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General James Jones’ Jewish Joke Missing (Not ‘Scrubbed’) From WH Transcript

by Tommy Christopher | 11:17 am, April 26th, 2010

» 19 comments

National Security Advisor General James Jones (Retired) opened his remarks to a pro-Israel think tank last Wednesday with a joke about a Taliban fighter who receives his comeuppance from a pair of Jewish business owners. Politico reported that the joke was “left out” of the White House transcript of the event, and right-wing blogs are a-burnin’ with outrage. Jones’ joke may have been ill-advised, but there doesn’t appear to be any attempt by the White House to “scrub” it.

Here’s a clip of Jones’ warm-up to his speech at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. You can view the entire speech here, with Jones’ portion beginning at the 12:11 mark.

Conservative blogger Yid with Lid correctly points out that the video posted at the Institute’s website does omit the joke, and the transcript provided by the White House doesn’t include the joke. What he, and others, failed to check, though, was whether the transcript provided by the White House constituted “prepared remarks” or “remarks as delivered.”

A comparison of the White House transcript and the full C-Span video clearly shows that the White House transcript consisted of Jones’ prepared speech, not the speech as it was delivered. There are multiple (minor) deviations between the two from very early in the speech.

This doesn’t get the White House completely off the hook, since they did not label the transcript “as prepared for delivery,” but it does provide a certain amount of insulation from criticism. For very high-profile speeches like the State of the Union, the White House will release two transcripts, “as prepared” and “as delivered,” but not for most others.

In fact, the White House did send out excerpts of Jones’ remarks that day, and did mark them “as prepared for delivery.” It’s possible that whoever sent out the full transcript simply mixed up the “prepared” and “as delivered” remarks, or there might have been a problem transcribing the actual speech. This wouldn’t be the first time such a mix-up occurred.

On the other hand, critics of the administration could be forgiven a bit of skepticism here. At a time when a perception exists that US-Israeli relations are strained, perhaps ethnic humor isn’t the best choice for administration officials to try out. Although the joke falls far short of the outrage suggested by the right (the point of the joke is the Taliban fighter’s cleverly delivered comeuppance, not the “greed” of the merchants), it’s the kind of thing that takes longer than it’s worth to explain, and an unproductive distraction from much more important concerns.

I asked Robert Gibbs for a statement on this issue, and haven’t heard back yet.

Update: Jake Tapper reports that Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, found the joke “inappropriate,” while an unnamed Jewish member of Congress advised everyone to “lighten up.”

Still no response from the White House, on Tapper’s end or mine.

Update 2: This isn’t the first Jones quip not to make it into a White House transcript. In March, Time reported that Jones joked aboard Air Force 1 that Hamid Karzai might not have been in the loop on President Obama’s surprise trip to Afghanistan:

Since the White House never sent out a transcript of the exchange, I have produced one below. It took place about an hour or so before we landed in Afghanistan.

REPORTER: When did Karzai learn that the president was coming?

JAMES JONES: That the president was coming?

ROBERT GIBBS: [Repeating question] When did Karzai learn that the president was coming?

JONES: I think, probably, right about now. [Laughter around the table.]

GIBBS: No no no. . . Yeah, we will pull the specifics. I don’t. . .

[Deputy National Security Advisor] DOUGLAS LUTE: Last couple days. . .

JONES: We’ll have to ask Ambassador Eikenberry, I think. I don’t know the answer to that.

GIBBS: Thanks guys.

Normally, the White House does release transcripts of AF1 press gaggles, but didn’t in this case. There was a pool report on the gaggle, by Wall Street Journal’s Peter Spiegel, but no mention of the joke:

Pool was briefed on AF1 shortly before landing by NSA James Jones and LTG Doug Lute, top AfPak official at NSC.

Jones said POTUS would “engage” with Karzai on benchmarks. Please check against transcript, but some quotes:

POTUS will “engage President Karzai…to make him understand that in his second term, there are certain things that have been not paid attention to, almost since day one. That is things like…a merit-based system for appointment of key government officials, battling corruption, taking the fight to the narco-traffickers, which fuels, provides a lot of the economic engine for the insurgents.”

He also said they would dicuss the importance of the reintegration and reconciliation process. More to come.

Anti-Semitism, Gen. James Jones, Jake Tapper, James Jones, James Jones Jewish Joke, jewish joke, Politico, Robert Gibbs, Tommy Christopher, US Israel, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, yidwithlid

SteveMG

Tommy, you have a top White House official making a, to me, questionable ethnic joke and you focus on “rightwing blogs” discussing an alleged scrubbing of the incident from transcripts?

You didn’t bury the lede, you encased it in 100 tons of concrete. It’s not an appropriate joke, in my opinion. It plays, unintentionally, on the anti-semitic stereotype of Jews as manipulative merchants.

This isn’t, for me, a huge matter but it illustrates once again that elected officials should leave such humor to the Jon Stewart types. It never works.
SteveMG

To repeat: Abe Foxman of the ADL criticizes the comment and the lede for this is about “right wing blogs” and their reaction?

