National Jewish Democratic Council Takes Cheap Shot at Romney

If one may judge what potential GOP Presidential candidate the Democrats fear most by the frequency of vitriolic attacks they direct at him, Mitt Romney must be a daunting threat to Democratic hopes of winning back the White House in 2008. First came the shamelessly partisan attack on Mr. Romney's Mormon faith in The New Republic. Then this week, following Mr. Romney's announcement of his candidacy at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, the National Jewish Democratic Council weighed in with an attack that nearly borders on the bizarre, and certainly competes with The New Republic on the vile smear scale. "Henry Ford was a notorious anti-Semite and xenophobe," the NJDC spewed, and Mr. Romney had raised "serious questions" about his fitness to occupy the Oval Office.

Mitt Romney has a spotless record in his stance against anti-Semitism and his support for Israel. Just last month he was the only serious Presidential candidate to appear in person at the Herzliya Conference on the Balance of Israel's Security, where he presented a compelling case for confronting the threat to the United States, Israel and the West posed by the Iranian nuclear weapons program. [See the above photo and The Hedgehog Blog, January 28, 2007, Mitt Romney Calls for Stop to Iranian Nuclear Program.]

In the Op-Ed Section of today's Los Angeles Times, Zev Chafets skewers the NJDC, not only because the attack was absurd, but because the concerns of the NJDC are so misplaced. Mr. Chafets writes:

"If attempting to link Romney with anti-Semitism is a cheap political trick, it is also something worse. Jews have real enemies these days, some of whom insist that a Jewish conspiracy has hijacked U.S. foreign policy on behalf of Israel. This is genuine Ford-ism, and it is found primarily on the "progressive" end of the political spectrum — as the National Jewish Democratic Council knows very well. Crying wolf is always irresponsible, but doing it in the middle of a forest is truly dangerous."

I couldn't agree more.