Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Broward County, FL - County Commissioner: U.S. Rep. Wexler “an embarrassment to Jews”

Broward County, FL - Former state representative and Broward county commissioner Ben Graber is blasting U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Boca Raton, as an “embarrassment to Jews.”
Graber , son of Holocaust survivors, is challenging Wexler in congressional District 19, and is running as an independent candidate.

He took issue with Wexler for dissing Sen. John McCain’s vice presidential pick, Sarah Palin, the governor of Alaska. According to Graber: “Wexler immediately condemned her as a supporter of a Nazi sympathizer because she wore a Pat Buchanan button … when he visited her town.”
Graber said Wexler’s “behavior” is “not only embarrassing to the Jews, but also dangerous. It is apparent Wexler’s decision-making process is flawed. His inappropriate political use of Jewish issues could promote anti-Semitic backlashes against American Jews. Wexler falsely claims to speak for the Jewish community and he has a history of using anti-Semitism in elections. It was used successfully when he ran for the Florida Senate against Don Childers. Now he wants to use it to frighten Jews into believing Sarah Palin is a threat.”

Here’s how McCain’s campaign summarized the fracas:

Wexler, badly mangling his facts, accused Governor Palin of supporting Pat Buchanan in the 2000 Alaska primary. Based on this he asserted that Governor Palin had “aligned herself with a leading anti-Israel voice in American politics,” while finding space to invoke the name of Adolph Hitler and the phrase “Nazi sympathizer.” Only it wasn’t true–Palin was an official on the Forbes campaign in 2000. Wexler never apologized or retracted his statement.

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