There has been a bit written in the Netroots about one of Rep. Kirk's major supporters, Andy Lappin, and his ridiculous charges that Kirk's Democratic opponents, Jay Footlik and Dan Seals embraced anti-Semitism by attending YearlyKos (James Boyce's excellent diary on this is worth reading).
Today, we at the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) -- an organization representing Jewish Democrats, put out a press release to defend the Kos community and call on Rep. Kirk to repudiate Andy Lappin and his comments.
Incidently, Lappin's "evidence" YearlyKos was anti-Semitic was pure lunacy. He claimed the convention would be filled with bloggers from DailyKos, which he infers is an anti-Semitic website based on 5 comments, one of which was a sarcastic comment he clipped to make appear serious. In our release we point out that, by Lappin's logic, one could blame all conservatives for comments made by Pat Buchanan.
The full release is available here.
Here is an excerpt:
Mr. Lappin’s email seeks to paint the 900 bloggers who attended the YearlyKos convention and the hundreds of thousands of bloggers in the DailyKos online community as anti-Semitic and anti-Israel because a handful of posters have written objectionable comments. To defend his position, Mr. Lapin presents five comments he finds objectionable, none of which were written by Kos or his editors. p>
To blame all attendees and participants in the YearlyKos convention which was sponsored by JetBlue airlines, Warner Independent Pictures, the National Education Association, and other mainstream organizations for objectionable comments posted by a small handful of people is the height of absurdity. If Mr. Lappin’s logic were applied to the Republican Party, all its presidential candidates would be deemed anti-Israel because they regularly participate in debates with anti-Israel firebrand Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX).
"Rep. Kirk should condemn this over-the-top email sent on his behalf of his campaign by Andy Lappin," said NJDC Executive Director Ira N. Forman. "Mr. Lappin’s email seeks to deceive voters about the strong, pro-Israel candidacies of Jay Footlik and Dan Seals and makes a ridiculous leap in logic that suggests a few inappropriate comments posted on a blog somehow represent the opinions held by hundreds of thousands of activists. There are some on both the far right and the far left that hold anti-Israel views. The bloggers cited by Lappin no more represent the views of most progressives than the views of Pat Buchanan or Ron Paul represent mainstream conservatives."
We also point out that Kirk's supporters used sleazy tactics in 2006, when a staffer threatened to retaliate financially against Tel Aviv University because a prominent U.S. backer of the university endorsed Kirk's Democratic opponent.