{"id":34494,"date":"2010-01-22T01:01:01","date_gmt":"2011-05-19T01:25:30","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2011-05-19T01:25:30","modified_gmt":"2011-05-19T01:25:30","slug":"a_memo_to_abraham_foxman2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2010\/01\/22\/a_memo_to_abraham_foxman2\/","title":{"rendered":"A Memo to Abraham Foxman"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Earlier this week, I posed a political question in the process and in the context of trying to help a friend and my audience understand the concept that people ask me about a lot: ‘Why are so many Jewish people liberal?\u2019 And a friend of mine — a good friend of mine, Norman Podhoretz — has written a book<\/a>, an excellent book to explain it. Mr. Podhoretz is himself Jewish. He is the husband of Midge Decter and the father of John Podhoretz, and I know all of them very well and have socialized with them on a number of occasions, and in the process of… Let me just read you this. Podhoretz has written a response to Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, who is demanding that I apologize for ‘borderline anti-Semitism.\u2019 Now, anybody who listens to this program even marginally knows that this program is and has consistently been one of the most outspoken supporters of the Jewish people and of Israel in particular. <\/p>\n

And Mr. Foxman knows this as well. What I suspect is the usual thing that happened. Somebody took a few words that I said in a pretty long monologue, cut them up, and published them in a way to make it appear I said something that I didn\u2019t say, and rather than check it out… And by now I would think anybody in the mainstream media or in any mainstream American endeavor, after 20 years of these types of attacks — me being taken out of context and every one of them being shown to be wrong, every one of these attacks being shown to be fallacious — I would think that by now some people would realize what\u2019s going on. But I don\u2019t think that they do. I think they want these attacks to be real. I think they want the out-of-context quotes to be real. It\u2019s just like during this NFL controversy, when there were purely fabricated quotes of me that were plastered all over the American media: newspapers, websites, television. <\/p>\n

The Reverend Jackson repeated them. They said that I supposedly supported slavery because it kept the streets safe at night and that I wanted a congressional medal given to the assassin of Dr. Martin Luther King. And people knew that I didn\u2019t say it but they wanted to believe I\u2019d said it, because they would love to get rid of me. Folks, the left has never been angrier at me than they are this week because of what I myself said this week only yesterday. Back when Obama was inaugurated, even prior to him being inaugurated, everybody was inside the celebrity bubble. ‘Oh, we must not criticize our brand-new president. He\u2019s so young and he\u2019s so historical. This means so much to America. We must hope and we must pray that he succeeds.\u2019 Well, I didn\u2019t join any of that. I didn\u2019t want him to succeed. I don\u2019t want socialism in this country. I do not want the government running car companies, the banks, the student loan program. <\/p>\n

I don\u2019t want the government telling banks how they can and can\u2019t operate. I don\u2019t want Obama being everybody\u2019s boss. I don\u2019t want the government being able to hire and fire people and set salaries. That\u2019s all happened. I don\u2019t want that kind of thing. I wanted him to fail. I was the only person to say so, and that changed the political dynamic. It got rid of it. It burst the celebrity bubble that everybody was in treating Obama not as a politician but something much larger: ‘Transformational, postpartisan, postracial,\u2019 and now we know post-achievement: He hasn\u2019t achieved anything. So this year has transpired and everything he\u2019s fought for, the big things, have crashed and burned. And it all came to a culmination this week. <\/p>\n

So the sheer hatred of me crystallized and compacted this week. You know, I totally understand people trying to damage me and my credibility so that I\u2019m no longer a factor. The thing is when they do this they only amplify me and add to my supposed importance. But you don\u2019t have to be anything other than a liberal to lie about me and attack me and so forth, and this is silly. This ‘borderline anti-Semitic\u2019 charge from the Anti-Defamation League is just silly, and here is what Mr. Podhoretz himself has written in response. He titled this: ‘It\u2019s Not Rush Limbaugh Who Should Apologize — In my new book, ‘Why Are Jews Liberals?\u2019, I argue that it no longer makes any sense for so many of my fellow Jews to go on aligning themselves with the forces of the Left. <\/p>\n

‘I also try to show that our interests and our ideals, both as Americans and as Jews, have come in recent decades to be better served by the forces of the Right. In the course of describing and agreeing with the book the other day, Rush Limbaugh cited a few of the numerous reasons for the widespread puzzlement over the persistence of liberalism within the American Jewish community. And while discussing those reasons, he pointed to the undeniable fact that for ‘a lot of people\u2019 — ‘prejudiced people,\u2019 as he called them twice — he was not referring to himself; he was referring to bigots, prejudiced people…\u2019 I was refer to Jew haters — and, Mr. Foxman, this is what\u2019s been omitted from what you read that I said. I was alluding to what you know exists. You know that there are Jew haters out there and I know there are Jew haters out there, and many of them are in the Obama administration or in his circle of friends. <\/p>\n

And Mr. Foxman, if you really want to go after anti-Semitism you should first start looking at it on the left and within the Obama administration and within his circle of friends, because that\u2019s why you\u2019re going to find it. You\u2019re not going to find anti-Semitism on this radio show. You\u2019re going to find nothing but love and respect and admiration for the Jewish people and an unwavering support for Israel that has not ever shaken. I was referring to the Jew haters, the bigots. Twice I referred to ‘prejudiced people.\u2019 Let me read the paragraph over here again: ‘And while discussing those reasons, he pointed to the undeniable fact that for ‘a lot of people\u2019 — ‘prejudiced people,\u2019 as he called them twice — he was not referring to himself; he was referring to bigots, prejudiced people the words ‘banker\u2019 and ‘Wall Street\u2019 are code words for ‘Jewish.\u2019<\/p>\n

