My Letter to the Washington Jewish Week

I wrote a letter to the Washington Jewish Week after its fawning coverage of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington's decision to buy a building last week. It wasn't published this week, and I suspect it won't be published. It's the second consecutive letter I've written criticizing the paper's coverage of the federation that has been ignored for no reason other than that it criticizes the paper and the federation--which is extremely disappointing from an alleged community newspaper. Anyway, here's the letter: The Washington Jewish Week reported on its website on July 20 (“Federation Board of Directors Unanimously Approves Purchase of New Headquarters”) that the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington had decided to buy a new building for a price of more than $15 million. Considering that the purchase comes not only in a tough economic environment, but at a time when fundraising for the federation’s annual campaign has declined by more than 25 percent in the last three years – from more than $25 million in 2008 to $17.6 million in 2011 -- and allocations to member agencies have been slashed by close to $2 million, this seemed like a somewhat controversial decision. Yet the WJW’s article on the decision featured no discussion of this important issue – just praise, from both the article’s author and federation officials, for the generosity of the donors and the work of the federation. The only mention of the controversial economic issues involved were in a lengthy question and answer section – which is not an actual interview but simply the federation’s talking points for explaining the deal. Is the WJW now just a federation mouthpiece and press agent, or is the WJW a newspaper? The federation is a very important organization in the Jewish community – one in which thousands of people put their trust in every year by giving it their charitable contributions. And it should be covered like an important organization, one whose decisions deserve scrutiny and examination. Why won’t the WJW do its job and provide that scrutiny, instead of the cheerleading we have been getting in the last two years? Eric Fingerhut Washington, D.C.

Washington Post Sports Watch #1: Swimming World Championships

In certain ways the coverage the Washington Post sports section gives D.C. sports fans (when you combine both what's available online with what's in the print edition) is better than ever. The blogs devoted to each of the professional teams gives readers much more information, and in a much more timely fashion, than we ever got a few years ago - before blogs, etc. And Dan Steinberg's D.C. Sports Bog is essential reading for any local sports fan--and if you don't know why, you're obviously aren't reading him. Yet, as the Post overall has deteriorated in recent years because of the Internet, staff cuts and bad management, the Sports section, especially the print edition, has had a similar downward trajectory in many ways--missing certain stories, running a number of boring or contentless columns by their supposedly superstar columnists, editing errors and a number of other strange decisions that I intend to regularly catalogue in this space. Today, though, I want to start by praising the Post for sending a reporter to Shanghai to cover the World Swimming Championships this week. I know some sports fans don't agree, but I love the Olympics and while I can't say I regularly follow swimming, track and field, etc. in Olympic off years, I do enjoy reading about (and occasionally watching on TV) the world championships in those sports every couple of years. I imagine that other than the New York Times and Sports Illustrated, there are hardly any other mainstream publications that sent anyone to China to cover this event.

So what's my problem? Actually, there are two. First is a problem that increasingly is an issue at the Post in general--the cuts in editors has led to paper just missing things that shouldn't be missed. The preview of the Swimming Championships today in the Post is the featured article on the front of the Sports section, with huge pictures and taking up most of the front page (on a morning when the Nats were on the West Coast and the only other sports news in the possible end of the NFL lockout, that's fine.) And yet neither in the "Sports on the Air" listings of TV sports broadcasts today nor anywhere or around the article on the World Swimming Championships is there any mention that the Swimming Worlds are actually being broadcast for two hours on NBC on Sunday? Why not? I have no idea--since the channel listings and times frequently accompany articles on other major sporting events in the Post. Does the person who edits the sports on TV listings not look at the TV grid in the Post's TV Week publcation, where it is listed? I hope not. Did NBC just not send out a press release that they were broadcasting this event? Perhaps, but I doubt it. I don't really no the reason, but it seems inexcusable to me--if you consider the World Swimming Championships important enough to send a reporter to China, you'd think someone, when putting together the piece, might have taken five minutes to say, "Hey, we sure this isn't on TV somewhere? Doesn't NBC cover this kind of thing a lot?"

The other thing that astonishes me about the Post's coverage of the World Swimming Championships is the fact that they sent a reporter all the way to China to cover this event and yet they couldn't send a reporter to cover ANY of the seven games in the Stanley Cup Finals (and three of those games were in Boston.) The Post has said before that part of their coverage decisions are based on TV ratings--well, trust me, even if the Post had promoted the NBC coverage of the World Championships today, they're still going to have a much smaller TV audience than the Stanley Cup Finals did. And considering Washington right now is a city where the hockey team is the second most popular team in the city, it seems odd that it would say it couldn't afford covering the championship of the NHL which took place in North America but could cover an event half a world away that lasts a week. Like I said, I'm fine with the Post wanting to cover the Swimming Worlds, I just don't understand how they can't cover any games in the Stanley Cup Finals.

I'll continue to cover these puzzling decisions in future blog posts.

Will someone wake up the Washington Post's sports columnists and tell them the Caps are a good story?

One of my favorite topics to blog about over the years has been the Washington Post's hockey coverage--because not many people really care about it, even fewer also blog about it (one of the guys at On Frozen Blog, but that's about it) but also because no one pays more attention to it than me. (That's not necessarily a good thing or particularly healthy, but it's just the truth and I can't help it.)

The day-to-day beat coverage of the Caps and the placement of stories on days after games--and features on off-days--is fine and I have no complaint about that. My problem is with the columnists at the Post, who seem to have abandoned the Caps as the team spent the last month and a half going from a group in disarray to a red-hot team that looks like it may have a decent shot at making waves in the playoffs. Sounds like a good story that a sports columnist would be interested in, doesn't it?

And yet somehow there have been FOUR TIMES as many columns written about the Nats in the last month and a half than about the Caps, even though the Nats didn't play their first game of the season until this past Thursday. Now I like the Nats, I follow the Nats and I read most of those columns. But Tom Boswell, the most senior and best Post sports columnist, wrote 13 columns about the Nats since spring training started (including a couple containing such ridiculous optimism about the team that I think family members of Nats players made fun of them.) I know there's a romanticism about spring training, but that's a lot of columns about practice. In that same time period, he wrote one about the Caps (to be fair, it was a good one.) He wrote the same number of columns about the Orioles in that time period.

