I’m grazing the Sunday talk show channels and The McLaughlin Group show has McLaughlin asking who has power in the new Congress. Pat Buchanan poo-poos the Democrats relative power as Bush will veto any proposals he doesn’t like. Then he reaches down into his bag of statistics and opines …
"Now you want to talk about real power…you have 13% of the Senate are who are Jewish coming from 2% of the population … Now that’s power.
Is this statistic true?
I can name two Jewish senator (Leibermann and Bernie Sanders), now we just need 11 more.
Chuck Schumer, 10 to go.
Arlen Specter. Russ Feingold. Frank Lautenberg. Carl Levin, Feinstien. Ron Wyden, Boxer.
Anyone know the last 3.
I feel like Adam Sandler for some reason.
Norm Coleman is one of them.
Carl Levin - Democrat - Michigan
Arlen Specter - Republican - Pennsylvania
Frank Lautenberg - Democrat - New Jersey
Herb Kohl - Democrat - Wisconsin
Joseph Lieberman - Independent - Connecticut
Dianne Feinstein - Democrat - California
Barbara Boxer - Democrat - California
Russ Feingold - Democrat - Wisconsin
Ron Wyden - Democrat - Oregon
Charles Schumer - Democrat - New York
Norm Coleman - Republican - Minnesota
Ben Cardin - Democrat - Maryland
Bernie Sanders - Independent - Vermont
Specter, Levin, and Feingold don’t even sound Jewish.
I wonder if Pat, or anyone, can show that these members act in concert that is in any way inimical to the common interests of the US.
Nope. The surprising thing is that there have been only two other Jewish senators in New York history, Herbert Lehman and Jacob Javits.
The seat that Hillary Clinton holds has never been occupied by anyone who was Jewish.
From 1981 to 1999 the Seantors from New York were the very non-Jewish Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Alfonse Marcello D’Amato.
BTW there are 30 Jewish people (29 Dem, 1 GOP) in the House or about 7%.
Well, they probably act in ways inimical to Pat. I suspect that he is just sulking because the relative percentage of Catholic congresscritters is within a few percentage points of the percent of Catholics in the U.S. population. He wants better odds for “his team,”–even though his positions are generally at odds with most of the positions taken by the US Council of Catholic Bishops. (I think abortion is the only issue on which they agree.)
Well, his statement implies that even though they are different individuals, them having more power than they should have would mean that he thinks they act as a group for some purpose.
Your analysis also seems to imply that Pat thinks that Catholic politicians should act as a group for Catholic purposes.
And, I’m not surprised that Pat would think this.
While I do not actually have evidence that Pat thinks this way, it seems consistent with his general approach to life and society.
Pat Robertson is a Baptist, not a Catholic. TGhe Catholics are not “his team.”
He might be a Christian, but he’s certainly not one of mine, and to call him one or to think that his agenda is a Catholic one is to be misinformed.
On to the Jewish thing- there is, to the mainstream eye, a lot more Jewish cultural unity than Christian. The perception is also that there is much more chance of a “Jewish bloc” than a Christian one.
The fact is that, to the average person, there are many more differences between Catholics and the various denominations of Protestantism than there are differences between sects of Judaism (unless, of course, you’re railing against the evangelist movement, then you lump all your followers of Jesus together).
If I had to venture a guess, I think Ockham and I would both agree that most Jewish Congresspeople vote the same way due to the fact that they are almost all in the same political party.
As far as disproportionate representation goes, might it have something to do with the fact that Jewish people tend to concentrate in communities, which not only serves the purposes of cultural/religious continuity but also maximizes voting power?
The OP is about Pat Buchanan, not Robertson.
Pat Buchanan, on the other hand, is, in fact, Catholic.
He’s also the topic of the thread.
[Edit - bother, beaten to the punch. Still true.]
Why is anyone even discussing this? A hair over ten per cent is hardly a power base.
Why aren’t there just a succession of :rolleyes: at this pitiful attempt to raise a ‘Jewish Power’ case?
More to the point, why do people take idiots seriously? Well other than the one who’s got enough power to wreak havoc on his country and a few others, that is.
The group includes socialist Sanders, liberal Feingold, moderate Specter, hawkish Democrat Lieberman and so on, so it’s hard to imagine consensus on much of anything. Buchanan is probably talking about support for Israel.
Wow. Am I ever a moron.
Don’t mind me.
There’s an old joke describing how if you put two Jews in a room, you wind up with three political parties. 
The latest stupidity from Buchanan is well within his bigoted repertoire. Some classic quotes from Pat can be found here.