As JTA reported on Friday, Atlanta Jewish Times Owner/Publisher Andrew Adler had what I can only assume was a 1,000-word psychotic episode in print a couple of weeks ago. This unfortunate loss of his mental faculties caused him to propose that, among other options Israel must obviously be mulling over for the sake of its own security, they were probably thinking about, you know, maybe having President Obama whacked by secret agents.
His airtight thinking on this matter:
Yes, you read “three” correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence. Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don’t you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles?
[…]
You have go to believe, like I do, that all options are on the table.
I’ve taken Adler’s advice on this and thought about it, but I’ve come to a different conclusion: Just because conspiracy-minded wing-nuts have a particularly off-the-rails idea doesn’t mean that world leaders have had the same idea.
By the time of the JTA article, Adler had already promised to issue an apology in the next issue of the Atlanta Jewish Times. (“I very much regret it. I wish I hadn’t made reference to it at all,” he said.) However, that did not stop American Jewish Committee head honcho David Harris from posting a typically aneurysm-ridden piece on his Jerusalem Post blog, In The Trenches.
On Saturday, CNN had a special take on the story, evident in this headline: “Jewish paper’s column catches Secret Service eye.” Their story said:
U.S. Secret Service spokesman George Ogilvie told CNN Saturday, “We are aware of it. We are taking the appropriate investigative steps.”
Today, JTA twitched out one of its alarmingly subject-lined emails (“BREAKING NEWS:…” and so forth) to report that Adler was not only going to apologize, as their initial report said, but that he has resigned:
The owner and publisher of the Atlanta Jewish Times has resigned and is seeking a buyer in the wake of a column he wrote speculating that Israel would consider assassinating President Obama.
Andrew Adler, in an email obtained by JTA, announced Monday that he is “relinquishing all day-to-day activities effective immediately”….
Now we’re just waiting for more BREAKING NEWS, when JTA learns that Adler has also had himself committed.
A few final thoughts on this exciting news item:
- We hear lots of talk about Jewish voters abandoning Obama in 2012. At least know we what’s really over the line for them; this column had the Jewish community of Atlanta (not to mention Harris and the ADL) calling for Adler’s head.
- On the same page as the offending column (see above image), the Atlanta Jewish Times ran an ad for an event called “Your Jewish Community,” trumpeting the event’s host, one Andrew B. Adler. The event was scheduled for two days after the column was published. I wonder how that event turned out.
- Aside from implying that he might be his generation’s great undiscovered political thriller author with that Clancy reference, Adler also managed to squeeze a “Star Trek” reference into the column, saying that he had come up with Bibi Netanyahu’s three “Kobayashi Maru” scenarios. He explained that this is a reference to “Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan,” in which the term is used to refer to a no-win scenario. He is apparently too much of an old fuddy-duddy to know that the Kobayashi Maru is referenced just as heavily in JJ Abrams’ 2009 “Star Trek” film. And the American Jewish press wonders why it doesn’t have any young readers….