(By the way, all these column numbers are approximate, because the Post's new website is so bad and hard to use that every columnist archive either was impossible to find or was missing columns that I remembered reading.)

So you say, did other columnists pick up the slack on the Caps while Boswell was delirious from sun poisoning in Florida? Actually, not really. Jason Reid, who just became a columnist in February and is already pretty good, went down to Florida and has written three columns already about the Nats (including a really good one Saturday about the change at the catching position). His tally of Caps columns since he began: zero. (He has written a few about the Wizards.)

How about Tracee Hamilton? The count on her from mid-February to now was three Wizards columns, three Nats columns and two Caps columns. Mike Wise has written no columns about the Caps since...I'm not sure, but not since Presidents' Day. John Feinstein wrote one in mid-Februrary, and went back to college basketball (which is fine, because that's his specialty, although he probably knows the most about hockey of all the sports columnists.) And finally, there's Sally Jenkins, who I don't think has written about hockey since the 1990s.

I'm sure if the Post editors were reading this, they would point to Tarik El-Bashir's "On Hockey" column as a substitute for Boswell, et. al. El-Bashir, who was formerly the Caps beat writer and now covers Georgetown basketball, knows a lot about hockey and his columns are always interesting and often deal with strategy, important issues within the team or how a particular player is doing. But half of them don't even appear in the print edition of the sports section. (Yeah, I know, at 40, I'm just about the youngest person that actually still reads the print edition, but let's face it: If a sports column doesn't appear in the print edition, it means the editors don't consider it as important as all the articles that did make it to print.) And as I said earlier, the Post web site is such a mess lately, it's pretty easy to miss stuff these days--I almost missed El-Bashir's web-only column last week because I'd been busy that day and hadn't had time to check the Caps Insider blog where it was linked until I was on my way to the game.

What makes me even more upset about this is all the great column ideas that any editor or columnist should be able to come up with but that aren't being written. There's the mystery of Alex Ovechkin (why did he have such a mediocre first four and a half months of the season and then all of a sudden look like himself again?). There's the mystery of Alex Semin (is any local athlete as mystifying, both in the ups and downs of his play and his refusal to ever be interviewed in English? Can someone follow him around for a day and see if he insists on speaking Russian to the woman behind the deli counter at Giant?) There's the mystery of the Caps' new defensive system (what exactly are they doing that's so different?) There's the mystery of the Caps goalie situation (there are a lot of fans who think the Caps' best goalie is currently playing in Hershey.) And then there's the obvious story for the last week of the season: Who should the Caps want to play in the first round of the playoffs? Who should they not want to play? I've heard hosts on sports radio lead discussions on this topic--the Post can't dive in?

The Post has certainly made some progress in their coverage of the Caps over the past few years--Dan Steinberg, of course, does some great feature stuff on the Caps, from Ovechkin getting pictures with Michelle Obama to why Baltimore is into the Caps. And I'm sure in the playoffs, we'll get some more Caps features from the Post and regular columns. But if the columnists aren't following the team during the year, are they going to have any idea what's going on when they have to write about the team in the playoffs when it matters? I guess we'll see when the playoffs start next week, but the paper's performance these past few months doesn't give me hope.

So we're down to one?

As far as my Jew-counting project on American Idol goes, last week was a week John Galliano would have loved. Of the four possible Jews left on American Idol, all but one were eliminated--and the one's that left is the one whose suspected Jewish heritage I'm most unsure about.

First of all, Rachel Zevita, she of the Hamsa necklace in the auditions, was eliminated after singing a very strange version of Fiona Apple's "Criminal" (like Randy Jackson, I didn't figure out what the song was until it was nearly over.) I did love when she threw off the cape, though, think she had a cool voice and was kind of interesting--but I can't blame America for not voting her through because her actual performance wasn't very good.

Brett Loewenstern, who seemed pretty Jewish, also didn't make it to the second round after singing "Light My Fire" and flipping his hair a lot. I think he probably would have been entertaining as a finalist and wasn't bad--but he had no chance of winning the whole thing, so it wasn't that big a deal.

Finally, there was Robbie Rosen, who actually had an article in the New York Post about him entitled something like "Could He Be the First Jewish American Idol?" The answer is no, not only because he isn't one of the 13 finalists, but also, as my former coworker Anne wrote, "Robbie Rosen was never going to win American Idol." Why? Because his voice wasn't that great and, as far as I'm concerned, he sang too slow. After a mediocre version of "Angel" on Tuesday night, he did get picked as one of the wild card performers, and listening to him sing "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word," it sounded like every word was the hardest word for him--because it took him so long to get through the song with all his vocal runs, etc. It became annoying. But I'm sure he's a nice young man.

So all we've got left is Casey Abrams, who has to be considered a favorite with his spellbinding rendition of "I Put A Spell On You." I have no actual evidence, though, that he's Jewish, other than his Jewish-like name of Abrams and his Seth Rogen-like look. Funny story, though--I noticed my blog got a couple hundred hits after the Idol shows last week (and that's way more than usual.) Why? Because lots of people were googling stuff like "Casey Abrams Jewish" and Tim Halperin Jewish" and arriving at my posts from the last couple weeks. (As we discussed last week, the answer to the Tim Halperin question is no.

So what do I think of Idol as we go into the final round? Some random thoughts: I think two of the wild card picks were complete wastes--both Ashthon and Stefano did nothing to distinguish themselves from the dozens of similarly mediocre singers that have been eliminated in the round of 24 over the past five years. Naima, though, is at least compelling and has a good voice. I barely remember the guys other than Casey and Jacob Lusk, which doesn't bode very well. Haley Reinhart is the most (unintentionally) funny contestant they may have ever had on the show with her overwrought, trying-too-hard vocals. Pia Toscano had a nice performance, but Randy proclaiming it one of the best performances ever on Idol makes me wonder whether his Simon Cowell-like judging this year may be short-lived. And Karen Rodriguez singing in Spanish--sorry, I don't like it. Can Robbie Rosen sing "Jerusalem of Gold" in Hebrew on the show? If Fox wants to start a show called Bilingual Idol, that's great, and she can sing it on there (and I might even watch it). But I don't really want to see that on this show.

Please leave comments if you disagree. And enjoy the first week of the finals!

