[NYTr] Why Dems and Republicans Bow to the Israel Lobby

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

TruthDig via Alternet - Oct 9, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/64708/

Why Dems and Republicans Bow to the Israel Lobby

By John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, Truthdig

[The following is an excerpt from the Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign
Policy by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt (Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 2007).]

Introduction

America is about to enter a presidential election year. Although the
outcome is of course impossible to predict at this stage, certain
features of the campaign are easy to foresee. The candidates will
inevitably differ on various domestic issues -- health care, abortion,
gay marriage, taxes, education, immigration -- and spirited debates are
certain to erupt on a host of foreign policy questions as well. What
course of action should the United States pursue in Iraq? What is the
best response to the crisis in Darfur, Iran's nuclear ambitions,
Russia's hostility to NATO, and China's rising power? How should the
United States address global warming, combat terrorism, and reverse the
erosion of its international image? On these and many other issues, we
can confidently expect lively disagreements among the various
candidates.

Yet on one subject, we can be equally confident that the candidates
will speak with one voice. In 2008, as in previous election years,
serious candidates for the highest office in the land will go to
considerable lengths to express their deep personal commitment to one
foreign country -- Israel -- as well as their determination to maintain
unyielding U.S. support for the Jewish state. Each candidate will
emphasize that he or she fully appreciates the multitude of threats
facing Israel and make it clear that, if elected, the United States
will remain firmly committed to defending Israel's interests under any
and all circumstances. None of the candidates is likely to criticize
Israel in any significant way or suggest that the United States ought
to pursue a more evenhanded policy in the region. Any who do will
probably fall by the wayside.

This observation is hardly a bold prediction, because presidential
aspirants were already proclaiming their support for Israel in early
2007. The process began in January, when four potential candidates
spoke to Israel's annual Herzliya Conference on security issues. As
Joshua Mitnick reported in Jewish Week, they were "seemingly competing
to see who can be most strident in defense of the Jewish State."
Appearing via satellite link, John Edwards, the Democratic party's 2004
vice presidential candidate, told his Israeli listeners that "your
future is our future" and said that the bond between the United States
and Israel "will never be broken." Former Massachusetts governor Mitt
Romney spoke of being "in a country I love with people I love" and,
aware of Israel's deep concern about a possible nuclear Iran,
proclaimed that "it is time for the world to speak three truths: (1)
Iran must be stopped; (2) Iran can be stopped; (3) Iran will be
stopped!" Senator John McCain (R-AZ) declared that "when it comes to
the defense of Israel, we simply cannot compromise," while former House
Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-GA) told the audience that "Israel is facing
the greatest danger for [sic] its survival since the 1967 victory."

Shortly thereafter, in early February, Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY)
spoke in New York before the local chapter of the powerful American
Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), where she said that in this
"moment of great difficulty for Israel and great peril for Israel ...
what is vital is that we stand by our friend and our ally and we stand
by our own values. Israel is a beacon of what's right in a neighborhood
overshadowed by the wrongs of radicalism, extremism, despotism and
terrorism." One of her rivals for the Democratic nomination, Senator
Barack Obama (D-IL), spoke a month later before an AIPAC audience in
Chicago. Obama, who has expressed some sympathy for the Palestinians'
plight in the past and made a brief reference to Palestinian
"suffering" at a campaign appearance in March 2007, was unequivocal in
his praise for Israel and made it manifestly clear that he would do
nothing to change the U.S.-Israeli relationship. Other presidential
hopefuls, including Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) and New Mexico
governor Bill Richardson, have expressed pro-Israel sentiments with
equal or greater ardor.

What explains this behavior? Why is there so little disagreement among
these presidential hopefuls regarding Israel, when there are profound
disagreements among them on almost every other important issue facing
the United States and when it is apparent that America's Middle East
policy has gone badly awry? Why does Israel get a free pass from
presidential candidates, when its own citizens are often deeply
critical of its present policies and when these same presidential
candidates are all too willing to criticize many of the things that
other countries do? Why does Israel, and no other country in the world,
receive such consistent deference from America's leading politicians?