Oy (so to speak), talk about missing the story.
The Real Royal King

It was a terribly inappropriate remark, indeed!
Olby Sucks

Spin spin, spin!
http://www.facebook.com/people/Richard-William-LaValley/1825017390 Richard William LaValley

The Tea Party is not racist…..the white house is!!!!!!!!! This weekend the Clown Prince embraced latino’s women and blacks in a speech to re-vitalize the troops….he left out white’s, apparently they have already left the hood…..with the exeption of B.Mayer and J. Stewart, the token, high five, white guys!!!!!
The Real Royal King

You’ll need to stop grunting and make a substantive comment, Jeff. There doesn’t appear to be a word of spin in the post nor any of the comments. Of what, specifically, are you speaking, Jeff?
Puter Boi

There is a time and a place for everything….if the great Myron Cohen had told this story on
The Ed Sullivan Show he would have received major laughs…one has to wonder what in the world this “diplomat” was thinking….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPhUlmZSIB0
http://gordonbloyershow.com gordonbloyershow

I don’t find anything wrong with the joke but if Sarah Palin said it we would never hear the end of it.
Tommy Christopher

Steve, the joke is in the headline, so I don’t see how I’m burying the lede. This is a media blog, so the fact that Politico and others implied that the transcript was scrubbed is an entirely appropriate area of focus. As a White House reporter, this is the angle that falls within my expertise.

As for the joke, the blog I linked is massively overselling the level of offense. I agree, as it says in my post, that it was ill-advised, but Yid with Lid and Abe Foxman are clearly misinterpreting the joke.
SteveMG

‘Steve, the joke is in the headline, so I don’t see how I’m burying the lede.’

Tommy, you know quite well a head and a lede are two different things. Besides, the headline is about the joke AND the WH transcript and not the joke itself and the reaction to it. The transcript matter is completely secondary to this story in my view – and the view of others here.

In addition to the head, your lede is about the transcript and why the joke is missing from it. And from that how ‘right wing’ bloggers are engaged in, as you see it, exagerrated outrage.

The story here is the joke itself by one of the top White House officials at a time when there’s tension between this Administration and Jewish voters.

It’s simply not whether the transcript included it.
Tommy Christopher

Steve, I didn’t say the joke WAS the lede, just that I did not bury it. As I said before, this is a media blog, so focusing on the reporting is what we do.

If we can agree that it wasn’t “buried,” then I’m not sure what the problem is. The joke itself WAS the story a few days ago, but not now. In any case, I think this post is pretty thorough.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Stephen-Hilton/1334543387 Stephen Hilton

SteveMG,

This is Steve as well… I am a dem, and just pointing out a little fact that it goes both ways… Count how many times tea party members are called racists by progressives, and libs on tv.. What do you expect??? No one has honest conversations anymore… It is name calling, you are bigots, hate mongers, and want to kill babies, vs you want to destroy the country, bankrupt us, and be the end of the USA. Both sides have people that say stupid things, from the president, to sarah palin.. The quicker people stop constantly demonizing the left or the right, the quicker we can all have a civil conversation.
SteveMG

Tommy:
Thanks for responding.

I still disagree but I do appreciate the response.
NORBIT

Freudian Slip!

This shows what we all knew about how Progressive Democratics feel about Jews…yet they keep contributing & voting for them!

Stockholm Syndrome, anyone?
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http://www.facebook.com/people/Jeffrey-Dunetz/635446720 Jeffrey Dunetz

What the hell I will kick in my 2 cents since I wrote the original article.

1) I believe that Tommy is correct in why the WH left the Joke out of the transcript, and I updated my post to add (and link to) Tommy’s Comments (actually I updated the post throughout the day as I learned more).

2) No where in my post did I say I thought the Joke was anti-Semitic. I believe that to know if something is anti-Semitic you have to look into someones heart. I rarely call someone an anti-Semite in a post. That term is usually reserved for real haters such as Pat Buchanan,Bishop Tutu and Louis Farrakhan. I do indicate that the “Joke” was using a traditional stereotype used by anti-Semites “Jews are greedy merchants,” but one insensitive statement does make someone an anti-Semite.

It is an explosive issue judging by the fact that in a 24 hour period, I had over 30,000 people come to read the article around 30 other sites linking to it, and over 40 comments (the nasty of which I did not publish),

Last night after all of the comments and three updates, I added this conclusion/perspective:

In the day since I published this post I have been asked over and over, “was Jones’ statement anti-Semitic?” I can’t answer that without looking into his heart. His Joke did use old anti-Semitic stereotypes of Jews. Others in the Administration have used anti-Semitic stereotypes, the most common of which is the “Jewish Lobby controls foreign policy” canard first publicly invoked by National Security Council member Samantha Power. That does not mean the Obama administration has some systemic Antisemitism running through its veins. What it may mean is the same President who insists on political correctness for other religions and ethnicity does not have the same PC standards for Jews.
Tommy Christopher

Jeffrey,

I don’t think Jones ought to have made the joke, but beyond the use of the loaded word “merchant,” which is not insignificant, the joke just doesn’t do what you, Foxman, and apparently, Raw Story, say it does. The point of the joke is the clever way the shop owner and his brother deliver comeuppance to the Taliban guy and his anti-Semitism. Rather than responding in kind, the shopkeeper’s actions act as a parable, pointing up the folly of the man’s blindly hateful reaction.

If the object of the joke was to showcase greed, then the shopkeeper would have explained to the man why he needed the tie to get the water.

Nothing enhances a joke like explaining it, I always say.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Jeffrey-Dunetz/635446720 Jeffrey Dunetz

Well there we agree it was a the wrong joke to tell at the wrong time. When I was in advertising, I used to give the class on making presentations to the trainees. One of my golden rules is never begin a presentation with an ethnic-type joke, because Karma will dictate that there will be a member of that group in the audience.
kieronnpollard

It the kind of thing that takes longer than it should be explained and unproductive diversion from more important issues.
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