Jews on Idol update

So last week I mused that there might be as many as seven Jewish singers in the American Idol Top 50. Now that we're down to the Top 24, with the discovery of some further information and some eliminations, there may be as many as four still around. Let's run them down.

First of all, we'll never know if Casey Schuber or Brittany Mazur are Jewish, because they've been eliminated. I guess Casey was canned in Vegas, because we never saw her, although we did see Brittany briefly in a chair being told she didn't make it.

We can also eliminate Tim Halperin from the list. While he did an impressive duet on "Something" with the lovely Julie Zorrilla and made the final 24, I googled him and found he was a member of a singing group called "The Tribe." With a name like that, could it have been a Jewish a capella group? No, it was a church group in the Midwest, and thus, I think we can safely say Tim Halperin is a member of "The Tribe" but not a Member of the Tribe.

So we may have as many as four left. There's Casey Abrams (no actual evidence he's Jewish, but he's named Abrams and looks like Seth Rogen), Rachel Zevita (has the look and was wearing Hamsa jewelry during her initial audition), Brett Loewenstern (seems like a good bet) and Robbie Rosen (is there really any doubt?)

How many will make the final 12 or 13 or whatever they're going to do this year? I guess we'll find out Thursday--and we'll also find out this week whether Jennifer Lopez and Steven Tyler can truly handle the judging table and are able to give solid critiques to singers' faces--or if they'll crumble like Ellen last year. Should be fun.

Looking for Jews on American Idol

The other night during American Idol, my favorite Jewish Idol pundit, Daniel Feinberg at hitfix.com, tweeted "Based only on names, this is an MoT-heavy "American Idol" Top 100. I'm intrigued..." I had sort of noticed the same thing, and now that we're down to the Top 50 and can actually see all the names of who's left on the American Idol website, there may be at least seven MOTs in the running.

Now of course, Idol does have a history of Jewish singers doing well. There's Elliott Yamin finishing third in year five, Adam Lambert (who no one knew was Jewish until a video turned up of him singing a song in Hebrew and his mother turned up on screen and looked, well, very Jewish) as the runner-up in season eight, and I believe Anthony Federov, who finished fourth in year four, was Jewish, but no one really cared or noticed at the time. And of course, Paula Abdul is Jewish. But this many in the competition at one time (even if all of them could be gone by this time next week?) Got to be unprecedented.

Let's break them down, in alphabetical order, judging either by name or other things I've noticed (bearing in mind that we're really guessing on some of these, and that this post likely ends up linked on a neo-Nazi site to tell people who to root against):

Brett Loewenstern of Boca Raton, FL: This is the guy who was featured in the audition round as getting picked on a lot. He's got a nice voice, although I'm not sure it's good enough to get him anywhere near the top 5 or anything. Would say he's likely to make the top 20 (apparently that's the next cutdown number) just because of all the screen time he's recived.

Brittany Mazur of Tucson, AZ: I have no recollection of hearing her perform at any point in the show so far, but she's kind of pretty. That's all I got.

Casey Abrams of Idylwild, CA: This is the Seth Rogen-looking guy who started scat singing and stuff at the Austin audition, and then did a really wild and really good performance of Georgia on My Mind with a "stand-up bass." The audience and judges could tire of his quirkiness quickly, but I think he's genuinely good and will be a top contender.

Casey Schuber of Toms River, NJ: No idea who this person is, but Schuber sounds like it could be a Jewish name.

Rachel Zevita of New York, NY: She wore a Hamsa necklace on her initial audition, so I'm putting her in the MOT group. I don't remember her being all that good on that initial audition (she was the one that Jennifer Lopez somehow remembered having auditioned a couple years ago), but she's made it this far.

Robbie Rosen of Merrick, NY: I think if we can depend on anything, we can count on the fact that a guy named Robbie Rosen from Merrick, Long Island is Jewish. I don't think we can count on him winning, though. Personally, every time I see him sing on the show, he sounds like he has a good voice, but not quite that good--and just seems a little annoying and too dramatic. Then again, I thought Adam Lambert was too dramatic and kind of annoying in his first performance of the semifinals--and I did a 180 on that a week later. So who knows?

Tim Halperin of Fort Worth, TX: Once again, a Jewish sounding last name, but I know nothing about him.

I promise to follow up on this after the Vegas round. And if anyone is wondering about my opinion of the show with the new judging panel, the jury is still out. Last year, everyone raved about Ellen in the Hollywood round and then we got to the live shows and she was hugging bad singers and refusing to critique people. But I think J.Lo is a little better than expected (she does seem willing to be critical sometimes, even if she is taking on the Paula role of cheerleader) and Steven Tyler is entertaining. As for the show, the audition shows were way too formulaic, but this week's Hollywood round shows, especially the group show on Wednesday night, were pretty entertaining. Randy's comment that they've never had more talent on the show before is ridiculous, but I can still see the makings of a decent season.

Fingerhut out!

The Mysteries of Metro

I have some strange, esoteric interests and obsessions. One of them is what I might call the "Mysteries of Metro." It's not the frustrating, yet obvious, problems with Metro---such as this morning's cracked rail and the havoc it wreaked on the Red Line. That I can actually make some sense of--the system doesn't have enough money for top-flight maintenance and stuff happens (i.e., rails crack when it's really cold). The mystery is how Metro handles it--they have to single track around the affected area, but why does single tracking around a couple of stations mean your trip takes 40 minutes longer than usual? And if that is the way it has to be, why can't they tell you that when your car is sitting in the station not moving--instead of the driver repeating over and over "I've been instructed to wait here before we go into the single tracking area." It's the little things like the lack of communication about the cracked rail that bother me more than the cracked rail.

I'm thinking more about this after Metro announced today that they were starting random bag checks in the system as a security measure. Metro says they won't be intrusive or time-consuming, but I don't buy that at all. This is just one more little thing that will make the ride to work more unpleasant--and for no good reason.

There's a video Metro posted on the Internet that shows how the bag checking procedure will work, and it has a clock showing that it will take less than a minute. That's nice--but completely irrelevant. If I'm late for work, and my train is about to pull into the station at the beginning of the minute when they decide to swab my bag for explosive materials--then the whole process really takes about six minutes, because that's how long it might be until the next train comes after they prevent me from getting the train I wanted to be on. (And who knows, some days it can be 10 minutes between trains--or 20 on the weekend.)