Some might say that it is because Israel is a vital strategic asset for
the United States. Indeed, it is said to be an indispensable partner in
the "war on terror." Others will answer that there is a powerful moral
case for providing Israel with unqualified support, because it is the
only country in the region that "shares our values." But neither of
these arguments stands up to fair-minded scrutiny. Washington's close
relationship with Jerusalem makes it harder, not easier, to defeat the
terrorists who are now targeting the United States, and it
simultaneously undermines America's standing with important allies
around the world. Now that the Cold War is over, Israel has become a
strategic liability for the United States. Yet no aspiring politician
is going to say so in public, or even raise the possibility.

There is also no compelling moral rationale for America's uncritical
and uncompromising relationship with Israel. There is a strong moral
case for Israel's existence and there are good reasons for the United
States to be committed to helping Israel if its survival is in
jeopardy. But given Israel's brutal treatment of the Palestinians in
the Occupied Territories, moral considerations might suggest that the
United States pursue a more evenhanded policy toward the two sides, and
maybe even lean toward the Palestinians.

Yet we are unlikely to hear that sentiment expressed by anyone who
wants to be president, or anyone who would like to occupy a position in
Congress. The real reason why American politicians are so deferential
is the political power of the Israel lobby. The lobby is a loose
coalition of individuals and organizations that actively works to move
U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. As we will describe in
detail, it is not a single, unified movement with a central leadership,
and it is certainly not a cabal or conspiracy that "controls" U.S.
foreign policy. It is simply a powerful interest group, made up of both
Jews and gentiles, whose acknowledged purpose is to press Israel's case
within the United States and influence American foreign policy in ways
that its members believe will benefit the Jewish state. The various
groups that make up the lobby do not agree on every issue, although
they share the desire to promote a special relationship between the
United States and Israel. Like the efforts of other ethnic lobbies and
interest groups, the activities of the Israel lobby's various elements
are legitimate forms of democratic political participation, and they
are for the most part consistent with America's long tradition of
interest group activity.

Because the Israel lobby has gradually become one of the most powerful
interest groups in the United States, candidates for high office pay
close attention to its wishes. The individuals and groups in the United
States that make up the lobby care deeply about Israel, and they do not
want American politicians to criticize it, even when criticism might be
warranted and might even be in Israel's own interest. Instead, these
groups want U.S. leaders to treat Israel as if it were the fifty-first
state. Democrats and Republicans alike fear the lobby's clout. They all
know that any politician who challenges its policies stands little
chance of becoming president.

The Lobby and the U.S. Middle East Policy

The lobby's political power is important not because it affects what
presidential candidates say during a campaign, but because it has a
significant influence on American foreign policy, especially in the
Middle East. America's actions in that volatile region have enormous
consequences for people all around the world, especially the people who
live there. Just consider how the Bush administration's misbegotten war
in Iraq has affected the long suffering people of that shattered
country: tens of thousands dead, hundreds of thousands forced to flee
their homes, and a vicious sectarian war taking place with no end in
sight. The war has also been a strategic disaster for the United States
and has alarmed and endangered U.S. allies both inside and outside the
region. One could hardly imagine a more vivid or tragic demonstration
of the impact the United States can have -- for good or ill -- when it
unleashes the power at its disposal.

The United States has been involved in the Middle East since the early
days of the Republic, with much of the activity centered on educational
programs or missionary work. For some, a biblically inspired
fascination with the Holy Land and the role of Judaism in its history
led to support for the idea of restoring the Jewish people to a
homeland there, a view that was embraced by certain religious leaders
and, in a general way, by a few U.S. politicians. But it is a mistake
to see this history of modest and for the most part private engagement
as the taproot of America's role in the region since World War II, and
especially its extraordinary relationship with Israel today.

Between the routing of the Barbary pirates two hundred years ago and
World War II, the United States played no significant security role
anywhere in the region and U.S. leaders did not aspire to one. Woodrow
Wilson did endorse the 1917 Balfour Declaration (which expressed
Britain's support for the creation of a Jewish homeland in Palestine),
but Wilson did virtually nothing to advance this goal. Indeed, the most
significant U.S. involvement during this period -- a fact-finding
mission dispatched to the region in 1919 by the Paris Peace Conference
under the leadership of Americans Henry Churchill King and Charles
Crane -- concluded that the local population opposed continued Zionist
inroads and recommended against the establishment of an independent
Jewish homeland. Yet as the historian Margaret Macmillan notes, "Nobody
paid the slightest attention." The possibility of a U.S. mandate over
portions of the Middle East was briefly considered but never pursued,
and Britain and France ended up dividing the relevant portions of the
Ottoman Empire between themselves.

