Beating the Bushes:

What Pray Tell is the "Enron Loophole?"

   Its never ceases to amaze how every week brings new words and phrases into the national political vocabulary,  especially during election season. Some, like "Creationism" "Stagflation," "sound byte," and "Swiftboating" have become so familiar as to elicit nary a hiccup from one's computer spell-check. Others, like "Teapot Dome," "vicuña coat," "hanging chad" and "The Keating Five" are best known to those of us who proudly wear the political junkie's lapel pin -- a garland of placards in a field of greenhouse gases.

   The latest -- and potentially most damaging is the "Enron Loophole."  And although my spell-check is none too certain what to make of "Enron," Google sure does; as of ten minutes ago, a search for that term brought up no less than 175,000 different sites. Within less time than it takes to solve the Rubik's Cube [another term that the old spell-checker recognizes] the "Enron Loophole" has become so omnipresent that one would presume that everyone knows to what it refers.

   For those who don't we humbly offer -- as a public service to our readers -- a brief history, synopsis and dramatis personae of that which could -- and undoubtedly should -- become the one 2008 election-year phrase that will live in everlasting infamy.  For the "Enron Loophole" is one, which by all rights, should surpass "Whiskey Ring," "Credit Mobilier," and "Abscam." 

    Back in 2000, then-Texas Senator Phil Gramm slipped a little-noted Enron-backed provision into the Commodities Futures Modernization Act.  Simply stated, this provision exempted from regulation energy trading on so-called "electronic platforms" or "dark markets."  Heretofore, energy trading [electricity, natural gas, etc.] was done mainly under the auspices of either the Commodity Futures Trading Commission [which was chaired during the first Bush Administration by Senator Gramm's wife Wendy] or the heavily-regulated New York Mercantile Exchange [NYMEX].  Their rules and regulations are in place in order to "prevent price distortions and supply squeezes."  With passage of the Gramm-sponsored, Enron-backed bill, traders and speculators moved the lion's share of their business over to the unregulated Atlanta-based Intercontinental Exchange [ICE] -- the so-called "dark market."

   It should be noted that at the time of its enactment, Republicans controlled Congress, and Senator Gramm was the Senate Banking Committee chair; even worse, his wife Wendy, not five weeks after leaving CFTC was named an Enron director.  The bill, which was signed by President Clinton in December of that year, was approved without so much as a Senate hearing.  Internal Enron documents which were released in 2002 [after the company had imploded and gone bye-bye] reveal that the then-Houston based company not only helped write the legislation, but baldly lobbied Senator Gramm ["Gramm needs to fully understand how helpful the bill is to Enron," went one internal memo].

   Within a year of its being freed from "regulatory interference," Enron began creating false energy shortages in California.  They wound up bilking consumers out of an estimated $40 billion.  And despite the new Bush Administration's attempts to come to come to Enron's rescue  -- W. personally joined in with those fighting against imposing caps on soaring electricity prices --  the Houston energy giant soon went the way of the Stegosaurus and Slide Rule.

   But wait; there's more!

  In 2006, the "Enron Loophole" permitted a hedge fund called "Amaranth Advisers" to corner the  natural gas market.  Now trading on the unregulated "dark market," the Amaranth "hedgies" wallowed up to the crap table, plunked down their gelt, and bet that futures prices on natural gas would go "up, up, up and away!" 

   Oops! 

    In September 2006, natural gas prices fell to a two-year low.  Amaranth Advisers lost their well-heeled clients about $6 billion, thus proving the truth of the old axiom "He who plays around with unregulated energy futures will most likely get torched."  About a year ago, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission [FERC] charged Amaranth with manipulating prices and has suggested a fine of $291 million plus the forfeiture of "unjust profits," whatever that means.

   It is highly likely that the high price of oil is also a result of unregulated activity in the "dark market."  Recently, Michigan Senator Carl Levin released a report concluding that "speculative markets" are "partly to blame for surging oil prices that have pushed gas at the pump toward $4 a gallon."  And Senator McCain [not to mention President Bush and Governor Charlie Crist] would have us believe that the answer to high prices at the pump in June 2008 is drilling off the coast of Florida!  Hey guys, it ain't a question of supply and demand; its a rigged game!