I totally understand the reasons for and, annoying as it is, don't have much of a problem with the security procedures at the airports. The full-body scanners aren't that big a deal, they only pat you down if you refuse the scanner, and everyone who gets on a plane has to go through security. But checking a handful of random people out of the thousands that say, walk into the Grosvenor station every morning doesn't really make much sense. And since they don't have enough manpower to do this at every station every morning, if the bomber gets to Grosvenor and sees someone checking bags, he can just drive down (or take the bus!) to the White Flint or Twinbrook station.

Two of my co-workers disagreed with my view on this--said that if any type of security can prevent a possible subway terrorist attack, random bag checks was a small price to pay. I see their point, but to be honest, I never really think about a possible terrorist attack on Metro (maybe because any potential terrorist would be so annoyed by the many "Mysteries of Metro" they'd choose someplace else.) You know what scares me the most on Metro? Being on a train in the 3-5 p.m. range after school lets out, when a group of teenagers get on and yell, run around, swing from the poles on the ceiling and generally act like they own the place. I'm scared that if I look at them funny, they'll yell at me or try to fight me, or that someone else decides to tell them to pipe down and that person becomes the victim of a brutal beating right there on the car. Terrorism? There's no history of it on Metro.
And yes, that guy was arrested the other day for posting on Facebook that he was going to blow up the Metro (and why would you post that on Facebook, anyway, if you were serious?), but he said he would bomb the third and fifth cars because they were the most crowded. I always go for the first car, because it's the least crowded (yes, I know it's the car most at risk in a crash like the one last year, but at least I'll have a seat.)

Anyway, I'd rather see Metro try to fix some of the mysteries I was referring to earlier, instead of taking manpower to work on ineffective bag checks. Here are some of my mysteries:

1.Most mornings at the Grosvenor Metro station, every car which comes from Shady Grove (and is usually fairly full when it arrives at Grosvenor) is followed by an empty train which starts at Grosvenor. Except some mornings, when it isn't. There's never any explanation--just for some unknown reason, something that happens nine out of 10 times (regularly enough that people get off at Grosvenor to wait for an empty train) just doesn't happen some mornings. Why?

2. The problems with the escalators are something that has been well chronicled. But here are two smaller escalator issues that make no sense to me. First of all, why is it that so many stations don't have their escalators prepared for huge crowds at a particular station? For example, I've walked out of Caps games numerous times to the Metro exit right at Verizon Center. And a number of times, of the four escalators at that entrance, three are going up and one going down even though thousands of people are going to go down them. Or three of the escalators aren't working, but the fourth, working one is going up. The Caps schedule comes out in July and it's on the Internet. Did no one alert Metro to this fact?

3. Even stranger, there are certain escalators within station which, when out of service, mean that the other escalator next to it must be used for people going both up and down. Aside from the safety issues involved in this, every time I see one of these dual up-down escalators, they're incredibly dirty. They look like a bunch of people sat on it to have lunch and then left their trash there. Why does this happen?

4. When my office was near Farragut North last year, I'd often arrive at the station at about 7 p.m., and frequently find a lot of people waiting for a Shady Grove train--and the board telling me that there was eight minutes until the next train. That meant that it had probably already been at least four or five minutes since the last train, meaning that there had at least been a gap of 12 minutes between trains at a time that was at the end of rush hour. The train would get to the station and would be incredibly crowded, so I'd wait for the next train. And it would come three minutes later. And when I got to Grosvenor, another train was so closely behind my train that it would arrive before I could even get to the escalator on the platform. And usually, I'd look up at the board, and there'd be another train coming in the next three to four minutes. No train for 12 minutes, and then three or four in 12 minutes--and this happened regularly around the end of rush hour. How and why?

5. And then there's the mystery of Metro passengers. Each car has a separate air conditioning system, so if you get on a steamy car with a broken cooling system in July, at the next stop, you should just get on the adjoining car, which more than likely is cooler. And yet, people just sit on the hot car and complain about how hot it is. Are Metro passengers so beaten down by the flaws of the system that they don't even want to try another car, expecting it to be just as hot, or do people just not know this?

There's more mysteries, but that's enough for one blog post. Please leave any other mysteries you've got in the comments.

For Wilbon, it was time to go

I posted this as a comment on Dan Steinberg's D.C. Sports Bog, and a few other commenters seemed to like it, so I figured I'd post it here as my return to blogging about D.C. sports media. And since it originated as a comment on another blog, it's much shorter than my usual blog post. It's a reaction to Michael Wilbon's announcement that he's leaving the Washington Post to go full-time to ESPN after 32 years at the newspaper.

Michael Wilbon was once a very good columnist who I looked forward to reading after every Redskins game and other major sporting events, and 10 years ago he was probably the most important opinionmaker in D.C. sports. But anyone who tells you Wilbon's departure is a big loss for the Post either doesn't read the Post sports section regularly or doesn't care about D.C. sports.

In recent years since his PTI and ESPN fame--and especially since he stopped being a regular Monday morning Redskins columnist a few years ago--Wilbon has become almost completely detached from D.C. sports. He's written more columns about the Miami Heat in the last two months than he's written on the Caps and Nats combined the last two years. And every column he writes that isn't about the NBA is basically mailed in.

Even more troubling, in his columns and especially his chats, he's seemed to show a disrespect to D.C. sports fans, from his gratuitous, often lacking in fact, shots at Ovechkin to his attacks on Redskins fans for basically caring too much about the Redskins.

And the worst part is he doesn't even seem to read his own paper--or even his own columns. When he wrote earlier this year that Ovechkin "cannot" win a championship, he got asked about it in his chat and claimed he'd never written such a thing (this despite the fact that Steinberg had done a whole post on it). The most recent example of how out of touch he is was just this week, when someone asked in his chat about Colin Cowherd's comments regarding John Wall and his response was: "I hope you are accurately quoting Colin, and fairly summarizing his positions." This, of course, after Steinberg had written extensively about Cowherd's comments on this site, and a number of other writers had also slammed them in the sports world.

If a D.C. sports columnist can't even bother to read his own newspaper for news about the local sports teams he's supposed to be writing about, it's time for him to go work for ESPN full time.