The United States has played an important and steadily increasing role
in Middle East security issues since World War II, driven initially by
oil, then by anti-communism and, over time, by its growing relationship
with Israel. America's first significant involvement in the security
politics of the region was a nascent partnership with Saudi Arabia in
the mid-1940s (intended by both parties as a check on British ambitions
in the region), and its first formal alliance commitments were Turkey's
inclusion in NATO in 1952 and the anti-Soviet Baghdad Pact in 1954.
After backing Israel's founding in 1948, U.S. leaders tried to strike a
balanced position between Israel and the Arabs and carefully avoided
making any formal commitment to the Jewish state for fear of
jeopardizing more important strategic interests. This situation changed
gradually over the ensuing decades, in response to events like the
Six-Day War, Soviet arms sales to various Arab states, and the growing
influence of pro-Israel groups in the United States. Given this
dramatic transformation in America's role in the region, it makes
little sense to try to explain current U.S. policy -- and especially
the lavish support that is now given to Israel -- by referring to the
religious beliefs of a bygone era or the radically different forms of
past American engagement. There was nothing inevitable or predetermined
about the current special relationship between the United States and
Israel.

Since the Six-Day War of 1967, a salient feature -- and arguably the
central focus -- of America's Middle East policy has been its
relationship with Israel. For the past four decades, in fact, the
United States has provided Israel with a level of material and
diplomatic support that dwarfs what it provides to other countries.
That aid is largely unconditional: no matter what Israel does, the
level of support remains for the most part unchanged. In particular,
the United States consistently favors Israel over the Palestinians and
rarely puts pressure on the Jewish state to stop building settlements
and roads in the West Bank. Although Presidents Bill Clinton and George
W. Bush openly favored the creation of a viable Palestinian state,
neither was willing to use American leverage to make that outcome a
reality.

The United States has also undertaken policies in the broader Middle
East that reflected Israel's preferences. Since the early 1990s, for
example, American policy toward Iran has been heavily influenced by the
wishes of successive Israeli governments. Tehran has made several
attempts in recent years to improve relations with Washington and
settle outstanding differences, but Israel and its American supporters
have been able to stymie any détente between Iran and the United
States, and to keep the two countries far apart. Another example is the
Bush administration's behavior during Israel's war against Lebanon in
the summer of 2006. Almost every country in the world harshly
criticized Israel's bombing campaign -- a campaign that killed more
than one thousand Lebanese, most of them civilians -- but the United
States did not. Instead, it helped Israel prosecute the war, with
prominent members of both political parties openly defending Israel's
behavior. This unequivocal support for Israel undermined the
pro-American government in Beirut, strengthened Hezbollah, and drove
Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah closer together, results that were hardly
good for either Washington or Jerusalem.

Many policies pursued on Israel's behalf now jeopardize U.S. national
security. The combination of unstinting U.S. support for Israel and
Israel's prolonged occupation of Palestinian territory has fueled
anti-Americanism throughout the Arab and Islamic world, thereby
increasing the threat from international terrorism and making it harder
for Washington to deal with other problems, such as shutting down
Iran's nuclear program. Because the United States is now so unpopular
within the broader region, Arab leaders who might otherwise share U.S.
goals are reluctant to help us openly, a predicament that cripples U.S.
efforts to deal with a host of regional challenges. This situation,
which has no equal in American history, is due primarily to the
activities of the Israel lobby. While other special interest groups --
including ethnic lobbies representing Cuban Americans, Irish Americans,
Armenian Americans, and Indian Americans -- have managed to skew U.S.
foreign policy in directions that they favored, no ethnic lobby has
diverted that policy as far from what the American national interest
would otherwise suggest. The Israel lobby has successfully convinced
many Americans that American and Israeli interests are essentially
identical. In fact, they are not. Although this book focuses primarily
on the lobby's influence on U.S. foreign policy and its negative effect
on American interests, the lobby's impact has been unintentionally
harmful to Israel as well. Take Israel's settlements, which even a
writer as sympathetic to Israel as Leon Wieseltier recently called a
"moral and strategic blunder of historic proportions."

