ah, guys, c'mon. Do you truly think the campaign thought his little note would be left private? I wouldn't be surprised it they didn't leak it. Nothing wrong with the sentiment, of course. but it was intended for publication...
Don't you think it would have been more sophisticated, and made more political points, had it been intended for publication?
Well, Linfar, I hope not.
I'm normal cynical, but in this case, I sure hope they weren't that craven to plant this
Elie, what was that for?
Linfar and I are not fighting, we get along just fine?
there was no troll rate deserved there?
Elie's ratings history doesn't match up with a tr for this one or for the one above. Like Kysen, I'm sure this was a slip. It would be like seeing a tr from me for that remark.
Indeed that is only the tip of the iceberg of his nefarious evil. You can't see it in the picture, but he was actually crossing his fingers while placing the note. His actual prayer was "death to the Jews and Whitey, Allahu Akbar!"
No, he wasn't crossing his fingers. He was making a mark with a small piece of chalk so the student Axelrod hired to steal the note would know where to find it.
That is akin to saying the man is a complete fool, which is hard to believe whatever you think of him. The risk of exposure for some cynical plot is tremendous, and the conspiracy theory is already planted - here and no doubt elsewhere - so the chance of a negative spin on this is effectively 100%.
If anyone plotted to pull this off, it wasn't Axelrod but whomever the incompetent fool is who is running Sen. McCain's campaign.
I assumed the comment, like mine, was made tongue-in-cheek. If not, MS01 Indie is hopeless.
That was pure snark.
my snarkometer was busted...
"Do you truly think the campaign thought his little note would be left private? "
As an Israeli YES - It is sacreledge to read notes placed at the wall. The fact that Maariv had chose to publish it is a disgrace. yediot (the more widely circulated dayly) aparently was als given a copy, but refused to publish it.
I have NEVER yet in my life heard of a note placed at the wall that was published.
And plenty of celebrities do it - their notes had never, to my knowledge, been published before.
I take your word for that, and I also just asked my Jewish niece who has been visiting us for her opinion and she is shocked as well. If Shimon Perez, Rabin and countless other world leaders among millions of average folks can put their prayers there for all these years there is no reason to think that Sen. Obama didn't expect his to be left alone as well.
I wasn't shocked and saddened by it until talking to Leyah, not being intimate with the personal meaning of the tradition, but now I am. I would like to hear what justification this student could possibly have for prying into someone else's life this way, and what the heck the publishers were thinking...
-chris
I suppose the Catholic equivalent would be publishing the contents of someone's confession. That it was an orthodox seminary student that did this is more puzzling. Even the cynics among us would have to assume it was about more than money.
I was halfway with you on this. I assumed that these letters would be easily culled from the wall and likely be made public. I didn't believe that the campaign actually leaked it, or planned to do so.
However, after reading more about this tradition, I see that the history of these notes is that they do, in fact, remain confidential. The rabbi in charge is clearly outraged and such trespass has never occurred (as far as I've found,) for the notes of any of the countless other politicians & celebrities that have also placed them over the years. There are about a million such notes placed in the wall each year. Periodically, all the notes are removed and buried on the Mount of Olives. It is a sin to read the notes, let alone publicize them.
i agree fully - this is a paper stuck on a wall visited by dozens every minute - of course that note was edited and carefully thought out with the suspicion it would/could be made public. this doesn't mean they planted anything which seems to be what some associate with recognition of being made public. but it does, or should temper, some of the excstatic pronouncements of this as evidence that Obama is über-genuine and über-awesome.