   So why has interest in the the "Enron Loophole" issue grown to the point where there are now more than 175,000 sites devoted to it?   And, what role might it play in the 2008 presidential election?

   First question first: Why has the loophole resurfaced precisely now?  Why not six months or two years ago?  Simple: the recent $307 billion farm bill.  When questioned, Senator McCain said he was against the bill, because "it would dole out wasteful subsidies."  One McCain aide, told journalist Jason Leopold that McCain opposed the farm bill because "it rewards lobbyists" by granting rich farmers "lucrative subsidies." OK, that's reasonable. However, the same aide noted that one additional reason for his boss's opposition was a section containing "regulatory language on the energy futures market."

   There's that word again . . .    REGULATION!! 

   ARGH!!!

   Who put this idea of hating any form of government regulation into the head of a man who freely admits "I don't know as much about the economy as I should?" 

   Why former Senator Gramm, that's who.

   Gramm, who is often described as "one of McCain's closest friends in politics," is also the campaign's chief economic adviser.  Anyone who has followed politics over the past twenty years will know that Phil Gramm hates government regulation and oversight even more than a Dodger fan hates the Giants. And this is the man to whom John McCain has entrusted his economic game  plan?

   Let Republicans and Obama haters of all shapes and sizes decry his relationship with Jeremiah Wright.  Let them question whether or not he thinks Louis Farrakhan is a stand-up guy.  For my money, the two  of 'em are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.  To the best of my knowledge, neither has provided a platform whereby consumers could be bilked out of $40 billion or pay more than $4 at the pump. Neither one has paved the way for the richest one-tenth-of-one-percent to profit by human misery.  All these two gasbags have done is exercise their big fat mouths.

   Instead of continually wondering about Senator Barack Obama's alleged "relationship" with people whose words we may find abhorrent, we would be far wiser to question Senator John McCain's verifiable relationship with the man who made the term "Enron Loophole" such a hot term in the Google galaxy.

   Move over "Whiskey Ring."

   Stand aside "Teapot Dome."

  The "Enron Loophole" is about to overtake you!

©2008 Kurt F. Stone

"Strict Contortionists" [or] "One Man's Ceiling is Another Man's Floor"

    OK ladies and gentlemen, on the count of three, let's all heave a great big collective sigh of relief:

   One, two, three . . . "Aaaaah"! 

    I'm sure that's how a lot of us feel now that the Supreme Court has finally handed down its decision in Boumediene  et al v. Bush, the case that -- at least for now -- keeps habeas corpus alive and kicking.  In rendering its razor-thin 5-4 decision, the court has stingingly rebuked President Bush and all his Hey! Don't you know that America's at war with radical Islamists? allies.  In its landmark decision, Justices Kennedy, Stevens, Souter, Breyer and Ginsburg have held that habeas corpus protections do apply to detainees held at Guantanamo Bay. And despite what Chief Justice Roberts and his, brethren Scalia, Alito and Thomas claim, Boumediene v. Bush will neither place America in greater peril nor free prisoners from their padlocked cells.  What it does do is underscore the continued centrality of the United States Constitution -- even in a time of war.

   Writing for the majority, Justice Kennedy noted that "Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of law."   

   Justice Scalia's scathing 25-page dissent reads more like a political broadside than a reasoned legal brief:

• "The game of bait-and-switch that today's opinion plays upon the Nation's Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us.  It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."
• "Today the Court warps the Constitution."
• "The nation will live to regret what the Court has done today." 
• "[This decision] breaks a chain of precedent as old as the common law that prohibits judicial inquiry into detentions of aliens abroad absent statutory authorization."
• "Most tragically, it sets our military commanders the impossible task of proving to a civilian court . . .that evidence supports the confinement of each and every enemy prisoner."

   If I understand the dissenting opinion correctly, a large part  of the argument rests on the "fact" that since Guantanamo is not on American soil, the Constitution does not apply to those "enemy combatants" housed there.  Well now, if our base in Guantanamo is not, for legal purposes, considered part of the United States, then it logically follows that Senator John McCain is debarred from running for President of the United States; he was, afterall, born on a military base in the Panama Canal Zone, and according to Justice Scalia, that base was not a part of the United States. 