Jewish Fact Check #12: Obama, Brzezinski and Middle East peace plans (UPDATED and CLARIFICATION)

As a reporter in the Jewish press throughout the 2008 presidential campaign, there were many rumors about Barack Obama that I found myself writing about, and debunking -- but none may have been more persistent than the one about Zbigniew Brzezinski being one of his foreign policy advisers. If I was doing "Jewish Fact Checks" back then, it was the kind of thing I probably would have written about.

The charge had a grain of truth undergirding it -- Brzezinski had endorsed Obama and introduced him at a foreign policy speech Obama gave early in the primary campaign. But the Obama campaign, and even Obama himself, insisted that the former Carter national security adviser was no more than a prominent endorser of the candidate, and no role in the campaign or in formulating Obama's foreign policy views.

Which is why I was so surprised and disappointed when I read yesterday's David Ignatius column in the Washington Post suggesting that the administration was thinking about proposing an American peace plan for the Middle East. Whatever the wisdom of such a plan, I was struck by one of the "advisers" pushing such a policy...Zbigniew Brzezinski! As Ignatius writes:

Brent Scowcroft, who served as national security adviser for presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush, spoke up first, according to a senior administration official. He urged Obama to launch a peace initiative based on past areas of agreement; he was followed by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the national security adviser for Jimmy Carter, who described some of the strategic parameters of such a plan.

The New York Times even added that Obama had dropped in on the meeting -- which also included a number of other former national security advisers, although not Condi Rice or Stephen Hadley from the Bush II administration (Colin Powell, who was NSA during Bush I but Secretary of State during W.'s first term, was part of the meeting.)

This is really kind of stunning, when one looks back at the efforts the Obama campaign went to in order to make sure Jewish voters knew that they had nothing to do with Brzezinski and his ideas on the Middle East. And there was good reason for that: Brzezinski is not considered much of a friend of Israel by many pro-Israel voters. Last fall, he even suggested that if Israel sent jets to attack Iran's nuclear program, the U.S. should shoot them down.

Obama surrogates, and even Obama himself, insisted that they had virtually nothing to do with Brzezinski, constantly making this case to Jewish and pro-Israel voters for months. Take this comment from an appearance Obama made before Jewish voters in Ohio in February 2008:

There is a spectrum of views in terms of how the US and Israel should be interacting. It has evolved over time. It means that somebody like Brzezinski who, when he was national security advisor would be considered not outside of the mainstream in terms of his perspective on these issues, is now considered by many in the Jewish Community anathema. I know Brzezinski he's not one of my key advisors. I've had lunch with him once, I've exchanged emails with him maybe 3 times. He came to Iowa to introduce for a speech on Iraq. He and I agree that Iraq was an enormous strategic blunder and that input from him has been useful in assessing Iraq, as well as Pakistan, where actually, traditionally, if you will recall he was considered a hawk. The liberal wing of the Democratic Party was very suspicious of Brzezinski precisely because he was so tough on many of these issues. I do not share his views with respect to Israel. I have said so clearly and unequivocally.

Such a statement didn't stop either Hillary Clinton supporters or Republicans from continuing to spread the charge. In fact, it started to annoy me how much this apparently false information was being spread. Back in March 2008, not long after Clinton adviser Ann Lewis had been quoted saying that Brzezinski was an top Obama foreign policy adviser, I asked her at a panel during the UJC Young Leadership conference why she kept repeating that charge. She responded that she had read the information in the media -- after which Obama adviser Dan Kurtzer replied that Brzezinski wasn't even an adviser to the campaign -- something that seemed to genuinely surprise both Lewis and McCain rep Larry Eagleburger.

Then Republicans, most prominently the Republican Jewish Coalition in ads like this one, continued to parrot the charge all through the general election campaign. And the Jewish press tried to set the record straight, as my former colleague Ron Kampeas did here and here, noting that while Brzezinski did represent the campaign once on a call for Democrats Abroad, he played no role in the campaign.

The Brzezinski stuff even continued after the inauguration -- I noted that Florida Republican leader Adam Hasner had incorrectly repeated it in a March 2009 piece at the American Thinker.

Well, I don't know what was happening a year ago, but, now, after Ignatius' piece, it looks like Hasner has been proven right. No, Brzezinski's not an official member of the administration, but administration officials are openly soliciting and, apparently, taking, his advice -- and then touting it proudly in public. If the RJC wants to run those ads ripping Obama for having Brzezinski as an adviser this November or in 2012, they won't hear any commplaints from me -- because they're now supported by the facts. If one wants to argue that Brzezinski isn't as "anti-Israel" as groups like the RJC claim, that's fine -- but there's no argument that he's involved with the administration in a somewhat serious way.

Do I believe that the Obama campaign advisers -- who are now serving in the administration -- telling me and others that Brzezinski had no role in the campaign were lying or trying to mislead me? No, I don't -- I think they were either telling the truth as it was at the time or at least believed what the candidate was telling them. But do I feel like sort of a sucker for actually defending the campaign against those spreading the Brzezinski rumor when the administration turns around a little more than a year later and brags about getting advice from the guy? I sure do.

CLARIFICATION: I've had a couple complaints about this post, so let me clarify what I was saying. I never said that anyone was untruthful about the Brzezinski issue during the campaign. I never said Brzezinski worked for the administration or was a key adviser to the president. I don't even think there's necessarily anything wrong with the national security adviser bringing former NSA's in to get their points of view on occasion, as was apparently happening here. But if you are going to bring them in, and then have the president drop in, ask for advice and have Scowcroft and Brzezinski outline a Middle East peace plan -- and then leak to the newspapers in an apparent trial balloon that you're seriously considering taking their advice -- how is it wrong to conclude that Brzezinski is advising the president on Middle East issues? That's my point.

Meanwhile, a postscript: Kampeas wrote in one of the articles linked above that the Obama campaign insisted that Obama's views were close to Dennis Ross, not someone like Brzezinski. And while it's unclear how influential Ross is in the administration, it's interesting that while anonymous administration officials are talking positively about Brzezinski, at least one anonymous administration official late last month smeared Ross, telling Laura Rozen of Politico that Ross "seems to be far more sensitive to Netanyahu's coalition politics than to U.S. interests." Quite a change from the campaign, one might argue -- although to be fair, NSC chief of staff Denis McDonough did respond on the record that "such an assertion is as false as it is offensive."

