In the latest manifestation of intolerance, the Museum of Jewish Heritage has withdrawn a previous invitation to John Judis to give a talk on his new book, Genesis: Truman, American Jews, And the Origins Of The Arab-Israeli Conflict. It’s distressing how some in the American Jewish community seem so terrified of open public debate about Israel, America and Zionism, and particularly poignant in this case. I knew John as a colleague at TNR for many years, and he is a sober, restrained, reasoned intellectual: always careful, never inflammatory, but also possessed of a very keen sense of social justice. We didn’t see eye to eye on a lot of things, but I was proud to edit and publish him. It does not surprise me that the usual hatchet-men are on his case for daring to question the accepted story of Israel’s birth, and to pinpoint the moral costs of it. But it is depressing nonetheless. All I can do in response is to order the book from Amazon. You can too. A decent review can be found here. Another rave was just published in the Boston Globe.
So I brought up the parallels between Hillary Clinton and the fictional Claire Underwood. No, I’m not trying to rehash the 1990s. I actually think that Clinton’s best argument for the presidency is that she’s a tough “old broad” who knows how to make things work in Washington. It has the added benefit of being true, unlike all the Clintonista bullshit.
Ukraine erupted; another black teen was shot by an angry racist white guy who couldn’t be convicted of pre-meditated murder; I had my fill of the liar in charge of NSA surveillance, James Clapper; and former inmates from the gulags of North Korea described and illustrated several of the torture techniques Dick Cheney and Kim Jong-Un have in common.
The most popular post of the day was What The Hell Just Happened In Kansas? That single post has now garnered more than 1.6 million pageviews; and well over a million unique visitors since it went live. Second up: How Much Is Hillary Clinton Like Claire Underwood?
Rabbits!
See you in the morning.
The Dish 