is the new AIPAC line. In some ways the organization is belligerent: speakers emphasized the need to attack Iran before it gets nukes and to invade Gaza to take on Hamas. But peace is in the air, too, now that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government is working overtime to cut a deal with the Palestinians on the West Bank and with the Syrians for the return of the Golan Heights. AIPAC reflected this policy. I heard a few conference-goers saying at microphones that the Bible gives Israel a right to the West Bank. But they received only a smattering of applause, and in one instance the moderator said the questioner was using inappropriate language.

    The soul of the conference for me was Tal Becker, the highly personable Israeli negotiator. "I see [Palestinian negotiator] Saeb Erekat a lot more than I see my wife and kids," he said, promising that if he and Palestinian moderates fail to reach an agreement, their goal is "to keep talking and keep talking and keep talking."

    Yet before you get out your handkerchief, reflect that AIPAC has for more than 30 years promoted the colonization process. In 1975, when President Ford wanted to reassess Mideast policy over Israeli intransigence, he was cut off at the knees by an AIPAC letter signed by 76 senators. Then in 1989, when James Baker went before AIPAC and told them to give up their idea of a Greater Israel including the West Bank, George H.W. Bush received a letter of anger signed by 94 senators. In both instances, AIPAC was hewing to the Israeli government line and nullifying American policymaking.

    No, AIPAC's change of heart cannot be ascribed to the good thinking of American Jews. They're not thinking at all. They have passed on their full powers of judgment to the Israeli government. In that sense, the Zionists in that hall might best be compared to Communists of the '30s and '40s, who also abandoned their judgment to a far off authority even as they argued this and that subclause codicil in intense councils. On my train ride back to New York, a little rich kid of about 14, traveling with his uncle in the seat behind me, called his parents to complain that Obama's views on Israel seemed "tailored" and "he's never really stood up for Israel." Indoctrination, pure and simple.

    The great sadness here is that American Jewry is the most educated, most affluent segment of the public. Yet on this issue there is little independent thinking. The obvious question is whether they don't have dual loyalty. As a Jew, I feel uncomfortable using the phrase, given its long history, but the facts are inarguable. Leon Wieseltier of The New Republic speaks of everything "we" should do to make peace with the Palestinians, then corrects himself to say what Israel should do. Speaker after speaker says that Israel is in our hearts. People who emigrate to Israel are applauded, and when the national anthems are played, one cantor sings the "Star Spangled Banner," but the "Hatikvah" has two cantors belting it out, with the audience roaring along. Maybe most revealing, I heard a right-wing Israeli politician sharply criticizing Olmert's policy in the West Bank. Think of the scandal it would cause if American politicians went abroad and criticized the president's foreign policy. It's no scandal here because AIPAC is a virtual extension of Israel.

    Of course, AIPAC and its roll call of politicians would say that American and Israeli interests are identical. I wonder how those politicians really feel. Their I-love-the-miracle-of-Israel rhetoric is so endless that it creates an undercurrent of doth protest too much--an impression that if there weren't so much money at stake, they would run from Israel with winged heels.

    AIPAC takes care to remind the pols of deeper reasons to help the Jews. The Holocaust imagery never stops. And there is a related theme: that Jews are the golden goose of Western society. The very last of the "Zionist Stories" AIPAC showed before Obama and Clinton spoke was of a scientist, IBM's Nissensohn. The piece emphasized Israel's contribution to high-tech industry from software to desalination, hinting at a traditional Jewish idea: for a society to flourish, it must treat Jews well. Haim Saban's story made the same point. Look what Egypt lost when it forced the Saban family to flee.

    The theme of the conference was "The U.S.-Israel Relationship: Built to Last." But that seems another case of protesting too much. AIPAC is beset on many sides.

    It surely noticed how much attention Palestinians got this spring for commemorations of the Nakba, their dispossession in 1948 and onwards. AIPAC fought back with its own dispossession narrative. About 700,000 Jews, including Haim Saban, were forced out of Arab societies following the formation of Israel. One of them was novelist Eli Amir, who grew up in privileged Baghdad and was forced into a refugee camp in 1950. Amir appeared live by satellite and berated AIPAC for not highlighting his story before this year.

    Another problem for AIPAC is the growing alienation of younger Jews from Israel's hardline policies, especially as those Jews do well here and assimilate. "I worry a lot more about the American Jewish community than I do about Israel--about which I have grave doubts," Wieseltier said.

    AIPAC is happy to work with non-Jewish Americans. At one dinner, I sat at the same table with Mark and Carrie Burns, Christian evangelical radio hosts from Illinois. Carrie said that many Christians she knows will vote on Jerusalem being in the hands of the Jews as a litmus issue. Thus AIPAC may hope to replace dwindling elite influence with populist numbers. I wouldn't hold my breath. Carrie said that at a synagogue she addressed, the first question came from a high-school girl who said, "But isn't Israel an apartheid state?"

