As the SKWAWKBOX revealed last night, the US Democratic Party in New York State tore a page straight out of the anti-Corbyn playbook by launching a campaign to smear TV star and left-wing candidate for the party’s nomination for state governor, Cynthia Nixon. The smear triggered a huge backlash among Ms Nixon’s supporters and in many media outlets that saw incumbent governor Andrew Cuomo and the party’s state apparatus scrambling to disavow the defamatory flyer that was sent to voters.
But now both governor and party have been further embarrassed by the revelation of a leaked email by the New York Post – an email that shows Cuomo’s campaign attempting to persuade the newspaper to one of the same smears to those in the leaflet\;
The Post reports:
The attempt to tar the former “Sex and the City” star over the divisive issue was made in an email to a Post reporter that casts doubt about Cuomo’s repeated claims he had nothing to do with the 11th-hour hit job.
The smoking-gun email, sent Friday afternoon from an official “andrewcuomo.com” account, suggested that The Post publish a story about Nixon’s support of the pro-Palestinian “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions” movement against Israel.“Nixon has supported insidious BDS campaign, signing onto letter boycotting Israel,” it says.
“Obviously something you guys have reported on a lot and right before the jewish high holidays!
“Can get you folks on the record slamming her as well,” the aide added.
The email also included excerpts of news reports from 2010, detailing how Nixon was among about 200 American celebrities — including many Jews — who signed a letter supporting a boycott by Israeli actors, directors and playwrights of a new theater in Ariel, one of Israel’s largest Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
A statement from Cuomo’s campaign team attempts to turn the issue into one of journalistic ethics:
Asked for comment about the Nixon-BDS story pitch, Cuomo’s campaign press secretary Abbey Collins said: “The off the record email forwarded to the New York Post contained published articles and publicly available information on Cynthia Nixon’s positions on issues concerning Israel sent for the Post’s information — those articles have nothing to do with the wrong and inappropriate mail piece that went out and shouldn’t have.”
“It is apples and oranges, and to disclose an off the record exchange that had been agreed to by the New York Post is a violation of journalistic ethics,”
The veteran Democratic Party campaign staffer who spoke to the SKWAWKBOX for the earlier article laughed at the attempt to use ethics as a diversion and went on to comment:
The backlash indicates that the antisemitism smear won’t be given oxygen by our media, which is a surprise given the UK media’s reverse obsession with eating it up.
But this does not mean the DNC [Democratic National Committee] will abandon the use of the smear, especially against Bernie Sanders in the coming 2020 primary because (a) they’re incompetent and (b) the only way they’re likely to abandon it is if Cynthia Nixon produces a shocking win.
Ms Nixon is some twenty points behind according to the latest polling, so a win in tomorrow’s primary would be a seismic event.
SKWAWKBOX comment:
Perhaps distance will allow UK observers to recognise the anti-Corbyn modus operandi as it plays out on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean – and the left to better understand how to resist it.
And just as the smears here have boosted Labour’s membership and seen the party lead in polling, it is to be hoped that they will boost Cynthia Nixon to a shock victory tomorrow. It would be karma – and it might just knock some sense into a UK Establishment that seems concreted into a cycle where when one smear fails to work, they can’t think of anything but to try more, bigger smears.
Wonder what ‘pitch’ emails are on the phones or computers of the UK mainstream media…
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Shame on him.
Tories always escape antisemitism smears; even when they’re true.
https://evolvepolitics.com/bbc-silent-as-theresa-mays-tories-vote-to-support-unashamedly-antisemitic-far-right-hungarian-political-party/
If they are true then they are not ‘smears’.
I just put this up at Mondoweiss – it shows what needs to be done to shake Labour up on this (Skwawkbox link is acknowledged and was v useful) https://mondoweiss.net/2018/09/netanyahu-labour-rulebook/
Well done Peter, I agree with every single word and have signed your petition along with several others preceding it – something i feel very strongly about.
Scroll down on this web page to see the extent of Israeli influence in the USA on it’s law enforcement. It should shock you!
https://palestineishere.org/
Yes, Israel is so practised in oppression and racism, they’ve learnt how to export it, worldwide, under the badge of “security”.
Israel does not give a damn about international laws and norms and is now, via its supporters in the Labour Party and the media, trying to pervert our democracy and prevent JC from becoming our next PM.
https://ahtribune.com/world/europe/uk/2471-the-law-of-the-sea.html
Any day now I expect to read in the MSM that Corbyn has a plan to evict British Jews from their homes to rehouse the evicted residents of Khan al-Ahmar.
That was a joke – I never read the MSM 🙂
The smears against Corbyn and the Left are so extreme, so determined and the Tories apparently so completely untroubled about being found out that I wonder if there’s any crime they won’t commit to stop us gaining on them?
Thatcher had no qualms about using the police and army – will today’s Tories shut down social media/mobile networks in extremis and use armed riot police/soldiers to suppress us – and should we be buying CB radios?
Austerity has hurt many of us more than the poll tax – why no riots?
One BBC presenter today did slightly demur at a Tory’s repetition of the ‘Labour spending caused the crash’ nonsense – so only a little bit late.
Richard Branson says he favours three day weeks – I wasn’t 100% clear on whether he wants to pay the same for three days as for five but I expect that’s what he meant…
Brown predicts another, worse crash – shame he wasn’t so prescient last fucking time really.
Did anyone else hear the Media Show (BBC Radio 4)? One University in UK is offering a course “Journalism with Public Relations”. I think this really exposes the reality that journalism is simply disappearing in this country and being replaced by lobbyism.
I wonder if the DNC would make berger feel ‘unwelcome’ in the us of a?
Nevermind; Cuomo’s action(s) will have given Nixon’s campaign the ‘Streisand effect’. I doubt she’ll be the 40 or so points down (that she was before this kicked off), come polling day.
This article, and the one it references, give a valuable insight into US politics and culture
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/donald-trump-america-181115101946588.html
What if Donald Trump is what America is all about?
There is a widely accepted idea among some Americans that Trump does not reflect American values. They are wrong.
I have to admit I didn’t finish the piece Steve, but only because it seemed determined to paint the US as the evil empire responsible for all the world’s ills and the only nation pretending to be more moral than the rest.
Not that I necessarily disagree – and not that I don’t despise Trump – it’s just that I believe the ‘basically bad not good’ argument applies to all of humanity’s ‘civilisations’, not least those of the Muslim world.
Weren’t empires everywhere throughout history as oppressive, violent, greedy and self-justifying as each other?
It could probably be argued that we’re just not suited as a species to living peacefuĺy in groups more than a few score strong – and that we only ever partially succeed and then only for relatively short periods.
Look at the world we’ve built and imagine what it could be if we had brains not dedicated to out-competing each other.
It’s no wonder the rest of the galaxy hides from us.