Why Target Dingell?

by emptywheel

Let me make a prediction. John Dingell will beat his Republican opponent in November by a huge margin. Whew. That was bold. I mean, the guy has held his seat for 50 years already, with few real challanges outside of two primaries. And his only opponent this year is an Ave Maria (fundie law school) student running as a write-in candidate. I'm guessing my prediction is safe.

So why is it that the Republicans have doctored a Dingell interview to make him appear to be a Hezbollah sympathizer?

Yesterday, the popular right-wing blog Powerline smeared Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) as an apologist for Hezbollah using an edited clip from local Detroit television. The post, entitled “Dingell: What’s Wrong With Hezbollah,” features this misleading transcript, complete with edited audio:

Asked, “You’re not against Hezbollah?” Dingell answers, “No…”

Here’s what Dingell actually said:

Q: You’re not against Hezbollah?

Dingell: No, I happen to be — I happen to be against violence, I think the United States has to bring resolution to this matter. Now, I condemn Hezbollah as does everybody else, for the violence.

SadlyNo checks out other blogs and discovers either the nutters are working off of the same talking points, or Assrocket Hinderaker is yet another Republican plagiarist.

Now obviously, someone is trying to invent a new boogeyman, a Democrat with name recognition who they can vilify for calls for fairness in the Middle East. But why Dingell, since it's not like it'll chase him and his 50 years of experience out of Congress?

Well, that chunk SadlyNo found, that appears like it might be an organized talking point, suggests they're going after Dingell because he'll wield a lot of power if (when) we win back the House:

Remember, should the Democrats take over the House of Representatives, Dingell would chair the Energy and Commerce Committee. Dingell is also one of only eight, count ‘em, EIGHT, Democrats who did not chose to vote in favor of the recent House Resolution supporting Israel against terrorist aggression.

So partly its fear that Dingell will ruin their boondoggle fun once he takes over at Energy and Commerce. Still, I suspect the only reason they haven't gone after John Conyers instead of Dingell is because he hasn't been on the TV news talking about Lebanon. After all he, too, voted against the Resolution supporting Israel unquestionably. And the committee he'll run if we win back Congress? Judiciary. And he has already promised he's going after Republicans, hard.

But what the Republicans are doing, with this manufactured smear of Dingell, is to go after the fair representation of Arab-Americans in this country, to delegitimize any action that would suggest both Jewish and Arab-American citizens deserve to have their interests in the Middle East taken into account by their legislators.

You see, Dingell and Conyers' districts split representation of Dearborn, the center of Arab-American population in the state (Conyers' district covers more of the heavily Arab-American eastern part of Dearborn). They were joined in their vote against the Resolution by Carolyn Cheeks-Kilpatrick, who also represents some of southeast MI's many Arab-Americans. Dingell, Conyers, and Kilpatrick voted as they did, no doubt, because it was honest representation of their constituents' interests.

But the attack on the Arab-Americans in SE MI is not new. Before the Americans who chose to had evacuated Lebanon, Conyers said there were 7,000 Michiganders in southern Lebanon. And the wingnuts jumped on those numbers and argued it was not a problem that the Israelis were bombing Lebanon while thousands of American citizens tried to evacuate, because they were all from Dearborn and therefore Hezbollah supporters and therefore it was alright to bomb them.

THE MAJORITY OF AMERICANS IN LEBANON ARE HEZBOLLAH SUPPORTERS. 

Most of them are Shi'ite Muslims, many of whom hold dual U.S. and Lebanese citizenship. Many are anchor babies born here to Muslims in the U.S. illegally. Some are illegal aliens who became citizens through rubber-stamping Citizenship and Immigration Services (and its INS predecessor) coupled with political pressure by spineless politicians.

Of the 25,000 American citizens and green-card holders in Lebanon, at least 7,000 are from Dearborn, Michigan, the heart of Islamic America, and especially Shia Islam America. These 7,000 are mostly Shi'ite Muslims who openly and strongly support Hezbollah. Ditto for many of the rest of the 25,000 that are there.

Setting aside the fact that such rants ignore the religious diversity of Lebanon and southeast MI's Arab-American community. Setting aside the unsubstantiated claims that these Americans are not legal Americans. This rant--and the attack on Dingell--attempts to pretend the very real concerns of thousands of citizens of the United States amount to support for Hezbollah.

Gosh, was it only 5 years ago that Bush was cultivating the Arab-American vote?

Comments

[Mimikatz]

It also sends a message to other (Dem) politicians of what might befall them, much like the defeat of Charles Percy by Paul Simon in 1984 after Percy had supported the sale of AWACs planes to Saudi Arabia (during the last Israel-Lebanese War).