I can't believe how stupid this NY Times article about American Idol is

What program is Alessandra Stanley of the New York Times watching every Tuesday night at 8 on Fox? Because after reading her rave today about Ellen DeGeneres as an American Idol judge, it doesn't seem like she's actually watching American Idol. Either that, or she never watched it before last month. As an out-of-work journalist, reading such a silly piece in the gold standard of newspapers, the New York times, makes me fear for the future of my profession. And I hate when someone who is supposed to be watching television for a living doesn't seem to know anything about it.

Stanley has a history of factual errors in her TV criticism, but the problem in this article isn't facts. And yes, Stanley has every right to hold whatever opinion she chooses and, as long as she's employed by the Times, write about it. But her opinion that Ellen DeGeneres is somehow now the star of the show and has elevated it is so crazy and different from the opinions of any avid watcher of the show that I barely know how to respond. I just can't believe anyone would actually hold such an opinion unless they were a family member of Ellen or the president of her fan club.

Here's the money section of Stanley's piece:

She has little experience in the music business, but midway through her first season Ms. DeGeneres has all but hijacked the show, playing second fiddle to no one, not even the overbearing Mr. Cowell. She has elevated the tone with her own style of mischievous good spirits and well-honed, down-to-earth charm. She couldn’t be friendlier or more congenial, but she doesn’t quite blend with the other judges; at times, her facial expressions betray a quizzical distance from the show’s cheesier moments. It makes her all the easier for viewers to identify with, but she also makes the other judges look all the more like show business hacks.

There is a power shift playing out onstage. Ms. DeGeneres sometimes looks like the keen, dedicated new teacher who wins over students but is treated with polite suspicion by burned-out veterans in the faculty lounge.

She certainly tries harder. The alpha judge, Mr. Cowell, is a showy enunciator, but the words he utters with British bite are quite banal (“pointless” and “silly” and “useless” ). The other judges pay almost no attention to syntax or cliché — contestants are repeatedly told they “nailed it” or “hit it out of the park.” Randy Jackson, in particular, never tires of telling contestants, or as he constantly calls them, “dawg,” that they are “pitchy” or that they are “the bomb.”

Ms. DeGeneres keeps reaching for fresh, incongruous metaphors. She compared one singer’s uneven performance to the two panels of “a hospital gown” and a standout performance by another contestant as “Snooki’s pouf” (a reference to the bouffant hairdo of a cast member of “The Jersey Shore”).

I will agree with one thing Stanley says here. Ellen doesn't blend with the other judges--because she has no music industry experience. And that's a big reason why she's such a bad judge. Sure, she's occasionally said something funny or made a good critique, but most of the time her criticism consists of something like "I didn't like the song choice, but you were great." Or "It wasn't the best I've seen you, but I love you and you're great." Or possibly the low point for an American Idol judge, when she praised Paige Miles' outfit and then said something like "I'll let Kara handle the music critique." Actually, no, the low point was when she hugged Tim Urban for a mediocre performance.

She's hijacked the show? Really? Does she really think any singer on the show, or family member of a singer on the show, would rather--if given a choice--rather have a positive critique from Ellen than from Simon? Of course not. Does any viewer of the show look more forward, or give more respect to criticism from Ellen than Simon? Other than Alessandra Stanley, I doubt it. As for Ellen's use of "fresh, incongrous metaphors," Simon has used plenty of those over the years. There was the time he described someone's performance as a "beautiful dress with a slight tear in it." Or when he talks about someone sounded like the performance by a 10 year old at a family brunch. Some of them don't even make any sense, but they're incongrous and often fresh.

I've probably written too much about this already. But anyone who thinks adding Ellen--and continuing with four judges--is somehow a good thing for American Idol isn't much of a fan of American Idol. Adding someone with no professional knowledge of music, combined with the departure of Simon from the show after this season, is the death knell for the show. I just can't believe there's no one editing the arts section in the New York Times who watches the show and didn't say to Stanley, "Really, you sure about this? I watch the show and I think this article is insane."

Another reason NCAA tournament expansion sucks: The proposed schedule

Amidst John Feinstein's recap today of the NCAA's hypocrisy in claiming the expansion of the NCAA tournament won't affect the "student-athletes," the thing that bothered me even more was how the NCAA says they plan to schedule the expanded 96-team event. Basically, that schedule will end up ruining the best two days of the NCAA tournament.

My first real vivid memory of the NCAA tournament is March 14, 1981 -- which was basically the birth of the fantastic finishes, buzzer beaters and upsets for which modern-day "March Madness" is known for. I was 10 years old and sitting on the couch, and remember the remarkable succession of events in about a half hour -- U.S. Reed of Arkansas hitting a half-court shot to defeat defending champion Louisville, Rolando Blackman running the last four minutes of the clock off in a tie game (in the pre-shot clock days) and hitting a jumper for Kansas State to upset number one seed Oregon State, and St. Joseph's hitting a late shot to defeat Mark Aguirre and number-one ranked DePaul. I'd never seen anything like it, and it started my love for the NCAA tournament. Imagine if a few minutes after Kansas lost to Northern Iowa this year, Kentucky got beat and then Duke lost on a half-court shot 15 minutes later, and you'd have something like what happened that day.

And over the years, I've always thought that of all the rounds of the NCAA tournament, that first Saturday and Sunday with the round of 32 is the best round of the tournament. You get a quadrupleheader on Saturday and a tripleheader on Sunday, but unlike the quadrupleheaders on Thursday and Friday, the games are tighter, there are fewer blowouts and frequently the top seeeds, even if they prevail, are really tested in a way that their games against 15 and 16 seeds don't provide in the first round. And the best thing about it is it's on the weekend--so you can basically spend a full two days, if you choose, watching the game without pesky obligations like work bogging you down.

But in the new schedule for the 96 team tournament, the round of 32 will be scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday of the second week of the tournament! This either means that they'll play all these games in the evening as doubleheaders simultaneously, and thus we'll get to see considerably less of this round on television, or they'll play half of the games during the afternoon (either in the format the first round is now shown on television, with separate doubleheaders at noon and seven or something like a continuous quadrupleheader that starts around 3 p.m.), thus allowing that pesky thing called work and other normal weekday obligations to get in the way of enjoying the most fun round of the tournament.