Israel's situation would be better today if the United States had long
ago used its financial and diplomatic leverage to convince Israel to
stop building settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, and instead helped
Israel create a viable Palestinian state on those lands. Washington did
not do so, however, largely because it would have been politically
costly for any president to attempt it. As noted above, Israel would
have been much better off if the United States had told it that its
military strategy for fighting the 2006 Lebanon war was doomed to fail,
rather than reflexively endorsing and facilitating it. By making it
difficult to impossible for the U.S. government to criticize Israel's
conduct and press it to change some of its counterproductive policies,
the lobby may even be jeopardizing the long-term prospects of the
Jewish state.

The Lobby's Modus Operandi

It is difficult to talk about the lobby's influence on American foreign
policy, at least in the mainstream media in the United States, without
being accused of anti-Semitism or labeled a self-hating Jew. It is just
as difficult to criticize Israeli policies or question U.S. support for
Israel in polite company. America's generous and unconditional support
for Israel is rarely questioned, because groups in the lobby use their
power to make sure that public discourse echoes its strategic and moral
arguments for the special relationship. The response to former
President Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid perfectly
illustrates this phenomenon.

Carter's book is a personal plea for renewed American engagement in the
peace process, based largely on his considerable experience with these
issues over the past three decades. Reasonable people may challenge his
evidence or disagree with his conclusions, but his ultimate goal is
peace between these two peoples, and Carter unambiguously defends
Israel's right to live in peace and security. Yet because he suggests
that Israel's policies in the Occupied Territories resemble South
Africa's apartheid regime and said publicly that pro-Israel groups make
it hard for U.S. leaders to pressure Israel to make peace, a number of
these same groups launched a vicious smear campaign against him. Not
only was Carter publicly accused of being an anti-Semite and a
"Jew-hater," some critics even charged him with being sympathetic to
Nazis. Since the lobby seeks to keep the present relationship intact,
and because in fact its strategic and moral arguments are so weak, it
has little choice but to try to stifle or marginalize serious
discussion.

Yet despite the lobby's efforts, a considerable number of Americans --
almost 40 percent -- recognize that U.S. support for Israel is one of
the main causes of anti-Americanism around the world. Among elites, the
number is substantially higher. Furthermore, a surprising number of
Americans understand that the lobby has a significant, not always
positive influence on U.S. foreign policy. In a national poll taken in
October 2006, 39 percent of the respondents said that they believe that
the "work of the Israeli lobby on Congress and the Bush administration
has been a key factor for going to war in Iraq and now confronting
Iran." In a 2006 survey of international relations scholars in the
United States, 66 percent of the respondents said that they agreed with
the statement "the Israel lobby has too much influence over U.S.
foreign policy." While the American people are generally sympathetic to
Israel, many of them are critical of particular Israeli policies and
would be willing to withhold American aid if Israel's actions are seen
to be contrary to U.S. interests.

Of course, the American public would be even more aware of the lobby's
influence and more tough-minded with regard to Israel and its special
relationship with the United States if there were a more open
discussion of these matters. Still, one might wonder why, given the
public's views about the lobby and Israel, politicians and policy
makers are so unwilling to criticize Israel and to make aid to Israel
conditional on whether its actions benefit the United States. The
American people are certainly not demanding that their politicians
support Israel down the line. In essence, there is a distinct gulf
between how the broader public thinks about Israel and its relationship
with the United States and how governing elites in Washington conduct
American policy.

The main reason for this gap is the lobby's formidable reputation
inside the Beltway. Not only does it exert significant influence over
the policy process in Democratic and Republican administrations alike,
but it is even more powerful on Capitol Hill. The journalist Michael
Massing reports that a congressional staffer sympathetic to Israel told
him, "We can count on well over half the House -- 250 to 300 members --
to do reflexively whatever AIPAC wants." Similarly, Steven Rosen, the
former AIPAC official who has been indicted for allegedly passing
classified government documents to Israel, illustrated AIPAC's power
for the New Yorker's Jeffrey Goldberg by putting a napkin in front of
him and saying, "In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of
seventy senators on this napkin." These are not idle boasts. As will
become clear, when issues relating to Israel come to the fore, Congress
almost always votes to endorse the lobby's positions, and usually in
overwhelming numbers.

