Democratic Party leader Howard Dean needs an education on the word “Semite” if he is going to start using “Anti-Semite” as a pejorative against international leaders. No longer are some professional athletes the sorry role models for America’s youth, as our political leaders recently joined them.
First President Bush and Sec. of State Rice trash the word “root cause” with their shallow analysis of the latest Middle East conflict. Rather than ask why seven times, Bush asked only once cause he had hard work to do. Now, Howard Dean suggests the Iraqi Prime Minister is an “Anti-Semite”, thus against himself.
Semite: a member of any of several Semitic-speaking peoples of the Middle East, including the Arab and Jewish peoples, and the ancient Assyrians, Babylonians, Carthaginians, Ethiopians, and Phoenicians (Encarta dictionary)
I don’t know if Prime Minister al-Maliki actually speaks Semetic but he is an Arab person which clearly fits into the word’s definition. Do all Jews speak Semetic? If not, Mr. Dean may be erroneous in his assertion that Anti-Semitic means Anti-Jewish.
Yes, America our dumbing down occurs via aspersions and sound bites. At least with a professional athlete I have no expectation of their need to act behalf on all people, for them to be thoughtful, for them to analyze societal challenges, formulate theories for improvement, test them and then implement those that work on a wider scale. It appears I need to put our elected officials in the same realm with people paid to play games for a living.
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