So for the formerly exciting kickoff of the tournament on Thursday and Friday, we're now going to have no top seeds playing, but just the nine through 24 seeds. Don't know about you, but if the biggest upset possible that day is say, the 24th-seeded tournament champion of the SWAC or Patriot League knocking off the fifth place team in the Big East seeded at number nine, those two days lose a lot of their luster. Then, on the weekend, we'll have the traditional round of 64, which, like this year, does frequently bring us upsets and buzzer beaters, but also a lot of blowouts--like when that SWAC champion plays Duke. It's a great appetizer for the weekend feast of the round of 32--but not the main course that we should be watching on Saturday and Sunday.

But now, those great two days of basketball are going to be diminished by ending up on Tuesday and Wednesday of the following week--where they'll be immediately followed on Thursday and Friday by the Sweet 16 round. This is another mistake because it disturbs the natural rhythm of the tournament. For most teams -- not counting the smaller conferences -- making the round of 32 is nice, but making the round of 16 is the true sense of achievement, a sign that you've had a successful season. No one keeps track of how many years in a row a team reaches the second round, because it's not considered that significant if you're in a major conference. And it's rare that any team makes the Elite Eight more than a couple years in a row. But hitting the Sweet Sixteen six, seven years in a row is an impressive accomplishment. That's why it makes sense that the tournament breaks for a few days in between the second round and the third, allowing us to sit back, take stock of what we've seen in the first four days and analyze what's to come over the following weekend. But in the new schedule, the Sweet 16 starts the next day after the round of 32 ends! It doesn't give us any time to breathe and it's a mistake.

Now, of course, the NCAA could easily fix this if they just moved the round of 96 to Tuesday and Wednesday and played the first three rounds consecutively in the same week. It still wouldn't fix the bigger problem in expanding to 96 (diluting the field), but at least it would leave the tournament viewing experience basically intact and unchanged. That might make more "student-athletes" miss school (cough, cough), but it would be the best thing for the tournament. We can only hope someone will realize that before it's too late.

Jewish Fact Check #11: Bill Kristol and Obama's Israel Policy

I was at my sister's this past weekend for Passover and hadn't spent much time on the Internet, until I turned on her computer Monday night and came across this headline at Atlantic.com: "Right blasts Obama with charges of Anti-Semitism." I thought, "Wow, what have I missed?" Actually, nothing--except another unfortunate instance of a writer misconstruing legitimate criticism of someone's views/policy on Israel (in this case, the president's) with anti-Semitism.

After a brief introduction noting the chilly meetings last week between Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Atlantic writer Alex Eichler provides three examples of alleged anti-Semitism from the right under the subheadline "Obama Hates Jews." One is a link to a blog post by Pamela Geller which does call Obama an anti-Semite, compares American Jews of the 2000s to European Jews in the 1930s and argues that another Holocaust is on its way. Geller has every right to make this argument, but it's one that is on the fringe -- I think it's fair to say that opinion isn't widely shared either in the Jewish community or, to the best of my knowledge, on the political right wing.

Eichler also notes Instapundit Glenn Reynolds' blog post, in which he first speculates that it is "plausible" that Obama treated Netanyahu rudely because he "hates Israel and hates Jews." Actually, that's not particularly plausible. There's no evidence that Obama "hates" Jews or Israel, although I think reasonable people can disagree on how friendly Obama is or wants to be with Israel -- or, perhaps more accurately, how warm his feelings are toward the current government in the Jewish state. Reynolds, though, does go on to say, though, that he actually doesn't think that's the explanation and that he finds another idea more plausible -- that this is all about Iran, and that Obama is either trying to put distance between the U.S. and Israel because Israel is going to strike Iran -- or that this is all a big distraction so that no one will realize that the U.S. is really helping Israel strike Iran.

Eichler does correctly report this (although others like Glenn Greenwald seem to have obsessed over the hates Jews stuff and totally ignored the following sentence), but perhaps in his eagerness to get the all-important third example for his piece that would demonstrate a trend, he also throws the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol into the mix. And that's where he goes wrong.

Eichler's piece states that Kristol is arguing Obama is perhaps pretending to hate Jews:

At The Weekly Standard, Bill Kristol argues that Obama "aspires to be a leader of humanity, not merely a president of a single country. And there’s no better way to be a leader of humanity than to show disapproval of the Jewish state." Whatever his real feelings toward Jews may be, Kristol holds that Obama must find it expedient to show "anger at the stiff-necked Jewish state. It puts him in sync with the rest of the world.

Having skimmed through the Kristol piece a few days before I saw the Atlantic piece, I was surprised. Did Kristol actually debate what Obama's "real feelings toward Jews may be"? I didn't recall that. And indeed, Kristol didn't. Here's what he wrote:

Why the exploitation of a minor disagreement with the Israeli government to justify a turn against Israel? President Obama cares about being popular—in America, certainly, but in the world as well. And not just because popularity in the world can help the United States achieve its foreign policy aims. But because, as James Ceaser argued in these pages in January, Obama aspires to be a leader of humanity, not merely a president of a single country.

And there’s no better way to be a leader of humanity than to show disapproval of the Jewish state. Sure, Obama’s turn against Israel will make it less likely that Palestinians will negotiate seriously with her. Sure, it will embolden radical Arabs and Muslims against those who would like their nations to take a different, more responsible, course. Sure, it’s a distraction from the real challenge of Iran. But the turn against Israel is ultimately a key part of what Obamaism is all about. That’s why there’s been so little attempt by the administration to reassure friends of Israel that Obama has been acting more in sorrow than in anger. Obama’s proud of his anger at the stiff-necked Jewish state. It puts him in sync with the rest of the world.

As you can see, Kristol doesn't talk about Obama's feelings towards Jews at all, just about his policy toward the Jewish state. He's arguing that Obama is treating Israel badly because much of the rest of the world treats Israel badly -- and the president wants to ingratiate himself with the rest of the world in order to be a "leader of humanity." It's certainly a debatable assertion, but there's no accusation of anti-Semitism or "Obama hates the Jews" in that theory. In fact, Kristol's argument is really just a more negatively-spun version of something Obama has said himself -- that Obama believes there needs to be some "daylight" between the U.S. and Israel in order to make progress in the peace process.

(And for those who want to make an issue of Kristol's use of the term "Jewish state," please don't. Many writers and journalists, including me earlier in this post, use the term "Jewish state" interchangeably with Israel as sort of a synonym in order to vary the language in an article about Israel.)