    The Jews are quietly leaving the room. Saban described his horror at visiting his son's college, Wesleyan, and seeing a table on peace in the Middle East at which Israel was demonized. Some of the kids at that table were surely Jews.

    Especially now that an alternative lobby, J Street, has formed on its left, AIPAC seems to be making gestures in a more peaceable direction. One was the testimony from Sderot, the Israeli city bordering Gaza that American politicians must learn to pronounce or face political doom. (I think it's Stay-ROTE.) It was inevitable that someone from the region would take the stage, and it's impossible to imagine a more appealing spokesperson than Chen Abrahams, a pretty, soft-spoken kibbutz-dweller of about 40. The audience was utterly quiet as she described the terrible price her community has paid for the siege of Gaza. Nothing like the price the Palestinians have paid, I'd note. Still, if this was schmaltz, it was real schmaltz. At the end of her taped appearance, Abrahams said, "My biggest hope is for peace. I believe in talking to them, I don't believe in wiping them out." I was stunned.

    Then Abrahams came out on stage to a standing ovation, and it struck me that it might be possible to take all the loving energy in this place now directed at helping other Jews and redirect it to great effect. If the AIPAC legions were somehow convinced that Jews will only be safe in the Middle East if the Arabs among them were also safe--without checkpoints, without a siege, with the dignity and freedom that Jews have had in the West--all these arrayed powers might then be directed to a larger idea of family and produce a miracle at last.

    Posted by b_kool_66 at 07/16/2008 @ 4:18pm

12. Posted by b_kool_66 at 07/16/2008 @ 4:18pm

    Nothing like an opportunity to bash Israel and Jews right BKool?

    Posted by lvliberty1 at 07/16/2008 @ 4:30pm

13. What a bunch of hypocrisy from those who celebrate the hate filled humor of G. Carlin, any big name vulgar black comedian, and flood their websites with their evil promulgated caractatures of Republican political figures particularly if it celebrates the hatred of Pres. G.W. Bush!

    Posted by RedRiver_. at 07/16/2008 @ 5:41pm

14. Nice try, RedRiver, but there's a helluva difference between comedians and Presidents.

    Posted by Balrog at 07/16/2008 @ 6:42pm

15. Jokes? Jokes are a problem? Please...a little LESS sensitive and a more tougher hide might be in order here...

    Jokes...this article is a joke....

    ZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

    Posted by JOMAMMA at 07/16/2008 @ 6:54pm

16. "Nothing like an opportunity to bash Israel and Jews right BKool?"

    ~lvliberty1 at 07/16/2008

    Fascinating response, dumbass.

    Did you even read the content of the AIPAC post?

    And by the way it's written by a Jewish author for a conservative rag.

    How in Dog's name are we to achieve even the slightest headway on Middle East peace when the first words of appropriate criticism are met with grunts and feces tossing taunts from large swaths of the addled American public?

    Of course, no one should expect an intelligent, measured response from a cluster bomb loving troglodyte phillistine should they?

    Care to re-attempt a response containing some in depth analysis, "Reverend"?

    Posted by b_kool_66 at 07/16/2008 @ 6:54pm

17. lvliberty1 -

    The assumption of the rape joke is that women really want it, that no means yes, that they actually enjoy rape on some level. It doesn't work unless you have that assumption in the back of your head, and believe it somehow (like those old "Take my wife.... Please!!" jokes, but a bit worse).

    McCain unwittingly shows this is the way he thinks whenever he tells these jokes with the underlying premise that he thinks others agree on. He think it's normal to have this way of thinking, and that others share it. It's pretty damn caveman. Maybe it works in the country club or in the locker room with certain people, but it shows how much of an asshole he is.

    Posted by Ham_I_Am at 07/16/2008 @ 7:03pm

18. Libs have no life........just , oh....so SENSITIVE.....knees bent, worshiping at the Church of PC.....guess the only jokes they are allowed to laugh at, trashes the non-human or God!

    Cartoons and 20+ years old animal-f*&king/raping-human-joke, by a Rep. McCain.....are now worthy of journalists' time?

    Hey, Ms. KvH.......your overstaffed writers are running out of `stuff' to opine on.........ya know, it's very much in vogue to cut staff..........I'd say it's time The Nation got in the act and joined the fun! How else can we believe in the economic depression underway since Jan. 2001, unless TN is part of that `pain'.......Weren't you looking for help w/increase in stamps?

    As I offered before, I'm available for business process and efficiency/economizing consulting.........at a discount, of course.

    Posted by 2HAPPY at 07/16/2008 @ 7:40pm

19. wow sassy stuff mr glee hardeehar

    If I had to choose based on humor... say between the Cadaver (Cheney) & McLooseCannon, I'd go with Bombom Johnjohn.

