WOLCOTT JEW RANT ..... YET AGAIN,YAWN

I thought I was the only getting all those Jew hating emails chiding me for not reporting on the Madoff scandal. Why should I? Madoff, a star in liberal philanthropic circles, is a crook. Period. He doesn't represent a movement or an ideology. He is a thief  and I hope they put him away for a long, long time. Terrible yes, but what's to report? That all Jews are not perfect? Are we supposed to be perfect? Wow.

Debbie Schlussel has been on receiving end of these anti-Jew rants as well. Not only that, the washerwoman Wolcott is also on the warpath. Hell hath no fury like a Wolcott rant.  Having been the object of Wolcott's perverse affection, I find his latest Jew rant predictable. We know how deeply Wolcott cares about Jewish charities now don't we?

Here is an excerpt from Debbie's post. Read it all here:

I keep getting e-mails from people--some of them clearly anti-Semitic--asking why I haven't written about investment Ponzi scheme king Bernard Madoff and his scandal. Well, for one thing, it's been covered and over-covered to death, and I don't have anything to add. For another, a greedy left-wing liberal rips off mostly other greedy left-wing liberals. Sorry, but that's go nothin' to do with me.

That said, I'm really surprised at the level of anti-Semitism leveled at me and other Jews because of this charlatan who was more left-wing than he was Jewish (he wasn't a religious, practicing Jew by most accounts, even if he funded some, mostly left-wing and a few worthy Jewish charities).

The worst of it appears on Vanity Fair and it invokes my name. Anti-Semite, pan-Islamist, calorically-gifted (or is that, Differently Digestive?) Vanity Fair writer James Wolcott wrote this typeface version of rat-a-tat-tat:

James Wolcott (left): Anti-Semitic Vanity Fair Writer Uses Madoff Scandal to Attack Jews, Me

Working from the deep, respectable, cushioned inside, Bernard Madoff inflicted more damage and misery on Jewish families, charities, and institutions than all of the homegrown cells of jihadists running wild in the imaginations of Pamela Geller, Debbie Schlussel, Francis Porretto, Michelle Malkin, David Horowitz, and the flat sodas at Pajamas Media. These great bloggers have been scanning the horizon for pirates, oblivious to the bomb about to go off below deck.

Not to dignify his anti-Semitism, but . . . .

Um, Mr. Wolcott, let's be clear: While what he did was reprehensible and criminal (and he should have the book thrown at him), Madoff didn't murder a single individual, Jewish or otherwise. He didn't fly planes into buildings and tell people to call their families and say good-bye. 19 Muslims murdered nearly 3,000--not 3,000 Jews, but 3,000 Americans. It's not relevant who did what to Jews, when we speak of terrorism. 9/11 should have made clear-if not, many attacks on Americans beforehand--that terrorism is everyone's issue, not just the Jews. Likewise, why should I care whether his victims were Jewish-Americans or random Americans. That you would indicate I'd only care about the former tells me what you think of the Jews, even aside from your screed.

Bottom Line: To compare Madoff to Islamic terrorism is like comparing an ant pissing to a continental tsunami or Hurricane Katrina.

The rest here.

Comments

[TINBH]

Now why is that there’s non-stop “news” the “evil Joos” involved in money-corruption?

Anything to do with heavily-arab-influenced US lamestream media?

Here’s a story conveniently left out of US lamestream media coverage.

http://www.aim.org/aim-report/saudi-billionaire-buys-good-press-in-u.s./

By Cliff Kincad
“Saudi Billionaire Buys Good Press in U.S.

… more accurate way to put it is to say that U.S. tax dollars were being pumped into a failed bank to help a Saudi prince. …
Will the American people be given the true story of the Citigroup bailout? Consider the fact that Alwaleed, one of the richest men in the world, not only owns a stake in Citigroup but News Corporation (parent of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal), Time Warner (parent of Time and CNN) and The Walt Disney Company (parent of ABC News). This helps explain the lack of scrutiny about his stake in Citigroup in the coverage of the federal “rescue” of the Wall Street firm.
But Citigroup got $20 billion from the Treasury Department over the weekend of November 22/23—just before Thanksgiving—without any national debate or discussion at all. The Federal Reserve simply issued a press release announcing that the taxpayers were on the hook not only for the $20 billion but $306 billion in loans to the company. That’s on top of a previous $25 billion invested in the company by the Treasury Department."

Fellow Americans - pull your heads out from -- you know where.

[jj]

pamela:

jameswolcott. a fruitcake for every season.

john jay

[kobi]

here's an intelligent response to the scandal. please note: madoff is NOT an orthodox jew.

