Statement From NJDC on Rove’s Comments About Obama “Karl Rove Must Think Jewish Voters Are Idiots.”
Listed in: Other Foreign Policy, Stop the Smears, NJDC News, Press Releases
WASHINGTON, DC - Today, following comments by Karl Rove which falsely implied that Senator Obama may not favor foreign aid for Israel, the National Jewish Democratic Council (NJDC) released the following statement from Executive Director Ira N. Forman:
"Karl Rove must think Jewish voters are idiots. He pointed to comments about the cost of the Iraq War - a regular talking point for opponents of the Administration's polices in Iraq - and attempted to twist these comments to imply that Senator Obama is not committed to foreign aid for Israel. In reality, Senator Obama has an impeccable voting record on foreign aid and he has consistently gone on record supporting foreign aid.
"Rove also expects us to believe that his baseless theory about Obama and Israel came from a Democrat. Does he honestly expect Jewish voters to believe that Democrats are kibitzing with Karl Rove about our candidates?
"It is clear that support for Israel is bipartisan, but if Karl Rove is so concerned about the foreign aid issue, maybe he should check with his own party's leadership in the House of Representatives, since the House Republican leadership took the nearly unprecedented action of whipping against foreign aid this summer.
If the right wing smear machine were a basketball team, Karl Rove would surely be the point guard. We can only hope that, as he wraps up the Republican nomination this March, John McCain will call on Republican smear-mongers to stop the madness.'"
According to a report from Media Matters for America: "On Fox News Sunday, in discussing Sen. Barack Obama's statement that money being spent on the war in Iraq ‘is money that we could be spending here in the United States, rebuilding our infrastructure, building schools, sending kids to university,' Karl Rove quoted a ‘Democrat' he said he had spoken to in Los Angeles as saying, ‘I'm worried about that, because does that mean he's going to be looking at our support, for example, for the state of Israel and looking at it in terms of what could we be doing at home with those dollars?' However, Obama has consistently supported aid to Israel." [Media Matters for America, 3/3/08]
