Oliver Stone added to his reputation as an incorrigible conspiracy monger this past week in an interview in the Times of London in which he claimed that America’s “obsession” with the Holocaust was caused by Jewish control of the media, sought to put Hitler “in context,” and denounced the “Jewish lobby” and Israel for controlling American foreign policy. The leftist director also defended the Jew-hating regime in Iran as well as Venezuelan strong man Hugo Chavez (who is featured in a flattering documentary produced by Stone), whose dictatorial government has terrorized that country’s Jewish community and made common cause with Tehran.
The Anti-Defamation League appropriately denounced this. But while, as Jennifer noted, Stone was not exactly deluged with criticism — the mainstream media generally ignored the controversy — he did issue two apologies within the next three days. The first backed away from his remarks about the Jews controlling the media and Hollywood, but, as the ADL rightly noted in a release, he failed to deal with his charges about Israel and the “Jewish lobby.” In response to this, Stone, obviously listening to his PR people, again apologized, saying: “I do agree that it was wrong of me to say that Israel or the pro-Israel lobby is to blame for America’s flawed foreign policy. Of course that’s not true and I apologize that my inappropriately glib remark has played into that negative stereotype.”
Feeling that this was sufficient, the ADL quickly declared victory in a statement in which its director, Abe Foxman, was quoted as saying, “I believe he now understands the issues and where he was wrong, and this puts an end to the matter.”
But does it?
Stone’s comments were hardly out of character. He had previously talked about putting Hitler “in context,” and his denunciations of Israel and defense of the anti-Semitic regimes in Iran and Venezuela are still a matter of the record. Last fall the ADL went out of its way to try to wrongly connect mainstream conservative and Republican critiques of President Obama with lunatic extremists and anti-Semites in a report. But as Stone’s comments illustrated, the lesson here is the slippery slope between the leftist conspiracy theories that Stone has championed in his films and public utterances and traditional anti-Semitic invective. This was not a mere slip of the tongue. The line between lionizing Jew-haters like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and overt anti-Semitism is razor-thin if it exists at all. While it is appropriate for the ADL director to acknowledge the speed with which Stone has tried to flee from justified accusations of anti-Semitism, he should have used this moment to make it clear that this story is bigger than just one interview. Instead, he has produced a statement that will serve to allow Stone to escape any further opprobrium. The problem with Oliver Stone is not his big mouth but the ideas that he has spent his adult life propagating. What Stone has done is to once again highlight the nexus between far-left conspiracy theories and Jew-hatred. And that is something that can’t be put to rest with a mere blessing from Mr. Foxman.
I don’t want to get too dramatic here but all this tit-for-tat campaign stuff may be rendered moot very quickly as we are sitting on the edge a major financial meltdown.
And who knows what impact that could have on this race?
We turned on FoxNews to watch Gov. Palin in Colorado. She was excellent and so upbeat and she was obviously having great fun with a very enthusiastic audience. And yes she did a fine job talking about the problems in the financial markets and springboarding into the reform message.
Five minutes later, we were ripped from big brass major chords to minor chords with all the excitement of a funeral dirge… slow, monotonous, hand wringing, tales of woe from Joe Biden. In fairness, he mentioned that his good friend Carl Levin’s wife passed away and the funeral is today. But truly, the contrast in the mood and message of the two parties could not have been more stark. I couldn’t even hang around to find out what “big diss” Joe threw down on Mac.
Something is happening… SurveyUSA has Obama up by 4 now in VA…. I tell you, the “dishonorable hit job” against McCain was as dirty as it comes and it might have worked?????
Unfortunately the MSM has shown itself to be no more than a wholly owned subsidary of the Democratic National Committee, and has thrown any pretense at objectivity to the sharks. Rod – I wouldn’t worry too much about the SurveyUSA poll…Obama may win Virginia, but I don’t think its terribly likely. I live in Northern VA and St. Barack the Magnificent is not wearing as well here as the MSM wants you to believe. He will undoubtedly get a majority of the Alexandria-Fairfax axis votes, but not outside that area.
Thanks Larry L. I did worry about VA today…. I found that poll striking b/c it’d be an 8pts differential– I don’t understand VA politics frankly. I know it has a big military population but also lots of liberals (working in DC) and AA …
In particular I don’t understand/know what differentiates VA from MD in presidential elections…?
McCain is just waiting for the debates. It will be clear who has the honor, and who is taking the low road.
Biff,
more scare tactics and projection from the left, eh? You are an obamaton in good standing.
One of the things I really love about this site is that it seems to usually be devoid of the casually thrown snark and insults so regularly seen around the internet; the automatic response of “Rethuglican” or “Obamabot” to a statement that one disagrees with. I hope it can stay that way…remember when we were told to “count to ten?” Still a pretty good rule of thumb for getting along.
what a joke of a site..Mccain is great, Obama is crap. ok i get it. it’s not like this is real journalism people. i can read 3 posts and discern that. don’t think for a minute that you are getting some sort of non-biased political interpretation.
i would never have stumbled upon this site had realclearpolitics not linked to it. but then i read a few lines, threw up in my mouth just a little bit, and now i’m outta here.
Jennifer Rubin–your writing and faulty analysis truly suck.