Weekly Standard Defends Kirk for Promoting Myths about Obama

David Streeter — April 21, 2010 – 9:27 am | Israel | Stop the Smears Comments (0) Add a comment

The Weekly Standard (TWS) recently defended and praised Republican Illinois Senate Candidate Mark Kirk for his recent statements that attempted to pass off the subjective opinions in The New York Times’ (NYT) recent analysis about President Barack Obama’s agenda vis-à-vis the Middle East as objective fact.  

 

However, it appears that TWS only decided to jump in when Chicago-based pro-Israel activist Steve Sheffey called Kirk out for playing politics with the U.S.-Israel relationship and using it to fuel his campaign. Worse, it appears from the statement in question, that Kirk is even trying to frighten the Illinois Jewish community into voting for him.  

 

What TWS seems to have missed—possibly because they were too busy formulating an ad hominem attack that accused Sheffey of being “disingenuous”—is that JTA’s Ron Kampeas objectively debunked Kirk’s statement and called him out for his partisan shilling. Is Kampeas, one of the Jewish community’s most prominent and respected journalists, also “disingenuous?”

 

This episode is indicative of the right-wing’s recent trend of exploiting the U.S-Israel relationship for partisan gain. Right-wingers have demonstrated very little accountability to the facts as of late. It even appears to be getting worse due to the seemingly increasing number of bloggers and pundits who recklessly try to pass off analysis—even if it is labeled as such (as the NYT piece was)—as objective fact.

 

This isn’t pro-Israel; it’s demagogic. For the sake of the U.S.-Israel relationship, partisan gamesmanship needs to stop immediately.

 

 

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