[Nell]

Maybe, Mimikatz, but the instructional value is very low unless the target is actually defeated. Dingell is a lock.

[emptywheel]

I actually think it's akin to the SwiftBoat smear on Murtha. He, too, is a lock. But it's like they're trying to create straw enemies out our leadership as a way to caricature the party.

[justintime]

Dear Mr. Hinderaker,
You misquoted John Dingell by editing out his complete comments about Hizbullah.
You owe John Dingell an apology.
And you owe your readers an apology for intentionally misleading them.
You can’t be trusted to deliver the truth.

[demtom]

Isn't it possible they're in such bad position that they're just flailing around, scattershooting at any target that comes momentarily in their sights?

It reminds me of what Roger Angell wrote about the fans of the godawful '62 Mets -- they kept up their "Let's go, Mets" chants almost without cease because, when your team is that bad (hitting about .210), there's no point saving your rooting for promising moments -- there aren't going to be many.

[moi]

sorry for the OT (and maybe it has been mentioned before, not sure)
but, knowing your love of all things Judy, couldn't resist.

Court: Prosecutors may demand New York Times phone records
NEW YORK -- An appeals court on Tuesday overturned a judge's ruling that had protected New York Times phone records from being inspected by federal prosecutors.
By a 2-1 vote, a three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals held that prosecutors investigating leaked information about a terrorism fundraising probe had a valid interest in seeing who contacted Times reporters.

snip

The case involved stories written in 2001 by Times reporters Judith Miller and Philip Shenon that revealed that the government planned to freeze the assets and search the offices of two Islamic charities, the Holy Land Foundation and Global Relief Foundation.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--nytimes-phonereco0801aug01,0,5636263.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

[Mimikatz]

It is like Swiftboating, in the sense of attacking a group's strength. And even if Dingell is safe, it gives any less secure politician pause. If they will go after someone as strong as Dingell, what will they do to me if I don't toe the line?

[Anthony]

To be fair, Ave Maria isn't a fundie law school, it is a conservative Roman Catholic law school. There is a difference between the two groups.

[viget]

See, that's the problem when your number one qualification as an arm of the Mighty GOP Wurlitzer is your ability to be a loyal soldier and distribute talking points efficiently and with a minimum of commentary, only dressing them up to make it sound like your own words.

In essence, that's what a plagiarist does. So for GOP pundits, bloggers, hacks, etc., having plagiarism on your CV is something to brag about. Indeed, it might be the only qualification that matters.

[emptywheel]

Yes, you're correct Anthony. But fundie is what I and others in Ann Arbor and even my mother-who-works-for-the-Church calls those things touched by Monahan in sloppier moments. But I apologize for the carelessness.

[DHinMI]

Two things:

One, Debbie Schlussel is a horrible excuse for a human being. she doesn't have even a passing acquaintance with the truth, much less a humane bone in her body. She's also a one-time (and possibly current?) resident of the Detroit area, with an apparent hatred of Arabs that knows no bounds. And she's done hit jobs on area Dems in the past; David Bonior was one of her past targets. Bonior used to be accused of being anti-Semetic all the time (never mind that his wife Judy is Jewish).

As for the Ave Maria people being conservative Catholics, I'm actually going to defend EW's original phraseology and urge her to stick to her guns on that one. They aren't some conservative Thomist scholars over there. They aren't even Pat Buchanan types. They take a position way to the right of just about any other Catholic organization on a whole slew of things. For instance, they've been involved in some of the lawsuits about the teaching of creationism in the schools. That's not a conservative Catholic position, that's closer to the fundie stances we associate with lunatics like Pat Robertson.

[orionATl]

this is just intimidation.

there is no other answer.

dingell is supposed to look in his rear vice mirror if he regains power. that s all.

classic rove mafiosi style.

[SaltinWound]

I envy you some of the politicians who have working for you in Michigan. Levin too. It's an impressive bunch.

[Brian Boru]

As a non-conservative Roman Catholic I think that "fundie" is just about on target for the Ave Maria crowd: at least, you won't offend any non-fundies by using the term.

[catastrophile]

"Rep. John Dingell (D-MI)"

The most important letter in there is the D (and I don't mean the one in "Dingell"). It doesn't matter whether this Dem is in a close race, it only matters that smearing him this way gives Reep propagandists fodder against everybody with a D after their name. Even if you don't live in a district represented by Murtha or Pelosi or Dingell, the national fundraising appeals can invoke the "threat" of having "these people" in positions of power.