   As they say in legalese, Res ipsa loquitur -- "The thing speaks for itself." [Yes yes, I know, literally it should be rendered "The thing itself speaks," but let's not split fine hairs.]  

   Those decrying the majority decision claim that now, dozens -- if not hundreds -- of suspected terrorists will be free to go back home and start blowing us up all over again.  Granting the right of habeas corpus to this group -- so Scalia and his supporters argue -- will place America in grave peril.  Well, even retired General Colin Powell disagrees.  Speaking on the very issue last year, Powell said:

   "The concern was, well, then they'll have access to lawyers, then they'll have access to writs of habeas corpus.  So what?  Let them.  Isn't that what our system's all about? And by the way, America, unfortunately, has too many people in jail, all of whom had lawyers and access to writs of habeas corpus.  And so we can handle bad people in our system."   

   Be prepared for a watered-down version of this decision to become part of Senator McCain's presidential campaign.  We've all heard the argument before: "If you don't elect me, sure as God made little green apples, the Democrats are going to appoint activist judges to the Supreme Court . . . and then where will we be?"  Further, he and his surrogates will argue that "A vote for John McCain is a vote for 'strict constructionsts,' judges who, far from enacting new law, will rely only on what is actually written in the Constitution!"

   This argument -- about "activist" versus "strict constructionist" judges --  has been part of the Republican playbook ever since the days of Richard Nixon.  In recent years, it has become code for "If you elect a Republican, he will only appoint judges who will overturn Roe v. Wade and make sure that you can have prayer in the public schools."  Well my goodness, we've had lots of these so-called "strict constructionists" on the bench for the past two decades, and Roe v. Wade is still the law of the land.  Ironically, overturning this decision would be a Republican's worst nightmare; what would they then have to rail against?  How ever could they keep their conservative and evangelical friends voting for them?

   From where I sit, Roberts, Scalia, Alito and Thomas are not "strict constructionists" in any sense of the term.  At best, they are judicial activists; at worst, what might be termed "judicial contortionists."  It never ceases to amaze me how, that when Republicans agree with a judge, he or she is a "strict constructionist;" but when they disagree, its because the juror is a so-called "activist."

   Paul Simon said it best: "One man's ceiling is another man's floor."

   To my way of thinking, left to their own devices, Roberts, Scalia, Alito and Thomas are -- in potentia -- the very definition of "activists" judges.  They are the ones seeking to make new law, rather than rendering law based upon a literal reading of the Constitution.  

   One of the issues best kept in mind when deciding whether to vote for Senator McCain or Senator Obama is this matter of "activist" versus "strict-contortionist" judges.  The court is now just one "strict contortionist" Justice away from being as fully conservative as it was in the days of William Howard Taft.  Justice John Paul Stevens [the man who replaced Justice William O. Douglas] turned 88 a month ago; you can bet he's going to be retiring in the very near future.  And although Justice Anthony Kennedy is a very spry 72, he is far from predictable.  Knowing that he is the current "swing vote" on the Supreme Court isn't too great for one's sense of well-being.  His legal instincts are far closer to Roberts and Scalia than to Souter or Ginsburg.

   I can think of lots of good reasons to enthusiastically prefer Senator Obama to Senator McCain.  But after witnessing just how close we all came to losing habeas corpus this week, the issue of appointing Justices to the Supreme Court has broken away from the pack and is now heading into the lead.

   ©2008 Kurt F. Stone

  

  

"Preserve," Support" "Protect," and "Defend" -- Four Words That Should Matter

     In reviewing the 183 articles I've posted since this site's inception back in February of 2005, I was intrigued to discover that four were on the subject of Impeachment.  The first of these, Villainova, was posted back on December 23, 2005; the most recent, To Impeach or Not to Impeach: Why is There a Question? ran on November 15, 2007. The February 23, 2006 piece carried the straightforward, not terribly imaginative title Impeach George Bush!  In rereading the articles -- including the July 26, 2007 piece entitled Bush's Tush -- I was both amazed and downhearted to find that the four had engendered a total of two -- precisely TWO -- comments.  On the other hand, my recent pieces on Senator Obama have garnered enough commentary -- some diligently thoughtful, some patently ugly -- to fill a fair-sized filing cabinet.   