Why Is it so Hard to Talk About the Israel Lobby?

Because the United States is a pluralist democracy where freedom of
speech and association are guaranteed, it was inevitable that interest
groups would come to dominate the political process. For a nation of
immigrants, it was equally inevitable that some of these interest
groups would form along ethnic lines and that they would try to
influence U.S. foreign policy in various ways. Cuban Americans have
lobbied to maintain the embargo on Castro's regime, Armenian Americans
have pushed Washington to acknowledge the 1915 genocide and, more
recently, to limit U.S. relations with Azerbaijan, and Indian Americans
have rallied to support the recent security treaty and nuclear
cooperation agreements. Such activities have been a central feature of
American political life since the founding of the country, and pointing
them out is rarely controversial.

Yet it is clearly more difficult for Americans to talk openly about the
Israel lobby. Part of the reason is the lobby itself, which is both
eager to advertise its clout and quick to challenge anyone who suggests
that its influence is too great or might be detrimental to U.S.
interests. There are, however, other reasons why it is harder to have a
candid discussion about the impact of the Israel lobby.

To begin with, questioning the practices and ramifications of the
Israel lobby may appear to some to be tantamount to questioning the
legitimacy of Israel itself. Because some states still refuse to
recognize Israel and some critics of Israel and the lobby do question
its legitimacy, many of its supporters may see even well-intentioned
criticism as an implicit challenge to Israel's existence. Given the
strong feelings that many people have for Israel, and especially its
important role as a safe haven for Jewish refugees from the Holocaust
and as a central focus of contemporary Jewish identity, there is bound
to be a hostile and defensive reaction when people think its legitimacy
or its existence is under attack.

But in fact, an examination of Israel's policies and the efforts of its
American supporters does not imply an anti-Israel bias, just as an
examination of the political activities of the American Association of
Retired Persons (AARP) does not imply bias against older citizens. We
are not challenging Israel's right to exist or questioning the
legitimacy of the Jewish state. There are those who maintain that
Israel should never have been created, or who want to see Israel
transformed from a Jewish state into a bi-national democracy. We do
not. On the contrary, we believe the history of the Jewish people and
the norm of national self-determination provide ample justification for
a Jewish state. We think the United States should stand willing to come
to Israel's assistance if its survival were in jeopardy. And though our
primary focus is on the Israel lobby's negative impact on U.S. foreign
policy, we are also convinced that its influence has become harmful to
Israel as well. In our view, both effects are regrettable.

In addition, the claim that an interest group whose ranks are mostly
Jewish has a powerful, not to mention negative, influence on U.S.
foreign policy is sure to make some Americans deeply uncomfortable --
and possibly fearful and angry -- because it sounds like a charge
lifted from the notorious Protocols of the Elders of Zion, that
well-known anti-Semitic forgery that purported to reveal an
all-powerful Jewish cabal exercising secret control over the world.

Any discussion of Jewish political power takes place in the shadow of
two thousand years of history, especially the centuries of very real
anti-Semitism in Europe. Christians massacred thousands of Jews during
the Crusades, expelled them en masse from Britain, France, Spain,
Portugal, and other places between 1290 and 1497, and confined them to
ghettos in other parts of Europe. Jews were violently oppressed during
the Spanish Inquisition, murderous pogroms took place in Eastern Europe
and Russia on numerous occasions, and other forms of anti-Semitic
bigotry were wide spread until recently. This shameful record
culminated in the Nazi Holocaust, which killed nearly six million Jews.
Jews were also oppressed in parts of the Arab world, though much less
severely.

Given this long history of persecution, American Jews are
understandably sensitive to any argument that sounds like someone is
blaming them for policies gone awry. This sensitivity is compounded by
the memory of bizarre conspiracy theories of the sort laid out in the
Protocols. Dire warnings of secretive "Jewish influence" remain a
staple of neo-Nazis and other extremists, such as the hate-mongering
former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, which reinforces Jewish concerns
even more.

