Did the First President Bush Lose His Job to the Israel Lobby?

[norml]

Did the First President Bush Lose His Job to the Israel Lobby?

FILE UNDER: Politics, Culture, U.S. Policy in the Mideast

Two newly-published reports suggest that the first President Bush, George H.W. Bush, lost his bid for a second term in the 1992 general election because of the Israel lobby.

First there's yesterday's Washington Post Magazine piece on the lobby. It explored the standoff between Bush and Yitzhak Shamir in 1992, when Bush tried to stop Israel from building more settlements in the Occupied Territories.

Bush paid a price... He got crushed in a small group of heavily Jewish precincts in states such as New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Florida in his November 1992 election loss to Bill Clinton.

The argument is made more emphatically in the Summer 2006 issue of Security Studies, in an important article on the effect of the Holocaust on our foreign policy titled: "The Myth of Abandonment: The Use and Abuse of the Holocaust Analogy," by Michael Desch, a professor at Texas A&M.


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http://mondoweiss.observer.com/2006/07/did-the-first-president-bush-lose-his-job-to-the-israel-lobb.html

[karynnj]

1. That is utter nonsense

The Jewish community in those states is very very heavily Democratic and has been at least since FDR. How many Jewish votes did Bush have against Dukakis?

[Josh]

2. Not sure, but I remember James Baker's famous line -

"Fuck the Jews, they don't vote for us anyway."

[karynnj]

3. Remember that too

The percents of Jews voting for Republican presidents and though they are less skewed than African American, they are pretty skewed. 79% of Jews voted Gore/Leiberman, 78% voted Kerry/Edwards. It's very hard to be the "swing vote" AGAINST the Republicans when only slightly more than 20% ordinarily vote Republican and we are only 2% of the population nationwide - though we are clustered in certain areas.

It would take an anti-Israel candidate (no current candidate comes close - most have about 100% ratings) for Jews to leave the Democrats.

[saltpoint]

5. Lovely. Just the tone I like struck by a Secretary of State.

Jim Baker.

Rattlesnake.

[saltpoint]

4. Poppy faced some insurmountable problems -- of his own making

or doing.

He couldn't tell a reporter the approximate cost of a loaf of bread or quart of milk in an American grocery store, leaving the impression that he was an aristocratic elitist snob who lived easily on old money while wage-earners struggled in the real world, etc.

He couldn't talk either. We knock Dubya for being such a moron, but Poppy wasn't much better. Some amazingly disconnected sentences shot out of Poppy's mouth from time to time.

He was rumored to be medicated. In some circles the rumor was very strong.

He alienated the far right inside his party. They perceived that he was not really one of them. Whether he was or not, his administration was perceived to have drifted from whatever goals the Right had in mind. Many warhawks in particular thought he should have "gone in after" Saddam Hussein when the opportunity presented itself. Doonesbury portrayed him as a man whose manhood was compromised, and drew him in daily strips with a handbag.

And there was this governor from Arkansas, who wasn't given much of a chance early on, but who came to prove himself very determined, politically savvy, and enormously personable.

Bush had no cards to play by fall of 1992, and he lost his presidency.

[cali]

6. This is nonsense

and a thinly disguised way of saying the Jews control the gov't.

[Josh]

7. Agreed, and the electoral math doesn't add up -

even if we allow that the Israel lobby somehow shifted votes that would have gone for Bush to Clinton among Jews, who are 2% of the population in the States, the article singles out New York, New Jersey, Ohio, and Florida as the states that tilted it. Leaving aside that Bush actually WON Florida, the combined electoral votes of Ohio, New Jersey, and New York (69 EV) would not have changed the winner, as Clinton won 370 electoral votes when he only needed 270 to win.

There's no doubt that the Israeli lobby is strong and powerful, but everybody lobbies, with different levels of success.

[Bonobo]

8. Are you an Anti-Zionist, Mr. Norml?

[AzDar]

9. Bush the Smarter lost because he sucked. Bush the Dumber won

because he cheated.

[question everything]

10. No. He was not rabid enough for the GOP like Buchanan

with his "culture war" speech during the convention.

Why does everything that happen in Washington has to be traced to Israel or to American Jews? Is it because so many are gullible here that will swallow this?

It is in the same line of African Americans lusting after white women because of their unusual endowment. Some lines that many ignorant people swallowed because it was so convenient and provided an excuse for so many unpleasantness in their lives.

They thought that he would be like the Reagan third term and, of course, he was not. Too educated and intelligent as much as he tried to hide it.

[The Magistrate]

11. Locking

Flame-Bait.