I’m a Republican and thus perhaps disinclined to like Kerry. But I’m also an amateur genealogist, and I have to say in all fairness that Kerry probably *didn’t* know about his paternal grandparents being Jewish.

What’s more, there is no evidence in the US vital records (as far as I can find) that would have indicated their true origins–his grandparents covered their tracks pretty well. I wrote a blog post about this back in February, 2003, when Kerry was just one of several candidates for the nomination:

http://www.yuppiesofzion.com/archives/000670.php

Screenshots of his ancestors’ census records and Ellis Island records are included.

I really like your posts too. It is rare to find such careful thinking-out-loud in blog land, and I am glad that this blog welcomes it.

I think some of the Jewish “lefy-ness” comes from the whole idea of Tikkun Olam – that God created the world, but it is up to US to perfect it. That is a responsibility, and when you have a responsibility, that means you have to actually do stuff. It is not enough to “let the market take care of it,” which is the more right-wing way to go at social problems. The Jewish tradition is also as much focused on the responsiblity of the community to take care of people — more so than the Christian tradition, which focuses much much more on personal responsiblity/personal salvation. The community, in the modern context, pretty much means the government. Hence, support for social programs, etc… the lefty agenda.

With respect to the question of the left and capitalism… I think you have it just right when you say the market is a necessary evil for lefties. There is no better way to organize the production and distribution of goods than capitalism… but if left unchecked, the powerless and weak will be crushed, and left to die at the side of the road. (That is nature’s way too, with evolution…)

But what about the flip side of the question — the attidude of the right-wing to government involvement in the economy? Maybe government involvement is the right wing’s necessary evil. One of Marx’s points in the Communist Manifest was that workers should have a 40 hour work week… something we take for granted now, but that at his time was… revolutionary! Don’t most republicans think the government is a “necessary evil” in things like regulating monopolies to preserve real competition; the SEC’s oversight of the securities markets so that investors have, at least, good information; creating uniform regulations so they don’t have to follow rules on a state-by-state basis…

bruce

Yes, thanks. I think you’ve nailed it with this:

I really think that people had come to think of Kerry as such a dufus that all it toook was one good night and they were impressed….

Jamie Irons

I will not read anything in the NYT but I scanned the Wapo article and anyone who was glad that Kerry jumped the president for tying together 9/11 and Iraq was not going to vote for Bush anyway.

I still think that Bush did ok. I know other people may not have seen what I did, but Bush looking annoyed when I am scraming at the TV myself does not bother me. I am not undecided.

I think anyone who is in that so called place at this point in time can not even be counted on to show up and vote.

If Bush does really well on the next two debates will these same people do an about face? If that is all it takes then I don’t think that is very fair to either candidate.

I really think that people had come to think of Kerry as such a dufus that all it toook was one good night and they were impressed.

Rick

The New York Times and WaPo debate post mortems cited by Hugh Hewitt really depressed me. If these articles are fair indicators, Kerry fooled a lot of swing voters.

Catherine

I love the way you think things through. Your notes on your childhood exposure to the Holocaust really awakened some memories in me. Like you, I grew up in Illlinois farm country, was raised protestant, and married a Jew. (I converted to Judaism.) When I was 11 or 12, for some reason I started checking out books on the Holocaust from the public library (in Wheaton, Illinois). I think these books changed my life. I knew no Jews in childhood (I don’t think there were any in Wheaton at that time!) but at Yale my closest friends were all Jews. I think it was the Jewish respect for, and tradition of, scholarship, coupled with the “outsider” aspect of being Jewish, that resonated for me. Anyway, your post made me remember those early books, which I hadn’t thought of for a long time.

All

I had a dinner party last night and my very good friend, David, an engineer who is pretty naive about politics, told me about having read the NYT piece last weekend on bloggers. I had to set him straight on how terribly distorted that account had been, and he was fascinated to learn the details (which we are all “expert” in) of Ra^[th]ergate.

Maybe one more person will be moved a little further off the MSM schneid.

Jamie Irons

I had no idea that Kerry’s grandfather killed himself. That explains a lot about the secret nature of his family. To talk aobut one thing, would lead to the other. And Catholics do not hold with suicide.