   Well, ready or not, here comes the fifth op-ed piece on Impeachment -- but with a bit of a difference.

    I am not going to argue either the correctness or the necessity of impeaching Bush and Cheney; in an ideal world, they would have been hauled before the Judiciary Committee a long time ago.  

   I am not going to enumerate the 35 articles that Ohio Representative Dennis Kucinich so painstakingly read into The Congressional Minyan two nights ago; although chilling to the max, it makes for boring reading.

   I am not going to wager on the chances of Impeachment or criminal indictment ever becoming reality; if I want to place a bet, it will be on something with better odds for success -- like the Florida Lottery or Irish Sweepstakes.

   I am not going to bemoan the fact that in the past 48 hours, the national media has run precisely 2,744 articles on "killer tomatoes," to a mere 240 on impeachment; we the people are as much to blame as the media for this grossly lopsided statistic.  

   And, I am not going to tar Speaker Pelosi, Majority Leaders Hoyer and Reid or the rest of Congress with the brush of cowardice; why waste good ink on that which is -- or at the least damn well ought to be -- painfully obvious? 

   Madam Speaker has already staked herself to a position: that Impeachment would be a waste of time considering that the Bush Administration is now in its lame-duck phase.  She's also worried that Republicans would use Impeachment as a club with which to beat Democrats in the 2008 election.  Then too, she says that "Congress can use its time more wisely on the real problems we face."  OK, you tell me: what do you expect from Congress in the next several months on such issues as the housing crisis, the price of gas, health insurance, the war in Iraq, global warming or a couple of dozen other critical issues?

   Instead, let's talk about what not initiating impeachment proceedings means; about the sorry state of words, deeds, integrity and We the People.

   In pouring over what I believe to be a representative sampling of articles and commentary out here in Cyberspace, I've noticed that people break down into two heavily-barricaded camps:

• Those who firmly believe that Bush, Cheney and their confreres are the second coming of Benedict Arnold -- if not Vlad the Impaler, and
• Those who are absolutely convinced that anyone and everyone supporting Impeachment is a Looney Tune. 

   While all this angry, defensive finger-pointing, this resorting to ad hominem argumentation may make for good theatre, it fairly ignores what is truly at stake: the very future of the United States of America as envisioned by the Founders. Jefferson, Adams, Hancock, Monroe and the rest thoroughly rejected the royalist principles that "l'etat, c'est moi," and "The king can do no wrong."  These brilliant products of the Enlightenment fully understood that if the United States was to succeed, it had to be a "nation of laws, and not of men."  They didn't just talk a good game; they staked their lives, fortunes and reputations on it.  Who today has that much gumption or conviction? 

   Somewhere along the lines, we lost that understanding.  Far too often as both a polity and a society, we are far more interested in next week, the next election, the next fiscal quarter, than we are with the next generation or the generation after that.  We fail to understand that indebtedness doesn't just accrue to Visa or Mastercard, China, India or Saudi Arabia, but to history as well. Far too often we calculate our indebtedness -- whether personal, corporate or national -- only in terms of dollars and cents.  What we have failed to calculate is our future indebtedness in terms of peace and progress, optimism, progressivism and [small-r] republicanism.

   When Congress gleefully impeached President Bill Clinton for perjury and extramarital shtupping, much of the world chuckled; to them, it was both partisan and incredibly frivolous. But when Congress refuses to even consider impeachment proceedings against President Bush and/or Vice President Cheney for their very real "high crimes and misdemeanors," much of the world cringes.  They see America's moral compass becoming irreparably smashed and beaten.

