Of all the pundits trying to use the claims of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party for their own ends, none is more determined than the Mail on Sunday’s not even slightly celebrated blues artiste Whinging Dan Hodges. Sadly, though, none is as susceptible to opening mouth and inserting boot in no style at all. And this has resulted in Desperate Dan ending up being the one doing more anti-Semitism than anyone in Labour.
He's desperate, Dan
Hodges’ latest excursion into self-defeating idiocy came yesterday as he once again attempted to make personal capital out of Labour’s problems. “Corbyn team have now insulted the Jewish community's representatives so many times it's no longer possible to conclude it's just a cock-up” he ventured. Maxim Lundlack-Orr disagreed.
“Could say the same for you” he replied. Hodges waded in. “Which recognised representative of the Jewish community have I insulted” challenged Hodges (the question marks ain’t making it). “Me” responded Lundlack-Orr. Did Dan stop and think? Well, he may have stopped, but thinking was out of the question. “And what leadership position do you hold in the community” (the question marks still ain’t making it).
Then came the pay-off, as Lundlack-Orr reminded Hodges “I sit on the board of deputies” (perhaps they are getting sick of Hodges trying to score personal points? Just a thought). Did Dan take the hint? Did he heck. “And what view does the Board of Deputies hold on Jeremy Corbyn and Labour anti-Semitism” (the question marks still … oh, forget it). An exasperated Lundlack-Orr replied “You've been covering it for weeks, why are you asking me?” Heads everywhere, meet desks everywhere.
This is, moreover, only the latest in a series of gaffes by the pundit whose reputation is based on always calling it wrong. Who can forget his being asked to “stop using Jews as a political football” only to reply “if you want to be Jeremy Corbyn's useful Jewish idiot, you go right along”. He doubled down on that phrase later.
And who can forget Dan’s interaction with yet another member of the Board of Deputies? That was Tal Ofer, who back in 2012 - no, Hodges’ foot-in-mouth tendency isn’t a new thing - told him “I guess you are trying to defend antisemitism, congratulations Dan”. So what did the successor to Peter McKay have to say in response to that?
As if you need to ask. “That's right Tal, I'm a great lover of anti-semitism”. He’s certainly a great lover of using the subject to make himself look even more of a fool.
Yes, Dan Hodges is the best reason yet advanced for cuts to the pundit budget at the Mail on Sunday. Which may be happening very soon after the upcoming change of editor.
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Good grief. That immoral plummet took some doing even by the "standards" of Hodges and the rest of the media einsatzgruppen.
ReplyDeleteBut worry not. It's probably guaranteed yet another invite to a TV "press review" - or, as free thinkers prefer to call them, "Goebbels Half Hour".
Would you want your daughter to marry someone like Hodges?
I would recommend any Labour member or voter to read Hannah Arendt's fatasticf book The Origins of Totalitarianism especially Part One The Origins of Anti-semitism.
ReplyDeleteOne of the most revealing parts of this whole thing is that Hodges clearly thinks that only well-known 'representatives' of the Jewish community are worth listening to.
ReplyDeleteOf course, bigot Hodges is also the one who gets to decide who is a 'representative,' evidenced by continuing to paint the guy as irrelevant.
It is just another instance of those people pretending Corbyn is anti-Semitic deciding that any Jew who disagrees with them is 'the wrong kind of Jew' as it were. Hodges decides the man telling him where to go is 'the wrong kind,' and thinks those who aren't 'representatives' along his specifications are 'the wrong kind of Jew,' just like they decided Jewdas are 'the wrong kind of Jew' and that a Jewish, Holocaust survivor is the 'wrong kind of Jew.'
The sooner we can get back to fighting actual anti-Semitism, such as this 'wrong kind of Jew' lark, and righties meeting with literal Nazis like Bannon, and yes, the few pockets within both Labour and other parties, and all this 'Shadowy George Soros funding' conspiracy theory crackpottism, as well as the much more subtle but still vile and utterly dangerous, the better.