WHAT DO BUSH AND HIS FAR RIGHT ALLIES REALLY THINK ABOUT JEWS?

It's too sad to argue with gay Republicans. I mean how many times can you say being a gay Republican is exactly the same as a Jew in the 1930's being a Nazi? Gay Republicans are usually self-loathing elitists. Or just stupider than a lemming. And then there are the Clarence Thomases, Michael Steeles, J.C. Watts, Alan Keyeses, Ken Blackwells, Thomas Sowells, Ken Hamblins, Larry Elders... opportunists, mostly mentally ill, and sell-outs one and all. I pray they never live to regret their support for the political party that has institutionalized within itself the KKK. But what about Jewish Republicans?

I grew up in Flatbush, a part of Brooklyn where there were no Republicans. Or none to speak of. In fact, they didn't even speak of themselves. Now and then some local Republican club would dig up a candidate to run for something and I always laughed that you could always tell from the campaign posters who was a Democrat and who was a Republican. All Democratic signs were emblazoned gigantically with the word "Democrat." The Republican was apparently ashamed to mention what party he was affiliated with, which at least showed a little good sense. (It's kind of like what some Republicans are trying to do now-- a little too late though, especially for notorious rubber stampers like Jim Gerlach (R-PA), Deborah Pryce (R-OH), Mark Kennedy (R-MN), Joe Lieberman (?-CT), Mike Fitzpatrick (R-PA), Clay Shaw (R-FL), Heather Wilson (R-NM), Chris Shays (R-CT), Mike DeWine (R-OH), Jim Talent (R-MO), Nancy Johnson/Cheney (R-CT)... even a 100% rubber stamp imbecile like Santorum managed to cook up some cockamamie issue he disagrees with Bush on to show he's "independent.")

Anyway, it was a pretty Jewish neighborhood and everyone's grandparents understood that the political right was the mortal enemy of Jewishness. Sometimes a Jewish family in the 'hood would get rich or maybe just wanted to make believe they were rich (like my old grade school chum Norm Coleman) and then they would switch their political affiliation and often-- like the climbin' Colemans-- their religion too. As time wore on, I looked with dismay as some materialisticly-obessed Jews forgot the lessons our grandfathers learned about what the political right always has in store for Jews. Today as many as 25% of Jews have forgotten.

I've always been able to look at Bush's narrow, hateful face and see the bigotry right down to the core of his dark, dark soul. So it was no surprise today when I read at Raw Story that Bush was still pushing his evangelical claptrap about all Jews going to hell in 1998. In the new book about Bush's sick brain, The Architect it's revealed he repeated his 1993 statement about how only people who accept Jesus go to heaven. This time he was playing the role of Texas governor and talking to a couple of reporters. "You know what I'm gonna tell those Jews when I get to Israel, don't you Herman?" he asked a reporter for the Austin American-Statesman. Ken Herman, replied that he didn't know and Bush, apparently thinking he was a riot, blurted out, "I'm telling 'em they're all going to hell."

I forgot which ring Dante would assign a monstrosity like Bush and I certainly hope his Jewish supporters, lik the disturbed African-Americans who support him or the homosexuals who support him, never live to regret their support for the American version of the far right that has done so much grievous harm over the centuries not just to their co-religionists, but to the entire tenor of human relations that allows people with differences to live together with respect and in a degree of harmony.