The attached letter by a noted rabbi in Los Angeles, Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, appeared on the Cross-Currents Blog, which serves as a discussion forum for Orthodox Jews. I am sending it to some friends in Los Angeles, as it also refutes an untrue statement about Madoff's religious affiliation which appeared in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles. The statement in the Jewish Journal called Madoff an Orthodox Jew;: however, I remember him from my work at the American Jewish Congress, and I have no recollection of him being an Orthodox Jew. The attached letter from the Cross-Currents blog by the noted rabbi in Los Angeles confirms that the statement calling Madoff an Orthodox Jew is not true. I am pleased that this libel is refuted; however, I want to add an important point: A high percentage of the halacha of the Torah deals with economic ethics; thus, Madoff, regardless of his affiliation, cannot be considered to be someone who is truly observing the halacha of the Torah; on the contrary, he has violated basic mitzvos of the Torah, and because it is known that he is Jewish, he has desecrated the Divine Name that we, the Jewish people, are to sanctify in this world through our words and deeds.

December 18, 2008
Thoughts on the Madoff Debacle
Filed by Yitzchok Adlerstein @ 4:03 am

No, he’s not Orthodox. More on that later.

Within a handful of hours after the story broke, the Nazi sites spun it as predicted. Cretins that they are (and therefore understanding nothing about where the money went), they questioned where someone could hide $50 billion. The answer is self-evident: the Zionist Jew had it all shipped to banks in Israel! The fallout would have likely been far worse if Madoff would have embezzled little old ladies in Middle America. Instead, so many of the victims were Jews. The racist and Arab sites were too busy gloating over all those Jews losing fortunes to try to spin this as the latest epilogue to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and their plan for global domination.

Less predictable was the baseless charge that Madoff was Orthodox. Rabbi Elliot Dorff, rector of American Jewish University (formerly University of Judaism, the West Coast equivalent to the Conservative movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary) wondered how a person who davened three times a day could get it so wrong.. It all goes to show, he argued, that ritual observance is not enough, and Jews must learn to incorporate ethics and morals in their behavior, rather than stay mired in empty formalism and legalism. (This is an old mantra that the Conservative movement dusts off every now and then to criticize errant Orthodox behavior. The thought, of course, is essentially correct, and very much a part of Orthodox consciousness and teaching. The implication that somehow Conservative Jews are more ethical and moral because they are not mired in halachic detail is both counterfactual and logically ludicrous.)

Although we have no dearth of scoundrels in our midst, this one did not belong to us. I challenged Brad Greenberg, the Jewish Journal’s “God Blog” master on it, and both of us checked on the facts. I reached someone in Manhattan whose name I cannot use, but knows the story and the players from the inside. “A vicious lie,” was his reaction to the claim that Madoff was Orthodox. He vigorously attested to the fact that Madoff is not in any manner of form shomer shabbos, and cannot be considered Orthodox. While it may be harder to pin the label “Conservative” or “Reform” (or Mammon worshipper?) on anyone (at this point, no one wants him in their camp), there are accepted criteria that define Orthodoxy. It is not about membership in a shul, but about observance of mitzvos, as specified in Shulchan Aruch.

Meanwhile, Brad checked with Rabbi Dorff who conceded that he had presumed Madoff to be Orthodox since he hung out with so many Orthodox, and bilked many of them – including Yeshiva University to the tune of $110M. He donated money to Orthodox causes. That points to his Orthodoxy. Right. If I donate to the NAACP, I guess that makes me African-American.

My source had a keen insight as to what went wrong, and urged that I share it even though I can’t use his name. People could have and should have seen the debacle coming. Some did warn of it, but no one listened. The clue that so many missed was that Madoff apparently never ever filed a negative report about his investments. Real people are just not that consistent. They all have some good days, and some bad. Someone whose public persona admits to no faults is trying to be bigger than life – indeed G-dlike. People could have recognized the pretension.

Why did they not? Those who were fleeced were not evil, not stupid, and in very many cases not particularly greedy. They wanted to invest their money, or their charitable foundation’s money, safely and wisely. Madoff was an icon in the financial world, the one who started NASDAQ, and used his reputation and integrity as selling points. Still, so many upper-level money managers violated the rules of the game by concentrating too much money with one individual. How did this happen? What can the rest of us learn?