A key element of such anti-Semitic accusations is the claim that Jews
exercise illegitimate influence by "controlling" banks, the media, and
other key institutions. Thus, if someone says that press coverage in
the United States tends to favor Israel over its opponents, this may
sound to some like the old canard that "Jews control the media."
Similarly, if someone points out that American Jews have a rich
tradition of giving money to both philanthropic and political causes,
it sounds like they are suggesting that "Jewish money" is buying
political influence in an underhanded or conspiratorial way. Of course,
anyone who gives money to a political campaign does so in order to
advance some political cause, and virtually all interest groups hope to
mold public opinion and are interested in getting favorable media
coverage.

Evaluating the role of any interest group's campaign contributions,
lobbying efforts, and other political activities ought to be a fairly
uncontroversial exercise, but given past anti-Semitism, one can
understand why it is easier to talk about these matters when discussing
the impact of the pharmaceutical lobby, labor unions, arms
manufacturers, Indian-American groups, etc., rather than the Israel
lobby. Making this discussion of pro-Israel groups and individuals in
the United States even more difficult is the age-old charge of "dual
loyalty." According to this old canard, Jews in the diaspora were
perpetual aliens who could never assimilate and be good patriots,
because they were more loyal to each other than to the country in which
they lived. The fear today is that Jews who support Israel will be seen
as disloyal Americans. As Hyman Bookbinder, the former Washington
representative of the American Jewish Committee, once commented, "Jews
react viscerally to the suggestion that there is something unpatriotic"
about their support for Israel.

Let us be clear: we categorically reject all of these anti-Semitic
claims. In our view, it is perfectly legitimate for any American to
have a significant attachment to a foreign country. Indeed, Americans
are permitted to hold dual citizenship and to serve in foreign armies,
unless, of course, the other country is at war with the United States.
As noted above, there are numerous examples of ethnic groups in America
working hard to persuade the U.S. government, as well as their fellow
citizens, to support the foreign country for which they feel a powerful
bond. Foreign governments are usually aware of the activities of
sympathetic ethnically based interest groups, and they have naturally
sought to use them to influence the U.S. government and advance their
own foreign policy goals. Jewish Americans are no different from their
fellow citizens in this regard.

The Israel lobby is not a cabal or conspiracy or anything of the sort.
It is engaged in good old-fashioned interest group politics, which is
as American as apple pie. Pro-Israel groups in the United States are
engaged in the same enterprise as other interest groups like the
National Rifle Association (NRA) and the AARP, or professional
associations like the American Petroleum Institute, all of which also
work hard to influence congressional legislation and presidential
priorities, and which, for the most part, operate in the open.

With a few exceptions, to be discussed in subsequent chapters, the
lobby's actions are thoroughly American and legitimate.

We do not believe the lobby is all-powerful, or that it controls
important institutions in the United States. As we will discuss in
several subsequent chapters, there are a number of cases where the
lobby did not get its way. Nevertheless, there is an abundance of
evidence that the lobby wields impressive influence. The American
Israel Public Affairs Committee, one of the most important pro-Israel
groups, used to brag about its own power on its website, not only by
listing its impressive achievements but also by displaying quotations
from prominent politicians that attested to its ability to influence
events in ways that benefit Israel. For example, its website used to
include a statement from former House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt
telling an AIPAC gathering, "Without your constant support ... and all
your fighting on a daily basis to strengthen [the U.S.-Israeli
relationship], it would not be." Even the out spoken Harvard law
professor Alan Dershowitz, who is often quick to brand Israel's critics
as anti-Semites, wrote in a memoir that "my generation of Jews...became
part of what is perhaps the most effective lobbying and fundraising
effort in the history of democracy. We did a truly great job, as far as
we allowed ourselves, and were allowed, to go."

J. J. Goldberg, the editor of the Jewish weekly newspaper the Forward
and the author of Jewish Power: Inside the American Jewish
Establishment, nicely captures the difficulty of talking about the
lobby: "It seems as though we're forced to choose between Jews holding
vast and pernicious control or Jewish influence being nonexistent." In
fact, he notes, "somewhere in the middle is a reality that none wants
to discuss, which is that there is an entity called the Jewish
community made up of a group of organizations and public figures that's
part of the political rough-and-tumble. There's nothing wrong with
playing the game like everybody else." We agree completely. But we
think it is fair and indeed necessary to examine the consequences that
this "rough-and-tumble" interest group politics can have on America and
the world.

© 2007 Independent Media Institute.