Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Daniel Pipes Pens an Open Letter to Sen. Chuck Shumer Re Hagel the Horrible

In the letter, posted at NRO's The Corner, Pipes beseeches the New Yorker to live up to his name:
Chuck, you and I go back to our many long dinners and debates in the college dining room in the late 1960s, when your sensible moderation first became evident. A hallmark of your career since then has been consistently to show good sense and courage on Middle Eastern issues.  
As you noted with pride in an April 2010 interview, your family name “comes from the word shomer, which means guardian” in Hebrew. You mentioned that your ancestors were guardians of the Jewish ghetto in the Ukraine, adding: “I believe HaShem [God], actually, gave me my name, as one of my roles that is very important in the United States Senate is to be a shomer for Israel. I will continue to be that with every bone in my body.” 
You expressed having had “genuine concerns” about Hagel prior to your White House meeting with him; now is the moment for you to follow the dictates of your conscience. I hope you will now come out against the Hagel nomination, a shift that will have profound repercussions for the country and secure your reputation as a shomer for U.S.-Israel relations.
Here's the problem: good Democrat that he is, first and foremost he's a shomer for Obama. That being so, this letter is likely to fall on deaf ears. Pipes gets points for trying to penetrate the fog, though.

Update: As I suspected, the fog in the shomer's brain is simply too dense to penetrate.

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