A lot of people seem to not like Bill Kristol because they don't like his opinions or don't think he's a good columnist. That's fine. Personally, I find his affection for Sarah Palin puzzling, but the few times I've spoken to Kristol after Jewish community events at which he's spoken, he's been nothing but kind and generous with his time. But whatever one's feelings about Kristol, he should be quoted correctly. And he was making a critique of the president's Israel policy, not speculating about whether someone is an anti-Semite. As I've written about before, I wish people would stop confusing the two. There's a big difference.

It's like we're back on Season 1 Idol

Remember season 1 of American Idol, when you got really excited waiting for Kelly Clarkson to perform, and you also liked Tamyra Gray and thought Justin Guarini was okay--and pretty much everbody else kind of sucked? Or season two, when you looked forward to Ruben and Clay, and to a lesser extent Kimberly, and everyone else was doing karaoke? Well, after a number of seasons of American Idol that may not have had anyone as popular as Kelly but did often have a number of entertaining singers and performers, we've now regressed to those early days of Idol--where most of the top 12 can't sing and the only reason to watch the show is to wait around for Crystal Bowersox to take the stage -- and to a lesser extent Sioban Magnus (Tamyra?). If you want to say Mike Lynche is the Justin, fine, but that's it. Otherwise, this is a depressing batch of Idol contenders.

Some of that is America's fault--I guarantee whatever Katelyn and Lilly would have sang would have been better than much of the group last night. Some of that is what the judges gave us to start with. But it really is remarkable, that after the metamorphosis of this show from a straight singing competition in its early years to one that also focused on musicianship and what you could do to reinvent well-known songs (starting with Daughtry and Blake Lewis and culminating in David Cook and Kris Allen winning), we're really, other than mostly Crystal Bowersox, back to those early Idol days of just singing, and often badly. As much as I often got annoyed at how too many contestants tried to fit every theme into their own little niche, this year is really a step backward for the show. At least in year one and two, I was stil fascinatd with the whole format of the show, we were still getting to know the judges, etc. Now, the next 10 weeks are just going to be a slog until we hopefully crown Crystal the winner.

Anyway, a few thoughts on last night:

No one has ever done a good job on "Against All Odds" on this show, so why would Paige Miles think she could? I have no idea. That was terrible.

Miley Cyrus as a mentor is kind of strange, but you can't tell me that "Party in the USA" isn't a great pop song.

The fact that Tim Urban is on this show is a joke. And Miley, no one told him he was boring. They told him he couldn't sing. And they were right. He sang a song with about three notes in it and still wasn't that good.

Katie Stevens should be renamed Pitchy Stevens.

Gotta love Kara saying they've talked to much about Andrew Garcia's version of "Straight Up." You think? But it's becoming more and more evident he just can't sing that well.

Aaron Kelly seems like a nice kid, and has an OK voice, but could he be more middle of the road with his song choices? "Don't Want to Miss a Thing"? A song by Lonestar a couple weeks ago?

Only on this season's Idol is the boring competence of Casey James (on key singing, occasional good playing of the guitar) deemed album-worthy by Kara. Kara (who actually isn't bothering me as much this year), were you listening or just, um, looking? First of all, Casey James seems to swallow the last word of every line in the song. Second, he sounded just like Huey Lewis last night--he didn't change the song at all. In fact, if I close my eyes, I would have thought that was Huey Lewis. Which is fine for karaoke, but not for Idol.

Crystal was great. But I have no idea why Kara and Ellen want her to "go crazy." I thought you're supposed to know who you are, etc. And she does.

Didi wasn't perfect. But she sure didn't seem as bad as the judges seemed to think--and she's hot and Jewish, so I liked her.

I don't like when singers on Idol scream in the middle of a song. But the first time Siobhan did it, it was a really good scream. And the second time, it fit really well in the song. But now, it's getting repetitive and boring. It's like waiting around for the twist ending in a M. Night Shyamalan movie. Didn't fit in her fairly unexciting performance of "Superstition." She's the only thing that may be saving us from a one-person race, but she's going to have to diversify if she wants to do that.

Bottom three: It's always better to be sort of bad than really bad, since people then feel sorry for you. But there were so many bad singers, I can't believe they'll all survive. Bottom three will be Paige, Katie and Andrew and I think Andrew is going home--but if it is Paige, Katie, Tim, or Aaron, it won't matter.

The Stones and Idol--not a good combo

So unless I get some loud, emotional outcry from my readers, I've decided to stop regularly blogging American Idol. When I started doing Idol, the Internet was still growing and there wasn't that much Idol commentary out there. Now, there are about 8,000 people blogging Idol and I'm not sure I'm offering anything that unique. But I did have a couple thoughts about last night's show.

First of all, while the show wasn't terrible last night, it was mostly mediocre. Part of the reason is that many of the singers this year aren't very good. But the other reason, I think, is that while it sounds really cool to have the Rolling Stones as a theme, it's not really a good selection. Why? Because Mick Jagger has such a unique style as a singer and performer, anyone who tries to duplicate it is going to fail. In addition, many of the Stones songs, vocally, work because of how Mick sells them. In this group, the only singers that had enough talent to really be up to singing and selling a Stones song were Siobhan and Crystal.

Most troubing part of the night was, of course, seeing that many of the people who advanced last week over better singers didn't do much to show that their advancement was well deserved. Lacey Brown? Really, she's Idol season 1 or 2 talent with that thin voice and general boringness to her performance (Is boringness a word?) Katie Wheeler has been done wrong by the judges, and wasn't awful, but off key early in the song and just kind of meh. To her credit, Paige at least did show some vocal talent tonight--more than she has shown for the three previous weeks--but it was hardly something anyone is downloading to their IPod today. And Tim Urban? I reacted with the same confusion that the judges did (and Simon was pretty much correct on just about everybody last night, although Kara had a point on Gimme Shelter.) How do you sing a song about having a woman under your thumb in a breezy, what-me-worry reggae-type arrangement. It really was strange--and didn't show that Tim could sing since he sung-spoke most of the song.

Finally, I hope those of you who would be interested in this saw that in one of the family photos Didi showed there was a lit menorah in the background.

Who's going home? Bottom three will hopefully be Lacey, Tim and Katie and I think Lacey will go. But after last week, who knows?