Werthless wrote:Why don't you read my post where I listed his good examples and bad examples?

Thanks in advance.

[I]n endorsing the fiction about Palin’s hard-scrabble origins, Rubin also endorses some not so innocent fiction about Jews as hostile aliens within America. If Jews dislike Palin, it is because they feel themselves “above” regular Americans – because disdain to work with their hands – because they do not bear their fair share of military service – because they abort Down’s syndrome babies – because they confuse mere verbal fluency with practical wisdom. (I remember that Russell Kirk once flung this accusation against American Jews – and how passionately and rightly the editors of Commentary resented it as a “bloody outrage.”)

And this I think brings us to some of the true reasons for the Jewish disquiet with Palin.

Rubin’s first point has merit to it: Jews do think that knowledge is important to a president. They do think a president should be able to think clearly and to distinguish between true information and wishful delusions. I feel sure most Americans of all faiths would agree. Does Jennifer Rubin seriously suggest that this opinion is mistaken?

If American Jews have a problem with Palin, Rubin is right that problem 1 is that they – we – doubt her intellectual capacity for the job. But that’s only the start of the list of problems.

Ignorance is bad. But we all start ignorant. Jews – again like other people, only more so – expect their leaders to start early and to work hard to remedy their ignorance, by learning things. People who don’t, won’t or can’t learn – whose followers disparage the value or need to learn – are going to forfeit Jewish support, and not only Jewish support.

But even this is not the worst of it. Just guessing, but I think the real and most fundamental problem Jews have with Palin is not her gleeful ignorance, but her willful divisiveness. More than any politician in memory, Palin seems to divide her fellow-Americans into first class and second class citizens, real Americans and not-so-real Americans. To do her justice, she has never said anything to suggest that Jews as Jews fall into the second, less-real, class. But Jews do tend to have an intuition that when this sort of line-drawing is done, we are likely to find ourselves on the wrong side.

dajafi wrote:Well, it's not like I'm making an exclusive claim. And I haven't been in a synagogue since some time in the '90s. I'm more of a Seinfeld and food Jew.

drsmooth wrote:

Werthless wrote:Why don't you read my post where I listed his good examples and bad examples?

Thanks in advance.

I did read it - that's why I'm asking for something more systematic

I'm only trying to learn from you

Werthless wrote:I don't like how Brooks defines (or fails to define) the "educated" position. One would presume such a class would refer to a set of positions informed by some sort of research or evidence-driven analysis. Instead, here he lazily conflates the educated position with the liberal position. Yes, global warming (or climate change) policy is presumably driven by the pursuit of truth, but his other examples are weak. For example, abortion rights are not necessarily dominated by empirical research... support for abortion is based on a very complicated set of values placing the rights of a mother over rights of a fetus, mixed with a concern for the interests of society. And on gun control, I don't think there is a wide body of empirical evidence in support of gun control... but I could be wrong.

But even this is not the worst of it. Just guessing, but I think the real and most fundamental problem Jews have with Palin is not her gleeful ignorance, but her willful divisiveness. More than any politician in memory, Palin seems to divide her fellow-Americans into first class and second class citizens, real Americans and not-so-real Americans. To do her justice, she has never said anything to suggest that Jews as Jews fall into the second, less-real, class. But Jews do tend to have an intuition that when this sort of line-drawing is done, we are likely to find ourselves on the wrong side.

dajafi wrote:Two months after losing the last NYC mayoral race, Bill Thompson has declared for the next one, forty-six months hence.

Good move, Bill. Because that close (though not really all that close) was all you, big fella, not that so many of us were annoyed with Bloomberg or anything. I'm sure you'll be just fine in four years, when actual talented pols like Weiner or DiBlasio are also trying to get the Dem nomination.

TenuredVulture wrote:So, now I guess I'm waiting for a "why do Episcopalians hate Palin?" article.

Rococo4 wrote:

dajafi wrote:Two months after losing the last NYC mayoral race, Bill Thompson has declared for the next one, forty-six months hence.

