Saturday, July 31, 2010

The New York Times, Anti-Semitism and the Mike McMahon Election Scandal: See No Evil

As widely reported, U.S. Congressman Mike McMahon, representing New York's 13th District comprising Staten Island and part of Brooklyn, fired his spokeswoman, Jennifer Nelson, after his reelection campaign staff compiled a list of 80 Jewish donors to the campaign of McMahon's Republican rival, Mike Grimm. The list, disseminated by McMahon's staff, was entitled "Grimm Jewish Money Q2."

Notwithstanding the dismissal of Jennifer Nelson, there remain many unanswered questions:

Republican Jewish Coalition Executive Director Matthew Brooks said on Friday in a statement that "in more than 25 years in politics I have never seen anything more despicable and offensive than this.”

"Congressman McMahon has fired his communications director, but what about the other staff involved? Who asked for that list to be compiled? Who approved that action? Congressman McMahon needs to do more than apologize for 'inappropriate comments' - he must be held accountable for actions that his campaign staff took to count Jews supporting his rival," Brooks said. “I don't think this is something that should be swept under the rug. Seeing such bigotry from a sitting congressman's campaign is deeply troubling."

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/democratic-congressman-fires-staffer-for-jewish-money-list-1.305068

Query: Why has this hot potato been ignored by the op-ed pundits of The New York Times?

More to the point, where is the news coverage of this story by The New York Times? After all, it does involve New York. I separately entered the names "Mike McMahon" and "Jennifer Nelson" in the search tool appearing in the upper left hand corner of The Times's online website and found nothing. I also did a Google search using "New York Times", "Mike McMahon" and "Jennifer Nelson", and after examining ten pages of results, again came up dry.

Why is The Times ignoring this story? A case in which the pot has decided not to call the kettle black?

Or, when it involves local Democratic congressional candidates, is it a matter of "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil"?

5 comments:

  1. THank you, Jeffrey

    This is the original article:
    http://www.observer.com/2010/politics/mcmahon-campaign-hits-grimm-taking-jewish-money

    McMahon is a Democrat, Grimm is a Republican. This is important for people who vote in the USA.

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  2. NOT defending the New York Times, but they have an ingrained bad habit of ignoring news outside of Manhattan. A tornado hit the northwest Bronx last Sunday, and the NYT did not think it newsworthy. Maybe because the tornado hit the very Jewish neighborhood of Riverdale? No, it was not in Manhattan. It is an extreme bias against the outer Boroughs. The NYT certainly is not going to cover anything about any Democrat being challenged for Congress, especially in the 13th CD.
    The New York Daily News (Zuckerman) and the New York Post (Murdoch) 'service' the outer boroughs, and both cover the story, as does The Jewish Week.

    In general, there is enormous avoidance by all the media in tackling what they know is happening - Jewish donors to the Democratic party are being VERY picky, and money is flowing to selected GOP candidates. This is what is happening in the Florida Senate race, with money flowing to now Independent Charlie Crist, and the only clue is that the Crist campaign now employs former key staffers of Dems Chuck Schumer and Robert Wexler.

    Grimm has a GOP primary opponent. Here is my take on the race:
    McMahon is a 1st-term Democrat representing the 13th CD in NYC that traditionally voted Republican for Congress until Fosella resigned due to sex scandal. Demographically skewed Italian-American. Bay Ridge, Bensonhurst, Dyker Heights, and Gravesend in Brooklyn, and all of Staten Island, which has given up trying to secede from New York and become part of New Jersey. Grimm (part-Italian, part-German), was endorsed by Rudy Giulani in Grimm's GOP primary battle with Michael Allegrettii, whose campaign Manager Ray Riley stated in a press release week of June 7 “McMahon as a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee has made a judgment that receiving campaign cash from the Turkish lobby is more important than doing what is right,” Some Jewish (Syrian and Russian) micro-neighborhoods in Brooklyn are in this CD, but the Egyptian Copts on Staten Island could well be the swing vote.

    Here are some other opinions about the demographics of the 13th CD:
    http://www.nationalreview.com/campaign-spot/242115/how-will-mcmahons-district-respond-his-campaigns-jews-list

    The story where the NYT is dropping the ball (so far) is the ADL statement opposing the Cordoba (now Park51) Islamic center to be built 600 feet from Ground Zero. Long Island Congressman Peter King (r) is calling for an investigation into the financing, and, based on what I have researched, King is correct to do so. The NYT is forced to cover this story because it is 1) in Manhattan, 2) resonating nationally, and 3) about to become an issue in the governor's race. The ADL and Foxman are under enormous assault for this statement, but, I agree. Wrong location. Jeff Jacoby had an op-ed in the Boston Globe (NYT owned) on June 6 where he interviewed proven moderate American muslim leaders, who all opposed the location. NYT made a mistake in not publishing Jacoby in the NYT.



    As for me, I also oppose the location because of the proposed architectural design and scale. Knowing how things usually work in New York, it might take the architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable to stop this, if AG Cuomo (and the Dem nominee for governor) fails to investigate the money trail.

    K2K

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  3. The NYT has added a new feature to comments. You can Report Inappropriate. A menu appears, and you can check one or all of these selections:
    Vulgar. Inflammatory. Personal Attack. Spam. Off-topic.

    I just went through most of the comments attached to Paul Krugman's blogpost titled "Bad for the Jews?" which is about the ADL statement on the proposed Islamic center near Ground Zero. (really off-topic for Krugman) Can't wait to see if #170 gets some attention while I wait to see if my comment ever gets approved.

    K2K

    It's a start.




    http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/bad-for-the-jews/

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks, K2K.

    I noticed the "Inappropriate" button, and tried it several times in the past to no avail. My guess is that the complaint goes back to the "moderator" who approved the comment in the first place.

    The only time that I succeeded in having The Times remove a comment almost "real-time" was when a reader advocated in writing the murder of Dick Cheney, and a senior editor agreed that this was too extreme.

    As you can imagine, I am currently unpopular at The Times, but allow me to send an e-mail to Andrew Rosenthal, whom I was recently instructed not to contact, concerning comment no. 170, and let's see what happens.

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  5. Thanks again, K2K. See new blog entry.

    ReplyDelete