‘Was it possible, he wondered, that Obama\u2019s attacks on bankers and Wall Street were triggering a certain amount of buyer\u2019s remorse within the American Jewish community, which gave him 78% of its vote? Finally, taking off from my observation that many Jewish liberals like to call themselves independents,\u2019 this is Mr. Podhoretz speaking, ‘[Limbaugh] wondered whether a fair number of the self-described independents who deserted Obama and voted for Scott Brown might actually have been Jewish liberals. If so, [Limbaugh] concluded, Brown\u2019s ‘victory could be even more indicative of an even bigger change in the political temper of the country than has so far been recognized.\u2019 For this, Rush Limbaugh has been subjected to a vile attack by Abraham Foxman, the national director of the Anti-Defamation League.<\/p>\n

‘Of course, Mr. Foxman has a long history of seeing an anti-Semite under every conservative bed while blinding himself to the blatant fact that anti-Semitism has largely been banished from the Right in the past forty years, and that it has found a hospitable new home on the Left, especially where Israel is concerned.\u2019 The left is where the anti-Israel forces exist, including in this administration, Mr. Foxman! ‘This makes Foxman a perfect embodiment of the phenomenon I analyze in ‘Why Are Jews Liberals?\u2019 Now Foxman has the chutzpah to denounce Rush Limbaugh as an anti-Semite and to demand an apology from him to boot. Well, if an apology is owed here, it is the national director of the Anti-Defamation League who should apologize for the defamatory accusation of anti-Semitism that he himself has hurled against so loyal a friend of Israel as Rush Limbaugh.\u2019<\/p>\n

Michael Ledeen… By the way, we\u2019ve put Mr. Podhoretz\u2019s statement on my website. It\u2019s also at the Commentary blog. Michael Ledeen weighed in on this with a post at the National Review Online Corner blog. ‘Norman Podhoretz quite properly takes Anti-Defamation League czar Abe Foxman to task for insinuating that Rush is somehow a Jew-hater for wondering if Jewish voters are having buyer\u2019s remorse regarding Obama. They certainly should, both because of Obama\u2019s striking nastiness to Israel and of his attacks on ‘greedy bankers\u2019 (which Rush mentioned), free broadcasting, and of course the crusade against American medicine, all enterprises in which Jews have long flourished. Rush should be a hero to Foxman and American Jews, but they are so blindly partisan that they can no longer distinguish between their friends and their enemies.<\/p>\n

‘Foxman has relentlessly attacked American Evangelicals — arguably the most pro-Jewish and pro-Israel people in America — but conveniently disappears when the government goes after real Jews for presumed ‘dual loyalty.\u2019 Which, one might say, is the core principle of the ADL. Foxman wants Rush to apologize. Nuts. I want Foxman retired and replaced by somebody who fights for Jews and our friends.\u2019 That\u2019s Michael Ledeen. You know, I have to tell you, folks, one of my closest friends is Mark Levin. Everybody knows this. Mark Levin is Jewish. Mark Levin is disgusted with Abraham Foxman. What I\u2019ve come to learn through this episode is how many Jewish people are disgusted with Abraham Foxman and have been for many years. I guess, basically… I really don\u2019t want to do this because Mr. Podhoretz\u2019 book is great (Why Are Jews Liberals?) and if you\u2019ve ever wondered that, you need to read his book. <\/p>\n

I know a lot of you do because it\u2019s been a question that I\u2019ve received a lot, particularly since the Obama administration. It was obvious from the early days of this administration that Israel was in the crosshairs of this administration. The Hollywood left supports Obama, and Jewish people on the left support Obama, and there are some people who said, ‘I don\u2019t understand. I thought Israel was a key thing to all Jewish people,\u2019 and I say, ‘Read Mr. Podhoretz\u2019s book: Why Are Jews Liberals?\u2019 Basically… It\u2019s more complicated than this but I synthesize it down to one thing: Liberals are liberals first. They\u2019re partisans first, whatever else they are. If they\u2019re feminists, they\u2019re still liberals first. If they\u2019re animal rights nuts, they\u2019re liberals first. If they are the hoaxers of climate change and global warming, they are liberals or socialists first — and the issues that they attach themselves to are simply their springboards, their jumping-off points for advancing liberalism and statism. <\/p>\n

That\u2019s what the Democrat Party has become: A coalition of all these disparate groups — the civil rights coalitions, the animal rights groups, feminism, the Hollywood left, all this stuff — and they all have one mission, and that is they hate conservatives and Republicans and they love government, and they have big problems with capitalism. So they\u2019re all united in trying to destroy capitalism — or limit it, or blame it — and make America more like a Western European, socialist democracy. Anyway, thanks to Mr. Podhoretz for his reply, also to Michael Ledeen. But Mr. Foxman, not only am I not going to apologize, I\u2019m going to say you should be embarrassed and next time call me if you think I\u2019ve said something anti-Semitic or call somebody that knows me and find out what I actually said rather than trusting your friends on the left to accurately report what I said. I was in the midst of promoting, because I think it was worthwhile, the work of a celebrated and brilliant American Jew: Norman Podhoretz, and you refer to me as ‘borderline anti-Semitic.\u2019 That doesn\u2019t compute, Mr. Foxman. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, I posed a political question in the process and in the context of trying to help a friend and my audience understand the concept that people ask me about a lot: ‘Why are so many Jewish people liberal?\u2019 And a friend of mine — a good friend of mine, Norman Podhoretz — […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nA Memo to Abraham Foxman - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2010\/01\/22\/a_memo_to_abraham_foxman2\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"A Memo to Abraham Foxman - 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