Tuesday, February 12, 2019

When Is an Apology Not an Apology?


The Democratic Party is in damage control mode. Now that two of their new Muslim Congresspeople have exposed themselves as virulent anti-Semites, the party has circled the wagons and is pretending to distance itself from Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib. And to do so without offending two of their important constituencies, Jews and African-Americans.

The Party’s Congressional Black Caucus has embraced Rev. Louis Farrakhan. The party standard bearer for eight years was a protégé of Rev. Jeremiah Wright. And, the Obama administration welcomed notable anti-Semite Rev. Al Sharpton to the White House on dozens of occasions. When Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress, the CBC boycotted the event. The world leaders of anti-Semitism, Jew hatred are living in Tehran and Gaza and Southern Lebanon. The latter two are being financed by the mullahs in Tehran. Need we mention again that the Iranian regime was propped up and financed by the Obama administration? And that the planeloads of cash that Obama and Kerry sent to Iran has been used to finance anti-Israeli terrorism in Gaza and Southern Lebanon. The association of Democrats with anti-Semitism is only news for those who do not know how to think.

Yesterday, party leaders got together and forced Omar to offer up yet another insincere apology for trafficking in anti-Semitic tropes. In it Omar said that she is being educated about anti-Semitic tropes. Apparently, a member of the Congress, a functioning adult, did not know that her remarks manifested anti-Semitism. She must think that the nation is dumber than she is.

And we will note that her bigotry is costing her nothing. She still sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, an appointment made after she had made other anti-Semitic remarks. If the House leadership is too afraid of the anti-Semites in its midst to remove her, she ought to resign that assignment. An apology that costs you nothing is insincere. By definition.

You have to be beyond stupid to believe such things. The problem is that this is not the first time that Omar has apologized for her anti-Semitism. It is the second time in a little more than a month. To be clear about it, an apology implies a vow not to repeat the same offense. If you apologize and then repeat your dereliction you have gone back on your word and thus rendered your first apology insincere and untrustworthy. At that point no one should believe in your second apology. 

Omar is a bigot. She is an anti-Semite. She represents one of the ugliest of world bigotries, and has exposed the Democratic Party as its new source. If she remains on the House Foreign Affairs Committee the Democratic Party will be throwing its lot in with anti-Semites… and with those who are dedicated to killing Jews.

4 comments:

Sam L. said...

When, you ask? When a Democrat says it.

UbuMaccabee said...

Well, I always wondered what Jeremiah sounded like in person. The second paragraph is the hammer, the rest is the anvil. That’s why I attend every day, Doc. Herzl would be proud.

So will Jews in America find their integrity and put a stop to this, or will they continue to declare that there are “no enemies on the Left” and ignore it?

How can it be more obvious? How?

UbuMaccabee said...

From the Federalist:

“But the best way to gauge if a person is merely being “critical” of Israel’s policies or critical of the existence of the Jewish state is to use Natan Sharansky’s 3-d test: 1) Do they engage in “delegitimization” of the nation’s existence, as every supporter of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) does? 2) Do they engage in “demonization” of that country, as people who claim Israelis hypnotize the world for evil or go around murdering children for kicks do? 3) Do they engage in “double standards,” like having an obsession with Israel and AIPAC, while ignoring illiberalism found throughout the Islamic world or things like Muslim concentration camps found in China?”

Anonymous said...

"If you apologize and then repeat your dereliction you have gone back on your word and thus rendered your first apology insincere and untrustworthy. At that point no one should believe in your second apology."

A 1786 essay refers to an early, non-English form of the familiar saying “Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” Wrote George Horne, an English divine: “When a man deceives me once, says the Italian proverb, it is his fault; when twice, it is mine.”

- shoe