Dukes of Hazard

If you happened to catch Wolf Blitzer's interview with David Duke yesterday, you couldn't help but wonder why it is that when Jimmy Carter talks about smearing folks who criticize Israel as being anti-semitic it resonates differently than when David Duke says it. Could it be because Mr. Duke is a former member of the KKK? Could that be why he found it so objectionable that Wolf Blitzer mentioned his participation in that neo-Nazi group "eleven times." Wolf Blitzer gets high marks for at least trying to maintain his composure; that's about it.

I remember Mr. Duke when he still put a bag over his head, and his Armani suits, and Ralph Lauren ties, don't fool me now; once a skinhead, always a skinhead. You can bet on one thing, if that paragon of Jew-bashing, Adolph Hitler, were alive today, he'd do what David Duke did, get himself a Ph.D., put on a $1500 suit, dress like a politician, talk like a politician, and run for Congress. The scary thing is, he'd probably get elected. Whoever said "you can fool some of the people, some of the time" obviously slept through most of the 20th Century.

Mr. Duke has even done a stand-up job of adopting the lingo of those who blame the Jews for Iraq, Iran, and the fact that fertilizer won't make their lawns grow. He utters the same tired refrain about the media being owned by Jews, and laughs over mistaking "the Jewish Times of Los Angeles" and "The Los Angeles Times." What he fails to recognize is that the very station interviewing him is owned by Ted Turner who isn't Jewish. Also, his pointing the finger at Blitzer for being a lobbyist for Israel is no different from Blitzer pointing the finger at him for being a former member of the KKK. One good churn deserves another.

What's worse, Duke professes to distinguish between Zionism and Judaism, but his professions are about as genuine as his conversion to the thinking, and dissenting American elite. but there are so many pathetic fallacies, and illogics to what he has to say -- forgeddabout it....

When former President Jimmy Carter rightly says that no one can criticize Israel without being dubbed an anti-semite, I couldn't agree more. The "my country right or wrong" approach to Israel's occupation of Lebanon, and the disgraceful manner in which it treats its Muslim community deserves condemnation in the same way one condemns U.S. occupation of Iraq. The difference is that those who criticize Israel for treating its Arab community as second class citizens forget that Israel is a nation, and not a religion; the words "Israeli" and "Jew" are not synonymous.

Yes, yes, no one is denying the role of Perle and Wolfowitz in bringing Iraq to a theatre near you, but anyone foolish enough to think that the war in Iraq started because of Perle and Wolfowitz better not run for office any time soon. It's the same old, same old.... whenever there are serious problems in the world, folks look for a scapegoat, and the Jews have always been the most convenient ones.

Go back and watch the interview on You Tube again, I did. Notice that the two times Duke paused the longest were when Blitzer asked him if he hated Jews, and if he believed in the Holocaust. If you think Duke makes a plausible argument, or has the moral high ground, you're going to wake up with one hell of a hangover.