Michelle Goldberg: Ilhan Omar Damaged Her Democratic Allies and Squandered Some of Her Own Hard-Won Power
/Writing for The New York Times, Michelle Goldberg reminds us that when America was unsettled over a crude mail bomb being found in the mailbox of George Soros, Representative Kevin McCarthy, the California Republican who is now the House minority leader, tweeted, “We cannot allow Soros, Steyer and Bloomberg to buy this election!” Interviewed on CNN about receiving his own mail bomb, Steyer described McCarthy’s tweet as a “straight-up anti-Semitic move.”
There was no self-reflection, then, when Kevin McCarthy became a defender of Jews, threatening to force congressional action against two outspoken new Democratic representatives, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, for their criticism of Israel. Rather than rise above Kevin McCarthy, Omar found herself in the same sewer, quoting Puff Daddy’s ode to the power of money: “It’s all about the Benjamins, baby.”