I just hink he is weird. I can’t help it, the man gives me the willies.

I know how bush felt. I had to give talks in front of rural groups for years when I did volunteer work for the Citizens Action Coalition here in Indiana. Once I had to speak at a Lodge and I had a headache. I was launching into the talk and out there in the audience I encountered a look so baleful and that it threw me off. I just lost the thread and for the life of me I could not get it back. I had the material down pat, but it was gone.

It was awful. I thought of that experience when I watched the debate the other night and I felt sorry for Bush.

On the subject of Kerry and Treblinka, I’m sort of with Roger on this, except with a twist. I think it does have quite a bit of significance and that it has to do with his Jewish past, but for a slightly different reason than Roger has stated.

I read a really long article a while back (can’t find this particular article right now, unfortunately, so I can’t link it) that discussed how Kerry learned that he was Jewish. I do believe he didn’t know; it was a DEEP dark family secret, and I believe it is a key to some of his psychological problems, of which he has quite a few.

His paternal grandfather was the convert (converted to Catholicism back in Europe, before he came here), and was a self-made and very successful man who committed suicide in 1921, in his late forties, by shooting himself in the men’s room at the Copley Plaza in Boston.

Not only were the Jewish roots a secret, but the suicide was a secret also. Kerry only learned of the suicide from his father on his father’s deathbed (in the early 90s, I believe–I’m doing this from memory), but still didn’t know about the conversion, although he had somehow learned earlier that his grandmother had been a convert. Then, in the mid to late 90s, with the help of Boston Globe reporter Kranish, he tracked down the fact that the grandfather had been a convert also.

Here is Kerry, describing his reaction on learning of the suicide, “That explains a lot. It connects the dots. My dad was sort of painfully remote and shut off and angry…” http://www.othmar.at/archiv/kerry/docs/bosten_globe_surprising_history.html

The point I’m making is this: I believe that Kerry was deeply affected by the secrecy about the conversion AND the secrecy about the suicide. He was brought up with a lie at the center of his family, and probably sensed it in some way. I think this is at least part of the source of his propensity to lie and his need to puff himself up.

I think the story he told during the debate about the KGB files in “Treblinka Square” was a lie, or at least an exaggeration of some sort–not just the “Treblinka” part, but the story itself. I don’t think it happened, at least not the way he said it. I don’t think he can help himself–lies and puffery are just part of his nature. I think the “Treblinka” slipped out as a sort of clue that he was lying–almost like his tongue gave him away. And I think the fact that he gave the name of a death camp in which Jews were killed is a very veiled, significant, and Freudian reference to the family lie with which he was raised: the suicide of his converted Jewish grandfather, who was born in Europe.

Re Treblinka/Lubyanka: Actually, while it may have been called Dzherzhinskii Square before the collapse of the USSR, it isn’t now – it’s plain Lubyanka Square, and the statue of Feliks that once stood in the center has gone to an obscure and unregretted end. So had Kerry referred to it as Lubyanka Square it would be correct, in the same way that referring to “St. Petersburg” would be understandable even though it’s changed names a few times this century as well.

As for Kerry and his psychological issues re the two names; I’d also be inclined to his simply getting them two Slavic names mixed up (”They all sound alike to me!”) And I agree that if Bush had done it, we’d still be awash in the lame witticisms stemming therefrom – that is, as soon as every MSM had hastily looked up “Treblinka” and figured out the difference . I’d be inclined to give him a pass on the genealogy thing too, though that’s a personal inclination since my mother’s family (with the exception of my mother) are also from that part of the world and have so little curiosity about their background that it’s truly amazing. My mom once tried to ask one of her great-aunts about their family, if she had any memories of earlier generations, and the great-aunt just looked at her and said “Is this some sort of joke?” I could be descended from Ivan the Terrible for all my ancestors bothered to check things out. So I’d argue that it may just mean Kerry is just incredibly…noncurious. The Irish thing bothers me, though; I mean, it’s one thing just not to care where you come from, but putting on the Son Of The Auld Sod act for votes…ugh. This whole worshipping of the Irish in politics business should have been buried with Jack Kennedy. (I’ve got Irish ancestors as well, so I can say that without immediately being plagued by snakes, or whatever ).