Personal Asides: Richard Viguerie’s True Record…The Baffling Jewish Failure to Defend Their Defenders.

Viguerie’s Record.

The conservative mailing-list king Richard Viguerie has written a book expressing his oh-so-keen dissatisfaction with George W. Bush’s lack of conservatism, “Conservatives Betrayed.” Viguerie says Bush “talked like a conservative to get our votes but never governed like a conservative.” Evidently the appointment of strict constructionist jurists including two justices to the Supreme Court has meant nothing to Viguerie who, more than anyone else in the conservative movement, has made big bucks from 501©(3)’s and candidacies…never hesitating to pull the plug on institutions and campaigns when his pecuniary needs are not met. It is noteworthy that in this book, Viguerie compares Bush to his icon-idol, Ronald Reagan, who, Viguerie says, had a flawless record of serving the movement well.

But the short-haired, even shorter-tempered tycoon hopes we will forget. In July, 1981, Viguerie wrote an Op Ed for the “Washington Post” which it entitled “For Reagan and the New Right: The Honeymoon is Over!” This was only six months after the 40th president was inaugurated! It followed by only four months the assassination attempt on the president’s life. The reason for the Op Ed, Reagan had displeased Viguerie by not implementing his entire agenda in the first half of the year. Not only that, by December, 1987, Viguerie was at it again, charging with spectacular inaccuracy that not only had Reagan disserved conservatism but he had actually “changed sides” and was then allied “with his former adversaries, the liberals, the Democrats and the Soviets.” In the final months of his presidency, Viguerie shot off his cannonade again pronouncing that the conservative movement “is directionless.” The probable reason for these verbal assaults was that the Reagan administration had not hired Viguerie’s mailing list firm to do work for the RNC and other adjuncts.

How can anyone accept this jerk as a conservative leader?

The Baffling Jewish Failure.

As many know, I am a consummate reader of “Commentary,” which I believe is the most intellectually satisfying of publications bearing on international affairs. It is put out by the American Jewish Committee and its editor in chief is a man whom I admire very much, Norman Podhoretz. The latest “Commentary” considers what I and it see as an egregious Jewish failure: the refusal of the Jewish community to support an administration by loyal words and votes which is putting its political life on the line—not to gain Jewish adherents (although that would be graciously received)…but to wage the fight, not in behalf of Israel but a fight that if successful can only redound to Israel’s well-being. The 2006 election once again validated that Jews are notably disinterested in supporting anything but the Democratic party which in notable aspects is not just non-sympathetic to Israel but, in the case of Jimmy Carter and others, openly hostile to Israel with an unreasoning passion that borders on deeply-held animosity.

About 88% of Jewish votes went to Democratic candidates, most of whom reinforce the liberal stereotype of animosity to Bush’s notable pro-Israel stance. Twelve percent went to Republican candidates. With only 2% of the national population, Jews hold 13 seats in the U. S. Senate of which only two—Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Norm Coleman of Minnesota—are Republican. Indeed, there is no sophistication or legitimate pressure placed on the Democratic party for its passionate support of people like Louis Farrakhan’s first Congressman, Keith Ellison, the first-ever Muslim Congressman, an African-American, who has called for establishment of an independent black republic in the U.S. south and who has long extolled the anti-Jewish sentiments of Farrakhan…who worked closely with the Nation of Islam, the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson who labeled New York “hymie-town”—Jackson, the pouting media-hound, receiving lavish attention and contributions from Jewish sources across the nation and whose publicists write doggerel masquerading as legitimate opinion in Chicago’s craven lefty-worshiping daily Democratic newspaper of record, the “Sun-Times.”

