Former NBC Nightly News Anchor Tom Brokaw has revealed what most Americans have known for a long time. He is a wealthy liberal elitist that is at best clueless and at worst insensitive to certain types of people. Andrea Levin has his latest episode of journalistic malfeasance.
http://www.camera.org/index.asp?x_context=3&x_outlet=17&x_article=1685
To sum up, he asked President Barack Obama a question linking the Israel-Palestinian conflict to what the Jews suffered under Nazi Germany.
“Former NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw revealed a shocking lack of understanding of the Holocaust and Israeli–Palestinian realities in a question posed on June 5 to President Barack Obama during a visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. Brokaw asked:
‘What can the Israelis learn from your visit to Buchenwald and what should they be thinking about their treatment of Palestinians?’
The President responded:
‘Well, look there’s no equivalency here. The Holocaust is sui generis and I would not presume to ever try to suggest to Jews how to think about the Holocaust.'”
While I have had many criticisms of President Obama, and continue to be suspect of his attitude toward Israel, he got this one right. Other than showing a slight flash of elitist snobbery (I had to look up the words “sui generis”), he explained in a succinct manner what even somebody as simple as an NBC journalist should grasp.
There was only one Holocaust.
Now I am not going to declare Tom Brokaw an anti-Semite, but he does have a history of making what can be described as insensitive and stupid comments.
This is not the first time that Mr. Brokaw has made comments that may be seen as dangerously close to the borderline.
In the 1990s, Mr. Brokaw was approached by New York attorney David Kirschenbaum, who pleaded with the anchor to do a story on convicted spy Jonathan Pollard. Mr. Brokaw responded by to Mr. Kirschenbaum with a smugness that only a nightly news anchor could love.
“Do you know what your trouble is? Your trouble is that you’re more loyal to Israel than to the United States.”
Now when somebody disagrees with me, I find that accusing them of treason is not the most civilized form of discourse.
In all fairness to Mr. Brokaw, he does not limit his insensitivity to the people of the book. He did once take time on his way to work to show empathy for the people of the grate.
“I was coming to work early this morning (and) I saw homeless people (and I) envy the extra hour of sleep that they’re getting. I mean, if I were them, I would still be sleeping.”
As I wipe the taste of disgust out of my mouth, I ponder why this man does not get called out on his remarks.
Shockingly enough, it seems that Mr. Brokaw is a liberal in the media industry, where no comment is too vile for any left of center individual to be held accountable.
Mr. Brokaw may write about the World War II generation with reverence, but it seems that his own generation continues to remain narcissistic.
His industry does not understand that Nazis were not warm fuzzy caricatures lampooned on “Hogan’s Heroes.” They are not celebrity characters bellowing “No Soup For You!” on Seinfeld.
Nazis committed genocide. Mr. Brokaw can speak to my Holocaust Survivor father to get a picture on what Nazism actually was.
Mr. Brokaw worships the “Greatest Generation,” but the reason why they were so heroic was because they saved the world from the twin evils of Stalinism and Nazism.
If Mr. Brokaw has evidence of Palestinians being sent into ovens, I would be willing to look at that footage. Until then, there is no moral equivalent between innocent Jews being murdered and Palestinians trying to displace those Jewish descendants through a combination of terror and homicide bombings.
Israeli soldiers are engaging in self-defense. The Nazis of Germany were engaged in cold-blooded genocide.
Tom Brokaw is no worse than your average politically correct liberal elitist. So rather than flog him in the town square, I recommend that he be sentenced to the historical equivalent of traffic school.
He should be forced to take a six hour sensitivity course taught by a Jewish Republican.
I know just the guy.
Until then, he has every right to be rich, liberal, and clueless. I just wish he would combine that with a fourth quality that renders the other three traits less harmful. He should practice silence.
eric
Ya’ just couldn’t resist the knock, “Other than showing a slight flash of elitist snobbery (I had to look up the words “sui generis”).” Did you have to look up “modus vivendi” as well? That almost extinct phrase Andrea Levin used to describe Israeli’s plans to survive? LOL!
