Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Sweetheart of Daily Kos Barbara Boxer has sinned against the Israel lobby, but seems to have done her penance willingly. According to Newsweek's drolly titled "Terror Watch!" column:

CAIR Play?
Sen. Barbara Boxer recalled an award she recently gave to an Islamic activist because of his ties to a major American Muslim organization—that critics say has ties to terrorist activities.

Dec. 29, 2006 - In a highly unusual move, Sen. Barbara Boxer of California has rescinded an award to an Islamic activist in her home state because of the man’s connections to a major American Muslim organization that recently has been courted by leading political figures and even the FBI.

Boxer’s office confirmed to NEWSWEEK that she has withdrawn a “certificate of accomplishment” to Sacramento activist Basim Elkarra after learning that he serves as an official with the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). After directing her staff to look into CAIR, Boxer “expressed concern” about some past statements and actions by the group, as well as assertions by some law enforcement officials that it “gives aid to international terrorist groups,” according to Natalie Ravitz, the senator’s press spokeswoman.

CAIR, which has 32 offices around the country and bills itself as the leading Muslim-American civil- rights group, has never been charged with any crimes, nor have any of its top leaders. But a handful of individuals who have had ties to CAIR in the past have been convicted or deported for financial dealings with Hamas—another reason cited by Boxer for her action....

Ironically, just last month, Boxer had sent CAIR a letter in connection with its 10th anniversary fundraising dinner endorsing the group as a “constant support system for the American Muslim community” and praising it for its work on civil liberties. "As an advocate for justice and greater understanding, CAIR embodies what we should all strive to achieve," Boxer wrote in the Nov. 18 letter.

Boxer tells NEWSWEEK she never saw the letter to CAIR signed in her name or was even aware of the award to Elkarra before it was sent out. "I feel terrible about this," she says. "We just made a mistake. I was not in the loop. That was an automatic signature [on the letter]." But Boxer stands by her decision to withdraw the award and to distance herself from CAIR, saying she was influenced by previous critical statements about CAIR made by her Democratic colleagues Sens. Richard Durbin of Illinois and Charles Schumer of New York....

After review by her staff, Boxer was particularly concerned by claims that CAIR had refused to condemn Hamas and Hizbullah and recognize those groups as terrorist organizations,” Ravitz said.

The story so far is that la Boxer was frightened by a Chihuahua, admittedly a very loud and fierce one, namely blogger Joe Kaufman. Kaufman belongs to a genus of fauna very numerous on the margins on American Zionism; hyperkinetic one-man bands who make it their mission to follow and persecute pro virili some selected foe of Israel. Kaufman's bete-glatisant is the aforementioned CAIR. Kaufman seems to have found out about Boxer's glancing contact with this treyf organization, and trumpeted it from the rooftops, with the assistance of that eminently entertaining scourge of the liberal professoriate, David Horowitz.

It's a very rich and remarkable thing that loons like Kaufman and Horowitz can stampede a US Senator. Incidents like this always put me in mind of that wonderful scene in the movie Dumbo, where the little mouse who becomes Dumbo's pal walks out into a mean-spirited gossip-fest among half-a-dozen dowager elephants, and the massive creatures fly into hysterics, climbing tent poles, perching on chairs, cowering in horror, etc.

Apart from the entertainment value, there's some intellectual profit to be had in reflecting on the role that little saprophytes like Kaufman and Horowitz play in the ecology of American Zionist political thuggery. They're marginal, and no respectable figure in the establishment has to be compromised by any contact or association with them. At the same time, it's a shining testimony to the Lobby's hegemony that even its most base, degraded, and contemptible elements can strike fear into the heart of a prominent member of the Empire's Areopagus.