   When one takes the oath of office, they place their right hand on a Bible -- or in the case of Minnesota Representative Keith Ellison a Koran after the Bible -- and solemnly swear to "Support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic; that I will bear true allegiance to the same. . ."  It seems to me that these words -- especially the verbs "support" and "defend" have lost all meaning.  For what is at stake is not just the future of George W. Bush or Dick Cheney, individual Democrats or Republicans, the outcome of the next election, but the very fabric of this nation "of laws, not of men."  By standing blithely by and permitting so many laws to be broken, so many lies to be papered over, so much liberty to be abased, it darkens the American skies with the ominous thunderclouds of self-destruction.

   History, of course will have the final word.  It has never ceased to amaze me how many of yesterday's headline-making "loonies" are today's forgotten heroes. A couple of examples:

   In his day, Wisconsin Representative Victor Berger was called "the most dangerous man in America."  His "crime?"  He dared to talk about the need for a national system of old-age pensions back before World War I. 

  

In the late 1920s a New York Representative by the name of Fiorello LaGuardia was labeled "a grandstanding lunatic" for proposing much of what would within three years be called "The New Deal." 

   As early as 1935, New York Representative Emanuel Celler was scoffed at for warning that the creation of a House committee to investigate so-called "un-American activities" would likely make "the mere harboring of unpopular opinions" a federal crime. 

   And now there's Representative Dennis Kucinich -- who is already being called every vile name in the book -- for having the "temerity" to nail his 35 Articles of Impeachment on the House door.  

    I do not pretend to know what history's verdict will be so far as George W. Bush and his administration go.  As the saying goes, "I am neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet."  What I do know, however, is that unless -- and until -- we come to understand that such verbs as "preserve," "protect," "support" and "defend" have real meanings with real consequences, our debt to future generations will be far far greater than our debt to Visa, Mastercard or China. 

©2008 Kurt F. Stone

    

The Obama Minyan

   Now that Senator Obama is the de facto [I hate the word "presumptive"] Democratic nominee, the slings and arrows of yesterday are about to become the Titans and Tomahawks of tomorrow.  Make no mistake about it: the Republicans will attack him with every missile in their silo.  And like the "MIRV" [Multiple Independently targetable Reentry Vehicle], their political projectiles are going to be aimed at lots and lots of different targets.

   Indeed, there will be something for everyone:

• Economic Elitists will no doubt be clubbed with the fear that an Obama presidency will lead to the ultimate victory of Marx over Monetarism. 
• Social Conservatives will be warned that an Obama Administration will make abortion, same-sex marriage and the teaching of Evolution mandatory.
• Conspiracy Theorists will be convinced that an Obama cabinet will include Louis Farrakhan, Pastor Wright and perhaps even the ghost of Emma Goldman.
• Zionists will be taught that an Obama foreign policy will sound the death-knell for the Jewish State.
• And of course, the words "lack of experience" will become so ever-present that schoolchildren will no doubt conclude that this must be the senator's middle name.

   Already, one can hear those MIRVs warming up in their silos.

   Let's handle the last two, because to a great extent, they are inextricably bound together.  It is absolutely true that Senator Obama has not been on the national scene nearly as long as Senator McCain.  And, it is equally as true that he has no eponymous legislation for which he can claim credit, ala the "McCain-Feingold" Act.  I for one have often found the "experience issue" to be a non-starter. To my way of thinking, its not always "what you know," but "who you know and trust that knows what you need to know."  If one only peeks behind the curtain of their fears and uncertainties [amply cheer-led by conservative bloggers and all those "entertainers" who pass themselves off as mainline journalists], one will discover something truly heartening: that Senator Barack Obama has surrounded himself with a roster of the "best and brightest," the likes of which have not been seen since the days of JFK.  I will match up Obama's experts and wise men and women against those of McCain six days a week -- and on the seventh we rest.

   Which brings us to the issue of Senator Obama vis-a-vis Israel. 

   Much has been made over the past months, weeks and even days, about the number of so-called "professional Israel haters/anti-Semites" who are "advising" the gentleman from Illinois.  Anyone with email service has received screaming cyber missives warning that Obama is getting all his Israel/Middle East input from the likes of former Carter-era National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Kennedy School's Stephen Walt, the University of Chicago's John Mearsheimer and now, former Michigan Representative [and Edwards' campaign manager] David Bonior.

