Dornan’s ‘Little Jew’ Remark
In an extraordinarily busy news week, your printing side by side the articles about Dornan’s “Jew” remarks and the President’s cursing of the press conjures a powerful footnote.
I wonder if I am alone and overreacting in anger and despair that elected leaders harbor such poisonous frames of references that, except for a vigilant press, would slide into a corrupt oblivion.
What does Vladimir Posner’s Jewish origin have to do with anything? Anything? Does changing the word “Jew” to “turncoat” invest the Congressional Record with better history? Of course the rabbis will forgive him in a political context, given Dornan’s support of “Jewish” causes. But Dornan’s footnote is a matter of heart, his and mine, words uttered and perceived emotionally where the soul lives, God’s house.
As a former journalist, I despair over the President’s curse on a profession he reduces largely to shouting rudely at him on his walks to car and helicopter. Why are reporters SOBs for asking questions on matters of urgent public concern? Is it simple violation of the President’s sense of proper time and place? Breaking ground rules on the management of “photo opportunities?”
Apologies help. So does humor, good will and the knowledge that “these things happen.” But not very much.
RAY N. KABAKER
Calabasas
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