Although there’s no lull in “news” early this month—Poland’s presidential election, I-can’t-see-or-hear-nobody Keir Starmer’s ongoing attempt to become the most vilified UK Prime Minister since Rishi Sunak, the color of Greta Thunberg’s smock, Donald Trump’s real-or-fake feud with Elon Musk and his bizarre roulette-table tactics on tariffs, so frequent that financial markets no longer pay attention, the extraordinarily weird Democratic mayoral primary in NYC that has scumbag Andrew Cuomo in the lead, and the Yankees rolling along without Juan Soto—leave it to The New York Times’ chief Washington correspondent Peter Baker to whip up a frenzy among those who read his DNC-sponsored dispatches about Trump’s alleged anti-Semitism.
His above-the-fold story on June 3rd, “Denouncing Antisemitism, Trump Also Fans Its Flames,” was a half-baked “news analysis,” an “everbrown” that consisted mostly of the President’s past association with individuals who’ve made flattering comments about Hitler (Mussolini was snubbed!), and an anecdote from a 1990 interview in which Trump said he owned a copy of Mein Kampf. (As if he’s the only American that has that famous work in a bookcase.)
Baker: “In the Oval Office one day last week, President Trump renewed his no-holds-barred attack on the nation’s oldest university. ‘They’re totally anti-Semitic at Harvard,’ he declared.” A generalization, obviously—and I think Trump’s threatened ban on all foreign students from American universities is short-sighted and counter-productive, and probably won’t go into effect—but his denouncement of students (with approbation from some professors) demonstrating, sometimes violently, in favor of Palestine/Hamas, is “fanning the flames” of disgust from Americans who already hold higher education in low regard. Every day there’s a story about otherwise intelligent youths unable to complete course work (the “reading is too hard, dude”) and longtime academics perplexed from grading term papers aided by AI cheat-sheets. (By the way, The Washington Post is the first organization to admit it’s developing AI functions for editorial writing. I thought Post lifer Dana Milbank had already perfected that, but maybe he’s getting a bonus for helping others along.)
Mostly, Baker quotes anti-Trump Democrats (but not James Carville, who’s complaining that Jewish donors want a Trump tax cut more than electing Dems), like former Harvard president Lawrence Summers, a muted critic of his school’s behavior. (Baker doesn’t mention that Summers was an awful Treasury Secretary for Bill Clinton, because “facts are inconvenient,” dagnabbit.) Summers said Trump was the “least credible challenger” to the Harvard controversy. (I have no sympathy for elite universities having their federal funds pulled; it’s reasonable to assume they can manage. In Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University is bellyaching about this, laying off dead-wood staff, even though the school doesn’t pay taxes and, like Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, etc., has a huge endowment.)
Baker does shoehorn in an opposing view: “’Trump, based on some of the people he met with, is an imperfect carrier of an anti-Semitic message,’ said Ari Fleischer, a former White House press secretary for President George W. Bush who sits on the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition. ‘But the actions he has taken and the language he has used to protect the Jewish community are second to none. He is a fierce and strong voice on the side of America’s Jewish citizenry.’”
“Imperfect” is the appropriate word for Trump’s pro-Israel statements, particularly when the Times and Washington Post are justifiably criticized for downplaying the violence in Gaza, at Israel’s expense. Aside from now-pariah Sen. John Fetterman, a liberal Democrat who agrees with Trump’s Middle East policies, I haven’t seen other prominent Democrats, in the blow-the-house-down “shadow government,” like Chuck Schumer, AOC, Elizabeth Warren and Maura Healy, criticizing campus violence in language as clear as Trump’s. (I like campus demonstrations, always have, as a healthy First Amendment exercise, but today, when Jewish students are harassed and beaten up, count me out.)
Last week, John Podhoretz ridiculed an actor for saying, “Some of my best friends are Jewish,” claiming that’s a “classic anti-Semitic trope.” Maybe that’s sometimes true—just like “Some of my best friends are colored,” from the 1960s—but not always. It’s a matter of geography.
I grew up on Long Island, and roughly half of my friends were Jewish. I felt bad for my pals who were forced to attend Hebrew School twice weekly after regular grade-school and junior high classes were dismissed; it meant less players for pick-up softball and football games. No one was happy about it. I attended seven Bar Mitzvahs, and always enjoyed the after-services party, cutting up with everyone else, removing the tie and jacket and wowed by the finger food. When one of the few rich kids I knew “became a man” at 13, his dad arranged for all the invitees to get picked up by a limousine, a first for me, and that was the high life. At another, some wise guys goaded me into singing “Light My Fire” with a microphone when the schmaltzy band was on a break. The joke was on me—the catcalls were deafening—but it was really fun, even if I couldn’t carry a tune.
The accompanying photo was taken on my family’s front yard, with neighbors Doug Mazan and Dicky Howard mugging for my cheapo camera. They were “reformed” Jews whose families just went through the motions of the religion. (Two closer friends had ugly fallings-out with their fathers upon announcing they were marrying Christians; I liked both of the dads a lot, but old school was old school back then.)
Doug’s family “upsized” after Mr. Mazan got a promotion in fifth grade, so I lost track of him. Until… several years later my friend Keith told me (after completing a hashish deal): “You won’t believe this, Rusty, but I saw wimpy Mazan yesterday, with a brown-bag bottle of wine and his neck plastered with hickeys. I guess Dougie’s grown up!”
Dicky—sometimes a dick as a kid—was a diligent student who went to Ohio State and then settled down with a girlfriend in Seattle, until he was killed by a drunk driver at the age of 30. Dicky’s dad Mort was a good egg, and when my dad died in 1972, he immediately offered to take my brothers and me on his boat, so we could scatter his ashes in Huntington Harbor. Mort respected this solemn occasion, remained silent, and though he’s long gone, it was a memorable act of kindness.
Take a look at the clues to figure out the year: Lester Maddox is sworn in as governor of Georgia; a Human Be-In takes place in San Francisco; the American Basketball Association is formed; the 25th Amendment is added to the Constitution; George Lincoln Rockwell is assassinated; Laura Dern is born and Claude Rains dies; Race riots begin north of Minneapolis, Rochester, Detroit, D.C. and Milwaukee; The Jungle Book is released; the Kansas City Athletics move to Oakland for the following season; Billy Corgan is born and Joe Meek dies; Roger Pingeon wins the Tour de France; Chaim Potok’s The Chosen, William Manchester’s The Death of a President and William Golding’s The Pyramid are published; The Bee Gees sign with Robert Stigwood; Florence Ballard is fired from The Supremes; the Buckinghams score with “Kind of a Drag; and Anne Sexton wins the Poetry Pulitzer.
—Follow Russ Smith on Twitter: @MUGGER2023