   While none of the aforementioned is going to be invited to our next seder, the influence they have -- and will have -- on Senator Obama's future Middle Eastern strategy is effectively nil, nada, zilch, gornisht.

   As noted in our February 21, 2008 piece -- The Truth About It:

   "According to David Axelrod, the senator's chief strategist, '. . . [Brzezinski] is not an adviser.  We do not call him an adviser and he does not call himself an adviser.  He is a supporter of Senator Obama and they have spoken about the Iraq war once several months ago . . . . The only people who call Brzezinsky an adviser are the Clinton campaign . . ." 

   So far as professors Walt and Mearsheimer go, their names originally became linked to the Obama campaign some time back.  Under what circumstances?  Well, last year, the two professors published a work entitled The Israel Lobby and American Foreign Policy.  Truth to tell, it painted a woeful, damning portrait of A.I.P.A.C. and the power it wields in Washington.  It so happens that the Obama campaign's cyber nerds placed small ads in various spots on the Internet, designed to drive readers to its website.  From experience, I can tell you that the best way to accomplish this is to put in a string of key words . . . like "politics," "Democratic," or "president."  This is precisely what the Obama camp did.  Well, one of these ads popped up on the Amazon page hawking Walt and Mearsheimer's book.  Immediately, the anti-Obama forces began proclaiming "You See!  Obama is one of those Israel haters!" Once this was brought to the Obama campaign's attention, they removed the ad.  But viola, the damage had been done; suddenly and miraculously, Walt and Mearshmer had been transformed into "senior Obama advisers." They were not, and are not.

 

   David Bonior, who signed on with the Obama campaign just in time to represent it -- along with Congressman Robert Wexler -- before the Democratic National Committee, did not have a great voting record vis-a-vis Israel.  And while not trying to soft-peddle his votes -- many of which I find just wrong -- one does well to remember that his district was home to the highest percentage of Palestinians of any district in the United States.  And while one can -- and should -- revile many of the votes he cast while in Congress -- which I do -- one must keep in mind that the first rule of politics is "get yourself [re]elected." Then too, Bonoir was not hired because of his positions on the Middle East, but precisely because, as a former Michigan powerhouse, it was felt that he could best state the Obama case vis-a-vis delegates.  Also, by bringing him on board, it was a clear sign that John Edwards was about to support the campaign.

 

   So just who is advising Senator Obama on Israel and the Middle East?  Who makes up "The Obama Minyan?"  [n.b. A "minyan" is a lawful quorum of ten Jewish adults -- some athorities say only men -- required for reciting Jewish prayers.]

  

   A bit of research available to anyone who wants to know the truth, turns up the following "minyanaires:"

 

