Schumer, Hagel, and Obama's 'Good Jews'

Chuck Schumer had his footprint, handprint, and just about every other print over Barack Obama’s second inauguration Monday. The New York senator even merited some gentle ribbing by his friends on Huff Post Comedy — Chuck Schumer Photobombs The Oath of Office.

This behavior should be no surprise considering the senator’s well-known camera-hogging proclivities and that he happens to be chairman of the Senate Rules Committee, therefore charged with being master of ceremonies for the inauguration and overseeing all preparations for Obama’s swearing-in, including making sure the traditional Congressional lunch that followed is chuck full [pun intended] of New York State products (Hudson Valley apple pie, etc.).

The New York Times’ The Caucus blog had some gentle fun of its own about this – This Inauguration Brought to You by the State of New York. We all know how “ungentle” the NYT would have treated this kind of porky behavior had Schumer been a Republican, but skip over that for a moment to a more important matter.

Just a few days ago, the New York senator was in the eye of a storm surrounding Chuck Hagel’s nomination as secretary of Defense. After a private interview with the former Nebraska senator (he of the well-documented slurs against gays and Jews contrasting with a more laissez-faire attitude toward Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran), Chuck Schumer — in the role of wise counsel for all Jewish-Americans — announced he was “convinced” Hagel had changed his noxious opinions.

Well, good. But imagine if Hagel had not really changed his opinions (or if he semi-hemi-demi changed them). What would Chuck Schumer, as the president’s inaugural emcee and chief factotum of his second inauguration, have done then? Excoriate Hagel and demand he not be nominated, thus humiliating his mentor?

Not likely. But Schumer would never have had to do that — would never be put in that position — because the game was already rigged. Hagel would say the right things to Schumer who would relay those words to the world, reaping glory less than a week later in the role of president’s “best man” on national and international television.

The game has similarly also been rigged against the state of Israel. Schumer, consciously and/or unconsciously, has been one of the riggers, he and a squadron of Obama’s other “good Jews” including David Axelrod, Jack Lew, and Rahm Emanuel.

Meanwhile, the president — actually treating Israel like the fifty-first state she has been accused of being — has reportedly said the Jewish state doesn’t know what’s good for her.

Israel, for her part, is moving to the right. The reason is simple – although contra everything Obama thinks or wishes. The Israeli public is finally facing – years after the Oslo Accords and after unilaterally departing from the Sinai and Gaza only to be the recipient of endless missiles and terror attacks — that the Palestinians, leadership and public, have no real interest in a two–state solution. It is only the Israelis, ironically, that want one. For reasons of tribalism, vengeance, and religious primitivism, the Palestinians seek only a one-state solution. Theirs. If they had wanted a two-state solution, they could have had one of their own decades ago.

Anyone paying serious attention to the situation knows this sad and painful truth, but Obama’s “good Jews” (as well as their myriad supporters in the pundit class) almost always choose to ignore it. Their personal power is clearly more important to them, as evidenced by Schumer’s ubiquitous face at the inauguration. These people may excuse themselves by rationalizations — a classic is the “working for change from within,” employed by Alan Dershowitz and Ed Koch — but soon enough, as David Goldman has pointed out on this site, the moment of truth will come on Iran. History will have its accounting.

And fortunately, unlike the 1930s, the “good Jews” and their bien-pensant allies can say and do what they want. The Jews have their own state and their own army.

How much chuck could a woodchuck chuck? He can appear on all he wants on television but finally — not much.

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