http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=121351A C-SPAN host has let a caller and a guest both launch anti-Semitic rants without objection or censure, and then declined to explain why the harsh criticism of Israel – described as of "no worth" – was allowed.
The discourse came recently while Bill Scanlan was hosting the program, and a video of the exchange has been preserved at a website called "the elder of ziyon."
The site describes the exchange as including an "unbelievably anti-Semitic question by the caller," but also criticized that the C-SPAN anchor doesn't even blink. C-SPAN guest Michael Scheuer also is captured "pretty much telling the world how Israel deserves to be the target of terror attacks."
The episode started with an unidentified caller to the show:
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"I, for one, am sick and tired of all these Jews coming on CSPAN and other stations and pushing us to go to war against our Muslim friends," the caller said. "They're willing to spend the last drop of American blood and treasure to get their way in the world … They have way too much power in this country."
Scanlan didn't comment.
But Scheuer, a former CIA worker who served as the chief of the bin Laden issue station from 1996 through 1999, took up the theme.
"I think American foreign policy eventually is up to American people," said Scheuer, who was outed as the "anonymous" author of "Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror." ,
He said for the last 30 years people in the U.S. have "not been able to discuss" the U.S. policy toward Israel.
"Whether we want to be involved fighting Israel's wars in the future is something Americans should be able to talk about," he said. "They may vote yes. They may want to see their kids killed in Iraq or Yemen … to protect Israel."
He said the question is one "we need to talk about."
He also said Israel is a nation "of no particular worth to the U.S. … strategy."
"Their association with us is a negative for the U.S.," he said. "For anyone to stand up in the U.S. and say our support for Israel doesn't hurt us in the Muslim world is to just defy reality."
Again, Scanlan had no comment.
Blogger Jeffrey Goldberg at the Atlantic said he called Scanlan.
"I asked him why he allowed a caller to launch into a grotesque anti-Semitic rant on Monday, and why he didn't challenge the caller or cut him off. Scanlan said he was not authorized to speak for the company. I told him I didn't want him to speak for the company, but that I wanted him to speak for himself. But he refused to comment and referred my call to Michelle Remillard, his producer. I called her and am awaiting her call back."
He said he comments from the caller and Scheuer "went unchallenged by C-SPAN's seemingly catatonic host, Bill Scanlan."