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Sunday, May 29, 2005

What on earth is Dana Milbank thinking?
Posted by Jill | 7:35 AM

Remember that scene from Annie Hall in which Woody Allen's character is ranting about how people are always saying "Jew"?

ALVY
I distinctly heard it. He muttered under
his breath, "Jew."

ROB
You're crazy!

ALVY
No, I'm not. We were walking off the
tennis court, and you know, he was there
and me and his wife, and he looked at her
and then they both looked at me, and under
his breath he said, "Jew."

ROB
Alvy, you're a total paranoid.

ALVY
Wh- How am I a paran-? Well, I pick up on
those kind o' things. You know, I was
having lunch with some guys from NBC, so
I said ... uh, "Did you eat yet or what?"
and Tom Christie said, "No, didchoo?"
Not, did you, didchoo eat? Jew? No, not
did you eat, but Jew eat? Jew. You get it?
Jew eat?


Well, it's hard not to feel like Alvy Singer when confronted with Dana Milbank's column in today's WaPo (emphases mine):

Bush's Jewish Allies Demur on Stem Cells

By Dana Milbank

Sunday, May 29, 2005; Page A04

The fight to fund embryonic stem cell research has opened a fissure of biblical proportions.

When President Bush last week branded as unethical the stem-cell legislation making its way through Congress, he found himself in a dogma dispute with Orthodox Jews, one of his most valuable constituencies.

The Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, the umbrella group for the most conservative branch of Judaism, sided with Christian conservatives on the Terri Schiavo case, public displays of the Ten Commandments, opposition to assisted suicide and same-sex marriage, and more federal support for religious charities.

But after the House passed a bill Tuesday endorsing federal funding of embryonic stem cell research, the Orthodox group applauded. The "potential to save and heal human lives is an integral part of valuing human life," it said. "Moreover, the traditional Jewish perspective does not accord an embryo outside of the womb the full status of humanhood and its attendant protections."

That puts the Jews at odds with Bush -- who said the bill "would take us across a critical ethical line by creating new incentives for the ongoing destruction of emerging human life" -- and with House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), who condemned "the moral catastrophe of means-justifying-the-ends morality." It also conflicted with the Family Research Council, a Christian group that called the bill "unconscionable" and "morally abhorrent."


Oh, it goes on like this, citing a National Review article by Eric Cohen of the so-called Ethics and Public Policy Center:

"Jews," Cohen writes, "seem to have forgotten even the minimal liberal wisdom of tolerance -- the wisdom of not trampling on the moral opinions of their fellow citizens, like pro-life Christians, who believe embryo destruction is not only evil but the gravest evil."


I wonder what kind of favor Eric Cohen thinks he's going to curry with Christian conservatives with this kind of crap, and I wonder where Dana Milbank suddenly acquired this very tin ear.

Maybe this kind of hyper-attunement to the word "Jew" is part of the Jewish DNA, but the tone of this article sure seemed to finger-point to ALL Jews as being intolerant and inconsistent on morality.

It's all very strange, because secular and Reform Jews have less in common with Orthodox Jews than Christians do...which makes this catch-all use of the term "Jew" even more baffling.
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