No Problem

The Town Crier is complaining about the selection of Governor Pataki to lead the delegation at this year's OSCE conference on Anti-Semitism. He of course puts the blame squarely on the Bush administration, for "proving once again that apparantly in the Bush administrations eyes there is no one in the entire Federal, executive and legislative branch of the United States government worthy of wasting their time at an international conference on Anti Semitism." The Crier also feels that it is "troublesome how the administration consistently sends a New Yorker to represent the US government at high profile international events of impoirtance to the Jewish Community. First it was Giuliani at the OSCE conference, then Ed Koch Last year. Most recently, the Yad Vashem dedication in Jerusalem had over 50 forein heads of state or their foreign ministers, but the US sent Mike Bloomberg. Now it is George Pataki's turn to represent Hymie Town."

I fail to see the problem here.

A few points:

Pataki is from a European immigrant family.

New York is an area with more Jews than anywhere else. It is also the most ethnically diverse place on Earth. The Governor was in office during the attacks on 9/11, and got to see first hand the dangers of intolerance.

Police and security are necessary outside every shul and temple in Europe. This is not necessary in New York, we can obviously teach the Europeans something about security.

Pataki enacted the landmark Hate Crimes Act of 2000. He obviously has quite a bit of experience with battling Anti-Semitism and other forms of racism and intolerance.

I can certainly understand the Crier's motivations for attacking most of the decisions that the Bush Administration makes. But I don't understand his attacking this one.