Over the weekend Pelosi sat down with Bloomberg News and said that Republicans were using Israel to exploit Jews for their votes:
HUNT: Do you think he’ll do as well with the Jewish vote this time as he did last time?
PELOSI: The election will tell us that.
HUNT: What do you think?
PELOSI: But I – I think that he will. I think that he will, because the fact is when the facts get out. You know, as many of the Republicans are using Israel as an excuse, what they really want are tax cuts for the wealthy. So Israel, that can be one reason they put forth.
HUNT: That’s why some of the Republican Jewish supporters are really active.
PELOSI: Well, that’s how they’re being exploited. And they’re smart people. They follow these issues. But they have to know the facts.
Pelosi says that Jews are being exploited in one breath and says that “they’re smart people” in the next. Heh, I guess not smart enough to know they are being exploited or something.
Eric Cantor responded yesterday telling the National Journal that Pelosi’s comments were deeply insulting:
“It is both patronizing and deeply insulting for Nancy Pelosi to suggest any Jew is ‘exploited’ for their political beliefs or that support for Israel is somehow an ‘excuse’ for anything. Such thinking diminishes the importance of issues affecting Jews everywhere.”
Laura Ingraham, apparently interviewing Cantor this morning, tweeted that Cantor is now calling on Pelosi to clarify her inexcusable remarks:
.@EricCantor: I have called on @NancyPelosi to clarify. It's inexcusable to suggest that about American Jews. Not appropriate at all.
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) July 31, 2012
I normally don’t care much for this kind of back and forth, but I think Cantor has a point and Pelosi deserves to be slammed for her elitist, partisan comments. It kinda reminds me of when Obama said:
“And it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”