All of which validates what Ariel Sharon, then an out-of-office decorated Israeli general, told me when we met many years ago in Skokie. He recounted that just as many Catholics support causes that are non-Catholic and anti-Catholic, many Jews endorse trendy lefty propositions that are non-Israeli or anti-Israeli. “I believe you will find that the Jews who do so are secular, non-observant ones just as you will find, I am sure, that Catholics who fail to support programs and parties that defend their faith are secular and non-practicing. That is the great problem today in Israel. I daresay that it may be the problem with your church in America.” And of course, he is right. “The New York Times,” the most powerful newspaper in the nation, is heatedly anti-Israel in foreign policy formation and run by secular, non-observant Jews such as the Sulzbergers. Is multi-billionaire George Soros, a Jewish-born immigrant, interested in Israel? Not in the slightest. He’s just announced that he will turn his attention to what he calls the “Israeli problem” in the U.S. by forming a new group to counter the American-Israel Public Affairs committee, to mobilize support for putting pressure on Israel to take, what Soros says, are “the necessary steps for peace” which include to extend recognition to Hamas which has pledged never to recognize Israel. He appears to be in total agreement with former president Jimmy Carter who has written the book “Palestine: Peace, not Apartheid” which describes Israel as a racist state reminiscent of South Africa.

The intriguing point is that just as successful Jews become influential, and rightly so, commercial and social success out of proportion to their numbers in the population…and expand their support of the Democratic party, they are joined as allies with a growing number of Muslims who likewise support Democrats…such as in my old homeland of Minneapolis-St. Paul where many émigrés from Somalia have gathered…and in Dearborn and Detroit, Michigan where Arabs to zealously oppose a foreign policy that is dedicated to the preservation of Israel and establishment of Middle East peace. The Democratic party doesn’t change to respect their influence. Take a look.

In the House, Democrat Nick Rahall of West Virginia is chairman of the Arab-American caucus in the House…Democrat David Obey of Wisconsin, aided by Jewish contributions, is the new chairman of House Appropriations which will give his criticism of foreign aid to Israel new momentum…his counterpart, 89-year-old shaky Bobby Byrd, ex-Ku Klux Klan member, the leading Senate Israel-baiter, is chairman of appropriations…Democrat John Dingell of Michigan is now chairman of Energy and Commerce, the same Dingell who said during last summer’s Lebanese war, “I don’t take sides for or against Hizballah or for or against Israel”—in recognition of the rising Muslim presence in his district.

When New York’s Rep. Gary Ackerman met with Israel’s prime minister Ehud Olmert recently and Olmert supported the U. S. position on Iraq, Ackerman admonished him saying, “Most of us here understand that our policy has been a thorough and total disaster for the United States” meaning that Olmert should agree with the Democratic program calling for withdrawal from Iraq. Last year in the House when the Palestinian anti-Terror Act of 2006 was considered which ruled that the Palestinian Authority receive no funds until the president could certify that terror groups were not among the recipients, of 46 representatives who either actively opposed the bill or were unwilling to vote for it, 41 were Democrats…including Rahall, Obey, Byrd and Dingell, now committee chairmen.

Then there’s Democrat Maxine Waters who address the anti-Israel, pro-Muslim CAIR post-election celebration banquet last month, the grassroots Democratic support that nominated Ned Lamont over Sen. Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut with Hillary Clinton and Tom Dodd pledging Lamont support in the general against Lieberman who ran—and won—as an independent. California Democrats elected Gerald McNerney whose links are to the crackpot Holocaust deniers at the Institute for Historical Review. Stepping up ahead in seniority is Democrat James Moran of Virginia who has said the U. S. would never have gone to war in Iraq but “for the strong support of the Jewish community”—when, in fact, American Jews by every index of public opinion strenuously opposed U. S. entry into the war.

Democrat John Conyers of Detroit with the chairmanship of House Judiciary after he celebrated a procession of witnesses blaming Israel for its “agents of influence.” The most outlandish statement of all came last summer from the far-left front group called the “Israel Policy Forum” which is anything but pro-Israel…a group which declared, “If there are members of Congress who are truly antagonistic toward Israel, they keep their views secret.” W-h-a-t? Let this non-Jew ask: What in the name of God has happened to Jewish efforts to protect legitimate self-interest in the political process? If Jews don’t recognize their friends, if they continue to support their enemies, why should the Republican party continue to maim itself with public opinion as the sole defender of the only democracy in the Middle East?