• Rep. Robert Wexler: Rob, who I am proud to say is my representative in Congress, is a devoutly religious, Miami-bred member of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia.  As early as 2002 he was calling for the ouster of terrorist leaders in the Mideast and declared that Israel was engaged in full-scale war.  When it comes to supporting the Jewish State, no one takes a backseat to Congressman Wexler.
• Former Rep. Mel Levine: Mel, a good friend of longstanding [who ironically, was my representative when I was still living in Southern California], was a member of the House from 1982-1992.  Mel comes from a family whose allegiance to Israel is legendary: in 1948, his late father Sid was Western States' representative for the Haganah.  Indeed, one of Mel's earliest memories, as he recounted for my book, The Congressional Minyan: The Jews of Capitol Hill was: ". . . as a five-year old hearing the doorbell ring . . . and being knocked over by a gunny sack filled with God knows what. . . and my dad grabbing me and basically throwing me away from the door.  I learned many years later that that was some type of materiel that was on its way to Israel during the War of Independence." During his years in the House, Mel's was one of the most intelligent and passionate voices ever raised on Israel's behalf.  Bar none.
• Ambassador Dan Kurtzer: Dan was President Clinton's Ambassador to Egypt from 1997-2001, and President George W. Bush's Ambassador to Israel from 2001-2005.  Prior to entering foreign service, he was dean of his alma mater, Yeshiva University.  Now retired, Dan is the first-ever commissioner of the Israel Baseball League. [Which, by the way, drafted Sandy Koufax!]
• Former U.S. Senator Tom Daschle: Yes, I know, Tom is a Catholic, so technically, cannot be counted in a "minyan."  Nonetheless, during all his years in the House and Senate [where he was Minority Leader], Tom was among Israel's strongest and most consistent supporters.  Despite coming from a state [South Dakota] that is home to precisely 99 Jews, Tom is well-known for his efforts on behalf of the Jewish State.  I first met him back in 1986, when he came to South Florida to get acquainted with the Jewish community.  Following a luncheon speech at the Woodlands Country Club, one of the Zionist lions asked him "what was the family name before Daschle?  Are you sure you're not Jewish?"
• Rep. Jan Schakowsky: Jan has represented a Chicago-area district [9] in the House since 1998.  One simply cannot be elected and reelected by such wide margins [75% in 2006, 76% in 2004] from Evanston/Skokie unless they are actively, stridently, vociferously pro-Israel. And this Jan is.
• Penny Pritzker:  Scion of the Hyatt Hotel chain and herself the founder/Chair/CEO of "Classic Residency by Hyatt," Penny is one of the wealthiest women in the world. Holder of a Harvard degree in economics, and a graduate of the Stanford University Law School, Penny is part of a famiy that has been among Israel's strongest financial backers for more than two generations.  Penny is the Obama campaign's national finance director; as such the senator has come under intense fire from anti-Zionist groups who claim that he is "in the pocket of the Zionists."  How can one be anti-Israel and at the same time get slammed by the true haters of Israel for being "overly Zionist?"  Beats me.
• Anthony Lake: The grandson of a Church of England clergyman who came the United States from Oxford to teach New Testament Studies at Harvard, Tony Lake converted to Judaism in 2005.  He has long been a foreign policy advisor to Democrats.  When questioned by Moment Magazine about his support for Barack Obama vis-a-vis Israel, Lake responded: "The question is: Which America is the strongest friend of Israel?  Which America will be the strongest adversary to those who would do us harm?  And clearly, the answer is an America that is unified rather than torn apart by the politics of the past 20 years.  And it is in Obama's DNA to be a unifier while having clear views."
• Denis McDonough: Senior Fellow at American Progress and former Legislative Director for Colorado Senator Ken Salazar, Denis is currently the Obama Campaign's Foreign Policy Coordinator. He is an acknowledged expert on Israeli-Arab relations; an area of expertise that has been sorely lacking for the past eight years.  Denis is a stalwart supporter of Israel, and despite the fact that he is not "MOT" ["A Member of the Tribe"] he is without question a member-in-good-standing of the Obama Minyan.
• Dan Shapiro: Former Foreign Policy Adviser to Florida Senator Bill Nelson.  Dan was responsible for writing the "Syria Accountability Act of 2003," which was intended among other things, to "halt Syrian terrorism and its occupation of Lebanon . . . and to hold Syria accountable for its role in the Middle East."  This measure was co-sponsored by California Senator Barbara Boxer and Former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum. That bill became law in December 2003.  Dan also drafted a 2007 measure that prohibits US contacts with Palestinian leadership. He was brought on board largely on the strength of his close relations with AIPAC.
• Lee Rosenberg: A Chicago-based independent venture capitalist, Lee is  both a member of the Obama Campaign finance team, and, perhaps most importantly, the Treasurer of AIPAC. For anyone who watched the senator's address before AIPAC the other day, that was Lee who did the introduction.

   And these, my friends are the front-line members of the Obama Minyan.

   Unquestionably, there will continue to be lots of folks out there from Compton to Caribou who will continue believing [and spreading] lies about Barack Obama being al-Qaeda's "Manchurian Candidate," a "secret Muslin," and an "anti-Semite."  Let's face it: for some people, facts cannot hold a candle to fiction; intrigue is a lot more entertaining than intelligence.

   As for me, I am both proud and humbled to be a part of the Obama Minyan.  And although it has been a longstanding Jewish tradition to never go out seeking "converts," in this instance, and for this purpose, I will gladly break with tradition.

   How about you?

©2008 Kurt F. Stone