I offer a tentative argument, in the hope that it has some merit. A few decades before Freud, R. Yisrael Salanter was arguing the primacy of subconscious thought in human behavior. We like to think that we are rational, objective, and fully in charge. R. Yisrael taught that so much of our behavior is motivated by factors that we are not aware of. Without studying them, we are blissfully unaware of how our inner needs compel what we think are our rational thoughts and conclusions. We are rarely objective, unless we can fully grasp the dynamic that grips us from within.

Those who trusted Madoff were far from criminal, and had no more love of lucre than the rest of us. Hearing of Madoff’s apparent “successes,” they had an inner need not to see the countervailing arguments, to remain blind to the signals that something was wrong.

Maharal questions the upshot of the story of Kayin and Hevel [Cain and Abel]. As the dust settles, the good guy lies dead, and the bad guy cops a plea. It is a confusing message – doubly so when placed right after the terrible aftermath of the sin of eating from the forbidden fruit. If Hashem wanted us to still believe in ourselves, the first narrative after the expulsion from the Garden of Eden should have been about some small mitzvah that Adam or Chavah did that brought pleasure to their Creator.

Maharal offers a beautiful approach (pitting resolute evil against wimpy good), but I would like to offer a different one. Kayin broods over the rejection of his offering, hurt all the more by the fact that his brother’s offering was accepted, even though Kayin came up with the idea, and Hevel apparently copied his older brother. Hashem comes to him and questions his depression. The Seforno explains that Kayin believed that his feelings were justified by the inexplicable rejection of his offering. Hashem countered that if all he was concerned with was his failure, then he should be delighted rather than depressed! Success was as close as asking his brother for the formula for his korban (offering), that had been accepted.

Hashem really told him that his inner turmoil arose not from disappointment about his rejection, but from jealousy of his brother. What hurt was not the rejection, but the acceptance of Hevel’s korban. The message was a powerful one. Hashem showed Kayin that he was not master of himself, that he lacked the self-knowledge to understand his own inner reactions and makeup! How could he master the world, if he understood so little about himself? This dark story is actually a wonderful introduction to the rest of Torah. Why do we need the guidance of Torah in our actions and our thoughts? Because without it, we will never escape our own petty needs; we will never achieve the objectivity we all think we have.

[ProudinNC]

I vote he's an asshat wearing a fruitcake costume.

[yonason]

James Wolcott's claims to fame...

gratuitous malice
"Who's James Wolcott? That's the question that's precisely on no one's lips. That's the name that causes no one's breath to bate, and no one's senses to thrill.

But who is he, anyway, whether it matters or not?, you don't ask yourselves. As you refuse to play along, I'm forced to just go ahead and tell you anyway.

Well, he's pretty much a nobody. Oh, that's not quite true; his name is better known than, say, Dr. Emelius Starkmucus, but not much better known. He's often called "trenchant" and "mordant," and I don't really know what those words mean, but, using the "context clue" of the caricature on his website, I imagine they're just SAT words for "pudgy" and "pillow-bellied."

Basically, he's known for being an asshole in the pages of the free gay-escort-service ad-circular The Village Voice."

"I'm not sure who Wolcott is, actually)!"--DrSanity ...which about sums up the pinnacle of his achievements, anonymity. He should work harder to preserve it, because if he continues to fail, everyone will know what a looser he is.

[Francis W. Porretto]

Wolcott combines invincible ignorance with unparalleled viciousness. I was once baffled by his following, but then, I suppose the ignorant and vicious need their standard-bearers, just as the rest of us do.

[yonason]

James Wolcott's claims to fame...

gratuitous malicious ignorance
"Every once in awhile, in the spirit of "know thy enemy," you have to brace yourself and take a peek inside the fetid mind of an influential defeat-nik. "Enter, if you will," as Rod Serling might have said, "the head of one James Wolcott." Wolcott is an uber-pompous contributing editor to Vanity Fair, ... [who] was an opponent of the war in Iraq probably before Bush conceived it."

anonymity "I'm not sure who Wolcott is, actually)!"--DrSanity ...which about sums up the pinnacle of his achievements. He should work harder to preserve it, because if he continues to fail, then everyone will know what a looser he is.

Or, as Ace Of Spades puts it, "
"Who's James Wolcott? That's the question that's precisely on no one's lips. That's the name that causes no one's breath to bate, and no one's senses to thrill."

From the credible sources I've read, he can best be described as "flatulence in a suit."

[yonason]

Sorry, instead of "preview" I must have hit "post" on my first, above, which is jus an unfinished draft.

[gunjam]

Ms Geller: I think you know at root the real issue is this: The Jews are a "soft" target -- meaning that Wolcott can revile with with impunity, whereas, if he looks cross-eyed at a jihadist, he runs the risk of having his throat slit.