Klein Lives: Have the rules changed? Last Tuesday, Time‘s Joe Klein wrote:
The fact that a great many Jewish neoconservatives–people like Joe Lieberman and the crowd over at Commentary–plumped for this war, and now for an even more foolish assault on Iran, raised the question of divided loyalties: using U.S. military power, U.S. lives and money, to make the world safe for Israel.
Max Boot, Pete Wehner, Jennifer Rubin, Paul Mirengoff and Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League all wrote confidently outraged responses to Klein’s raising of the "divided loyalties" possibility–and, indeed, it’s not the sort of assertion that has typically gone unpunished in the past. When Klein stubbornly failed to back down in a second post, Wehner somewhat smugly anticipated his near-certain demise:
It’s like watching a movie that you now know is going to end very badly, and very sadly.
But here’s the thing: It’s now a week later, and as far as I can tell Klein still has his job. He’s still blogging (wondering "why Lieberman is so fixated on Iran"). He hasn’t been publically rebuked by his employer. He hasn’t been forced to issue a groveling apology.
Can it be that the rules have changed? I suspect they have. And I think this is progress, for reasons outlined here and here. It should be possible to publicly debate whether some "Jewish neoconservatives," among others, too easily convinced themselves that America’s and Israel’s interests happily coincided in the prosecution of the war. Meanwhile, Foxman’s view that
Neoconservatives have the right to make their case without having their religion brought up. … [snip] Religious beliefs are personal, and matters of faith belong in the heart, in the church and in the home
seems preposterously artificial. Note to Foxman: I worked at The New Republic! The magazine supported the war. I consider it’s editor, Martin Peretz, to be a friend and mentor. But if you think Marty’s views are uninfluenced by his affinity for Israel–and that the views of many of the eminent neocons who visited our offices were uninfluenced by "matters of faith" and/or religious identity–then you don’t know Marty and you don’t know The New Republic.