I guess it’s “elitist snobbery” to be well-spoken and not some common gutteral snark.
Maybe we should all talk like this:
Me think Obama snob. Tom Brokaw hate Jew people. Me want pay less tax even though me pay hardly any no none.
This whole “elitist” thing is such a crock of ….
JMJ
If the Islamo-fascists were ever to invade (and occupy/administer) this
great country of ours, people like Tom would be the first to be rounded up and shot, no, gassed.
Whether Pat Buchanan, Jimmy (Peanut Brain) Carter, Charlie Rose,
Peter Jennings (now deceased) Edward Fein (ever hear of this libera),
some of the editors of local newspapers, op-editors, they would be
treated the similary to what we are not witnessing first hand every
day in the mullah dominated Iran.
Their existence would be on a day to day basis.
They are dangerous to US., and we must never, never forget that.
We have 3 aircraft carrier fleets in the Persian Gulf, with hundreds
of Tomcats, etc., thousands of marines,yet Obama chooses to do nothing.
Again, he uses fancy rhetoric to justify doing nothing.
J. Carter lost Iran once, now the liberal fascist Obama has done the
same.
Iran is still turning those 7,000 centifuges..spinning uranium gas into
enriched uranium. It boasts it will have 50,000 soon, or enough to
make ove 10 atomic bombs year. At least one of it’s mullahs has
admitted Iran should have the bomb.
Ahmad meets and greets Russian leaders..shakes hands, and they are
all smiles, while the Russian ambassador to the UN claims Israel IS NOT
A JEWISH STATE (OKAY, MAYBE IT’S A MORMON STATE, OR PERHAPS
A HINDU?).
In fact, Israel was a Jewish state long before Islam was a gleam
in Mohammads eyes or Jesus preached in Palestine.
I recall my history how the 2 temples were destroyed, the second
time by the Romans, which ended in 600,000 Jewish deaths, the rest
scattered throughout the world (later to return).
Folks, the Holocaust precipitated the creation of Israel, but was not
it’s defining moment. G-d defined Israel’s moment.
Had Rommel been successful in North Africa, there would today be
no Israel, just 600,000 more dead Jews. M. Dayan and others
had prepared for the final battle in northern Israel. It never
occurred as we know.
The Mufti of Jerusalem went to Hitler, demanding the slaughter of
Palestinian Jews.
When Israel re-occupied the Gaza Strip and W. Bank, it brought
electricity and water to the nomadic Arabs.
Israel vacated the Strip expecting a real peace process with the Arabs.
They left dozens of manufacturing plants..and the remains of 22 settlements.,many purchased for the Arabs by a few US Jews.
Instead they got Hamas, and 10,000 Kassam rockets, and the
capture of a soldier, Shalit (now over 3 year).
While Hamas insists of TV rights for it’s prisoners in Israeli jails,
it won’t allow the Red Cross to see Shalit.
Yet, Israel has no process of hanging and beheading..similar to
Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia.
Israel doesn’t execute Jews for selling land to the Arabs, folks.
I am an American first..always. But if the USA were taken over
by right wing Aryan nights, I wouldn’t hesitate to make use of
my guns.
Let’s be honest, 30billion/year is sent by Hispanics to Mexico.
Are they disloyal or have dual loyalties?
Aren’t we seeing young Iranians at the demonstrations against
the brutality in Iran, saying “I will go back to my country”.
No US born Jew has ever said, “I will go back to my country”.
Anyway, Obama, where is my 1,000 IRS refund check?
You promised. I’ll wait until hell freezes over for it., and remind
you of it in the next election.
“If the Islamo-fascists were ever to invade (and occupy/administer) this
great country of ours, people like Tom would be the first to be rounded up and shot, no, gassed.”
LOL!!! But Dan, if that happens, couldn’t we all just click our heels and go back to Kansas?
Believe me, only in the insano world of paranoid conservatism could such a ludicrous thing ever happen. Like the “Red Meance” before it, “Islamofascism” is a bogeyman, an excuse to usurp power, spend trillions on the military industrial welfare state, and to whither away our great republic. Only a fool believes this insipid rhetoric.
JMJ