In a phone call with 40 Chabad rabbis from around the country, John McCain asks for their support by emphasizing that he will “put my country first. And I want to promise you that. I will put my country first.” That’s in contrast to Obama? Then McCain assures them, “I will do everything in my power to make sure that the United States of America and our closest friend and ally remain secure and peaceful and prosperous.” America first. Israel a close second.
Update: I wonder if it’s inappropriate to contextualize this phone call by noting the combined criticism of the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant in Postville, Iowa, by Iowa governor Chet Culver and Barack Obama. Agri, which has been working hard to clean up, and to be seen to have cleaned up, its act since the immigration raid earlier this summer, has been the dominant purveyor of kosher meat in America and is owned by a Chabad family. Not that either Culver or Obama made so much as the slightest mention of the Jewish dimension of this story. But it is roiling the American Jewish world, in which Chabad is both loved and loathed. Will Postville turn into another front in the partisan religion wars?