    Posted by winyahn at 07/16/2008 @ 8:44pm

20. As I offered before, I'm available for business process and efficiency/economizing consulting.........at a discount, of course.

    Posted by 2HAPPY at 07/16/2008 @ 7:40pm

    They don't need you HAP. They got Joan Goodall.

    wait.....

    Posted by Benchrest at 07/16/2008 @ 8:52pm

21. b_Kool_66 - Though I feel ambivalent about your using this thread for your AIPAC story, I apologize to Katrina, but feel I must answer. 1) AIPAC is a political action group, like the Chamber of Commerce or PHARMA, nothing more or less. Their access to power is the sign of their success, so parading the powerful at their convention is understandable. 2) The relationship between Israel and the American Jews began at the beginning when Golda Meir came here to raise money in the wake of the Holocaust. Jews do feel connected to other Jews, and the resettlement of so many refugees from Europe as well as constant attacks from the surrounding Arab states, made a strong argument for such support. Remember that Golda Meir was from Ohio. 3) AIPAC's job is to lobby for support of Israel in Washington. Other countries also have lobbyists, as do businesses, unions and other groups. They do not represent all American Jews; many of us, even if we support Israel, do not support all of Israel's policies. Neither do all Israelis. 4) Our relationship to Israel has for a long time been supportive but with a degree of objectivity. It is only with the current acministration that our policy became blind support, and this has made it less possible for us to work towards peace, which I for one do not consider good for Israel. Obama has a better chance to become once again a fair broker in the conflict between Israel and its neighbors. 5) It was necessary for Obama to address the convention. Given the rumors that have been circulating about him. Quite reasonable people have expressed concern to me or in my presence that he is Muslim and will not support Israel. There are Jews who are single issue voters, but there are other people also who vote based on one issue. But Israel is an issue for many Jews who are reasoning citizens and are watching the candidates closely.

    P.S. Left-wing anti-Zionism is connected in many cases to anti-Semitism and it makes many of us lefty Jews quite nervous and/or angry. There is a good diary on Daily Kos from a few days ago on this subject, with an interesting discussion bringing in many points of view.

    Posted by ramara at 07/16/2008 @ 11:17pm

22. The word "anti-Semitism" is blandished intended to intimidate just like a weapon. I am a Jew and I am not intimidated. 95% of PNAC was Zionist and as a result we invaded Iraq, murdered 1.2 million people (goyim, so who cares) and sacrificed our blood and treasure, demolished our consitution and bill of rights, annihiliated our global reputation and precipitated an impending economic depression just to keep Israel feel safer.That's madness. We are not talking about dual loyalty here; We are talking about helping Israel at America's expense. The Jews have become meddlesome, as they did in pre-war Germany.You'd think we'd have learned a lesson or two from history.

    Posted by mystic at 07/17/2008 @ 09:57am

23. .....The Jews have become meddlesome, as they did in pre-war Germany.You'd think we'd have learned a lesson or two from history.

    Posted by mystic at 07/17/2008 @ 09:57am

    I think I (partially) agree w/ya there.....maybe we ought to just help the Palestinians and Ahma-dine-in-your-jeans finish the job Hitler started......Good riddance, right?

    So much time, effort and (US) money for such a tiny country and race! Let's make friends with the over 1 BILLION Arabs and Muslims.......of course, Obama could be the answer to your prayers!

    Posted by 2HAPPY at 07/17/2008 @ 11:04am

24. mystic - my point was that only since this administration have we been unwilling to advocate moderation to Israel. It may be the combination of the mission to spread democracy and Christian Zionism that has led to this, I don't know. Read the Daily Kos diary.

    HAPPY - I forget; What was your opinion of the New Yorker cover? (Speaking of humore...)

    Posted by ramara at 07/17/2008 @ 11:21am

25. ......your opinion of the New Yorker cover? (Speaking of humore...)

    Posted by ramara at 07/17/2008 @ 11:21am

    It was ok....not particularly funny in the New Yorker context......would've have been much, much funnier if it was done by a right-wing magazine and then seeing the Left's reaction.....

    The only thing that truly was funny, is the reaction of the humorless PC Left......just oh so, so, so....protective of their precious Messiah.......hilarious!

    He's black, born Muslim, wife with a bad attitude.........deal with it!

    Posted by 2HAPPY at 07/17/2008 @ 6:33pm

26. I happen to know that John McCain is philosophically in favor of the death penalty for all ape rapists. He hasn't yet been able to overcome the PETA-led coalition in favor of federally funded simian rehabilitation counselling programs...and there's just no telling which way the Supreme court will rule.

    Lighten up, Berman and friends. :)

    Posted by man00ver at 07/17/2008 @ 9:18pm