Good move, Bill. Because that close (though not really all that close) was all you, big fella, not that so many of us were annoyed with Bloomberg or anything. I'm sure you'll be just fine in four years, when actual talented pols like Weiner or DiBlasio are also trying to get the Dem nomination.

that blumenthal declared in 2007 he was going to challenge Lieberman in 2012..though now obvioulsy he is running in 2010

jerseyhoya wrote:According to the CNN exit poll, 45% of voters in the 2008 election were college graduates or had postgrad education. That seems high, but I guess educated folks are more likely to vote, and there's probably a little bit of lying going on there too.

Obama won the 28% w/ college degrees 50-48%. Obama won the 17% with postgrad stuff 58-40%. I realize they did rounding there, and I don't have the raw data, so this is a little rough, but that puts Obama at having won this 45% of the population by about a 53-45% margin. He won nationally 52.9-45.6% so the voting habits of people with college degrees (including people who have post grad degrees) almost exactly mirrored the electorate on the whole.

If you were to look at how these folks' opinions differed on a variety of issues from the electorate on the whole, I think you would find some interesting things. I don't know what poll(s) Brooks was looking at to write his column, and if there was a wider array of issues that had data so he could have picked that represented both sides of the aisle a little better. He probably should have, I guess, but I also don't see it being a big deal.

Werthless wrote:That was my attempt at a litmus test for an "educational" position. Someone suggested that the "educational" position was the majority opinion of those with a college or graduate degree. (That's not very interesting to me, since the overwhelming majority of Americans with graduate degrees vote Democrat, so Brooks is largely defining the educated position as the one supported by the Democratic party.)

Brooks' was probably using the latter definition, since the former definition doesn't make sense given his examples. Empirical evidence for/against gun control is mixed. And few politicians profess to hold a position on abortion based on a controlled test or study they've seen.

And smooth, I'm glad you realize I could teach you a thing or two. Humility is a tough lesson for people of an elder generation to learn when they haven't learned it at a young age. I'm proud of you.

allentown wrote:

jerseyhoya wrote:According to the CNN exit poll, 45% of voters in the 2008 election were college graduates or had postgrad education. That seems high, but I guess educated folks are more likely to vote, and there's probably a little bit of lying going on there too.

Obama won the 28% w/ college degrees 50-48%. Obama won the 17% with postgrad stuff 58-40%. I realize they did rounding there, and I don't have the raw data, so this is a little rough, but that puts Obama at having won this 45% of the population by about a 53-45% margin. He won nationally 52.9-45.6% so the voting habits of people with college degrees (including people who have post grad degrees) almost exactly mirrored the electorate on the whole.

If you were to look at how these folks' opinions differed on a variety of issues from the electorate on the whole, I think you would find some interesting things. I don't know what poll(s) Brooks was looking at to write his column, and if there was a wider array of issues that had data so he could have picked that represented both sides of the aisle a little better. He probably should have, I guess, but I also don't see it being a big deal.

Yeah, but now look at the non-college vote and segment it by black, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic white and you'll see Obama getting wiped out in the non-Hispanic white non-college grouping. In the primary and general, Obama did fine with well educated white voters, not so well with other white voters.

dajafi wrote:

Rococo4 wrote:

dajafi wrote:Two months after losing the last NYC mayoral race, Bill Thompson has declared for the next one, forty-six months hence.

Good move, Bill. Because that close (though not really all that close) was all you, big fella, not that so many of us were annoyed with Bloomberg or anything. I'm sure you'll be just fine in four years, when actual talented pols like Weiner or DiBlasio are also trying to get the Dem nomination.

that blumenthal declared in 2007 he was going to challenge Lieberman in 2012..though now obvioulsy he is running in 2010

He had (has) a day job. Thompson doesn't.

jerseyhoya wrote:Dodd Exits Gracefully

Nice article from Kornacki

Rosa DeLauro, the long-serving congresswoman from New Haven, could also be worth watching