Daily Kos: "Feingold Question"

Someone calling himself "Shaneh" finds Russ Feingold attractive as a presidential candidate but wonders "Will this country elect a Jew? And should this country elect a Jew?" (Bold in original.) He continues:

Before you fire up your flame-muscles, think about it objectively. Personally, I habor no predjudice against jews. In fact, I've always liked jewish girls. Don't ask me why.

But could you imagine what that would do to Arab-American relations? Could we even get the leaders of some of these countries -- Iran, Saudi Arabia -- to sit down and negotiate with a Jewish President? (I know the head of the Iranian gov't is not an Arab, but I assume he harbors similar feelings as his countrymen)

Our Intrepid Author could have avoided this awkwardness by referring to "Muslim-American relations." Perhaps there is some politically correct difficulty there I don't see.

I've seen terrorist propaganda using our support for Israel against us. Imagine the propaganda value of a Jewish American President?

I bring this up here because I know there are a lot of very intelligent Feingold supporters here. I'm sure that those who have been cheerleading his candidacy for the past couple of years have thought about this at one time or another.

It does remind me a little of the "you can't elect a catholic" arguments against Kennedy 50 years ago. And that was only proven false by the gigantic will of JFK (and the gigantic checkbook of his father)... Does Russ have what it would take?

The same question comes up with Kerry, who wasn't Jewish, but who was close enough for conspiracy-theorists. And remember, in the Arab/Muslim world, that includes entire regimes. OIA now tries to extricate himself from the quagmire created by the remark "I've always liked Jewish girls":

For what it's worth, I've always found Jewish girls to be particularily attractive. And I'm sorry if it's not OK that I, as someone said, excluded "african american girls;" or any other ethnicity. And I'm sorry if, as someone said, it shows that I look at Jews as seperate and "exotic."

To every jewish woman: I'm sorry for singling-you-out based on the fact that you're hotter then average. I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.

This is followed by, would you believe, a poll concerning whether the "Jewish girls" comment was "blown out of proportion." Just thought you might enjoy seeing how the other half blogs.

Tags: Russ Feingold, Daily Kos, liberalism, Arabs, Muslims, Jews