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ENDLESS SMEARS….When Daniel Kurtzer, an occasional advisor to the Obama campaign, said recently that he hoped Israel could make some progress in negotiations with Syria, the McCain campaign pounced. “If one of Senator Obama’s advisers has been to Damascus,” said Michael Goldfarb, in a show of classiness that’s become his trademark, “we just wonder how many have been to Tehran.”

Yuck yuck. Heather Hurlburt comments:

When the McCain campaign goes after an Orthodox Jew, former dean of Yeshiva U., career diplomat who was the Bush Administration’s ambassador to Israel on 9-11, was caricatured in anti-Semitic cartoons in the Cairo press during his tenure as Ambassador to Egypt, where he bravely was a public face of Orthodoxy, and is the Commissioner of the Israeli Baseball League (you can’t make this stuff up), for doing something the Israeli government is already doing (talking to Syrians), will someone please tell me exactly how this country is supposed to have a diplomatic establishment?

Goldfarb decided to smear the commissioner of the Israeli Baseball League? Nice work there. But I guess if it plays with the rubes, McCain’s team figures it’s all’s fair.

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With only days left until December 31, we've raised about half of our $400,000 goal—but we need a huge surge in reader support to close the remaining gap. Whether you've given before or this is your first time, your contribution right now matters.

Managing an independent, nonprofit newsroom is staggeringly hard. There’s no cushion in our budget—no backup revenue, no corporate safety net. We can’t afford to fall short, and we can’t rely on corporations or deep-pocketed interests to fund the fierce, investigative journalism Mother Jones exists to do. That’s why we need you right now. Please chip in to help close the gap.

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