New York Democrats
Congressman-Elect George Santos of New York has an “integrity” problem. Don’t take my word for it. Even “off the hook” former Democratic Congressman (and Presidential candidate) Tulsi Gabbard said it, in her Fox News interview of him. Santos is a Republican, one elected in the surprising New York state results of 2022. New York is a bastion of “Democratness”. The struggles in the state legislature are usually between two different factions of Democrats, with the Republicans having little say. The battles between Democrats Mayor DeBlasio and Governor Cuomo were legendary.
So it was a real shock that four normally Democratic Congressional seats went to Republicans, including one held by the Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Sean Patrick Maloney. Santos flipped New York’s Third District on the North Shore of Long Island. Understanding New York Democrats, it’s no surprise that the losers are blaming newly elected Governor Kathy Hochul for not campaigning hard enough in the area.
False Resume
Santos campaigned as an openly gay, former Wall Street investor, who would bring a “moderate” Republican stand to Washington. His parents were from Brazil, and Santos himself graduated from Baruch University in New York, and worked for fabled investing firm Goldman-Sachs. And, he was Jewish.
It now seems that none of those things are true. He never worked on Wall Street, Goldman-Sachs doesn’t even have record of him. He never graduated from Baruch University. Now he claims his parents weren’t from Brazil. And, he acknowledges that he was raised in the Catholic Church.
His latest line: “I’m not Jewish, but I’m Jew—ish”.
“Ish-ness”
So I get that a little bit. My father was a non-practicing Jew, my mother, estranged from the Roman Catholic Church, turned to American Episcopal. I was raised an Episcopalian, schooled in the traditional (near Catholic) mysteries of the “high church”. At the holidays we celebrated Christmas and Easter, not Hanukah and Passover. But there was always some interaction with the Jewish side of the family. I learned to intone the Hebrew blessing of the wine and bread before Seder supper, just as I learned the Lord’s Prayer.
I guess you could say that while I was a Christian (now fallen), I was still connected to “ethnic Judaism”. And in Cincinnati, a small town in many ways, I was connected to the “Jewish” part of the Democratic Party, because Dad’s distant cousin was one of the Party County Co-Chairman. In one of my first “real” political jobs, as scheduler for a Catholic United States Congressman, I was surprised to find I was considered one of the “Jews” in the office. At the time, I didn’t “feel” Jewish, if anything I related more to the Congressman’s Irish connections.
Throughout my career as a public school teacher and coach, I realized that many would automatically assume I was Jewish. It was just the way it was, and though I never claimed to be Jewish, it was still in the background for people who really didn’t know me. So, in a sense, I guess I was “Jew—ish” too.
Malpractice
But it’s hard to imagine you could lie about your work career, your education, your parents’ ethnicity, and your religion; and still get elected to Congress. There is an old campaign axiom: know your own candidate, and know your opponent. It’s called opposition research.
In any campaign any professional campaign operative is going to check every claim by the opponent. Not only do they examine the views and positions on issues, but, like any prospective employer, they CHECK REFERENCES and claims. If they fail to do that, they are committing campaign malpractice. So why didn’t Democratic candidate Robert Zimmerman do his “due diligence”? Why did it take the New York Times to expose Santos as a fraud, and only after the election results were already counted?
Cringe-worthy
Because, even in this era “beyond truth”, we still don’t expect people to out-right lie about the basic facts of their lives. We might take a couple of exaggerations, but not complete fabrications. But if truth no longer matters, then why shouldn’t candidates just make-up whatever works. Santos wasn’t the only one. Look at Herschel Walker, who assumed they’d never find the children he denied even fathering.
Tulsi Gabbard wasn’t the only former politician decrying Santos’ lack of integrity. Former Congressman and convicted pervert Anthony Weiner also was shocked. He interviewed Santos twice on radio (yep, Weiner’s got a radio show) and “exposed” some of the lies. But Weiner really found that the “Jew—ish” comment was “cringe-worthy”.
I guess he should know.
